Book with a retreat house, monastery or diocesan centre well ahead, and choose a preached or a directed retreat according to what you need — a preached retreat gives conferences to all; a directed retreat gives you a director and a daily meeting. Arrange the practical things so they cannot pull you back: tell people you will be unreachable, and hand in the phone or lock it away rather than trusting yourself. Keep the house's horarium exactly — Mass, the Liturgy of the Hours, the appointed periods of prayer, meals in silence, rest. Take one short Scripture passage into each period of prayer rather than a book; resist the urge to read your way through the retreat. Go to confession while you are there. Walk. Sleep enough, since exhaustion is not prayer. Expect the first day to be restless and do not judge the retreat by it. On the last day, write down what you actually received, and reduce it to two or three concrete resolutions and a realistic plan of prayer for home — a retreat that changes nothing on the following Tuesday has not finished. Make one annually if your state of life allows it.

The practice of periodic withdrawal for prayer is ancient and is presupposed by every school of spirituality; Gaudete et Exsultate insists that growth in holiness requires moments set apart in silence, and the Catechism describes the determination required to make time for contemplative prayer.

Silence

Common to the Latin Church; forms vary by school

Annually where possible

silence