“Every morning put thy mind into thy heart
and stand in the presence of God.”
An Eastern Monk

Why a retreat or a pilgrimage, or a quiet day?
Why? What is it all about?
Me, a pilgrim? Who needs this?
I give you an hour on Sunday. Isn’t that enough?
Aren’t they just for the very religious?

In the past forty years, there has been a proliferation of interest and desire for a deeper religious experience. People seek a deeper religious experience occasioned by intense spiritual events like Cursillo, Marriage Encounter Weekends, Centering Prayer groups, spiritual directions or guided retreats. Whatever the reasons or whatever the modality, I believe that the renewed interest in retreats, spiritual direction, pilgrimages, and even prayer is indicative in many quarters that the Spirit is moving, and that people are becoming more sensitive to God’s presence and power in their lives as well how difficult it is to listen alone and unguided. More and more people are sensing a call to a more profound spiritual depth and intimacy with our Lord.

The phrase in Eucharistic Prayer C “Open our eyes to see your hand at work in the world about us” adds clarity to this growing desire to be in God’s presence. Open our eyes and keep them open. I recently had a four-year old house guest along with his parents. When we would say grace at dinnertime, Thomas told me he had to keep his eyes open so he could see where his prayers were going. So these spiritual tools of retreats, pilgrimages, and prayer groups are meant to help us keep our eyes open to see the hand of God at work in our lives and our world. They are meant to help us deepen our relationship with God through prayer.

Evelyn Underhill writes “our formal prayer and times of silence are not the whole of our prayer or shouldn’t be. The old definition of prayer was that it is lifting our minds up into God. That can and should be our constant habit. There are always the set times, the services, the ‘drill’ of the devotional life, which are largely intended to tune us up and gradually educate us for this. It has always been the Christian view that every bit of work done toward God is prayer.” [1]

With retreats, quiet days, prayer groups, or pilgrimages the focus is always God. So as our Eastern Monk encourages, ‘Every morning put your mind into your heart and stand in the presence of God.'

[1] Underhill, Evelyn. “Breathing the Air of Eternity.”