It has been smoky here in our part of the California Sierras. There was a thunderstorm several weeks ago, and it ignited part of the old growth timber, and since then, it's been going. Not near anyone's house, so the inconvenience is largely only to the firefighters and to our bronchial passages.
Today on my walk and while hanging up laundry I listened to more of the Catholic Comments podcasts:
They were interesting but pretty basic. I am listening to them because they are short and for the sake of continuity, since the spirituality series covers most of the traditional basic spiritual practices.
The retreat one made the point that there were different types of retreats:
- Preaching retreats
- Directed retreats
- Silent retreats
Here's a list of different types of retreats, but it's different from what was discussed in the 15 minute podcast.
The main thing I learned was that preaching retreats tend to take place over a weekend and involve a larger audience and a main speaker. I am guessing this would be in the line of the 7 Deadly Sins/7 Lively Virtues study I am participating in with my local Catholic group. We aren't doing it as a retreat, but I understand that the original audience was a retreat group.
Whereas, the directed retreat is the Ignatian type of retreat where you meet with a director individually for perhaps an hour a day and the rest of the time work on your own. Conventionally, the priest said, they take place over an 8 day period and are more personally oriented than the preaching retreats. The director has to be very perceptive in order to get a sense of where you are in your life and where God is intending to guide you from this stage.
The silent retreat, I am guessing since they didn't discuss it much, is the kind where you go to a cloistered monastery and just participate in the monastic life and take part in the Great Silence. I know that a surprising amount of Protestant pastors do this, I suppose because their ordinary lives are so full of talk and activity that this can provide the ballast that keeps the boat afloat.
The podcast also mentioned that even Jesus retreated off into the wilderness to pray. So a retreat is not a retreat in the sense of a flight or escape.
As to the podcast about Spiritual Direction, I think the big insight I got from that was that we may well expect an Avoidance Reaction when we are really starting to make spiritual progress. The nun mentioned a time she was on a retreat and had an overpowering experience of the presence of God, and the next day she left the retreat and went shopping! Well, this makes a lot of sense out of some things I find myself doing. In a way you don't REALLY want to be transformed. Especially, your deeper interior doesn't; it doesn't like being stirred up by angels even for healing purposes.
Or rather, mine doesn't. Can't speak for yours.
Off now to reheat pulled pork for dinner sandwiches for the family, since I have to leave quite soon for the Virtue/Vice Bible study.
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