Why should teenagers go on retreat?

Why should teenagers go on retreat?

At a workshop for catechists and RE coordinators from schools and parishes, the following question was raised: “What's the point of sending young people on retreat? They go to a place where everything is ideal, not real. They return "high on God" to face the real world and immediately collapse into horrible disillusionment with their family, their parish, and even themselves, for these are not as they expect them to be on their return! At best the retreat remains a happy memory; positive, but not enough to prevent the soul-drain of young catholics who stop practising their faith as soon as the choice is left to themselves. So why go to all that trouble of organising our catechism or school classes, our sodalities and other parish youth groups,... to go on retreat?”

It is true that one retreat is certainly not enough to make any difference, and if the pattern of retreat attendance by the teenagers continues generally to be just a once-off-once-in-a-lifetime affair, then maybe we should consider banning youth retreat days and avoid those lovely retreat centres.

However I would argue that we should rather set our goals on providing every catholic teenager at least once a year with the experience of a retreat or spiritual program, in the context of school or parish catechism classes, pre-and post-confirmation candidates, altar servers and youth groups of various kinds. I believe we will then see young people becoming keener on their involvement in the church. As a priest, I myself need to recharge my batteries by means of a spiritual break at least once a year with a week-long retreat, and even monthly with the help of a special day or half-day retreat.

And if the youth of our schools and parishes were offered the chance to get high on God twice a year, I believe the drift of young Catholics towards other churches would diminish. One weekend supercharged with spiritual enrichment is worth 52 Sunday sermons or more! The aim in fact is to make the young people interested in the activities of the parish and in their parish-priest's sermons, and take these more seriously. Some worry that a weekend retreat consists mainly of emotionalism, and only minimally of genuine spirituality. However there is a need to counter-balance the intellectual aspect of catechism and RE classes with "heart experiences".

Retreats tend to generate a kind of spiritual electricity within a group and is the way to put the zip back into the dullest of youth groups or parish catechism classes, as participants experience the infectious dynamism of a committed team of presenters. These can range from trained priests and religious or lay ministers, to young volunteer peer ministers. As long as the leaders are able to create an atmosphere and environment in which to experience God, in a non-threatening context which encourages participants to express and share their faith and provide the opportunity to reflect deeply about our toughest questions in life, the experience will make an impact!

So let’s not just ask “why?”, but “why not?” and let’s promote the idea and practice of providing every Catholic teenager with the opportunity of at least one retreat experience per year!

The style of retreat is important too. It ought to be principally experiential rather than “preached”. Also, times of silence, important as they are, need to be limited, since most teenagers are unable to "enter comfortably" into silence, so that it tends to become counter-productive as they find it intolerable. However, once they are initiated into a few times of silence, and are reminded that in order to LISTEN, you need to be SILENT (switch a few letters around and the words match!) And so teens can discover the voice of God through well-managed spells of silence! Youth retreat programs promote a prayerful retreat atmosphere, with a balanced timetable of indoor and outdoor sessions, talks, discussions, masses, prayer times, audio-visual presentations and leisure activities. Programs can last anything from a minimum of 6 hours to a maximum of 3 days, and need to be tailor-made to suit the expectations of the catechists, teachers, parents, clergy, youth animators,, who request a team to run the retreat for their youth.

Fr Francois Dufour sdb