Silent retreat is healing and can be encounter with God's love, say retreatants

By Anna Wilgenbusch, OSV News

(OSV News) -- Those who attend silent retreats say that silence and solitude is an essential, although often uncomfortable, prerequisite to an encounter with God.

Tim Drake was a father to five young children when he began attending an annual silent retreat more than 20 years ago at the Pacem in Terris retreat center in Isanti in the Diocese of St. Cloud, Minnesota.

"I would come home refreshed, probably with a bit of a different disposition, probably was more patient with the children," he said.

Now he is executive director for Pacem in Terris, which opened in 1988 and has 19 hermitages on 240 acres. It hosts almost 1,200 retreatants every year.

Silence can bring one's deepest wounds to the surface, Drake said.

"We are wounded, so we all come into the hermitage with those wounds," he said. "You are there, alone, in essence naked before God. It is just you and all of your strengths and weaknesses."

But silence, Drake said, also allows one's wounds to heal in the light of Christ.

"It is not an exaggeration to say that (when) people come here, angels minister to them," Drake told The Catholic Spirit, newspaper of the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis. "We have had people talk about healing from past hurts and even abuse. We've had people talk about overcoming different kinds of addictions, people who have discerned religious or nonreligious vocations, people who have returned to the church or come into the church in part due to their time on retreat in the hermitage."

The hermitages at Pacem in Terris contain a twin bed, a propane stove and lamp, a basket of food, a table with a Bible on it, a rocking chair and two icons: one of the Holy Trinity and the other of the Blessed Mother. Drake said that the hermitages are designed to strip away the distractions with which people are constantly surrounded in their daily lives.

"The hermitage strips all the extra stuff of life away and gives you the opportunity to just be and to feel loved and to respond to God," he said.

In 2017, Sheryl Moran went on her first silent retreat under the spiritual direction of a retired priest in Virginia. She said that the silent retreat "powerfully changed (her) life."

When she returned to her home in Edina, Minnesota, she wanted to recommend silent directed retreats to her friends but did not know where to find them.

"I wanted other people to be able to have this same experience of encountering God's personal, particular love for them in a way that's so transformative," Moran said, "But I didn't know where they could do that."

Years later, Moran felt called to create a place for silent retreats under the guidance of a spiritual director. The result, Bethany Center for Prayer and Renewal, is now in the beginning stages of development in Scandia, Minnesota.

Moran said that the name of the center, Bethany, carries biblical significance. Jesus himself retreated to the town of Bethany for prayer. In the Gospel, Bethany also was where Mary adored Christ, Martha served him, and where Lazarus was raised from the dead.

"We want to offer opportunities for the kind of prayer that Mary of Bethany experienced at the feet of Jesus; we want to serve them with the kind of hospitality that Martha served Jesus; and we hope that they, too, will experience resurrection, like Lazarus," Moran said.

The center, on a former family farm, is currently not equipped to receive guests. Over the next two years, Moran hopes to raise the funds to convert the barn into lodging for retreatants and to convert the former grain silo into a chapel. The family home also will be converted into individual suites where spiritual directors can stay.

Moran hopes that Bethany will be a place for people to escape the noise of the world.

"In our world today, it is possible to go without any silence anymore. You could listen to podcasts on your earbuds for the rest of your life if you wanted to," she said. "But if we want to hear the Lord, we need to make the space for him to speak, and for us to be able to hear (him)."

In contrast to most silent retreat centers around the country, Moran said that Bethany will offer 45 minutes to an hour of spiritual direction every day to all retreatants from a certified spiritual director in the tradition of Ignatian retreats. This director will listen to what the retreatant is receiving in their prayer and point them toward Scripture passages to pray with over four daily Holy Hours.

"The ultimate goal for each retreat is that (each) person has an encounter with the Lord," Moran said.

Although Bethany is not yet equipped to host the public, Father Brian Fischer currently lives on the property and offers silent retreats and spiritual direction to priests.

Father Fischer, who is a spiritual director, received his own call to the priesthood through a silent retreat.

"As soon as I heard the word 'priest' there was so much joy and confidence," Father Fischer told The Catholic Spirit in May 2021 about his experience of discerning the priesthood on a silent retreat. "This was a sign of the Holy Spirit. Of course, I said, 'Yes, I'll give you whatever you want.'"

Rather than serving at a parish, Father Fischer discerned a call to serve the archdiocese as a spiritual director for his fellow priests as well as for some laypeople.

Silence is vital to prayer, Father Fischer told The Catholic Spirit Feb. 26.

"Silence is the gift of his presence that allows all of the traffic on the inside to start to slow down. And that is important because then in the silence we can hear the voice of God speak to us," he said.

Silence can be frightening when we are accustomed to an atmosphere of noise that prevents us from encountering our own weaknesses, Father Fischer said.

But "there is no need to be afraid of the silence," Father Fischer said, "because it is just love. The person who is waiting for you in the silence is madly in love with you."

Silence is healing, Father Fischer said, because it can bring us into an encounter with God's love.

"What is (God) saying (in the silence)? He is often speaking words of love. This is the most healing thing that someone can receive -- the words of love from a God who loves them."