Welcome to our Online Retreat, “Stop-Seek The Other Possibility”- an online retreat for Religious Life Discernment, sponsored by the Archdiocesan Office of Vocations to Religious Life. We thought that it would be a good idea to spend some time introducing you to the retreat process before the retreat begins. You will receive your first set of materials today.
When you are on a retreat, you are called “retreatants” and those who accompany you are usually called “retreat directors” or “spiritual directors”. You have been assigned a retreat director who will accompany you on your journey throughout this retreat. Most likely, your retreat director has contacted you by phone for an interview already. In case you have not discussed this during the interview already, please respond to the director to let her/him know at what time to expect your reflections each day. The director will then let you know at what time she will be sending a response to you.
All of the retreat directors for the Online Retreat are vocation directors from different religious communities who work in collaboration with the Vocation Office of the Archdiocese of New York. Each of the vocation directors has a rich background in directing retreats, doing spiritual direction and /or working with individuals who are discerning religious life.
This retreat will follow the model of a directed retreat. Each day we ask that you commit yourself to prayer and reflection of the materials on the blog address. After your time of prayer, you are invited to contact your retreat director via e-mail. In your e-mail, you might want to share your insights about the scripture or reflection, communicate your responses to the reflection questions, share about your discernment process or discuss how the retreat process is going for you.
Here is the structure of the retreat:
Each evening you will receive the reflection materials for the next day on the blog address.
The materials will include:
*Suggestions for setting the stage to enter into prayer
*An opening prayer
*Scripture
*Reflection
*Reflection questions
*A concluding prayer
At the end of the retreat, you will receive an evaluation form. We hold you in prayer. God’s blessings.
The Online Retreat Committee
