A Place of Prayer and Retreat is a praxis, an application of the intention of our lives toward God. It is an investment in a relationship as a sacred space.  It is the practice of going apart to consciously connect with God.

There is an age-old history of a place of Prayer & Retreat as a spiritual practice and here as a small aspiring Skete Community, where we discover one fundamental reality: There are those who are committed together to seek a sacred space, that develops out of a need, a hunger to move beyond what was known to something fuller. Whether it was a desire to know, to decide, to be guided or to be touched and carried into intimacy with the Divine, the impulse came out of souls reaching out to mystery. The hunger for intimacy will ultimately lead to God. All intimacies originate and end in this primal desire for the Sacred. When we examine our Sacred Scriptures we see the practice of going off deliberately to a special place for an encounter with the Holy One is not at all unusual. 

Listen to the experience of what this father of four had to say, “Spiritual Retreats for me, whether giving one or going on one, have meant a great deal to me. Basically retreats, the ‘totally silent’ ones or the more extroverted ones, fill a basic urgent need in me, to come apart. I ‘retreat’ from the workaday world and its responsibilities, so that I may be able to hear more clearly that ‘still, small voice.’ As my destiny is to dwell in God’s presence for eternity, it is good to start practicing it now! The happy consequence of taking time apart and being in God’s presence is liberating and life-giving, as well as renewing.” 

When all is said and done, what carries us into spiritual retreat is hunger for a God that transcends all our boundaries. It is a hunger that begs God for more. Retreat is a time when we break the habitual rhythm of our lives and step into the fire of God’s longing for us and our longing for God.