University of St. Thomas junior Ricky Pipala’s smartphone is a source of both comfort and stress — so putting it and other distractions aside during his recent silent retreat with fellow students made it easier to listen for Christ’s voice.
“To have the time where I don’t have to be getting from place to place or doing whatever and I can just sit there and say, ‘Alright Lord, I’m here,’” said Pipala, 21, of the Feb. 18-20 retreat at King’s House Christ the King Retreat Center in Buffalo. “When I offer that prayer to him, he meets me there.”
Ricky Pipala
Arriving Friday night for the retreat, which was organized by the university’s Campus Ministry’s Office for Spirituality, Pipala and 24 other undergraduate and graduate students heard talks on Ignatian spirituality by retreat director and University of St. Thomas law fellow Susan Stabile. They had time for prayer, adoration, spiritual direction, Mass and reconciliation before the retreat ended at noon that Sunday.
The annual retreat is one of several day and overnight retreats offered by UST’s Campus Ministry. They are designed to help students invite God into the journey of college, said Marta Pereira, the Office of Spirituality’s director, who oversees and plans the retreats with a team of seminarians and other students.
Retreat objectives range from helping new students form community to ecumenical faith building to post-college discernment, said Pereira, a member of Nativity of Our Lord in St. Paul.
Before COVID-19 hit Minnesota in March 2020, up to 45 students registered for the annual silent retreat. To help prevent the spread of the disease, the retreats were scaled back and modified, Pereira said. As restrictions ease, there is hope that retreats will soon return to pre-pandemic formats, she said.
The silent retreat and several others are Catholic-oriented, but all students are invited, she said. They pay a small fee, but financial need isn’t a barrier, Pereira said. The ministry also offers faculty and staff retreats.
Silent retreats offer a deeper spiritual experience that some students haven’t had, said Father Lawrence Blake, Campus Ministry chaplain and director.
“We all live in a very highly charged digital environment, and the importance of taking time to be quiet can’t be underestimated,” he said. “There’s a value in that for all of us, having an opportunity simply to reflect on the word of God and to pray without all the distractions.”
Abby Burns
Students aren’t prohibited from using cellphones on the silent retreat, but silence is essential to listening to the Holy Spirit, Pereira said.
“What we try to offer is an opportunity for students to stop and take away those other voices and really reflect on … their identity as children of God, and then listen to what God might be calling them to, in their professional life, and immediately what the Lord is asking them,” she said.
Abby Burns, 21, said she appreciated getting away from her studies to listen to the Lord. “It was good to just academically get off the screen to tune in to what is real around us and what is more real … the Lord himself,” said the senior, who also serves on the retreat planning team.
The silence led retreatants to find creative ways to communicate, but Burns said it ultimately gave her a desire to focus more on her relationship with Christ.
“To just continue to try to be an attentive friend to Jesus,” Burns said, “and have an outward facing heart, (and be) more attentive to how his heart is moving, instead of trying to analyze and grasp at things in my own heart.”
GROWTH AND DISCERNMENT
Each academic year, the University of St. Thomas’ Campus Ministry in St. Paul offers a range of retreats for the spiritual renewal, growth and discernment of Catholic and non-Catholic students at all levels of study. To comply with COVID-19 guidelines last year, the office offered fall retreats as one-day, on-campus events, rather than multi-day gatherings at off-campus retreat centers. Depending on the status of the pandemic, that overnight format, noted below for specific retreats, might return this fall, said Marta Pereira, director of Campus Ministry’s Office for Spirituality, which oversees and plans the retreats.
UST annual retreats
First Year: For new students (overnight), September.
Kairos: Ecumenical faith-building (overnight), November
Silent: Open to undergraduate and graduate students (overnight), February
Latino Student: Building stronger relationships with Christ, (day retreat) March
Let Go, Let Grow: Ecumenical, during Lent (day retreat), March
Crossroads: Discerning God’s calling (overnight), April
Senior Night: Evening of reflection on nourishing faith after graduation (evening retreat), May
Other retreats
The Office for Spirituality plans to offer more day retreats similar to its October 2021 retreat on the spirituality of Pope St. John Paul II, Director Marta Pereira said.
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