Gentle, loving, and

caring silence
THE THEME SONG for a group of retreatants I joined at Tan-y-Foel Convent, Penmaenwawr, North Wales, a few weeks ago, could have been: "Hush, hush, whisper who dares, 26 laity arc saying their prayers."
Organised by the Way Cornmunity,a group of Jesuit priests and two nuns who arc doing research into the Spiritual Exercises of St Ignatius and devising new ways of presenting them to priests, religious and laity, the retreat is thought to be one of the first attempts in this country at enabling a large number of laity to make an eight-day retreat together.
The priests giving the retreat were Fr Gerald Hughes, SJ, Fr William Hewitt, SJ, both members of the Way Community, and Fr Ralph Eastwell, SJ, national promoter of the Christian Life Movement, a lay organisation whose spirituality is based on the Gospels and the Spiritual Exercises.
The first full day was spent learning about the three different types of retreat being offered. All were based on the exercises, but two, led by Fr Hewitt and Fr Eastwell, were group retreats each having a different approach. The other type, which I made, was the individually-guided type with all the priests acting as guides.
All retreatants were in silence. It's a funny thing, silence. It can be deafening, threatening, even angry, but the retreat silence was none of these to me, It was gentle, loving, caring. People seemed to move more slowly, be more gentle: the most common expression on people's faces was a smile.
The basic structure of an individually-guided retreat is very simple. At certain times during the day you pray the scripture passages set by your guide. The duration and timing of these prayer sessions is decided by you.
You have one "guided session" per day with your guide; for us this usually lasted for about half an hour and, apart from meal-times and Mass, this was one's only contact with other people in the house (at least that was the theory).
We were asked to do four prayer sessions a day, each lasting a minimum time which we set ourselves and not exceeding an hour. After each prayer session we relaxed for 10 to 15 minutes and then tried to recollect the subject of our prayer session. It was amazing how often these recollection periods turned out to be more prayerful than the prayer session.
The two prayer "techniques" I used were meditation and contemplation. By meditation I mean pondering a scripture passage, talking to God about it, trying to listen for His reply: sometimes trying to see the passage through the eyes of one of the participants.
Contemplation is new to me. I realise only dimly what it could be as prayer, but what I do see encourages me to persevere at it. As I see it now, it entails trying to experience a scripture passage by "being there" as myself, not as one of the participants, trying to see what God has to tell me of Himself-or myself-or of the relationship between us.
One important point is that you must try to stop yourself thinking about the scene; you just have to be there. In other words it is a very peacefulpassive, technique; a problem for me because I am not a peaceful, passivth person.
For me, as a complete beginner, it requires a peaceful environment, a certain seclusion and freedom from pressure of time, etc, easily found on the retreat but in somewhat short supply at home with three lively children bouncing around. • The "guidance sessions" were obviously an important part of the whole proceedings. As soon as I'd stopped feeling compelled to produce two theological insights and one pious resolution for each session, my prayer periods became more fruitful, as also did the sessions themselves.
In them Fr Hughes discussed with me my reactions, feelings and attitudes during the four prayer sessions since out last meeting. He would ask and answer questions and then suggest four more passages to be prayed during the next 24 hours. Sometimes he suggested
I return to a previous passage, try to pick it up where I'd left off to see if it would develop further.
What did I take away from Tan-y-Foel? Some lovely memories of people and of the place itself, of course. But also a greater realisation of the unity of the One God who created the universe, led the Israelites out of Egypt, was born in Nazareth, died on Good Friday and rose on Easter Sunday. And a greater awareness of God's love for me: He knows me, He has called me by name, I am II is.
J. W. Partridge