Jesus on retreat

- me in Hawaii

Tomorrow's reading has Jesus "on retreat" ...

And the Spirit immediately drove him out into the wilderness. He was in the wilderness for forty days, tempted by Satan; and he was with the wild beasts; and the angels waited on him. Now after John was arrested, Jesus came to Galilee, proclaiming the good news of God, and saying, ‘The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God has come near; repent, and believe in the good news.’

Thinking about contemporary retreats today and how different they mostly are from what Jesus experienced. A typical Ignatian (Jesuit) 30 day Spiritual Exercises retreat is often given at resorts where the cost can be $2,000+ for a 30 retreat (Eastern Point Retreat House) ...



As Jesuit Nathan Stone mentions in an article I just read about the Spiritual Exercises ...

Over time, the Exercises have been pushed back into “the monastery”. The Nineteenth century understood them as a silent ordeal for Jesuit novices, not really a spiritual journey at all, and not for anyone else. Contemporary thinking has made them a specialty, given by experts to an elite. In some venues, invitations are scarce. In others, cost filters out all but a small number.

The only retreat I've physically been on wasn't Christian but Zen, in Hawaii. It didn't cost much and there we retreatants shared bedrooms and slept on the floor, made our own meals together, did our own laundry, cleaned the retreat house and did yard work. I remember breakfasts all together, eating the fruit bowl with yogurt and peanuts that we had just prepared, sitting at a table outside under the trees ... yum :) Even that seems luxurious compared to the retreat Jesus made ....