An Experiment in Retreats

Richard Roberts, of the newly United Church of Canada, describes retreats planned with the constituent parts of the Church [Presbyterian, Methodist and Congregationalist] and a proportion of immigrant eastern Europeans in mind.  These were a reaction against the decay of reverence (“God as primus inter pares”) and, he believes, the decline in the quality of preaching.  The quarry which led to the pattern for these retreats was the Abbé Poulain’s The Graces of Interior Prayer, adapted for “Protestant novices”.   He further describes the necessary adjustments required to introduce such a retreat to those - majority of participants - who were unfamiliar with this practice, and he outlines the original timetable.  The results, in varying circumstances, were moving.