Four Reasons To Take An Advent Retreat ... From Your Living Room

There's a new trend in the world of spiritual retreats. No, its not 8 days of silence or contemplation at a monastery in the woods. Rather, this new form of retreats is remarkably fitting for our high-paced, digital world. Yes, I'm talking about online video retreats.

a target="_blank" href="http://rcspirituality.org/retreat-guides/">RCSpirituality.org is one of the leaders of this new movement to provide video retreats to anyone at any time. Since they offer four free Advent retreats (1, 2, 3, 4), now is the time to give this retreat revolution a try. 

If you always have a reason not to attend a retreat, we have some responses for you:

1. "Retreats never work with my busy schedule": The beauty of online retreats is that you get to schedule them, whether that be on the weekends when you don't have to work or in the evening after the kids have gone to bed.

2. "I get distracted at retreats, too much silence, for too long": With online retreats you can choose a space that is comfortable for you where you won't be distracted. And, if you do, you can always break the retreat into several pieces so that you have time to reflect on the material in between.

3. "Sometimes its hard for me to follow along with talks. I'm a visual learner": At least in the case of RCSpirituality.org, they provide the retreats in the form of videos, podcasts or downloadable PDFs.whatever suits you the best.

4. "When I see retreats promoted, I'm not always interested in the theme or subject": With sites like RCSpirituality.org, there is a whole suite of retreats available to choose from. If you want to meditate on Advent, start there. But if a retreat on discouragement, the Blessed Virgin Mary, or Trust is what you need right now, go ahead and choose those instead!

The wonderful thing about this new kind of retreat is that it's hard to come up with an excuse not to strengthen our relationship with God. So, as you prepare for Christ's coming at Christmas, you may just want to give a retreat a try.