Switched-on nuns take religion online in virtual retreat

No time to nurture your spiritual life? An online retreat might be the refreshment you need. Sheena Hastings reports.

THE idea of spending a few days away from the hurly-burly in quiet thought and contemplation might seem rather an attractive one, but how many of us have either the time or the spare cash to do it?

Recognising that nowadays perhaps many people would pursue things spiritual if the spiritual world came to them a little more, a couple of “digital nuns” – sisters of the Order of St Benedict – are using new technology to turn on its head the notion of a retreat as a withdrawal from normal life.

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They offer a range of online retreats including a £10 Five-Minute Focus to be followed over five days, designed to “quieten the mind and heart for a few minutes each day”. A package for each day includes a short podcast talk or a written reflection on a spiritual theme, texts to meditate on, and questions to guide reflection. Participants can send questions via email and a chatroom facility is offered at set times.

For £85 up to 20 participants can take part in a Shared Retreat and for £150 a Companion Retreat offers individual guidance with five sets of audio-visual and written material, enough for two half-hour sessions a day, and one-to-one talks each day with the retreat guide via phone or Skype. The marketing blurb advises: “...a Companion Retreat can be quite intense and make considerable demands on the individual, if followed seriously.”

But how seriously can one devote time to a retreat that does not involve removing yourself from everyday distractions? Dame Catherine, who runs the retreats with her companion Dame Lucy, says it’s important to be able to pray in your normal life, rather than removing yourself to some “ideal” situation in order to do it.

She draws the comparison with a writer sitting down at a pristine desk in perfect silence with an expensive pen and beautiful paper. You’re more likely to actually get something written in a realistic situation, like sitting at the kitchen table, in her opinion.

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The digitally switched-on nuns received encouraging feedback when they carried out trials of their online retreats, says Dame Catherine. “If you have a smart phone, PC or tablet then you can do the retreat anywhere, and we’re hoping to offer them as an app for iPhone and Android in the near future. We have a very small building with little room to offer overnight accommodation, yet our trial showed there was an appetite from all sorts of people in all sorts of places, including the UK, US, Canada and Japan. I suspect there are many people who want to engage more with spirituality, although they may not be affiliated to any formal religion. We’re taking the monastery to them, but obviously they have to put the effort in as well as receiving our guidance.”

Dame Catherine, who was a banker until she entered the order at the age of 27, Dame Lucy, a former biochemist, and their companion Dame Theresa left their previous religious community in Worcestershire in 2003 to start a new community in rural Oxfordshire. They receive no financial endownment from the Benedictine order, and must live from what they earn and donations.

“We need to pay the rent, the council tax, utility bills and buy food. We live very frugally and understand the problems of ordinary people who are struggling for money,” says Dame Catherine. “For that reason I think people have related to us and acccepted us, even though we are a cloistered community.

“We’d like to enlarge our community, and there are potential novices who would like to join us, but we also need to fundraise to be able to rent bigger accommodation.”

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Another brainwave was the issue of charitable bonds for philanthropic giving. There has been some disapproval from people who think the nuns should not be making money from retreats, never mind likening the experience to “choosing what you want from the menu at Starbucks,” as Dame Catherine does. “It’s important to communicate in language that people will relate to. We have to maintain our website and its security as well as covering other costs. Saint Benedict would, I think, approve of us finding new ways to share the spiritual life we lead with the outside world.” Even for nuns, money doesn’t simply appear like manna from heaven.

“We don’t feel we’re sacrificing our spiritual identity at all,” adds the spiritual web mistress. “And I think the service does help to change perceptions held by some people that nuns are all aged about 102 and not very bright.”

www.onlineretreats.org

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