Last April, we attended the St. Catherine sponsored married couples retreat at St. Joseph Abbey in Covington. We have been married for almost nine years and have three kids. Despite hearing many positive things about marriage retreats, we never took the initiative to search for one locally. When St. Catherine advertised about a marriage retreat that was just an hour away and only Saturday morning through noon on Sunday, we knew this would be a great opportunity that worked nicely with our busy schedules. That short weekend was the perfect amount of time
for us and manageable to set up babysitters for the kids.
We were a little skeptical going into the retreat (one of us more than the other, but he wishes to remain anonymous) mainly because we hadn’t attended one before. The retreat exceeded our expectations and left us with a stronger conviction towards our marriage vocation.
The retreat was led by a local ministry called Willwoods Community, and they delivered an excellent retreat for couples of all ages and stages of married life. It was low key and casual and gave us a chance to reconnect with our faith both individually and as a couple. The retreat format was a well-balanced combination of structured talks from the retreat leader and several speaker couples, followed by reflection time with your spouse. During our individual couples’ time, we had the opportunity to walk the Abbey grounds and find a spot to digest the talk together and discuss our takeaways. This time of reflection ended up being our favorite. We really enjoyed talking without the distractions of work, kids, and all of our other responsibilities. The suggested reflection topics enabled us to have thought provoking and effective conversations that neither of us would have thought to bring up otherwise.
When we left the retreat, we felt calmer and more rested (a night away from kids will do that for you), we felt more on the same page about what we wanted to work on and implement in our marriage, and we knew we wanted to attend another retreat together in a few years. The retreat didn’t provide any magic marriage tricks that immediately and drastically changed our lives. Instead, we felt like the retreat planted new and important seeds for our marriage that we’d need to continue to cultivate at home and practice every day in our vocation.
Overall, we highly recommend taking advantage of this great marriage retreat. You won’t regret sacrificing this time to focus both on your marriage and on God. If you’re hesitant or intimidated, don’t let that stop you. Just sign up, and if you have small children, start setting up your babysitters now. We’ll even help with your kids if you can’t find a sitter. Just kidding, you’re on your own, but we hope you can still make it!