Reflections on the weekend retreat at Kintbury by some of our newly confirmed young people.

(Written for Crosskeys, the parish magazine)

When I thought about what our weekend retreat to St. Cassian’s in Kintbury would be like, my guess was: nuns – in vast quantities and prayer – also in vast quantities. Not necessarily a bad thing, but neither was it exactly my idea of a thrilling weekend. The St. Cassian’s retreat was probably the biggest surprise I’ve ever got. Three words: It was awesome.

The prayer sessions we had weren’t all heavy, but really reached out to us as young people. I was touched by them as they were led in such a way that everyone was able to connect with what was being said. We took part in some activities that taught us a lot about ourselves as youths, members of society and Christians.

The journey to St. Cassian’s was very pleasant, taking us past a lot of countryside and sheep until we reached the actual house. It was the most beautiful old building I have ever seen – the kind you’d expect to be haunted. Once we’d finished making cracks about ghosts and ‘No-one who ever goes in comes out again...” we were led into the front room. Here we met out retreat leaders, who far from being the stuffy people I’d imagined, were young people on gap years or who  had just finished their degrees  and were wanting to do something for their faith; which I think is great!

The house was amazing, just like an Austen novel – there was even a Darcy pond! All it needed was Colin Firth climbing out of it! We got a closer look at the land around St. Cassian’s whilst taking part in an interestingly arranged activity. The general gist of what we had to do was go on a forty minute walk making conversation with someone whom we’d never met before. Most of us were expecting it to be the most awkward experience of our life; but actually, I think we were all surprised at how quickly we were able to slip into familiarity with our partners, find common interests and somehow, incredibly, that time which we had thought would drag flew, egged on by the beautiful fields and scenery surrounding us. It was a place where you could see God in everything around you, it just all so idyllic.

During our retreat, we teamed up with a youth group from Cambridge which meant we were about to make lots of new friends on the same journey as us. I met some great people with great faith and that just encouraged me further. Their group wasn’t a confirmation group as ours was; instead it was a youth group and they were the people with whom we went on our walk. We had smaller group of about eight teenagers (a mix of the Cambridge and Winchester groups) and a leader. In those groups we carried out some activities and even in such a short amount of time, we all became very friendly with one another; this became clear when, on the last day of our retreats, we wrote in booklets of affirmation. This activity was basically writing nice things about people – our group members, friends, people we’d met on the retreat. This was one of the best things I’d ever done; it felt nice putting into words people’s admirable qualities we’d managed to pick up on, even in such a short length of time.

We celebrated mass on Saturday in the evening and, like everything on the retreat, we were given the opportunity to organise different aspects of the mass. For example: the section of the mass my group was responsible for was the Thanksgiving and we decided to involve the congregation by choosing things that they themselves were thankful for. I found how everyone came up with different ideas about how to lead a more hands-on mass amazing!

The young people leading the retreat were some of the bravest people I ever met and two of them even found the courage within themselves to stand up in front of both groups and give very personal presentations about their lives. Thanks to them I am now much surer in my faith, after seeing what they have done with theirs and I also feel a lot closer to God.

I could go on and on about how great this retreat was, what with the amazing people, the beautiful location and everything we did and learnt, but I think I’d go well over the word count of the whole magazine; so I’m going to leave you with one parting message that I learnt: Shoot for the moon – if you miss at least you’ll land on the stars.