“As abbot, it was extremely gratifying to see how the brothers worked together, along with our lay communications director, who is working from home, to make the retreat happen through the internet,” he said. One way things were changed for the better by the retreat was in the Abbey itself, said Abbot James. They will be changed by this and they will be changed for the better if we only say Yes to him and to the reality before us.” “This is an experience of divine providence, one I probably would not have wanted, but in fact this is the one God has ordained for us in his providential plan, and so we must thank him.” If it were not for the pandemic we wouldn’t have had a retreat like this,” he said. At the end, after thanking the monks involved, he said, “Most of all, I want to thank God for his providential plan. “To see the live numbers for the individual conferences and the prayer requests and questions pouring in was astounding, with retreatants joining us from the continents of Australia, Europe, Africa, and Asia – numerous time zones away,” he said.įather Jay was amazed, too. Ultimately, he said more than 3,000 people were listed as registrants for the retreats, with 1,450 households registering and entering the number of people participating.Ībbot James was amazed. “We reached that number in the first few hours of launch.” “In our original e-mail back and forth Father Jay expected up to 100 people,” he said. The Abbey and college recruited new participants and a story on the international Catholic website Aleteia told readers worldwide about it.Ībbey leader Abbot James Albers said, “Even before the stay-at-home order was issued by the State of Kansas, we had decided to cancel all of our Abbey retreats for the spring and early summer, which included our annual Holy Week Retreat for our Benedictine College students.”īut he said that Father Jay and Brother Angelus immediately asked for the retreat to go on, as a “retreat in place” with materials offered by email and streaming video.Ībbey communications director J.D. The Abbey has provided the retreat for Benedictine College students for 20 years, but once it was announced online, its audience grew enormous. The Holy Week retreat represented a herculean effort on the part of the monks.

“This afternoon I’m going to take a nap.” Benedict’s Abbey in Atchison, Kansas, who made the retreat possible, including assistant retreat master Brother Angelus Atkinson and AV/Tech monk Brother Jerome Simpson, and promised to answer emails soon.

Abbey Retreat Brings Hope to Thousands in PandemicĪt the end of a four-day retreat conducted via streaming conferences and liturgies for thousands of retreatants on six continents, retreat master Father Jay Kythe was exhausted.

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