I went on a Kairos retreat when I was in college and loved it! I liked the structure, and, as I’ve been involved in other Kairos retreats at various schools, I continue to like how the basic structure stays the same, but is flexible for the differing needs of different communities. Kairos really helped me realize that I had to put effort into my relationship with our Lord!
Further on in my college career I had the amazing opportunity to participate in a 19th annotation retreat of St. Ignatius’ spiritual exercises. St. Ignatius created the Exercises when some of the men who were joining the Jesuits at the time needed spiritual guidance as they prepared for ordination. It consists of a 4 week silent retreat, with the periods of silence only broken to speak to your spiritual director, and consists of daily Mass, regular confession and guided meditations on scripture. St. Ignatius, knowing that taking 30 days in a row to go on retreat isn’t a possibility for many people, especially lay people, added in the annotations of the retreat “guide book”(for the lack of a better term) that a spiritual director could modify the retreat into daily meditations (about 1 to 1 1/2 hours long each) for those people who could not go on a 30 day retreat. Our retreat was structured to last for an academic year.
If anyone ever has a chance to do an Ignatian retreat with a trained retreat director (I did mine with a deacon who was trained years ago) I would highly recommend it. It’s a big commitment, but the graces and personal relationship with God that is nurtured through the retreat, including the very regular meetings with the retreat director and a spiritual adviser, are too numerous to count.
Congrats on your Kairos retreat! Live the Fouth!
But yeah…it’s had great impact on me and it means so much to me.