Although attending St. Louis U. High retreats are a highlight of many students’ time at SLUH, the COVID-19 pandemic has threatened to take away this important tradition. 
    Students’ faith lives in general have been significantly impacted by the pandemic. For the first three months, churches were closed, preventing students from receiving the sacraments and attending weekly Mass. Many huge summer conferences, such as the annual Steubenville conference hosted by Fransican University, were cancelled due to safety concerns, which led to many students and teenagers not having access to the faith-formation that they would usually receive. Community also plays a critical role in helping students find God in their lives, so the forced quarantine proved detrimental to students' faith lives. 
    “The social isolation is not a healthy situation for anybody to be in. I think that can cause some internal negativity which causes students to draw away from God,” said campus minister Fr. Joseph Hill, S.J. “Community plays an important role in developing one's faith life.”
    Retreats have always played a key role in a student's time at SLUH. Each student will go on at least four retreats in his time at SLUH and possibly more, so the campus ministry team wanted to ensure that this tradition was being kept alive even in the midst of a pandemic. 
    “Retreats were one of my favorite things I did as a student and continue to be one of my favorite things I do as a faculty member,” said campus minister Stephen Deves. “Retreats give you time and space away to reflect intentionally on life in a way that you don’t usually in the business of your ordinary day.”
    When the coronavirus pandemic hit, SLUH quickly realized that retreats were going to be more important now than ever before to help not only students' faith lives but also their social lives. 
    “Retreats are an essential part of a SLUH education,” said Hill. “It is not just something that we can take out now. We have to have (it) or else we will change who we are as a school because we are absolutely committed to the spiritual formation of our students.”
    In order to continue on the tradition of the retreat program, the campus ministry team had to find creative solutions, abiding by city and school health guidelines as well as continuing to deliver impactful and dynamic retreats. 
    Last April, the Campus ministry team attempted to design an all-day virtual retreat for the sophomore class. However, many students didn’t feel like the virtual retreat provided them with the same spiritual encounter as an in-person retreat. 
    “I found that the sophomore retreat unfortunately suffered greatly from the constraints put on it due to COVID-19,” said junior Joey Inserra. “It was completely virtual which I feel severely diminished the quality of the retreat and didn’t allow for as many opportunities for an encounter with the Lord.”
    The campus ministers quickly realized that an online retreat would not help students in the same way as an in-person retreat does.
    “Last year we were able to kind of recreate the sophomore retreat as an all day virtual experience, but our goal is to not lean on that format,” said campus minister Julie Anderson. “We really want to foster the in-person community as much as we can. If needed we might add some virtual elements, but we are going to try to make the in-person experience happen as best we can.”
             In order to make in-person retreats possible, the campus ministry team made a few significant changes to guarantee that these retreats would feature the same experiences and moments a retreat would have had before COVID-19. 
  One of the most notable changes made to the retreats was the increased emphasis on outdoor retreats, as they limit the spread of the virus. Also, the retreats have been shortened to minimize downtime and will follow the same COVID guidelines used at school such as wearing masks and the frequent sanitization of surfaces. Food will be individually packaged compared to previous years where meals were served buffet style. Anyone not comfortable with staying overnight will have the option to go home for the overnight segment. If a student opts to stay overnight, they will have their own room and bathroom. One of the major format changes to the retreat program is that there will not be as many large group gatherings on retreats, which means there will not be as many large group talks. Another major change is that for the freshman retreat, each cohort will attend the retreat on a separate day.
Many of these formatting changes have already been put into place on a junior retreat which took place the week before school started. 
“Junior retreat was great,” said Hill. “It exceeded our expectations. We had to reorganize the retreat, but the fruit from the retreat, even though it was only a day and a half, was really excellent. I know a lot of kids received a lot of graces, and there was no transmission of COVID during the retreat.”
“The way junior retreat took us out of life, how it brought us to an isolated area and separated us from our phones helped me really center my mind on God and separate myself from the craziness of the world which was great,” said junior Niko Nadreau. 
    After seeing the success of the junior retreat, the campus ministry team hopes that they can continue to deliver dynamic retreats to help students enrich their faith lives and grow in their relationship with one another and with God.
    “ I love retreats because one really gets the space to reflect on where he is, who he is, about all the people in his life that love him, about who he loves, and what he wants to do in his life, what God means to him and so so much more,” said Deves. “For me I have felt the love of God and the Love of other people through these SLUH retreats in an extremely powerful way that I haven't experienced elsewhere and that is such an important thing for students to experience especially now.”

Photo | Dr. David Callon