Sea change in retreats

CAPE MAY POINT - Three women in capri pants lounge on wicker chairs in an enclosed porch within sight of the sea. One has pierced ears, another has dyed hair, the third is wearing a T-shirt with a Winston cigarette logo.

They don't look like nuns.

But the dress code changed significantly after Vatican II. And besides, these sisters are on retreat here at St. Mary-by-the-Sea in Cape May Point.

Dress is not the only thing different at houses such as St. Mary. Retreat, the centuries-old practice of traveling to a secluded spot for an intense period of silent renewal and reflection, is no longer the province solely of avowed Catholic sisters.

Decades of decline in the number of women taking religious vows, juxtaposed with an increase in people describing themselves as spiritual but not religious, has created a sea change, if you will, in attendance at retreats.

Group and individualized retreats are increasingly popular among the Christian laity, among women (and some men) for whom spirituality has supplanted religion - even among secular members of the Jewish community.

"I've been eager to come here for years," says Alice Farber, 64, a secular Jewish woman from Roxborough, who left St. Mary yesterday after an eight-day retreat.

"As an artist, I love nature and this is a beautifully situated house for that," says Farber, who is retired from a career teaching art in the School District of Philadelphia, and is certified as a masseuse.

"But also as an artist I crave quiet, contemplative spaces like this. It feeds the creative soul."

If you've been to the lighthouse at Cape May Point, just south of the town of Cape May, you've likely noticed St. Mary's red roof in the near distance - so unlike Red Roof Inns elsewhere.

This summer and next, St. Mary, which began life in 1890 as the Shoreham Hotel, is marking its 100th year as a retreat house for the Sisters of St. Joseph in Chestnut Hill.

It's hard not to feel calm in this place when the floorboards creak and the porch chairs seem to call as clearly as the songbirds and the crashing waves: Come, feel the wonder of the sea and its creatures.

Initially, that call went out only to the Sisters of St. Joseph, a 17th-century French order whose members came to Philadelphia as teachers in 1847.

But in the 1970s, the number of religious sisters started to decline everywhere. Nationwide, there were 65 percent fewer nuns by 2008, according to the Center for Applied Research in the Apostolate at Georgetown University.

The Sisters of St. Joseph lost half their number by 2008. The median age of the remaining 1,000 sisters is 70. But the order also has about 500 associates - women and men, many of whom are married, who share the order's mission without taking formal vows.

Those declining numbers forced some religious orders to sell their beach retreats, so St. Mary opened its doors to sisters of other orders starting in about 1980, says Sister Dorothy Urban, an administrator at the order's motherhouse in Chestnut Hill and liaison to the retreat house at Cape May Point.

Another shift became palpable by the 1990s, as an increasing number of women - and later, men - began to self-identify as spiritual, but without specific religious beliefs. A 2002 Gallup poll showed 33 percent of Americans fell into that category, up from 30 percent just five years earlier.

In support of that trend, in the 1990s St. Mary began welcoming women and men of all faiths who were seeking spiritual, if not religious, calm.

"When I was going through a difficult period in my life, I started graduate studies in holistic spirituality," says Marianne Loney, 71, a laywoman from Harrisburg who converted to Catholicism after a painful divorce.

In 1995, Loney earned a degree in holistic spirituality and spiritual direction. She worked in grief counseling and joined a Harrisburg-area group studying kabbalah, Jewish mysticism, and began coming to St. Mary-by-the-Sea for retreats.

"I've come here every year for 15 years because retreat saved my soul," says Loney, who also attended the everyday epiphanies program.

"You ask for what you need or think you need and then wait in holy silence to see how God responds," Loney says.

Group retreats at St. Mary cost $420 to $475 per person, last six to eight days, and come in two forms:

There are directed retreats, which are almost entirely silent and draw 80 or more retreatants. Each is matched with one of 16 spiritual directors, and the pairs meet privately for about 45 minutes each day. The remainder of the time is spend on art, writing, or contemplation.

At guided retreats, such as the everyday epiphanies workshop, a leader lectures or engages the group in discussion. More than 100 women of different races and religions, from Michigan and Maine to Maryland and Washington, D.C., attended the recent guided retreat.

Last September, St. Mary initiated a Women's Wellness Weekend that sold out almost immediately. Another is scheduled Sept. 11-13.

And then there are occasions in the calendar when a room or two is available and the retreat house accepts individuals who are seeking private time.

Private-time guests at St. Mary may stay up to four nights, donating $50 a day in exchange for three meals and a sparsely furnished room with a shared bath in the hall. There are crosses above the beds, but no Gideon Bibles in the nightstand drawers.

These guests are expected to eat with whomever in the community may be present at the time, and to maintain quiet, if not silence. They are welcome at prayer, but are not expected to attend or to offer excuses.

In this practice of offering private time, St. Mary is not alone.

Wisdom House in Litchfield, Conn., welcomes writers and artists seeking solitude. Pelican House, a beachfront retreat house that sits on 62 acres on the North Carolina coast, offers personal days. Maris Stella on Long Beach Island has personal reflection days, and Stella Maris in Elberon, Monmouth County, introduces its personal, unstructured retreat program with the words: "Come, be by the sea . . . ."

A long walk on a cool beach may sound universally inviting, but religious retreat houses are not for the party-hardy crowd. None of the retreat houses are appropriate for girlfriend getaways. Retreat houses don't rent their facilities for weddings or family reunions. Bargain seekers or couples seeking a quiet weekend together should look elsewhere.

Sister Dorothy, who is in her 60s now, stands on the second-floor porch overlooking the courtyard and recalls her years here as a young nun.

She entered the convent at 17 and wore a black serge habit with full sleeves, a white guimpe and cornette of linen, and a veil of black silk voile. It didn't slow her down.

"We used to play softball right in this courtyard," she says. "The grass was heartier then. And the statue of St. Mary was there, too; we just played around her."

In the 1900s, the house was a mile from the shoreline.

The nuns rode a trolley to the beach then. As the years passed, the sea took back the sand and, just as Joshua prayed for the sun to stop as the Israelites fought the Amorites in Canaan (Joshua, 10:12), the sisters prayed fervently to stay the tide of erosion.

In 2005, the Army Corps of Engineers completed a $15 million beach restoration aimed at protecting the many migrating birds that, like the nuns, come to the Point for rest.

St. Mary had electricity only in the common spaces and hallways until the 1970s. Today, all 150 rooms are lit, parts of the building are air-conditioned (but not heated), and the bathroom circuits can withstand powerful modern hair dryers. Beach chairs and boogie boards stored near the shed are shared by all.

A reliable corps of volunteers keeps operating costs low. They prepare meals, clean the bathrooms, and wash the sheets. A particular trio of volunteers returns every year to repair the rushed seats of the porch rockers.

Mary K. Doherty, who directs CORA counseling services in Northeast Philadelphia, has been the home's gardener since 2000.

"The house is comforting," says Doherty, 56. "And many, many people pick up on the spirit that permeates this environment, from the beach back to the garden shed."

St. Mary-by-the-Sea will pass its centennial moments quietly this summer and next. Banners announcing the theme - Ocean of Grace, Tides of Transformation - were mounted June 7. On the 14th, the mayor and commissioners stopped in to witness the house blessing. Public house tours may be offered in 2010. And throughout the year, people who attended past retreats at St. Mary are submitting stories recounting their memories.

But Sister Dorothy says that for the most part this milestone will be commemorated as has every preceding day, with quiet contemplation, reflection and peace.

Address:

St. Mary-by-the-Sea

Box 382

Cape May Point, N.J. 08212

Phone: 609-884-8878,

9 to 11 a.m. only, please

E-mail: stmary@ssjphila.org

Downloadable retreat brochure: http://ssjphila.org/CapeMay2009Retreat.pdfEndText