Nazareth Family Retreat Centre stands at Cable Nagar, Karukutty, on the side of NH 47 near the Cable bus stop. What is preached here is not addressed to an individual but to a household: parents and children come together, stay together for four days, and go through the retreat side by side.
That is the whole idea of the place. A retreat that a father attends alone changes one person. A retreat that a family attends together changes the way a house works — how a husband and wife speak to one another, how children are raised, how trouble is carried.
Who runs the centre
The centre is run by St Joseph's Province, Angamaly, of the Congregation of the Sisters of Nazareth, founded in the Archdiocese of Ernakulam. The sanctification of families is the one goal of that congregation: the Holy Family of Nazareth is held up as the model for every family, and the sisters work by many means to make families aware of it — the Amma magazine, home science institutes, retreat houses, counselling centres, refuge homes for women in distress, Sisu Bhavan for abandoned babies, Balabhavan for poor schoolchildren, and visits to families in their own homes.
This retreat centre was founded in 1990 with the Holy Family as its patron. Rev. Sr. Xavier, a zealous family missionary, was the pioneer behind it, at a time when there was hardly another retreat centre in Kerala addressing the family as a whole. The Director is Rev. Sr. Sherin CSN, and Rev. Fr. Paul Kaitholungal is the spiritual director.
Around 850 families now come to the family retreats each year, and more than two thousand children to the retreats preached for them.
What happens over the four days
Families arrive and stay on the campus. The days are given to preaching, prayer, the sacraments, and sessions in which parents and children take part together — some for the parents, some for the children, and some for the whole family at once. Audio-visual aids are used through the classes. Family therapy and prayer therapy are part of the retreat, and there is time set aside for rest, for meals taken in common, and for families simply to be with each other away from work, school and the phone.
Families who have been here speak of coming away with deeper insight into marriage and into responsible parenthood, and with God, the sacraments and the word of God given a larger place at home.
The centre asks families to come for the whole retreat rather than for a day of it. Much of what happens depends on staying — the quiet of the second evening does work that the first morning cannot.
For those in their later years
Four times a year the centre sets aside three days for senior citizens — the Paradise Experience retreat. It is gentler in pace, and it is preached for people at a turn of life when the questions are different: what has been, what remains, and what is to come.
Through the rest of the week
The centre does not close between retreats. Counselling and psychotherapy are offered for families, for couples, for young people and for children — booked in advance wherever possible. Couple gatherings and Christian retreats are held through the year, and intercessory prayer is offered at the centre every Wednesday from 10 in the morning to 1 in the afternoon.
Coming here
Booking is done by telephone or through the request form on this website. Nothing is paid online: a request reaches the office, and the office rings back to confirm the place and to say what to bring. Calls are taken every day between 9 in the morning and 5 in the evening.
