Any Nicholls students who are in need of a spiritual getaway have an opportunity to attend the Colonel Awakening Retreat hosted by St. Thomas Aquinas on Feb. 24-26.

Some may not know what a retreat is and what usually goes on, but the campus ministers and leaders at St. Thomas Aquinas know just the right ways to make a retreat a success.

A retreat is a period of group withdrawal for prayer, meditation, study or instruction under a director, according to Merriam-Webster dictionary.

The student-run retreat consists of icebreakers, talks, activities and food. To register for the retreat, students must fill out a form online and pay a registration fee of $35 that can be sent to St. Thomas Aquinas or paid on arrival.

“The purpose of a retreat is to reignite your faith walk and have that time to retreat from the world and retreat in yourself to strengthen your faith with God,” Monique Legendre, campus minister at St. Thomas Aquinas, said.

St. Thomas Aquinas recently restarted Awakening last semester after almost 10 years of not doing it. Legendre decided that it would be good if Nicholls started their own Awakening retreat after discovering the success of Louisiana State University and Texas A&M retreats.

Bishop Sam Jacobs held the first Awakening retreat in 1974 at McNeese State University. LSU and Texas A&M started their retreats in 1983. Since then, Awakening is held at 20 universities in the United States.

“When I first got here three semesters ago, I heard about the retreat and started asking more questions about it,” Legendre said. “I felt like Bishop Sam Jacobs is in the diocese that has a college and that college does not even have the retreat that he created. I took it as my own little project and the Holy Spirit took it upon my heart that we really needed this retreat here at Nicholls.”

St. Thomas Aquinas received a great deal of help from LSU and Louisiana State University-Eunice for setting up the retreat last semester.

Students that have been to retreats in private high schools may recognize the format, but according to students that have attended the Awakening retreat, it is not an ordinary high school retreat.

“I went to Catholic school all my life, so I went to Awakening like ‘this is just another retreat; no big deal.’ Afterwards I had made a family with all these people I didn’t know and got deeper in my faith with God,” Nicholas Hebert, freshman from New Iberia, said.

There is a packing list on the St. Thomas Aquinas website so students know what to bring. The list includes a bible, toiletries, towels, modest clothes and an air mattress or sleeping bag.

“This retreat was the next level of continuing my relationship with Christ, which I did not get in high school,” Victoria Ororke, mass communications sophomore from Des Allemands, said. “This is one of the best retreats that I have been on.”

Interested students should visit www.stthomasthibodaux.org/campus-ministry/awakening to register and get more information.