According to rule, Redemptorists are required to make a ten-day retreat each year. Seelos makes his annual retreat in total silence and seclusion, in which he writes daily summaries of his prayers, meditations and examinations of conscience. His notes speak loudly about his burning desire to become holy. During this time, Seelos makes a radical commitment to achieve the holiness he desires. But for all his efforts, even Blessed Seelos could not completely overcome “the repugnance of nature,” as he calls it. On the fourth day of his retreat, he writes, “O help! O help! O holy Mother of God, let me become so inflamed and sanctified that I am not always thinking of breakfast.”