Welcome to the Bon Secours Retreat & Conference Center’s blog! This blog will extend our retreat ministry by bringing prayers and reflections into your home ‘retreat.’ Many of our presenters and staff share their homilies, favorite prayers, and reflections through this medium. We encourage you to comment, pass it along to friends or simply take a moment to pray with us. We hope that this will serve as a moment during your day when you can ‘retreat with us.’
COMMUNITY LIVING AND THE GARDEN By Sr. Elaine Davia, CBS It’s amazing what a garden teaches us about community life and relationships. Consider how each of these observations about gardening also apply to community and our relationships. It takes preparation and careful tending to keep a garden healthy and fruitful. And there’s the need for creativity, to tend and care in organic ways that don’t pollute or contaminate. The variety of colors, shapes, and sizes is…
Shifting “One thing we know for sure doesn’t work: just telling yourself that everything is okay now. Completing the [stress] cycle isn’t an intellectual decision; it’s a physiological shift.” ― Emily Nagoski, Burnout: The Secret to Unlocking the Stress Cycle There seems to be a lot changing rapidly these days. It can be challenging to process it all. How are you doing? If you are finding that your stomach is in knots, it could be stress. The digestive and reproductive systems tend to experience operational difficulties…
by Linda Mastro and Amy Kulesa “If we truly want to know the secret of soulful travel, we need to believe that there is something sacred waiting to be discovered in virtually every journey.” ~ Phil Cousineau in The Art of Pilgrimage: The Seeker’s Guide to Making Travel Sacred A pilgrimage is a way of seeing, being, and doing as much as it is a journey to a collection of sacred sites. When you choose to live life as…
Love Stands Watch By Paula D’Arcy Three years ago in the library of a rural town in East Texas, several women sat around a table to talk with me about my book, Stars at Night. They were a book club but equally a grief circle. I said a few words about the book and my own experience with grief and then listened to their stories. Their lives represented multiple ways the human heart can break. After the meeting, one of…
Peonies This morning the green fists of the peonies are getting ready to break my heart as the sun rises, as the sun strokes them with his old, buttery fingersand they open– pools of lace, white and pink– and all day the black ants climb over them,boring their deep and mysterious holes into the curls, craving the sweet sap, taking it awayto their dark, underground cities– and all day under the shifty wind, as in a dance to the great…
Allow God to Renew You By Sherrell Moore-Tucker Now may the God of peace himself sanctify you completely, and may your whole spirit and soul and body be kept blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. ~1 Thessalonians 5:23 We all experience seasons in life when stress seems unrelenting—when our minds are cluttered, our bodies are weary, and our spirits feel distant from God. If this resonates with you, I invite you to take a sacred pause and join me for…
With hearts full of joy and hope, the Congregation of the Sisters of Bon Secours extends our warmest congratulations to His Holiness, Pope Leo XIV, formerly Cardinal Robert Francis Prevost, on his historic election as the 267th Bishop of Rome and the first American-born pontiff in the Catholic Church’s history. Pope Leo XIV’s life and ministry resonate deeply with our mission of compassion, healing, and service to those in need. His decades of missionary work in Peru—beginning in 1985 and…
Soul Gardening By Julia Morris-Myers We have had a particularly cold spring here in Maine, and even as I write this in mid-April the leaves on the trees are nowhere to be found, the garden is still asleep, and our many flower beds have nary a crocus trying to bloom. And yes, it reminds me of my soul at times. Feelings of hopelessness, anxiety, and grief can overwhelm us all, and we yearn for that seed of love and…
The entire Church mourns the death of the Holy Father, Pope Francis. In cathedrals, basilicas, parish churches, shrines, and chapels the Holy Eucharist will be offered for the repose of his soul. Communities and individuals will ask God to bestow his infinite mercy on the man who served the Church as Bishop of Rome. This novena has been prepared to help pray for the Pope during the time of mourning. The daily novena – lasting for the novendiales period from April 26…
Prayer for the Conclave By Joanne Cahoon Conclave May 7th. We know you come, Spirit. Still, we sing and pray to remind ourselves to be responsive. Veni Sancte Spiritus. Yes. Work through, in, around the process with your sneaky and persistent guidance and constant love for your people and concern for this beloved world of your making. Give all present supple, obedient, discerning hearts — anchored and rooted in love and hope —willing to be comforted and disturbed by you. Papa…
