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.’
from Praying with the Earth, A Prayer book for Peace by John Philip Newell For everything that emerges from Earth thanks be to you, O God, Holy Root of being Sacred Sap that rises Full-bodied Fragrance of Earth’s unfolding form. May we know that we are of You may we know that we are in You May we know that we are one with You together one. Guide us as nations to what is deepest open us as peoples…
By Debra Donnelly-Barton Beauty in word and image speak so clearly of the Spirit and remind me that there is fun and homeliness in the spiritual life. I am so often serious, that it is easy to miss serendipity and play. That’s how it is sometimes — God comes to your window, all bright light and black wings, and you’re just too tired to open it.’ Dorianne Laux In a setting so domestic—BAM—God like a raven or…
Each year on Labor Day, we pause to honor the dignity of work and the people whose efforts sustain our communities and families. It’s a day that reminds us of the value of labor—not only in building a livelihood, but in serving one another with the gifts God has entrusted to us. Scripture affirms this truth. “Whatever you do, work at it with all your heart, as working for the Lord, not for human masters” (Colossians 3:23). Work is more…
Finding Renewal at Bon Secours For many of us, peace feels like something distant—something we’ll get to once our work is done, our problems are solved, or our schedules are cleared. Yet Scripture reminds us that peace is not only possible, it’s available to us right now—often revealed through God’s creation. The psalmist writes, “The heavens declare the glory of God; the skies proclaim the work of his hands” (Psalm 19:1). Creation itself is constantly speaking, offering us a wordless testimony…
Mary DeTurris Poust The following article by regular Bon Secours retreat presenter Mary DeTurris Poust was originally published in the National Catholic Reporter on July 5, 2025. As I drove down the New York State Thruway, headed toward what promised to be an inspiring event on the legacy of Trappist Fr. Thomas Keating and the Centering Prayer movement, I was anything but centered or prayerful. The state of the world and the state of my own interior life felt chaotic,…
By Linda Mastro “…every gardener is an apprentice of the good Gardener of creation. Gardening teaches us that we belong to nature and are also responsible for it. Human culture and nature’s destiny are inextricably intertwined. What we add to nature can contribute to its well-being, as well as our own.” ~ Vigen Guroian in Inheriting Paradise, page 61. Every month the Bon Secours Associates of Marriottsville meet to pray and discuss a topic that inspires us to live the…
By Gordon Creamer “He said to him, “‘You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’ This is the greatest and first commandment. And a second is like it: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ On these two commandments hang all the Law and the Prophets.” (Matt 22:37-40, NRSVUE) & “Love…
By Carl McColman Who are the mystics? They are found in every religion and every era of history. Many are people we might recognize as saints, and quite a few were monks or nuns — but mystics come in all shapes and sizes, and many were surprisingly down to earth and accessible. What they all seem to have in common is an unshakeable conviction that it is possible for people — even the most ordinary folks — to have intimate and…
By Ginny Novak, MA "Finding God in all things.” ~St. Ignatius of Loyola, the founder of the Jesuits “Contemplation is a long, loving look at the real.” ~Walter Burghardt, SJ, theologian "Mathematics is the language in which God has written the universe.” Galileo, scientist Using these three seemingly unrelated phrases, I’d like to suggest a deep connection between mathematics and spirituality and share how awareness of this link has been a gift for me. Of course,…
By Kathleen Duffy, SSJ In his spiritual treatise, The Divine Milieu, Teilhard shares his place of solace, a place where he found the healing and comfort he needed so desperately given the difficulties that confronted him in life. He treasured the heightened consciousness he found there, its deeply personal charm. He often returned to the Divine Milieu to bathe in the light of Christ’s palpable presence, the only atmosphere in which he could truly breathe. Moved to adoration, he would…
