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’.
Today's post includes a prayer and beautiful video with a prayer for Lent. How are you recognizing this week during Lent? If you're here looking for resources to use at home today, why not find a quiet place to reflect, light a candle, and take time to listen in the silence. You could open your time of worship by reading the prayer below and then use the video as a closing prayer. As you read each sentence of the opening…
Happy St. Patrick's Day! According to tradition, St. Patrick wrote this famous prayer in 433 A.D. for divine protection before successfully converting the Irish King Leoghaire and his subjects from paganism to Christianity. Recent study disputes the author, but regardless, it eloquently carries the spirit of Christianity's journey to Ireland and can give us an overarching prayer of hope and protection for all. St. Patrick's Breastplate Prayer I arise today Through a mighty strength, the invocation of the Trinity, Through…
In honor of National Catholic Sisters Week, Fran Gorsuch, a Sister of Bon Secours, and Natalie Scarbrough, led a prayer for peace for our staff on Monday. The Crocus Prayer was read allowed as we gathered in a circle around a Peace Pole, reminding us all that offering peace or being activists of peace often takes courage. Let's contemplate the actions of these first flowers today. Crocus Prayer It takes courage to be crocus-minded. Lord, I’d rather wait until June,…
Mary DeTurris Poust, author and retreat presenter, wrote today's blog on her site and is sharing it with us too. It provides a great perspective on the Lenten journey! We are excited to welcome Mary back to the Center this fall for her "Be Here Now" retreat too. You can learn more by clicking here. Let's take a few quiet moments to read below. What do you think about a "Happy Lent"? Comment and share with us. Can you have…
Fr. Michael Schleupner offers more insights about spiritual wellness in today's post. For more in this series, please scroll through our blog. The posts offer wonderful, comprehensive tools to improve your wellness! Spiritual Wellness - 10Belonging to a Community Dear Friends,Belonging to a community of faith – I believe that this is an important ingredient of our personal spiritual wellness. This is an important reminder especially for today. An increasing number of Americans (and maybe also people in some other…
Today is the beginning of National Catholic Sisters Week, a time to recognize the inspiring history and future of women religious throughout the United States. For the Sisters of Bon Secours Foundation Day on January 24, the Bon Secours Mercy Health Center for Ministry Formation created this beautiful video that showcases their amazing history and we thought today would be a great time to share it with our visitors. The video also includes beautiful moments of prayer and readings from…
Guests of the "Prayer and Creativity: Practices for a Holy Lent" retreat, guided by Dr. Kathleen Staudt, are departing today. We hope that the Spirit spoke to them in a special way, inspiring this sacred season of waiting. Creativity within the written word is often the most touching and the poets below are some of the many gifted writers who can express what we're already feeling in a profound way. Let's sit in the stillness and let this creative form…
Are you feeling as if you're in a season of rushing instead of a slowed season of introspect and quiet for Lent? Maybe this reflection by Fr. Michael Schleupner will help you with finding balance for your spiritual wellness. This is the 9th blog in this series, so if you've missed the others, please scroll through our blog to learn more. Spiritual Wellness - 9 Maintain a Balance Dear Friends, Trying to keep a balance between work and time for…
Have you adopted a new giving practice this Lenten season instead of 'fasting' from something? Maybe you're adding acts of service to your schedule or giving resources to those in need? As we consider the needs of others, let's offer this prayer for Lent... Lenten Prayer (inspired by Isaiah 58: 1-12) We have chosen to fast Not with ashes but with actions Not with sackcloth but in sharing Not in thoughts but in deeds We will give up our abundance…
Fr. Michael Schleupner continues his series on 'Spiritual Wellness' today with this blog about faithfulness, providing inspiration to apply this faithfulness to all that we do! This is the 8th blog in this series. We invite you to read the others as you scroll through past posts too. Spiritual Wellness - 8Be Faithful Dear Friends,One of my favorite psalms in the Hebrew Scriptures (what we usually call the Old Testament) is Psalm 117. This is also the shortest of all the…
