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’.
Author and retreat presenter, Mary DeTurris Poust, is sharing a heart-felt blog with us today. Do you have a community of spiritual seekers that you're grateful for? Maybe you've connected with them at our center! Please share with us. We'd love to hear about how these internal homing devices led you here! Finding gratitude and grace This autumn has been a season of deep gratitude and growing awe. Whether it has to do with my age or my circumstances or…
Today we are catching up on a few reflections by one of our favorite retreat presenters and spiritual directors, Fr. Michael Schleupner. He continues his series about cultivating our image of God. Let's learn more from Fr. Michael's insights below. Our Image of God - 5 Dear Friends, In the last "Our Image of God" blog, I shared a more recent understanding of Original Sin and the Sacrament of Baptism. This understanding does not leave us human beings feeling tainted,…
Even at the gates of hell, Believe in redemption. Let my grace and power work, Where you have none. It is only for you To believe and to trust. Be confident. Trust. Love. Do not condemn. Believe, In the face of unbelief. Hope against hope. This is faith. This is the gift most needed For those who have suffered So deeply, and lost all. You must manifest love and hope. It is only then That my people will begin to…
We discovered this beautiful video meditation for the 23rd Psalm. If you are reflecting on loss that you've suffered or simply need to feel the strength of Jesus in a special way, we pray that this provides some source of comfort and hope in your day. Amen. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=43mCBMvFCU4
As we enter this season that traditionally presents colds and flu viruses to many, we share the following scripture verses and prayers for hope, strength and healing. May God bless you with good health and, if necessary, healing and recovery. Beloved, I pray that all may go well with you and that you may be in good health, just as it is well with your soul. ~ 3 John 1:2 Restore My Strength Holy Spirit, drive away from…
Fr. Michael Schleupner continues an insightful series about our image of God. What can we learn about how we project this image, based on scripture and theology? Let's read more in Fr. Michael's thoughts from Genesis and how that relates to our own personal relationship with God. Our Image of God - 4 Dear Friends, Our image of God, as I have said in this series over the last several weeks, is crucial. It affects not just how we relate…
Annie Hisle will guide a grief retreat tomorrow, presenting resources like the poem below to help participants who are dealing with loss. Please pray that these guests are comforted and spiritually uplifted by their retreat. Maybe the reading below will provide some level of peace and comfort if you are in need too? Letting Go To let go doesn't mean to stop caring, it means I can't do it for someone else. To let go is not to cut myself…
On this last day of John Philip Newell's "Sacred Earth Sacred Soul" retreat at our Center, we leave you with this short video that he created a few years ago. He offers beautiful insights from art and scripture and also a touching blessing for peace at the end. May you be blessed by a sense of deep peace today... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oXjYGoZ_ous
Today is the beginning of our highly anticipated "Sacred Earth Sacred Soul" retreat with Dr. John Philip Newell and Cami Twilling. We are so happy to host them this weekend for this sold-out retreat! Today, we share a little spiritual inspiration from John Philip with you too. "Our work, rather, is to help reawaken the sense of the sacred that is already deep in the human soul, our primordial relationship with nature, our ancient mother love of the earth.…
While observing the transformation that nature has begun to make around us, it can often prompt a self-reflection about a transformation within us and within our world. Many of our retreats stimulate this conversation and process here at the Center too. So, today, we are sharing this powerful prayer that will likely resonate with everyone in some way. Share your thoughts in the comments after you pray with us! Prayer for Transformation Lord, transform us – not for our benefit,…
