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’.
Jen Murphy is the Manager of Retreats & Events at the Center and she offers our reflection today. As a sponsored ministry of the Sisters of Bon Secours, she works with presenters to plan a schedule of retreats and events that are open to the public to attend. For a complete listing of programs available when the Center reopens, please click here. Hugging Like Never Before I’m a hugger. I feel fortunate to be able to hug and receive hugs…
Fr. Michael Schleupner offers today's reflection, based on the book of Job. We look forward to welcoming Fr. Michael back to the Center for our August 16-22 Directed Retreat. If you’d like to learn more about it and more about Fr. Michael, please click here. Coronavirus Lessons from the Book of Job The Book of Job in the Old Testament is a classic story about the problem of human suffering. A good man, Job, loses virtually everything: family, health, business,…
Today’s post comes is the second from retreat presenters Susan Boruff and Kathy Anderson. They will be at our Center June 17-21 and this retreat theme is “Healing Our World One Person at a Time: Discovering How God’s Love Transforms Ourselves, Our Families, Our Communities and Our World”. To learn more about the retreat and these presenters, please click here. Let’s take a moment to breathe as we read Susan’s post. There is also a meditation at the end by…
Nancy Sylvester, IHM is the founder of the Institute for Communal Contemplation and Dialogue. She is Director of the program, Enter the Chaos: Engage the Differences to Make a Difference, which was presented by Sr. Nancy, Dr. Vernice Solimar and Sr. Margaret Galiardi at our Center in February. She will return next summer for another great workshop and information will be posted soon with details. Sr. Nancy offers today's reflection, sharing about our connections during the pandemic. From "I" to…
Today's reflection comes from our Marketing Manager/Sales Associate, Tessa Newton. Our frequent guests are likely already familiar with Tessa and her contagious smile. She continues to work through the pandemic, now safely at home, but looks forward to when we can all be back at the Center again. Holding Onto Hope I have always been a silver-lining person. I look for, find, and focus on any sliver of positivity I can find in an otherwise crummy circumstance. This doesn’t mean…
Sr. Elaine Davia, the area leader for the Sisters of Bon Secours, USA, offers today's reflection and a poem as we distance ourselves from our normal routines. Let's take a deep breath and focus on these words of comfort and goals for patience. Our Sisters of Bon Secours in Ireland have a unique name for their need to stay indoors because of the virus. They call it “cocooning”. What a beautiful and hopeful image. The caterpillar inside the cocoon has…
Sr. Mary Shimo is a Sister of Bon Secours and currently serves on the Leadership Team for the sisters in the United States. For today's post, Sr. Mary offers the following reflection, which she received from the sister's Associate ministry. We are not perfect and this ballad calls us to recognize our brokenness. We (I) am broken in so many ways yet our culture does not allow it, but Our God does allow it and enters into that brokenness with…
Linda Mastro is a retreat presenter at our Center and will be guiding, "Seeing with the Eyes of the Heart", a women's retreat next January. Click here to read more about the retreat. Let's take a moment to read this reflection and to ponder the questions that Linda presents about our future during this uncertain time. What future are we creating? “The future is not some place we are going, but one we are creating. The paths are not to…
Rainey Taylor is a familiar face at the Center. She is our Sales Manager and assists many groups to secure their reservations and make arrangements for the group's meeting room, housekeeping and dining needs. Rainey brings today's reflection during this Easter season. “For Such a Time as This” This morning I heard a devotion based on one of my favorite scriptures from the Old Testament. It is a scripture from the book of Esther. The scripture I am referring to…
Happy Easter! Marcia McMullin was scheduled to give a day retreat around the theme of centering prayer last Saturday. In addition to presenting retreats, Marcia is a nurse and the Manager of Breast Health Services at LifeBridge Health. We think of those healthcare professionals who are helping those in need during the pandemic and pray for their safety and their spirits. On a day when many of us would be congregating in churches to celebrate the resurrection of Jesus, instead…
