Sustaining the Practice Retreat (3 nights or more)
Flexible Dates
Benedictine Center
Often people who are feeling called to integrate the disciplines of silence and spiritual practice into their lives choose a retreat of three nights or more. A Sustaining the Practice Retreat invites a person to set aside a significant window of time (between 3 and 7 nights) for renewal and growth. One can explore the riches of […]
Peace Retreat (2 nights)
Package Dates
Benedictine Center
A Peace Retreat helps you settle in to the calm that greets you at the monastery doors. Day 1 helps you familiarize yourself with the beauty and resources. Day 2 allows you the freedom to linger without travel. Day 3 allows you to ease back into normal life. The Peace Retreat helps you begin to feel […]
Quiet Retreat (1 night)
Package Dates
Benedictine Center
A Quiet Retreat gives you one night away from responsibilities. The room and three home-cooked meals are prepared with a personal touch. You are welcome but not obligated to join the Sisters for prayer. Take in the art, read, or walk the labyrinth as you choose. The time is yours. Some guests find it helpful to […]
Day of Prayer (no overnight)
Package Dates
Benedictine Center
A Day of Prayer is a simple way to step into some quiet. Enjoy a private room and whatever degree of solitude you prefer. Some guests join the Sisters for midday prayer and visit with them at lunch. Others prefer to journal, read, pray and walk the grounds at their leisure. The monastic library, art […]
Ongoing Prayer Opportunities
Open Dates
Today's seekers are often looking for meaningful, low-obligation experiences. At the Benedictine Center, the Sisters' rhythm of daily prayer inspires unique possibilities for connection. Sisters and facilitators hold open a space, sometimes weekly, sometimes monthly. Women and men with any level of experience can then drop-in when it works works with their schedules and needs. Most […]
Guided Retreat for the Emerging Poet
With Victor Klimoski
Package Dates
Benedictine Center
Looking for a chance to spend time with your inner writer? This individualized retreat, guided by an experienced poet, provides space and support to explore ways of enriching your writing practice. Over the course of the 48 hours, you will have the opportunity to meet with writing coach Victor Klimoski to discuss your poems, the […]
Explore/Inquire About a Customized Personal Retreat
Open Dates
Benedictine Center
The experienced members of the Benedictine Center staff enjoy helping women and men like you find just the right blend of resources for their unique spiritual journeys. With a better sense of your preferences in terms of timing, special diets, accommodations and more, we will help you plan your retreat and gather any resources you might need, […]
Writing With A Mission [Morning]
With Victor Klimoski
June 9, 2020
Sometimes we talk ourselves out of writing. You know the inner conversation: I can’t do it, I am no good, I have no imagination, my brain is dead, who wants to hear what I have to say. This online workshop invites writers to articulate their mission as writers. What is it that grounds us in this practice of writing? With some introductory comments about writing, mission statements, and failed good intentions, Vic Klimoski will facilitate a conversation around what other writers say about their missions. Then working is small groups and individual, each participant will draft an initial mission statement.…
Writing With A Mission [Evening]
With Victor Klimoski
June 9, 2020
Sometimes we talk ourselves out of writing. You know the inner conversation: I can’t do it, I am no good, I have no imagination, my brain is dead, who wants to hear what I have to say. This online workshop invites writers to articulate their mission as writers. What is it that grounds us in this practice of writing? With some introductory comments about writing, mission statements, and failed good intentions, Vic Klimoski will facilitate a conversation around what other writers say about their missions. Then working is small groups and individual, each participant will draft an initial mission statement.…
SoulCollage®: A Contemplative and Creative Expression of Self [Online Gathering]
With Barbara Sutton
June 14, 2020
These days call us to communities of care and compassion. We have been on high alert! Take some time to engage your creative spirit. SoulCollage® will provide some space to play with images and allow the intuitive part of your mind and heart to come alive and creates a space for your ever-present soul wisdom to be seen and heard. This is for anyone who has the urge to playfully explore the spacious, creative quality within yourself and experience the gentle guidance and wisdom that resides there for you. Register at least a week in advance so you can receive…
Living With Uncertainty
With Eily Marlow and Kiely Todd Roska
June 24, 2020
Be patient toward all that is unsolved in your heart and try to love the questions themselves, like locked rooms and like books that are now written in a very foreign tongue. Do not now seek the answers, which cannot be given you because you would not be able to live them. And the point is, to live everything. Live the questions now. Perhaps you will then gradually, without noticing it, live along some distant day into the answer. ~Rainer Maria Rilke Our new reality is requiring us to awaken to the precariousness of life. In times of uncertainty, we…
Lean Times, Living Stories
With Diane Millis and Samuel Rahberg
October 8, 2020
Benedictine Center
When pressures and limitations seem to outweigh our sense of strength and possibility, how do leaders avoid becoming disheartened? By learning how to tell a more life-giving story. Narrative Theory suggests that the ongoing discipline of leadership requires crafting a more genuine story, one that is both rooted in the reality of the moment and expands our sense of mission. During tough times, our narratives often become rote. Therefore, it is all the more incumbent that we reflect upon the stories we are telling ourselves as our communities navigate the difficulties of transition, loss, and diminishment.
Tell Me True: Practicing Ways to Speak Truth with Robust Love
With Kiely Todd Roska and Eily Marlow
November 6, 2020
Benedictine Center
“God wants us to grow up, to know the whole truth and tell it in robust love” (Eph. 4: 15). We often struggle to have important conversations, not for lack of good intention, but because of imbalance. If we speak bluntly, we can be unnecessarily hurtful. If we speak indirectly, we avoid the heart of the matter. The most healthy and life-giving communication involves both candor and care. Join Kiely Todd Roska and Eily Marlow, sincere students and practitioners of trying to speak truth with love, for a day of practical insight and engaged learning. Explore tools and processes for…
School of Discernment
With Kathleen Cahalan
December 4 - 6, 2020
Benedictine Center
The School of Discernment is an opportunity to discern the voice of the Holy Spirit under the guidance of skilled teachers and listeners and with the benefit of wisdom from the monastic tradition. The framework includes a daily rhythm of prayer with the monastic community, sessions on the practice of discernment, reflection questions for quiet time, and one-on-one meetings. No one will be obligated to share publicly about the particulars of their own stories, but each will have the opportunity to do so as they choose. Spiritual directors will assist with the process of discernment and considering questions and insights…
School of Lectio Divina
With Kathleen Cahalan, S. Virginia Matter OSB, Kami Pohl, Tod Twist and Samuel Rahberg
March 19 - 24, 2021
Benedictine Center
The Benedictine Center of St. Paul’s Monastery is offering the School of Lectio Divina to adapt the ancient monastic riches of sustained lectio divina to contemporary people. Through an intensive retreat experience set in the rhythm of life at St. Paul’s Monastery, participants receive teaching about lectio, spend time meditating on a sacred text significant for them, have the opportunity for individual spiritual direction, and participate in reflective conversation with other participants. In addition, the Benedictine Center will provide a variety of on-going support activities and resources after the retreat to help participants make sustained lectio a central aspect of…