Retreats and Workshops

2022

DON BISSON ONLINE RETREAT

REGISTRATION

DATE

Jan 14, 2022 2:30 PM (PST) - Jan 16, 2022 12 PM

LOCATION

ONLINE

EVENT ORGANIZER

Mercy Center Burlingame

Shame and the Spiritual Life

Underlying feelings

of shame and guilt can be among the

greatest stumbling blocks to spiritual growth

and a deeper relationship with God.

This retreat will explore feelings

of shame and neurotic guilt

as they relate to the images of

God, self, and others

within the context of spiritual life and healing.

ONLINE ZOOM CONFERENCE

Session One Friday, January 14th will begin at 2:30 PT (5:30 ET )

Session Two Saturday, January 15th will begin at 9:00AM PT (12:00 noon ET)

Session Three Saturday there will be a lunch break then begin at 2:30 PT (5:30 ET

Session Four Sunday, January 16th will begin at 9:00 AM PT (12:00 noon ET)

Included in the retreat cost is a professionally recorded downloadable audio workshop by Don Bisson for you to listen to before the retreat, and keep for your own personal use. The audio retreat will be sent via Yes Now Productions, the exclusive distributor of Don's audio workshops and intensives.

Don Bisson, FMS is a spiritual director, trainer, and supervisor of directors, who is widely respected as a commentator and workshop leader on the inter-relationship of spirituality and psychology. A Marist brother based in New York, he has graduate degrees in liturgy, spirituality, and transpersonal psychology, and a D.Min. from the Pacific School of Religion in the area of Spiritual Direction and Jungian Psychology. For more information please visit his website:http://www.donbisson.com/

CONTACT

For further assistance, contact us at (650) 340-7474.

For more information visit: www.mercy-center.org

These are unprecedented times. If finances are an issue, please email us at mc@sistersofmercy.org for a learning grant discount code. We want to make sure our offerings are available to everyone.

This event is organized by

Mercy Center Burlingame

A ministry of the Sisters of Mercy of the Americas. We provide opportunities for people to become more attentive to the presence of the Divine in their lives and in the world, and then respond with care for the Earth and service to others. http://www.mercy-center.org/

Pandemic Reflection: Revolution

Donald Bisson, FMS edited by Hildegard Pleva May 2020

These weeks of lockdown have created for many of us the opportunity for deep reflection which has challenged the way we live and the way we perceive reality. As a spiritual director, listening to folks while experiencing the pandemic has clarified and also challenged many beliefs I have held to for a long time. These weeks of waiting, the slowed pace and isolation along with the inability to receive comfort from the usual rites of public grief reinforce the sense that our lives will be permanently changed. I believe the temptation issued by the evil one in our midst is to magically turn the clock back to pre-pandemic times, as if this has been a shady dream. Evil stagnates, freezes and results in rigid egocentricity. Change and transformation are of God, especially when I have not chosen them but had them foisted upon me by reality. The growing public demand, beyond all reason, is to return to normal is an echo of the tempter’ voice saying, “Don’t see the truth.” Obedience to this command brings us back to inflationary selves acting out in flag waving and cultic assemblies of adoring crowds. We are tired of struggle, failures of leadership, and thousands of innocent men and women dying in our midst. They declare, “So what, if we lose 2-3% of children who return to schools, we can’t afford to wait any longer!!!!! “

I have noticed that in spiritual direction, especially over a long period of time with a directee, that God is at work in the slow evolution taking place through daily prayer and fidelity to the emerging True Self. The change is so subtle that it is hardly recognizable to ourselves and others. Like a slow drip of grace, day by day we emerge out of ourselves in greater freedom. Our yearly retreat gives us a greater clarity as to the shifts that touch our souls and how to incorporate these shifts into our reality. In my practice everyone is experiencing some kind of breakthrough or even breakdown which I now refer to as inner revolutions projected into consciousness and radically upsetting the status quo. It is revolutionary when the ego has not made the choice, but rather, the ego submits and becomes its victim. This is “a harsh and dreadful love” which disrupts, disturbs and potentially creates a crisis in which the old world has vanished, sometimes in minutes. These personal revolutions eradicate what seems to be years of slow evolution now ushering us into a new world. It may be a call in the night announcing an accident, a doctor’s diagnosis of stage 4 cancer, a partner suddenly walking out or a descent into a depression without knowing its roots. I have heard accounts of an endless variety of revolutionary moments. It feels like a test from God in which the old God feels distant and unavailable. The fruits of a spiritual retreat now feel trite and inconsequential. Revolutions touch us all and the change ahead is unknown and feels impossible. Personally, I have had three such moments in my 71 years of life and now realize that this pandemic is initiating me into the fourth season of instability. But unlike the other great moments of personal change the whole world is experiencing this revolution at the same time; the people I live with, the community to which I belong, the city I live in, the society and church of which I am a member.

The revolution I am reflecting on is not simplistic or merely individual or political. I deeply experience this moment, dark yet numinous, as a call; a religious, spiritual and moral call to mature as a species. The call is universal and not uniquely American, though we have particular challenges at the moment. I am in contact with friends and colleagues around the world all locked down, who know victims of the virus and are adjusting to a radical new world of technology and distance learning. There is a need to articulate that the changes ahead have potential for conversion of heart, mind and spirit much deeper than mere adaptation to new technological demands. We cannot waste the potential of spiritual energy that is being released in the midst of all this suffering and loss. It must be channeled into a new way of being.

Easter is not merely an event in objective history. It happened two thousand years ago and it transformed a group of frightened men and women into an emerging charismatic community about to confront the Roman Empire. This is not the Easter of fuzzy bunnies and Easter egg hunts which our country has adopted as celebration of the spring equinox. The Easter of the past created community and martyrs of faith and an explosion of compensation for the greed, power and immorality of the empire. This force was a revolution which could not be capped and contained. The Easter event is still spiraling and speeding throughout the world where there is love, peace and joy in a community dedicated to the most vulnerable. We see in our midst the ongoing battle for power waged between the world of money, finance and oppression of the poor on one side and, on the other, the world of sacrifice and compassion present in our emergency rooms, food pantries and all those charitable acts which touch the heart and remind us of our humanity. The revolution is not in denying the evil but in celebrating and aligning our will with the Good. Jung said that in the face of evil we must use all of our ego strength to choose the Good and not succumb to the archetypal darkness exploding in our midst.

Lucifer means” light bearer”. The natural evil of the Covid19 virus is casting a beam of light on our collective darkness, our cruel histories and social injustices. The revolution of self, born in this time of pandemic, first looks at the reality and does not forget what is seen. The historical immoralities of the past are made clear and repeated before our very eyes in the present crisis. They are legion. The social conditions which have acerbated the crisis are now visible and manifest. Evil doubts the holocaust; evil hides the truth exposed. African Americas are disproportionally affected by the virus due to collective racism, underemployment, uneven health care and the kind of jobs which place them in harm’s way. The history of slavery is still here and the pandemic makes it clear once gain. Those fighting the reality of pandemic make present in our time the ugly racist minority carrying nooses, confederate flags and Nazi symbols. So called “good people” have become the embodiment of darkness, ignorance, anger and hatred, representing the underbelly of this country. We cannot allow these violent men with automatic rifles to take over and intimidate society, especially those who are most vulnerable. Four hundred years of history will repeat itself until there are amends and proper reconciliation. This movement will continue to spread into the next generation as a virus of the soul which is more damaging than any physical virus, harming both victims and victimizers souls.

The light bearer pandemic reveals the totally inadequate level of health care for a large number of our citizens. Pope Francis has articulated that health care is a human right not an arena for competition and generation of profit. He also proclaimed that building walls is sinful. The poor at the border are Christ amongst us. We see the results of income disparity and the immorality of corporate greed in forcing the poor to work in dangerous health situations without protection. Latin X families are caught in the bureaucratic battles for those who are legal and illegal in their family effort to care of the sick. Native Americans who have poor or no health facilities at all are dying at much higher rates than those in the overall population. Poor people of any color are pawns of society making minimum wages while serving on the front lines for our food security. Any old testament prophet would be screaming at those in power, accusing them of criminal treatment of the poor in the sight of God!

In our present revolution it must be the reign of God which takes over. Yet, we are far from fulfilling God’s vision. The conflict between the reign of God versus the values of the world are made clear in Mark: 6-29. The banquet of the world is Herod’s party where John the Baptist loses his life. It is the assembly of the powerful, the wealthy and those who compromise themselves in flattery and lust. Herod’s guests represent the “world” and the brand of values echoing in our experiences today. The status quo is the goal; preserved only by not disturbing the social order lest the freedom of the people be liberated. Collusion with Rome guarantees the status quo for the powerful and supreme control of their puppets. The prophet is silenced through violence. In contrast to that world, the second part of this Gospel passage reveals the presence of God in the person of Jesus and his work, the multiplication of the loaves and fish. Here we see the reign of God made manifest in Jesus’ compassionate gesture of multiplying a small amount of food into abundance, with baskets of leftovers. In God’s world there is an abundance when all gifts and resources are shared. Prayer, community and justice thrive in the space of the kingdom. There is joy, freedom, peace, equality and nurturance. Dorothy Day states this kind of revolution is “one of the heart”, a conversion to God’s world, God’s reign. The transformation brings a new way of seeing reality, a new conscious awareness of our interdependence and union in God’s sight. Political parties, both on the left and the right, are not totally representative of kingdom values. The gospel and God’s blessings are not one or the other.

It is the prophet who speaks to truth to power. For a political party to present itself as the sole true representative of the will of the Almighty is an abomination before God. Jesus is the only one who can say, “I am the way, the truth and the life”. I am totally distressed by those religious leaders who remain silent in the face of some of the most enormous moral issues ever brought before humanity. Their silence is tacit approval of the status quo and their lack of ethics will be our downfall. We cannot abandon our personal authentic religious freedom which allows us to bring Christ into all aspects of society.

For a short period of time in the 1960s Thomas Merton, the widely published Trappist monk, was gagged by his major superiors in speaking or writing publicly on political issues, which he saw as questions of morality. Yet, he continued to write, though only clandestinely, privately distributed essays which came to be known as the Cold War Letters. In those letters, he defined his vocation as a protest against war and political tyranny. Here is a quote that is very applicable to today: “It seems a little strange that we are so wildly exercised about the murder of an unborn child by abortion or even prevention of conception which is hardly murder and accept without a quandary the extermination of millions of helpless and innocent adults. One would certainly wish the Catholic position on nuclear war would be held with the same vehemence as its position on birth control. With the race troubles in the South one can see the beginnings of a Nazi mentality in the United States. There is a powerful alliance of business and military men who consider everyone who disagrees with them to be a socialist, a traitor and a spy. The atmosphere is not unlike what I remember of the Germany of 1932.” This statement is exactly what is happening in the present moment. A priest associate of mine says that if he speaks from the pulpit of any moral issue other than that of abortion, he is judged as being political. However, if he should promote voting on the basis of the abortion issue alone, he would be judged as being religious and not political. What has happened to the beatitudes, the good Samaritan, the prodigal son, the woman at the well...? These gospel images are rendered invisible by a myopic view of morality and conscience. Pope Francis is being dismissed as merely a socialist reformer because he welcomes the homeless and the immigrant into Vatican City. Has pomp and power once again replaced the poor carpenter from Nazareth?

I have lost all patience with religious leaders and those in the pews who identify themselves as pro-life while so many already out of the womb are in danger. Figures like Cardinal Bernardin and Pope Francis present the full scope of moral leadership which speaks when walls are built at our borders, when the Environmental Protection Agency is systematically unraveled and when the evil of global warming is denied. I have committed myself to respond in place of those who remain silent. In the future when abortion is presented in a homily as the only life issue to vote on or when there is no reference the process of election discernment, I will either speak to the homilist after Mass, or write a letter in protest to the rectory or diocese. The gospel is held hostage but we should not be silent in the presence of injustices of the poor, the sin of racism, rejection of the least favored, and growing numbers of those on death row, etc. The underlying roots of unwanted pregnancies must also be faced and a program of assistance created for women in poverty and despair, suffering sexual abuse and income inequality. Such a program would offer access to birth control, prenatal and pediatric care, and support in all aspects of childrearing and child care. Beyond the issue of abortion, the lives of all women and the lives of their children, especially those in poverty, are at stake.

Before the pandemic I saw a very moving and disturbing film called the “Hidden Life”. It is the story of a simple famer who underwent a profound conversion experience as he entered marriage and family life. Franz Jagerstatter prayed dangerously. He seriously discerned that his faith and the gospel could not be reconciled with the Nazi Party. He was not looking for martyrdom, but he could not compromise his faith and his stance before God. Even if others could do so, he could not. The church had taught him well, but they could not follow his example. For institutional security, churches compromised their allegiance to Christ for the Fatherland. As a lay Franciscan, he lived the passion of Jesus and Francis. Too often the institution condemns and abandons those who, only many years later, are held up as models of faith and canonized. Thousands of lay people, priests, ministers and religious, including Franz Jagerstatter, paid the price of martyrdom, while the containers of faith, our very religious institutions, were unable to challenge the underpinnings of the system. We seem to be in the same situation.

Cardinal Spellman, then archbishop of the diocese of New York demanded that Dorothy Day, servant of the poor, remove the term “Catholic” from the masthead of her movement’s newspaper, “The Catholic Worker”. She refused in obedience to God. But she would not have wanted to be regarded as a saint since she rejected anything that would differentiate or separate her for the poor and their needs. How do ministers and priests as well as those who sit in the pews continue to teach the essence of the Gospel in season and out of season? The Letter of James 1:22-24 states, “Be doers of the word and not hearers only. Otherwise you are deceiving yourself. For anyone who hears the word, but does not carry it out is a like a man who looks at his face in a mirror and after observing himself goes away and immediately forgets what he looks like.” We must not forget who we are as we stand before the challenges of today. We must ask the question, “Where can we no longer compromise?” There must be a moment for all of us to raise our voices.

The isolation and distancing of the worldwide pandemic is causing both interior and exterior revolutions. As a spiritual director, supervisor and mentor to many women and men, I am witnessing the stirring of a revolution of heart which needs expression in the outer world. Listed here are 10 general observations about the phenomenon that I am witnessing; that I see, feel and acknowledge. The spirit is moving mysteriously in the depths so this is merely an attempt to put some language to a movement of the soul observe in these times.

1. Revolution erupts from a holy space beyond the old securities of the ego. The reality of loss of power, experience of anxiety, pain, prescribed personal limitations and the discomforting sense that we are moving into the unknown are initiating us into something new.

2. Revolution is the collapse of a view of life which had become very comfortable but now seems impossible to return to. Who and what is drawing me into other choices and a new pattern in life?

3. Revolutionary times demand a psycho -spiritual response to an unknown meaning and untrustworthy future. We must choose life under radically different circumstances detached from the outcome.

4. The old agendas and plans are shelved and the new question is where am I being led and by whom?

5. When revolution takes place it is a shock to realize how well conceived my life had been and how little I knew or wanted to know about the realities of life and its consequences.

6. Revolution ends the old vision of the “shoulds” in life. Accepting change gives meaning and purpose for a new vision.

7. Revolution allows us to see our old addictions and coping mechanisms and the opportunity now to let them go for a new life.

8. Revolution and prophesy are interrelated when a person can no longer live in a trance of collective sleep. As disturbing as it may seem, our eyes can no longer be closed to the truth before us.

9. The pandemic has awakened us to the human cry for help around us and everywhere on the planet.

10. Illness and death have reawakened our hope and faith in eternal life, the spirit which transcends the present moment and propels it into true life beyond.

However, religion itself can be a road block for growing in consciousness or a vehicle to awakening. It can abdicate its responsibility to stand with the “widow and the orphan” as defined in the scriptures or be a witness of the kingdom. It rallies too frequently to the defense of amoral political positions in order to assure its welfare in the name of religious liberty, a fearful concern emerging from the least consciously aware in our society. As racism, bigotry and prejudice spread as a moral virus among us, religious institutions worry too often about institutional religious liberty. But where are the religious voices speaking for the abandoned in our society? When religious leaders publicly connect with the party in office in a planned effort to deliver Catholic voters or those of other denominations, we in the pews must revolt. We would express horror at such collusion by revolting against such manipulation, a revolt born of a new ethical consciousness. The gospel is being scandalously mocked by powerful forces of money and ignorance. This November does not bring merely an election; it brings a moral test, a call to revolt against the lies which are uttered daily and to stand in conscience not political allegiances. The constant presentation of truth as being a relative rather than an absolute concept must be challenged. Our disaffection with fascism must be registered in response to all attempts to suppress the vote, which is designed to permit permanent possession of power in the hands of a few. These movements, unaligned with Gospel values as they are, must be considered a dangerous moral problem as it spreads throughout the world. These are dangerous times.

In 1948, Erich Neumann challenged the world by declaring that a new ethic was necessary for the emerging global community. The old manner of containing the shadow in religious institutions had failed drastically in the Holocaust and the advent of nuclear warfare threatened a similar disaster. The required new ethic would demand a growth in consciousness which would not merely abide in superficial goodness. I am constantly shocked by ‘good people’ who can, nonetheless, choose to support amoral governmental regulation and legislation and remain blasé́ about decisions motivated only by concern for stock market ratings.

Since the end of World War II there has been no greater call for unity. The pandemic has issued the call for unity, the requirement to come together for a common goal and purpose. Yet while we are bombarded with the propaganda of our greatness, we reject signed treaties, alienate our allies and withdraw from global health organizations in the midst of the greatest health crisis in a century. Some protect their goodness as in a secret compartment untouched by the suffering of those at the margins in numbers outpacing general rate of poverty. Again, Lucifer’s evil light points to the hardness of heart of good folks who are asleep. What will wake up the masses? The word “good” has been toxified when it is identified with gun totting angry white men and women sporting idolatry of white privilege and a notion of liberty which is far from God and consciousness. How will this new era force us to face the dawn with a new way of understanding ourselves as a global community with God? How do we allow the mystical traditions of all religions to speak to the radical interdependence of life with God? The supposed ‘good’ are now indefensible before the new ethic. Profound shadow work is necessary to awaken the most powerful country from its addictions to inflation and lies. Most people in the world now see us as the greatest danger to humanity. We have fallen from the height, no longer a light on the mountain top, but rather, a third-rate nation of incompetents trying to save money not lives, to save the stock market, cavalierly dismissing tens of thousands of deaths as mere collateral damage in favor of the economy. Will we too need a new ethic after the pandemic to guide our reorientation of values and lifestyles? How are our unconscious projections of shadows of politicians effecting our collective souls? How inflated are we in our view of conscience as pure and innocent? How are the powerful identifying themselves as victims while the true victims continue to suffer from social structures designed to keep them poor? How much pain do we have to endure before we wake up and push aside the perpetrators of distortions? How are conspiracy theories of division actually expressions of corporate sin?

For decades theologians, psychologists, and scientists have studied and discussed social transformation. Three specific areas of transformation have slowly appeared out of this movement bringing us to a new understanding of our reality. The pandemic is now forcing these slow-moving reflections and their conclusions into revolutionary high gear.

Revolutionary Religious thinking

We are the largest fundamentalist Christian country in the world. This is not a neutral fact. Scriptural fundamentalists support an anti-soul view of the world. The nature of this mentality leads to a view of reality which denies scientific findings and favors alternative facts in political discourse. Their beliefs undermine the movements of God being revealed by the sciences in our time. The mysterious movements of evolution and the universe story are the new mythology, the new story, powerfully enhancing our experience of God in the 21^st century. The new story challenges the biblical view of humankind as holding total power over nature rather than existing in concert with all nature. Denial of global warming fits into our inflated view which allows abuse of nature. The pandemic itself is a reminder that we are in and of nature, subject to its laws therefore, at times, being its victim who has no control at all. The rule of human domination is derived from literal interpretation of not only sacred texts but also the documents which serve as the foundation of our democratic system, particularly the second amendment to the Constitution. As Jesus so aptly expressed, the law is created for mankind, not mankind for the law. When mass killings affect New Zealand and Canada via individual possession of destructive killing machines, within days the country comes to grips with the evil done by passing legislation prohibiting ownership of military style weapons. The fundamentalist mentality says we cannot change the written constitutional word just as they would not change a word of sacred text. There is a willingness to sacrifice thousands of dead bodies yearly for the sake of literal obedience to an outrageous God, an interpretation that our forefathers could never imagine.

Our medieval notions of God must be met with a revolutionary response. The secular world will not confront the evil but real spiritual men and women must speak out against a bizarre marriage between religion and violence. In many denominations new ministers are formed to regurgitate old formulas and the churches are emptying. Seminarians in their 20’s are preparing for a 1950’s church they never knew and seekers of God are leaving in droves. We must revolutionize or die by our lack of relevance in the eyes of the next generation of young people who are intelligently inquisitive and deserve more. Clericalism like political fascism is an attempt to control by intimidation an ideology which ignores the truth.

Revolutionary compassion

The death and suffering around us is an invitation to feel and be touched by the experience of loss and grief. Death initiates us to our fundamental smallness within the great story. Compassion is the invitation for the world to stop the objectification of loss in the numbness created by unbelievable numbers of victims. The revolution proposed here is one of compassion in which emotional connection and empathy are allowed expression. Those in revolt must display a warmth of spirit and possession of true soul, while no longer holding on to productivity as the supreme goal of policy. As we attempt to enter the new normal, we must hold in tension both the health of the people and the need to return to work. The resulting balance is lost on fringe far right voices, who through the safety and comfort of the internet, wish to seduce the masses to spend, shop and quickly recover for the sake of the political and economic expediency. People are considered pawns, especially those dwelling at the lowest rung of society, and therefore expendable. Their fate is to fulfil the requirement of society to bounce back at any cost. Consistent with the seamless garment position in Catholic ethics regarding the right to life, the dignity of human life must be honored no matter the age of the patient. This calls for a level of compassion necessary to know and feel the experience of others, to take it seriously and serve it passionately. We must be moved by human stories and not allow the statistics of lists and graphs to be distorted to support a full reopening of society. This must be a dance for competent physicians and scientists in partnership with thoughtful leaders who can hold the tension between two goods simultaneously and cannot drop one in the favor of another. Society must return with more compassion and feelings for all those who have been affected most.

Revolutionary commitment to truth

Truth is really a mystery as well as allegiance to facts. I have never encountered a system so dominated by blatant lies as we have seen in recent years. Fascists of history were creative geniuses weaving half-truths, encouraging existing prejudices, injecting a nuance of doubt in regard to authority, and mixing concoctions of distortions and hatred. Conspiracies are created daily as cover and distraction for believers to willing accept all without question. The cult of lies has ascended to the highest places of honor rendering followers frozen and cold to the truth. An alternative universe has been created in which reality is subjectively recreated each day. Truth is arbitrary and totally neglected. It is crazy making in its power to confuse. We know that fascist systems around the world are helping each other to distort reality. The Gospel has become a pawn in the mix. The saying that even Satan can quote scripture is corroborated daily. In this environment of alternative facts and distortion of reality, the revolution in discussion here is a revolution of Truth, a revolution of Jesus. He not only possessed the truth but in the Gospel of John he is identified as being the Truth. “I am the way, the truth and the life. When a group chooses to pursue a program of continual truth mitigation, it does so in collusion with darkness itself. I now believe that the evil one who lives in chaos, division and hatred has taken up residence among and around us. This is even scary to admit to myself. This is not a political choice. It is primarily a moral and spiritual one. Political parties are imperfect human creations; in their weakness they chose what is considered a lesser evil in order to maintain in control at this time. Since I am in contact with people from all over the world, who worry about us and worry about the planet because of us, this upcoming election is for me the one of the greatest moral struggles of my life. I will do anything to participate in this change for the sake of all. God will not magically solve this; our consciences must be activated for real change to take place and to choose life.

Sometimes a passage from scripture heard many times comes providentially to the fore with new meaning and purpose. Jesus, in Matthew 23: 29-32 challenges the hypocrisy of the Pharisees. ” Woe to you scribes and Pharisees. Hypocrites. You build the tombs of prophets and decorate the monuments of the righteous and you say If we had lived in the days of our fathers, we wouldn’t have taken part with them in the shedding the prophet’s blood. You testify against yourselves that you are sons of those who murdered the prophets. Fill up then the measure of your father’s sins….” Jesus must have been so frustrated with the blindness around him and the endless cycles of treachery in contrast to his idealism. Is it not now the time, in this revolutionary moment, to stop the horrific cycle of glorifying voices from the past and take this present moment seriously? So many directees have come to see that their whole lives have been prepared for this moment. Let us live into it with our eyes wide open.

Reflections on the Pandemic

Bro. Don Bisson April 2020

For four years I have been traveling around the world trying to awaken folks about the dangerous times we are living in, through political lenses, religious crises, and economic and environmental issues which are all spiritual and moral issues. These years of presentations, taping and guiding individuals as well as systems has now come to a crescendo in the present worldwide pandemic. I feel I need to address this moment, which we must prepare for the consequences of the radical changes ahead. We are on the brink of either addressing, denying or wanting to withdraw into regression.

The first statement I want to make is, this collective crisis now imposes itself on every person in our society and the way we come together and grow through this may create either a future in greater awakening or in fear and projection. The collective now forces us to recognize the interpersonal relationships in our lives and also the intrapsychic issues within all of us which triggers our responses. We cannot fall asleep; the temptation to withdraw into fancy is deadly. We need to touch into the inner hero who stays awake not only for ourselves but for others. Holy Week and Passover are fast approaching with the pandemic exploding in our midst in New York. God calls us to remain awake with him this holy week. To stay with the suffering is the challenge. Those who are attached to the ego and its ridiculous need to remain secure must face life itself as the pandemic rips away all our illusions.

I will reflect on two different levels of response the first being on an individual level and then the greater collective level which may need a long time to integrate and shift our human consciousness.

Individual Level:

1. In times of crisis the reptilian part of the brain automatically awakens with alarm and our first response is fight or flight. The survival of the fittest is tested. Take no one with you. Fear, panic, anxiety, and hoarding set, as well as seeing the other as the enemy. We freeze before our choices and toilet paper becomes a symbol of our needs not being met. Guns are selling at 300% of normal, as if the virus can be fought by a militia in arms. Our primitive and ancient conditioning must be raised to a higher level. We are called to truly remember our core and the ‘blessed assurance that we have known many times before. Who do we trust at this moment? Where is our real knowledge? To whom shall we go? Our contemplative practices have informed us of the truth of who is our rock and foundation. Lean into this energy beyond ourselves and the craziness of the world. Where do I choose to go -- to the most primitive or to the awakening Self? As my ego falters in energy, where is my strength?

2. Each of us has cracks in our personality, the weak link which is always there, but is generally hidden by the illusion of control. When locked up together for any length of time without the escapes of ordinary times, we can blow up and under extreme cases do violence to one another. We need to recognize and name our vulnerabilities and seek others understanding and forgiveness for stepping on each other’s last nerve. What normally does not bother us is accelerated by the intensity of close living without an exit or a time frame without an end. Patience is a form of conscious suffering. I choose to accept my limited self and those of others. This is so important in families who are under financial stress, children with needs being overwhelmed. We can suffer the cost of patience, or suffer the conflicts and wounding to each other. One form of suffering provides life the other harm and violation. Which do I choose daily? I am reminded of The Diary of Anne Frank and her description of the struggles of fear and extreme limits of space and food to survive months into years. We have only a small window into this. Today, when millions live in makeshift tents in the cold in Syrian camps, can I learn some compassion at this moment of stress?

3. Part of this crack in personality is the upheaval of my addiction of choice. Under stress those who struggle with addictions (all of us) find the lack of footing brings back the illusion of escape and immediate consolation. The liquor stores are open under the pandemic. Let us drown out our fears and not stay with reality in drinks, food (ice cream my favorite), cleaning, movies, talking etc. We are tempted to escape but don’t numb the opportunity to grow in maturity. Our weakest link emerges and we need to express our real feelings, stay with ambiguity rather than immediate withdrawal and resolution. Past memories and traumas will arise from our depths. The memory is in our DNA. We need to comfort and hold the distressed self with reassurance and God’s compassion. My Jewish friends and directees will suffer once again the collective fear of persecution. Those who suffered abuse will remember in deeper ways the traumas of the past. Meditation, prayer, journaling, and human connection can help salve the pain. To simply be retraumatized is not of God. God is somehow not the cause, but dwells in the mystery revealing itself in nature. Reach out to others who will create a bond of truth not an action of illusion, isolation and false control. Which are you called to choose? The first three steps of recovery are here: being out of control, the reality of a higher power and surrender to this power. Where is the battle? Can we let God win?

4. Our normal noise of the Bronx has been quieted by the shutdown of non-essentials in the neighborhood, with less trucks and buses; but now the sounds are of ambulances going to Montefiore hospital a few blocks away. Each day there is the count of the dead as if it was a bizarre tally. Hundreds and now thousands of our fellow citizens are dying. The illusions of physical immortality are being wiped out every minute. The humility that I am now in the elderly category of high-risk individuals breaks down the illusion that 70 was the new 50! 70 is 70 and vulnerable. The harness of reality is here. Death is surrounding us and we cannot deny our vulnerability or that we are all terminal; it is a matter of when. Will this awaken us to the quality of life with greater intensity of love or will it depress us and take away our energy? The ego must face its terminal space. Is this the hour and moment to do this heroic act? Will this give us the energy to be our True Self before we leave this world?

5. This is a time to implement and act upon all that I know, and have learnt in the past and use the tools which I have in my tool box. The games are over and the serious truths of our identities are at our disposal. My shadow may erupt and I have to decide do I go into denial, project it upon other folks I live with, or split it off. Do I integrate this obvious truth consciously in my life? This is the time to practice! My typology informs me how as an introvert I enjoy the quiet and alone during these times but how I am not in control of my future and how this disturbs me as a J. Do I have empathy for the poor extrovert caught alone, or the sensate washing the floor four times a day! Can I see how my Enneagram number in the pandemic can lure me into being engulfed by sorrow or try to find an escape in play while others suffer? Our coping selves show up. Can we learn to move towards health or do we surrender to despair the ultimate logic of mere survival? It’s time to take my journals out and implement the insights into behavior not based on feelings but facts. We are all called to put our adult pants on…and even to fake it till we make it! The Pandemic is forcing us to show up and pass the test ready or not. History will not wait for another time. It is now.

6. Is this an opportunity to evaluate what really matters to me? We live with economic instability and a world recession or depression is ahead. With what attitude do I choose to face this unknown future? What are my core values of conscience which are greater than possessions and titles and personas? This may be a time to take stock of everything and what are non-essentials and what are essentials to body and spirit. Under these conditions, we may come to appreciate the relationships that are vulnerable and precious. During times like this we see those who are truly heroic like the staff of our hospitals, risking their lives on the front line for all of us. The Depression and the World War II impacted a whole generation. It changed how we saw the world. Some of our leaders do not want us to change but to return immediately to the ordinary. This is impossible. How is this changing your perspective of yourself, your loved ones and world you live in? Is this a conversion of heart during this Lenten season? The powers who don’t want us to grow will attempt us to return to normal. Is this tempting you? Or are you ready to help the planet to move in a new direction? Are you ready to admit that things will be permanently changed and our choices will either make it better or worse?

Collective level:

1. We are now leaving Chronos time and we are entering Kairos time. The ordinary repetitive time of daily life has been transposed into a liminal space for transformation. We cannot put this moment away, no matter who tries to do it. This is God’s time to see reality on a different level of intensity and awareness. We are asked to let go of everything, weddings, funerals, celebrations holidays and holydays. This has not been before and may or may not happen again. This shock wakes us from our slumber, of religion as usual. There is more prayer going on, wrestling with God images and our understanding of life around us. We are all living something together, a common experience of life. We must wait. We are not fully in control and though we don’t like it: this is true all the time under our illusion of control. Religion and its pietistic responses cannot survive the testing period of deep transformation. It is the experience of God now which must come forward, stripped of security. Does Kairos time demand something from you? Are you being called to a different trust in life and death during our Passover and Easter season? The God who awakens in disturbances is here. Can we greet the mystery? Mystics in the past have done so, are we called to the 21^st century responses to the mystery? What is our vocation at this moment?

2. The world in the 1960’s got a view of the world from space, a unified reality without borders and walls; the earth is one organism working as a whole. For 20 years scientist have been warning us of a potential global crisis, and men of power and money have refused to listen as the speed of disaster is growing yearly and all the signs are here. This pandemic is a warning to all of us that power of money, guns, Wall Street are impotent before a microbe that can destroy our economy as a silent invisible killer. We are one world. Will our consciousness of making America Great Again be silenced in the face of potential losses in both blue and red states? Do we need to revolt with all our might to ignorance and the refusal to listen to nature and its messages to us? We are nature and cannot stand above it in our hubris, defiant egoic arrogance, and fierce neglect. As we neglect the earth we neglect ourselves. We must learn to do this now before it is too late. Radical changes are necessary for the sake of the young and their families and lives 30 years from now. Will you stand for the future even if you have little time left on the planet? Are you passionate for life itself and the most prolife fight for dignity of all life, not only human life?

3. Our deepest one-sided shadow is coming forward as a nation. From Charlottesville and the border crisis to accepting 100,000 deaths as a form of collateral damage to extreme incompetency is beyond words. Our illusion of American exceptionalism has been exposed as the sham it is right now. We have many gifts, but right now we are lambs to the slaughter of a harsh system of injustice. We admire and canonize those who are totally independent. What a complete illusion this pandemic has exposed! The clerk in the grocery store, the immigrants picking our food, the volunteers in our hospitals are all essential to a functioning society. We are radically interdependent. No conspiracy theory can suppress this truth. The age of alternative facts must end. Truth does make a difference and competency and science is not the “deep state” but our collective God driven knowledge and wisdom. Lies, manipulation and fear mongers on talk radio must be identified as antiheroes. The true heroes are those who show up in danger, risk their lives, and make their wills to respond to the urgency of the moment in service of others. These people deserve the medals of freedom, not an arrogant, divisive, misogynist. We need to be more discerning in who we reward with true gratitude for service, otherwise, we cheapen the real heroes in the face of antiheros. Are you willing to enter into discernment over and over again to stay with the truth, no matter how costly? During his passion, Jesus has a dialogue with a puppet authority on the nature of truth. Truth is not based on power and money. How do I realign myself daily in Christ who is the Way, the Truth and the Life?

4. We are recognizing the underbelly of a divided society; one with the best health care in the world and the other, vulnerable to this pandemic, without preventative medicine. How is it that so many folks in our rural counties and our cities, have very high cases of asthma, obesity, and diabetes? As the world responds to the crisis, we will emerge as the least prepared developed nation, and have the most cases and the most deaths. The truth will be known of how terrible we treat people and have refused to see health as the human right of a citizen. Half the country does not have $500 in reserves while the other half worries about the stock market. Our greed and selfishness are made real for the world. We have this image of ourselves as being so generous, but that is not our present reality. To stop a pandemic in another country not only helps them but protects us. Small minded and ignorant, we use our resources in a gluttonous way and then pay the price. This shadow has a bright light fixed on it at the moment. We cannot cover it over with flag waving patriotism which hides a dark reality. Some have actually advocated those over 50 sacrifice their lives for the economy. These “money martyrs” advocate others, and not themselves, for the ultimate sacrifice. We have real martyrs in the pandemic throughout the world. The 55 chaplains in Italy who have died and the nurses and doctors infected daily are the true martyrs. The cult of money and its equation with American values is a scandal and a moral plague throughout our land. We need to shout from the hilltops the lies that are being proposed from the fascist right. These are now approaching the atrocities from previous generations. This is a materialist and secular interpretation which is verging on evil. How do we detox from the evil that is surrounding us? How do we reach out to God pleading for light in this darkness which wants us to move to despair? With whom do we align? Christ also said he came to bring the sword of discrimination between good and evil. Are we willing to stand for this?

5. Leadership in times of crisis matters. This has never been so clear as the present moment. When a malignant narcissist is in change, it is impossible to make decisions for the common good of the whole country and the world. Ratings, money, profits and self-interest over-ride preparation and empathy for people. There is a total lack of any ability to accept personal responsibilities for mistakes. The enemy is other than me, the fake news, the other party, the corporations, the doctors. It is a perfect response like a perfect call to Ukraine. The selfishness is so massive a worldwide pandemic cannot break into it. A young black reporter is a threat, but the collapse of the health system is not. Rich people in the past had a sense of duty and privilege to the less fortunate. Today we have a self-serving cult for the few. Morality has collapsed. Conscience is under fire. The need to flatter, grovel at the feet of power for supplies and service to the weak is a scandal. We need to support true leadership among us in the areas of politics, religion, economics and social needs. Millions are suffering but they are all dispensable; the money people must make their profits. We need leaders from around the world who are willing to take on the irrational skeptics and hate filled racists emerging. Can the pandemic help us to see clearly and forcefully the right and good? Can we unite with confidence that the evil being done is not personal but archetypal, influencing the choices of the worldly? Holy week is coming soon. Most of us will not be able to celebrate together the holy mysteries of suffering, death and resurrection. This may mean that in the silence and quiet of these moments, we actually live into these mysteries in a whole new way. How do we surrender to a higher good in the face of transpersonal evil?

6. Lastly, many directees have mentioned to me a felt sense of a call, a synchronicity that they are alive at this moment for a purpose. Collective consciousness increases with the multiplicity of individuals called to wake up. How many mystics are in our midst waiting to blossom forth for the sake of the whole? The lighting of the Easter candle is the real sign of this reality. Christ’s resurrection then lights the way for all of us to see more clearly and love more fully. We must communicate that love and reality to create new contemplative communities of faith and experience. Jung said that these communities are the only hope in a dark world. He wrote this in 1942 in the darkest moment of the second World War. We need to take that advice on a whole new level to enact a vision in reality.

This has been my life’s work and I feel it passionately at this moment. We do not need presidential optimism based on false reality; we need transpersonal hope from the depths of our souls. Love, prayer, action -- the inner and the outer must come together. The collective crisis is inviting us to new ways of being together in interpersonal relationships and to awaken the intra-psychic reality of union with the Divine, the highest goal of every person on earth.

In conclusion, please feel free to share these thoughts with others and to check out https://www.yesnowproductions.com

for many topics which might assist the conversation. May this time of prayer, coming in days be a passionate turn towards the Light.

It’s time to move fast; there is no time to lose. The urgency for the kingdom of God birthing around us and in us is here. Let us have the courage to face the challenge as our sisters and brothers before us throughout the ages. The communion of saints both here and in heaven are wrapped in Divine Love.

Spring 2020

RETREATS 2020

St. Catherine of Siena: Our Call to the Mystic and Prophetic

Friday, 19 June – Sunday, 21 June 2020

Anyone called to minister to others through religious structures or spiritual ministries must hold both the mystic and prophetic Voices. We are in the midst of profound changes. Vocation calls us to both inner transformation and outer awakening. The retreat will be through Jungian-Christian lenses and will explore Catherine of Siena as an example of mysticism and prophecy.

Suggested Donation: $305-

Location:

HOLY CROSS MONASTERY

1615 Route 9W

Hyde Park, NY 12538

Contact and Registration:

Lori Callaway, Guest House Manager

Email: guesthouse@hcmnet.org

Phone: 845 384 6660, ext. 1

Previous 2019 Events (dates in red indicate the event is finished):

December 28th (Friday) 2018 - January 1st (Tuesday), 2019

OUR UNCONDITIONAL YES!

These silent, contemplative days will be a time of pondering, like Mary, a new dawn of Divine Dwelling among us, and our part, our unconditional “Yes” to uphold as sacred the whole of creation.

Year-End Silent Retreat

Location:

Mercy Center Auburn

535 Sacramento Street

Auburn CA 95603

Contact and Registration:

Phone: (530) 887 - 2019 (Call for waitlist information)

MOVING BEYOND NEW YEAR RESOLUTIONS TO AUTHENTIC TRANSFORMATION

Every January we make resolutions for weight loss, exercise programs, and control over our addictions of choice. During this weekend retreat we will attempt to in silence, input, prayer and conversation to discern authentic transformation rather than ego adaptation.

January 5th (Saturday), 2019 9:30 am - January 6th (Sunday) concludes with lunch

(registration 8:00 to 9:00 am Saturday)

Fee: $195 Overnight. $120 Commuter.

Location:

Mercy Center 

2300 Adeline Drive , Burlingame, California 94010

Contact and Registration:

Phone: (650) 340 - 7474

Website: www.mercy-center.org

E-mail:mc@mercywmw.org

JUNGIAN TOOLS FOR SPIRITUAL GROWTH

Swiss psychiatrist and psychoanalyst, Carl Jung, has left a permanent mark on our contemporary spirituality. In this workshop, Don Bisson, FMS, who is internationally recognized for his lectures, workshops, and retreats on the interrelationship of Christian spirituality and Jungian psychology, will focus on several key areas of Jungian Tools in spiritual growth including: Typology, the Shadow, Dreams, the True Self, and Discernment.

January 12th (Saturday), 2019 9:30 am - 3:30 pm

Fee: $75 non refundable registration

Walk ins are welcome!

Option 1: Bag lunch and coffee/tea provided

Option 2: Purchase lunch for an additional $13 but must register by January 5th.

Location:

Mercy Center 

2300 Adeline Drive , Burlingame, California 94010

Contact and Registration:

Phone: (650) 340 - 7474

Website: www.mercy-center.org

E-mail:  mc@mercywmw.org

HOLY IMPATIENCE: THE CALL TO RESISTANCE

Patience is a virtue we need in our society today, but it is important not to allow your patience to make you passive in the face of injustice. There are times when impatience at cruelty to the oppressed motivates us to active resistance. This workshop will look at holy impatience and the saints who sacrificed their lives in confrontation of collective evil.

January 13th (Sunday), 2019 9:30 am -3:30 pm

Fee: $75 non refundable registration

Walk ins are welcome!

Option 1: Bag lunch and coffee/tea provided

Option 2: Purchase lunch for an additional $13 but must register by January 5th.

Location:

Mercy Center 

2300 Adeline Drive , Burlingame, California 94010

Contact and Registration:

Phone: (650) 340 - 7474

Website: www.mercy-center.org

E-mail:  mc@mercywmw.org

MARIANDALE WORKSHOPS (4 Saturday Workshop Series)

Attend any or all of these four individual Saturday workshops. See details below for registration details.

First Semester:

October 6 (Saturday), 2018

Holy Impatience: call to Resistance

Patience may be a virtue, but there are times when impatience at injustice and cruelty to the oppressed must be actively resisted. This workshop will look at holy impatience and the saints who scarified their lives in confrontation to collective evil.

December 8 (Saturday), 2018

Christ the Refugee–concluded

In today's climate of anti immigrant and anti refugee rhetoric, we remember that the Holy Family were refugees in search of safety from violence for the Christ child. This advent let us meditate on the Christ child as refugee and apply this to our world today.

Second Semester:

March 2nd (Saturday), 2019 Cancelled due to Snow

The Gospels: Journey towards the Common Good

The gospels draw us to go beyond my own personal needs and ask the question of the larger good of society. In an age of secular narcissism, how do we recapture the gospel mandate to the poor and marginalized in the gospel of justice? The day will have input, dialogue and challenge to action.

THE MYSTICS OF PEACE AND JUSTICE

April 27 (Saturday), 2019

The mystics, those transformed by love, are men and women who challenge us to live differently in the world through kingdom values of peace, justice and love. Ignatius, Francis, Catherine of Siena, Hildegard of Bingen will be our models to emulate in both prayer and action.

Location:

Mariandale Retreat and Conference Center  

299 North Highland Avenue , Ossining, NY 10562

Contact and Registration:

Phone: (914) 941 - 4455

Website: www.mariandale.org

LENTEN RETREAT: THE PSYCHOLOGY & SPIRITUALITY OF EVIL

Jungian psychology has many beneficial insights into the nature of evil from a human level. These days it is too easily used and projected on one another. This weekend of prayer and reflection will look at the mystery of evil within myself and the power it has over the world. Through Christian lenses we will look at the spirituality of evil in our lives.

March 15th (Friday,) 2019 - March 17th (Sunday) 2019

Fee: $230.00

Location:

Linwood Spiritual Center 

50 Linwood Road, Rhinebeck, New York 12572

Contact and Registration:

Phone: (845) 876 – 4178

Website: www.linwoodspiritual.org

CONFRONTING THE DARK NIGHT & JOURNEYING TOWARD HOPE

April 12th (Friday,) 2019 7:00 pm -April 14th (Sunday) 1:00 pm

We live in a time of tremendous upheaval. This phenomena of the rising expression of hate speech and unconscious verbal content in our public life is very disturbing. Our response will determine whether this current eruption of darkness will bring about expanded consciousness or set loose great destructions in our world. Join us in exploring these living dynamics and the kind of authentic, transpersonal hope that is available to us as an imperishable resource for times like these.

Overnight Offering: $225 Includes 2 breakfasts, 2 lunches, 1 supper

Commuter Offering: $175 Includes 2 lunches, 1 supper

$50 NON-REFUNDABLE DEPOSIT REQUIRED BY APRIL 5TH

Location:

Shalom Spirituality Center

1001 Davis Street

Dubuque, Iowa 52001

Contact and Registration:

Phone: (563) 582-3592

Website: www.ShalomRetreat.org

JUNGIAN TOOLS FOR SPIRITUAL GROWTH

April 25th (Thursday) 2019 9:30 am –3:30 pm

Special Fee: $25 (lunch included)

Location:

Linwood Spiritual Center 

50 Linwood Road, Rhinebeck, New York 12572

Contact and Registration:

Phone: (845) 876 – 4178

Website: www.linwoodspiritual.org

HEALING THE HOLE OF THE HEART: THE MYSTIC JOURNEY

Professional Enrichment for Spiritual Directors, Chaplains, and Pastoral Ministers

The human condition is both blessed and broken. Each soul carries within it a hole, a “Love Wound” which is never totally resolved. But the healing process ultimately becomes the source to God and the true self. This seminar expresses the integration of healing, spiritual practice, woundedness and spiritual transformation with the Heart of God.

May 4th (Saturday), 2019 9:00 am – 3:30 pm, Conference and Lunch

Fee: General Admission $60; Religious & Clergy $45; Students $15; Continuing Education Credit Available

Location:

Daylesford Abbey

220 South Valley Road, Paoli, PA 19301

Contact and Registration:

Phone: (610) 647-2530 ext. 133

Website: www.daylesfordabbey.org

2019 Retreats and Workshops:

UPPER ROOM SPIRITUAL CENTER

Twenty-fourth Annual Spirituality Conference

featuring

Brother Don Bisson, FMS, D.Min.

Saturday, November 2, 2019 ~ 9:00 am - 4:00 pm

Church of St. Robert Bellarmine, Freehold, NJ

** (Please note change of venue from previous years )**

** (Please note change of venue from previous years) **

Prayer of the Heart

“I will give you a new heart….” (Ez.36) This conference will focus on the “Heart Center” as the space within of healing, acceptance and compassion. The “prayer of the heart” is the journey to spiritual transformation and the True Self. “Translational prayer” is to seek in this world more financial success, avoidance of suffering, and goodness defined by a culture. The day will explore Christian and Jungian insights to differentiate translational from transformational prayer. The day will include input and prayer experiences.

Saturday, November 2, 2019 ~ 9:00 am - 4:00 pm Bellarmine, Freehold, NJ

Fee: $75~ $125 (sliding scale) $5 late fee after October 25th

Box Lunch available for additional $12

Prayer of the Heart ● Saturday, November 2, 2019

Name: Amount Encl:

Address: City: State: Zip:

Phone: E-mail:

Credit Card # Exp. Date Sec. Code

If paying by credit card, please make sure name is as it appears on credit card.

Italian Sandwich Turkey, lettuce, tomato & cheese Sandwich

(includes Salad, Dessert and Beverage)

Please make checks payable to the Upper Room and mail to the: Upper Room Spiritual Center

3455 W. Bangs Avenue, Building 2, Neptune, NJ 07753

Email: office@theupper-room.org or Phone: 732-922-0550

Previous 2018 Events (dates in red indicate the event is finished):

MEN'S ISSUES IN SPIRITUAL DIRECTION

This workshop is for men, and for woman who journey with men in a spiritual direction relationship or any helping relationship. The day will focus on the unique masculine modality of processing material, and on men's issues in personal growth, recovery, inner healing, prayer and dreams. Case material and small groups will enhance the learning environment.

January 6 (Saturday), 2018 9:30 am – 3:30 pm (registration 8:00 to 9:00 am)

Bring a bag lunch from home. Coffee and tea will be provided. Walk-ins welcomed!

Fee: $75 nonrefundable registration

Location:

Mercy Center 

2300 Adeline Drive , Burlingame, California 94010

Contact and Registration:

Phone: (650) 340 - 7474

Website: www.mercy-center.org

E-mail:  mc@mercywmw.org

DREAMWORK: A SPIRITUAL PRACTICE

Spiritual dreams are revelations from the Divine leading us to our True Identity in God. To record deams, work on them, discover their meaning, and enact their messages will lead to our individuation and journey to wholeness. This intensive day will assist participants in developing practical skills in understanding dreams for prayer, discernment, images of God, and more. The presentations will integrate both Jungian and Christian perspectives.

January 7 (Saturday), 2018 9:30 am – 3:30 pm (registration 8:00 to 9:00 am)

Bring a bag lunch from home. Coffee and tea will be provided. Walk-ins welcomed!

Fee: $75 nonrefundable registration

Location:

Mercy Center 

2300 Adeline Drive , Burlingame, California 94010

Contact and Registration:

Phone: (650) 340 - 7474

Website: www.mercy-center.org

E-mail:  mc@mercywmw.org

THOMAS MERTON: A PROPHET FOR OUR TIMES

This conference will study Thomas Merton's writings, messages and prophetic vision for our times. We are living in a climate of political chaos and a regression on many of the issues of the 1960's. By staying with his own words, we will be challenged, in this new generation to face racism, violence, political shadows and war.

Come and create a spiritual community to engage our world in the light of wisdom.

January 13 (Saturday), 2018 9:30 am – January 14 (Sunday) concludes with lunch

(registration 8:00 to 9:00 am Saturday)

Fee: $195 Overnight. $120 Commuter.

Registration deadline: January 9, 2018

Location:

Mercy Center 

2300 Adeline Drive , Burlingame, California 94010

Contact and Registration:

Phone: (650) 340 - 7474

Website: www.mercy-center.org

E-mail:  mc@mercywmw.org

SPIRITUAL LEADERSHIP: CALL TO THE MYSTIC & PROPHETIC

February 23rd (Friday), 2018 – February 25th (Sunday)

Fee: $300 (Deposit: $80)

Location:

Holy Cross Monastery

1615 Route 9W (or Broadway), West Park, New York 12493

Contact and Registration:

Phone: 845-384-6660

Email: guesthouse@hcmnet.org

LENTEN RETREAT: SPIRITUALITY OF PATIENCE AND RESISTANCE

Religious traditions support and teach the values of patience. In this age of immediate technology, we need to rediscover its gifts. Yet, God also pushes us to resist where injustice and discrimination exists. This weekend of prayer and silence will invite us to the call from God to both patience and resistance.

March 2nd (Friday), 2018 – March 4th (Sunday)

Fee: $230.00

Location:

Linwood Spiritual Center 

50 Linwood Road, Rhinebeck, New York 12572

Contact and Registration:

Phone: (845) 876 – 4178

Website: www.linwoodspiritual.org

OVERCOMING OUR RESISTANCE TO JOY

Joy is a mysterious encounter with Otherness. As the soul quiets itself, deep joy and consolation become possible, although humans tend to resist their deepest desires, including joy. Though we long to experience its fullness, we must learn to receive joy and face the powerlessness and manipulation of the ego. This guided retreat will focus on the qualities of a life saturated in God, and filled with the joyous mysteries of life.

May 10th (Thursday), 2018 Arrival 6-6:30 pm, Session 7:00 pm – May 12th (Saturday)

Call to pre-register with deposit ASAP

Fee: $215*

*Full payment by April 12, 2018

Location:

Providence Retreat Centre

1200 Princess Street Box 427

Kingston, ON K7L 4W4

Contact and Registration:

Phone: (613) 542 - 8826

Website: www.providence.ca/our-work/providence-spirituality-centre/

Email: info@psck.org

MARY: MODEL OF SPIRITUAL LIBERATION AND JUSTICE (Cancelled)

Mary, Mother of God, through her magnificat, revolutionizes the world with her son Jesus. The retreat will be a silent, guided retreat with the images of Mary as Compassion, Mercy, Black Madonna, Liberator of the Poor, Queen of Peace and inspiration for transformation.

June 21 (Thursday), 2018 5:00 pm – June 24 (Sunday) 11:00 am

Fee: $350 (all meals included)

Location:

Mariandale Retreat Center  

299 North Highland Avenue , Ossining, NY 10562

Contact and Registration:

Phone: (914) 941-4455

Website: www.mariandale.org

SILENT SUMMER RETREAT

“Merton Marinated— Thomas Merton for Today”

Thomas Merton was a Trappist Monk who lived in the Abbey of Gethsemani, Kentucky. He was a prolific voice who died 50 years ago. We will explore his writings and wisdom. His words have been enriched over time and provide prophetic challenges for us today.

July 10 (Tuesday), 2018 – July 17 (Tuesday)

Fee: $650 cost for single room, includes meals

Location:

Sisters of the Holy Names

Villa Maria del Mar Retreat Center

21918 East Cliff Drive, Santa Cruz, CA 95062

Contact and Registration:

Phone: (831) 475-1236

Online Summer Retreat Registration Form Link (below):

http://www.villamariadelmar.org/summer-retreat-registration-form/

Website: http://www.villamariadelmar.org

ENCROACHING COLLECTIVE DARKNESS: A CONTEMPLATIVE HEALING RESPONSE (Silent Retreat)

Living in this time of great anxiety we must respond from the True Self with humble self-knowledge, surrender to the Divine, and have an openness to Transformation.

This silent directed retreat will be a prayerful contemplative response and our witness as an island of light in the darkness.

"Is there still a chance to save ourselves from this spiritual decay? Yes, but miracles will have to happen, and miracles only happen when one believes in miracles. Small islands, like mountain tops, would have to grow out of the chaotic sludge, islands of contemplation and a sense of justice...perhaps a new world will develop from these islands." – C.G. Jung, August 12, 1942

July 18 (Wednesday), 2018 – July 22 (Sunday) concludes after lunch

(registration Wednesday from 3:00 to 6:00 pm, dinner at 6:15 pm)

Fee: $315 resident; $250 commuter

($75 non-refundable deposit)

Location:

Mercy Center Auburn

535 Sacramento Street , Auburn, CA 95603

Contact and Registration:

You may call with a credit card number, register online at www.mercycenter.org, or use mail-in flyer below.

Phone: (530) 887 - 2019

Downloadable flyer PDF for mail-in registration: http://files.mercycenter.org/BissonJuly.2018.pdf

CONFRONTING THE COLLECTIVE DARK NIGHT & JOURNEYING TOWARD HOPE

A Benefit for Bread of Life with Don Bisson, FMS

Unconscious content is highly disturbing. It brings us face-to-face with the hidden or disowned parts of ourselves that psychologist Carl Jung calls the Shadow. When consciously put together ‘good ways’ of being and doing are disturbed by the ugly emergence, trying to rebury it doesn’t work for individuals or entire cultures. This includes phenomena like the rising expression of hate speech in our public life.

Here’s the hope: 90% of the shadow is ‘pure gold’ meaning it offers something needed for our wholeness. The other 10% is, however, extraordinarily dangerous.

While hate attached to emotion leads to violence and destruction, there’s another kind of hate. It comes from a sense of injustice and helps to identify and break powerful chains of imprisonment. Scripture speaks of things that God ‘hates.’ How to discern the difference, and engage in a way that brings genuine life?

Jung witnessed and reflected upon the collective aspects of shadow as he lived through the rise of totalitarian dictatorships in Germany, Italy and Russia in the 1930’s. We live in a time of tremendous upheaval and our response will make a difference in determining whether this current eruption of shadow will bring an expanded consciousness or loose great destruction in our world.

Join us in exploring these living dynamics and the kind of authentic, transpersonal Hope that is available to us as an imperishable resource for times like these.

July 24 (Tuesday), 2018 9:30 am – 3:30 pm

$75 per person (lunch included)

Location:

Congregation Beth Shalom

Carmichael, CA

Contact and Registration:

Website: http://www.breadoflife.org

Bread of Life Center

1260 Fulton Avenue, Suite A Sacramento, CA 95825

Phone: (916) 648-1803

HEALING THE HOLE OF THE HEART: THE MYSTIC JOURNEY

This guided silent retreat will invite us to enter the healing space of the Heart of God. The invitation to deep healing parallels the call to union with the Divine. From a Jungian-Christian process of talks, dialogue, silence, we will enter the mystic journey to wholeness.

July 29 (Sunday), 2018 – August 3 (Friday)

Fee: $475, Commuters: $240

($100 non-refundable deposit required.)

Location:

Christ the King Retreat Center (CTK)

500 Brookford Road, Syracuse, NY 13224

Phone: (315) 446-2680

Website: http://ctkretreat.com/retreats/

Email: CTKretreat@syrdio.org

JUNGIAN-CHRISTIAN RESPONSE TO OUR POLITICAL CHAOS

Attend any or all of these four individual Saturday workshops, with a shared theme of Jungian-Christian Response.

October 28 (Saturday), 2017

A Socially Induced Dark Night of the Soul

Responding to the deeply felt spiritual ennui since the election, this Jungian-Christian workshop will attempt to address the roots of the trauma and the potential for healing. We need to come together to study, pray, form community and act to transform the darkness.

November 11 (Saturday), 2017 - Veterans Day

Jung, Politics, and a Religious/ Spiritual Response

Carl Jung, as psychological commentator, provides a language to help us articulate what is presently happening in our 21st century world. This workshop, through Jungian-Christian lenses, will attempt to name the collective forces at work and suggest from our religious structures and spiritual traditions to rediscover conscience and truth.

February 17 (Saturday), 2018

Discerning Social Action to Overcome Social Fear

The Voice of God within speaks to our conscience and propels us to take action. This workshop from Jungian-Christian lenses will assist us to listen deeply to our stirrings of soul. We are called to guild the reign of God in the midst of a world filled with fear and division.

April 7 (Saturday), 2018

Birthing Transpersonal Hope in the Center of the Shadow

Hope is not ego optimism. When the collective shadows are at their darkest points, is when hope is born in the soul and has the opportunity for birth. This Jungian-Christian workshop will contemplatively gaze into the mystery of social transformation through an encounter with transpersonal hope.

Location for all four Saturdays:

Mariandale Retreat and Conference Center  

299 North Highland Avenue , Ossining, NY 10562

Contact and Registration:

Phone: (914) 941 - 4455

Website: www.mariandale.org

LEADING FROM THE SOUL IN TROUBLED TIMES: A CALL TO LIVE IN HOPE

WORKSHOP FOR LEADERS OF RELIGIOUS CONGREGATIONS AND HOUSES OF WORSHIP

Are you looking for tools for healthy pro-active leadership and support? Be renewed and refreshed at Mercy by the Sea on Long Island Sound. Join a community of others on the leadership journey and be empowered for personal growth and transformation. Experience the power of your call to leadership for these times. We will explore these dimensions of leadership in a Jungian and spiritual contexts including:

• Holding congregational and world realities which test our limits;

• Discerning and making difficult choices as things shift quickly; and

• Shaping Mission for new and available members.

September 17^th (Monday), 2018 5:30 pm – September 19^th (Wednesday) 1:00 pm

Fee: $395 single occupancy accomodations; $350 double rooms; $225 Commuter per person.

This fee includes the program, all meals from dinner on Monday to lunch on Wednesday, and accommodations with private bath. There is also a discount for teams of three participants or more: $375 per person single occupancy; $330 per person double occupancy. Commuter rate includes all meals except breakfasts.

Location:

Mercy by the Sea

167 Neck Road

Madison, CT 06443

Contact and Registration:

To register teams, please contact: Rosemary Jones at 203.245.0401, ext. 114.

Phone: (203) 245-0401

Email: dkopin@mercybythesea.org

INTIMACY AND PRAYER (Cancelled)

The Spiritual life is not about becoming prayerful, it is about something much more radical: being taken over by the divine. It is the burning away of all that is not God. Prayer, then becomes the miracle of God…erupting in our surrender. This guided/preached retreat is a contemplative response to God’s invitation to be taken into the “chariot of fire.”

October 12^th (Friday), 2018 5:00 pm – October 14^th (Sunday) concludes 11:00 am

Fee: Overnight–$250 Single Occupant and $200 Double Occupant; New Option–$150 Commuter.

(A non-refundable deposit of $50 is due one week prior to retreat)

Location:

St. Joseph Retreat Center  

850 Hylan Boulevard

Staten Island, New York 10305

Contact and Registration:

Phone: (718) 720-1097

Email: StJRetreatCenter@gmail.com

Registration: https://sjretreatcenter.org/event/intimacy-and-prayer/

Website: https://sjretreatcenter.org

INTUITION AND CREATIVITY

Explore creativity and its source...

Intuition is a soulful perception of an inner reality. It assists us to bring forth God’s creative spirit to be incarnated in life-giving expressions. It also can have a dark component which we need to protect ourselves from engulfment. This weekend workshop will have input sessions, sharing and creative expressions through the lens of Jungian psychology.

October 26th (Friday), 2018 – October 28^th (Sunday)

Fee: Commuter Early Registration $160.00. After October 18 Fee is $180.00

Priv Rm/Priv Bath Early Registration $285.00. After October 18 Fee is $305.00  

Priv Rm/Hall Bath Early Registration $255.00. After October 18 Fee is $275.00  

Shared Rm/Priv Bath Early Registration $230.00. After October 18 Fee is $250.00

Location:

Wisdom House Retreat Center

229 East Litchfield Road

Litchfield, CT 06759-3002

Contact and Registration:

Phone: (860) 567-3163

Email: info@wisdomhouse.org

JOURNEY TO THE TRUE SELF: MERTON & JUNG

ANNUAL RETREAT: DAY OF REFLECTION & JAZZ LITURGY

NOTE: PRE-REGISTRATION IS REQUIRED!

Merton and Swiss psychiatrist and psychoanalyst, Carl Jung, have both influenced our contemporary spiritual language for the inner transformative journey. The retreat day will offer guidance and reflection on the movement from the false to the True Self. Merton's entire legacy of prayer, meditation, contemplative life and social conscience can be summed up by the awakening of the True self in Christ. In this year of his 50th anniversary of his untimely death, let us gather to continue his passion for integrity for the True Self.

November 3rd (Saturday), 2018 9:00 am – 4:00 pm

• Retreat Day: 1:00 - 4:00 P.M. — Lunch will be included & registration is required.

• Jazz Liturgy: 12:15 P.M. — No registration required to attend this service. All are welcome at no charge.

• Fee for Retreat Date: $20 for Members & Students; $35 for Non-Members

• Jazz Liturgy: Free for all

Location:

Corpus Christi Church

529 West 121st Street (just off Broadway)

New York, NY

Jazz Liturgy:

Jazz keyboardist Deanna Witkowski and her jazz trio will provide a creative form of worship that will enhance the Retreat Day experience and our celebration of Merton’s legacy. Emphasis will be on Merton’s love of jazz, similarities between prayer and jazz improvisation to include Merton's writings in accordance with the overall Retreat Day themes.

Contact and Registration:

Email: info@thomasmertonnyc.org

Previous 2017 Events (dates in red indicate the event is finished):

SPIRITUALITY OF CHRONIC PAIN

Those suffering the effects of Chronic Pain, be it recovery from surgery, or some kind of accident, or from the painful aging process, all face the potential of a spiritual crisis or awakening. This workshop invites those on the margins to use suffering as an opportunity to grow and articulate the experience, thus deepening the trust in God.

January 7 (Saturday), 2017

Fee: contact Mercy Center

Location:

Mercy Center 

2300 Adeline Drive , Burlingame, California 94010

BROKENNESS, SIN AND MERCY

This retreat presents the mysterious relationship between brokenness, sin and mercy. We live in a society that denies its sinfulness and increasingly claims a victim identity. From a Jungian-Christian viewpoint the reality of sin is uncovered which leads to authentic mercy rediscovered.

January 8 (Sunday), 2017

Fee: contact Mercy Center

Location:

Mercy Center 

2300 Adeline Drive , Burlingame, California 94010

DECONTAMINATING OUR GOD IMAGES

“Every person becomes the image of the God he or she adores.” – Thomas Merton.

In the Spiritual Life, we are invited to let go of our distorted and broken images of God, which can propel us into a dark night, and instead move toward a healing and loving more deeply. This silent, guided retreat intends to weave together contemporary psychology, spirituality, spiritual direction and elements of the mystical journey in order to ultimately help participants love and feel more deeply loved by God.

January 14 (Saturday), 2017 – January 15 (Sunday)

Fee: contact Mercy Center

Location:

Mercy Center 

2300 Adeline Drive , Burlingame, California 94010

SPIRITUAL DIRECTION TRAINING

February 17 (Friday), 2017 – February 19 (Sunday)

Location:

Wesley Center, Woodworth, Louisiana

GOD'S POWER AND POWERLESSNESS LENTEN RETREAT

This is a Lenten Retreat. Lent reminds us that as free persons, we have the option to increase our alienation from God or to be reconciled and healed. This silent guided retreat will reawaken our sense of being "moral" beings in a dark world seeking redemption in the Light.

March 24 (Friday), 2017 check-in begins at 3:00 – March 26 (Sunday) departure after 12:00 pm lunch

Fee: $225

Location:

Linwood Spiritual Center 

50 Linwood Road, Rhinebeck, New York 12572

TIMES OF GREAT SHADOW: JUNG, POLITICS AND RELIGIOUS/SPIRITUAL RESPONSE

Make this Memorial Day Weekend meaningful with loving service to our country and the world. Learn together how we can make a difference with a contemplative stance fostering peace, justice and new consciousness. A conference for spiritual directors and anyone struggling with fear, anxiety, and uncertainty and looking for the loving and conscious path forward. Gather with us to study, pray, form Community, and plan for action.

May 27 (Saturday), 2017 10:00 am – May 28 (Sunday) concludes 11:30 am

Fee: $150 Overnight. $75 Saturday Commuter (add $10 for lunch, $45 for Sunday).

See links below for additional details and registration, or call. Registration closes May 20.

Location:

Mercy Center 

2300 Adeline Drive , Burlingame, California 94010

OVERCOMING OUR RESISTANCE TO JOY

June 9 (Friday), 2017 begins with supper at 6:00 pm – June 11 (Sunday) concludes with lunch at noon

Fee: Resident private room, $285; Semi-private room, $260: Commuter with meals, $200; Commuter without meals, $165. Deposit $100. Balance due 14 days prior to start.

Location:

Genesis Spiritual Life Center

53 Mill Street, Westfield, MA 01085

MERTON FOR OUR TIMES

Prayer, Justice, Race Relations, Interfaith Dialogue, and Spiritual Transformation.

This retreat will delve into these critical questions through the spiritual insights of Thomas Merton. In a spirit of contemplative silence, go deeper into the life of Christ. This is a guided retreat to help us clarify our values and energize us to act in the world torn by division and fear. Bring a journal for prayer and reflection.

June 22 (Thursday), 2017 5:00 pm – June 25 (Sunday) concludes 11:00 am

Fee: $375

Location:

Mariandale Retreat and Conference Center  

299 North Highland Avenue , Ossining, NY 10562

ORDINARY MYSTICS: LIVING INTO DEEP PRAYER IN A CHAOTIC WORLD

During periods of intense collective turmoil, individuals are called to be Mystics to create a new vision being birthed in a resistant world. This 4-day guided retreat will invite you to go deeper within the Voice of God to help co-redeem the world.

Brother Don will offer reflections on the universal call to the mystical life, ordinary space as holy space, the characteristics of religious experience, the sinful and broken mystic, the need for soul friends, and more.

Suggestions will be offered for prayer styles to go deeper.

Daily: two reflections, except Sunday and Thursday only one reflection.

July 2 (Sunday), 2017 7:00 pm – July 6 (Thursday) 1:00 pm departure

Fee: Private room $575; top floor first come basis $600

Location:

St. Benedict's Conference and Retreat Centre

225 Masters Avenue, Winnipeg, Manitoba, R4A 2A1

CHRIST CHILD: A POOR REFUGEE (Cancelled due to snow storm)

This Advent, we meditate on the manger scene, reminding ourselves of God's self-emptying love into the world as poor, homeless and refugee. We also must pray and act for countless millions today who are also poor, homeless refugees before a cold and heartless world.

December 9 (Saturday), 2017 10:00 am – 3:30 pm

Fee: $60 (includes lunch)

Please register and pay in full by November 28th

Location:

Mariandale Retreat and Conference Center  

299 North Highland Avenue , Ossining, NY 10562

DIRECTED RETREAT (DEEPENING THE CONTEMPLATIVE ATTITUDE)

Through Christian and Jungian lenses, the retreat will invite us to ponder the thresholds and invitations from the True Self within. Through conferences and contemplative silence, the retreat will prayerfully allow the invitation to greater depth of contemplative intimacy and response to Divine Initiative in prayer, dreams, and meditation.

September 29 (Friday), 2017 – October 1 (Sunday)

Fee: the suggested donation for this retreat is $300

Location:

Mepkin Abbey

1098 Mepkin Abbey Rd, Moncks Corner, SC 29461 USA

SPIRITUALITY OF CHRONIC PAIN

October 14 (Saturday), 2017 8:00 am – 3:00 pm, Conference and Lunch

Fee: $10 to $50. General Admission $50; Religious & Clergy $35; Students $10; Scholarships Available

Location:

Daylesford Abbey

220 South Valley Road, Paoli, PA 19301

CONTEMPLATIVE FORMATION PROGRAM 2016-2017

The Contemplative Formation Program is an interfaith, twelve-month program.

Participants will explore such areas as: Contemplation and the everyday and ordinary, the psychodynamics of spirituality, practices of stillness and awareness, scripture, being justice in the world, and the mystical tradition. Topics will include: The Transformative Journey; Holy Listening and Discernment; Love and Conscious Suffering; Healing, Compassion and Gratitude; and Contemplative Life and Ministry.

September 23 (Friday), 2016 – September 25 (Sunday)

December 2 (Friday), 2016 – December 4 (Sunday)

March 10 (Friday), 2017 – March 12 (Sunday)

May 5 (Friday), 2017 – May 7 (Sunday)

For more information contact:

Mariandale Retreat and Conference Center  

299 North Highland Avenue , Ossining, NY 10562

Previous 2016 Events (dates in red indicate the event is finished):

WORKAHOLISM: HEALING A SPIRITUAL DISEASE

In today's culture, beset by addictions and ever enhanced technology, there is the growing problem of lack of boundaries. Workaholism is the socially acceptable disease. This workshop will look at the characteristics of soul loss of the workaholic, and from a Jungian and Christian perspective, suggests a healing process that strives to distinguish the difference between workaholism, and a passion for work and life.

January 9 (Saturday), 2016 9:30 am – 3:30 pm

Fee: $75 nonrefundable

Bring a bag lunch from home. Coffee and tea will be provided.

Location:

Mercy Center 

2300 Adeline Drive , Burlingame, California 94010

INTROVERSION UNDER ATTACK: RECLAIMING SOLITUDE, SILENCE AND SABBATH

The power of introversion introduces us to the absolute reality of the inner world. This workshop will look at the graced nature of the introvert and the power of interiority in this fast paced extroverted society. Prayer is the food and meaning for the mystic who lives bridging the inner and outer world. Often times feeling marginalized, the ordinary mystic needs to share their inner voice for the greater good of all.

January 10 (Sunday), 2016 9:30 am – 3:30 pm

Fee: $75 nonrefundable

Bring a bag lunch from home. Coffee and tea will be provided.

Location:

Mercy Center 

2300 Adeline Drive , Burlingame, California 94010

OVERCOMING OUR RESISTANCE TO JOY

January 16 (Saturday), 2016 9:00 am – January 17 (Sunday) 12:00 noon 

Fee: $195 Overnight, $120 Commuter

Registration deadline, January 9, 2016.

Location:

Mercy Center 

2300 Adeline Drive , Burlingame, California 94010

BROKEN AND FORGIVEN

Lent reminds us that as free persons, we have the option to increase our alienation from God or to be reconciled and healed. This silent guided retreat will reawaken our sense of being “moral” beings in a dark world seeking redemption in the Light.

March 11 (Friday evening), 2016 – March 13 (Sunday)

Fee: $225 

Location:

Linwood Spiritual Center 

50 Linwood Road, Rhinebeck, New York 12572

DREAM AS SPIRITUAL PRACTICE

This intensive weekend on dreams will introduce and deepen the use of dreams to heal our images of God, to find meaning in dreams, the use of symbols in prayer practices and discernment of life choices. The process will include materials, dialogue, information and formation. Brother Don has been working with dreams for 30 years in spiritual direction using Jungian tools and psychology to enhance the process. He has studied dreams at the Institute of Transpersonal Psychology where his project was the use of dreams for discernment of spirits and life choices.

April 29 (Friday), 2016 – May 1 (Sunday)

Begins Friday with supper at 6:00pm and concludes with lunch at noon on Sunday.

Fee: Private room, $285; Semi-private room, $260; Commuter with meals, $200; Commuter without meals, $165.

Location:

Genesis Spiritual Center

53 Mill Street, Westfield, MA 01085

ORDINARY MYSTICS: LIVING INTENSE PRAYERS IN THE WORLD (Silent Retreat)

During periods of intense collective turmoil, individuals are called to be Mystics to create a new vision being birthed in a resistant world. This silent, guided retreat will invite us to go deeper within the Voice of God to help co-redeem the world.

June 23 (Thursday), 2016 – June 26 (Sunday)

Fee: contact Mariandale Retreat and Conference Center   

Location:

Mariandale Retreat and Conference Center 

299 North Highland Avenue , Ossining, NY 10562

ORDINARY MYSTICS: LIVING INTENSE PRAYERS IN THE WORLD (Silent Retreat)

July 20 (Wednesday), 2016 check-in 3:00 to 6:00 pm, dinner 6:15 – July 24 (Sunday) after lunch

Sunday's lunch begins at 12:00 noon.

Fee: $325 Resident, $255 Commuter

Location:

Mercy Center Auburn

535 Sacramento Street , Auburn, CA 95603

DOROTHY DAY: CHALLENGE TO COMFORTABLE SPIRITUALITY

“Don’t call me a saint… I don’t want to be dismissed so easily.”

Join us as we open the story and spirituality of this remarkable, "salty" woman mentioned by Pope Francis in his address to the U.S. Congress. Her life speaks powerfully to the soul-work needed by anyone wanting to join the work of justice and peace to their lives. It isn’t easy to discern the greater good from the immediate good when the press of unending need is all around.

We'll take a long, compassionate look at the spirituality we need to be present to the marginalized and poor in a way that is genuinely life-giving. It requires much of us as we necessarily engage our own "shadow" in the midst of "doing good."

July 26 (Tuesday), 2016 9:30 am to 3:30 pm

Fee: $65 per person with group pricing available to encourage staff teams to come together. The second and third persons from the same group are $50 each and the fourth person is $35.

Please bring your own lunch.  

Location:

Sacramento, CA

CONVERSATIONS AT THE WELL: CROSSING OVER TO MEET THE OTHER AND ONESELF

Acting on the Journey of Transformation

The call to transformation and to “reading the signs of the times” can simultaneously elicit deep attraction and provoke corresponding resistance.

In this workshop, beginning Friday evening, participants and the presenter will explore the shadow and the journey of consciousness: the journeys from repression and fear, of humility and integration, of surrender. Praying dangerously, acting radically, symbol-making, public witness and presence: all lead to personal and communal transformation, the goal of our life’s journey.

This workshop will include input, personal journaling, table and large group conversation.

November 18 (Friday), 2016 5:00 pm – November 19 (Saturday) 5:00 pm

Fee: (See registration link below for fees, including early registration rates.)

Location: This is the location of the retreat. Contact Religious Formation Conference below for registration.

Mary & Joseph Retreat Center

5300 Crest Road

Rancho Palos Verdes, CA 90275

ADVENT: INCARNATION, ANIMALS, AND CREATION

Advent is a season of creches being prepared with cows, sheep and camels, straw and stables. It was in this environment Incarnation was born and became the pascal lamb of God. This workshop will focus on God becoming creature among creatures and how animals help us become more human. Join us and prepare for the miracle of Christmas.

December 10 (Saturday), 2016 9:30 am to 3:30 pm

Fee: $55

For more information contact:

Mariandale Retreat and Conference Center  

299 North Highland Avenue , Ossining, NY 10562

Previous 2015 Events (dates in red indicate the event is finished):

SPIRITUAL DIRECTION AS RELIGIOUS EXPERIENCE: RETREAT FOR SPIRITUAL DIRECTORS

A retreat for Spiritual Directors...

Spiritual directors understand the enormous graces in listening to women and men and their religious experience. These days will provide opportunity to receive reflective presentations, sharing, quiet time, on how doing spiritual direction can itself be religious experience.

May 12 (Tuesday), 2015 11:00 am – May 14 (Thursday) 1:00 pm (after lunch) 

Fee: $250, Deposit $100  

Location:

Stella Maris Retreat Center 

981 Ocean Avenue , Long Branch, New Jersey 07740

OVERCOMING OUR RESISTANCE TO JOY

Joy is a mysterious encounter with Otherness. As the soul quiets itself, deep joy and consolation become possible, although humans tend to resist their deepest desires, including joy. Though we long to experience its fullness, we must learn to receive joy and face the powerlessness and manipulation of the ego. This silent guided/preached retreat will focus on the qualities of a life saturated in God, and filled with the joyous mysteries of life. There will be ample silent time and space to integrate the presentations.

June 25 (Thursday), 2015 check-in 4:00 to 5:30 pm – June 28 (Sunday) 11:00 am 

Fee: $350 - $375 (as you are able)  

Commuter: $250 - $275 (as you are able)

Location:

Mariandale Retreat and Conference Center 

299 North Highland Avenue , Ossining, NY 10562

DREAM DIRECTED RETREAT

A directed Dream retreat is a silent, sacred retreat in which a person reviews their recorded dreams seeking guidance from God. The Dreams will reveal to us our images of God, places of healing, numinous experiences, discernment, material for prayer, shadow work and conversion. Each retreatant will have one to one dream work with Br. Don daily, besides quiet, prayer, nutritious food, gorgeous Autumn Hudson River views to integrate the material. The retreat will include an opening and closing ritual. Limited to six individuals.

October 4 (Sunday), 2015 – October 9 (Friday)

Fee: (contact Mariandale retreat center)  

Location:

Mariandale Retreat and Conference Center 

299 North Highland Avenue , Ossining, NY 10562

ONGOING FORMATION FOR SPIRITUAL DIRECTORS (Day Retreat)

Topic: Spirituality and Technology

October 21 (Wednesday), 2015 – 9:30 am to 3:30 pm

Location:

Linwood Spiritual Center 

50 Linwood Road, Rhinebeck, New York 12572

INTROVERSION UNDER ATTACK: RECLAIMING SILENCE, SABBATH & SOLITUDE

In recent years, our culture has been addicted to being online, on phone, tweeting, texting for work, family, and recreation. This weekend will attempt to reclaim spiritual and psychological values to heal the soul of clutter, noise and distraction for self-knowledge and prayers.

November 13 (Friday), 2015 3:00 pm – November 15 (Sunday) 1:00 pm

Fee: $250, Deposit $100  

Location:

Stella Maris Retreat Center 

981 Ocean Avenue , Long Branch, New Jersey 07740

ADVENT AND THE ANGELIC (Day Retreat)

During this season, we see angels appearing to Mary in the Annunciation. Angels wake up Joseph in dreams and protect the Christ Child. They are messengers of joy to a new world order. How do we listen to the angelic messages today in a world filled with darkness and bad news? This day of recollection will provide time away to listen deeply to the Voice of God.

December 12 (Saturday), 2015

Fee: (contact Mariandale retreat center)  

Location:

Mariandale Retreat and Conference Center 

299 North Highland Avenue , Ossining, NY 10562

Other 2015 Events (not open to the public, dates in red indicate the event is finished):

RETREAT ON VOWS

June 2 (Tuesday), 2015 – June 4 (Thursday)

Westpark, New York

PRAYER PRACTICES

June 17 (Wednesday), 2015

Esopus, New York

MARIST LEADERSHIP CONFERENCE

Baltimore, Maryland

CONTEMPLATIVE PROGRAM

September 11 (Friday), 2015 - September 13 (Sunday)

Mariandale Retreat and Conference Center 

Ossining, New York

FORMATION OF SPIRITUAL DIRECTORS PROGRAM

September 20 (Sunday), 2015 - September 25 (Friday)

Linwood Spiritual Center 

Rhinebeck, New York

FORMATION OF SPIRITUAL DIRECTORS PROGRAM

November 1 (Sunday), 2015 - November 6 (Friday)

Mariandale Retreat and Conference Center 

Ossining, New York

CONTEMPLATIVE PROGRAM

December 4 (Friday), 2015 - December 6 (Sunday)

Mariandale Retreat and Conference Center 

Ossining, New York

Previous 2014 Events (dates in red indicate the event is finished):

DANCE OF DIVINE INTIMACY: MUTUAL KNOWING AND LOVING

The Spiritual life is not about becoming prayerful, it is about something much more radical: being taken over by the divine. It is the burning away of all that is not God. Prayer, then, becomes the miracle of God erupting in our surrender. This silent guided/preached retreat will be a contemplative response to God’s invitation to be taken into the “chariot of fire.” Eucharist will be available on Saturday.

June 26 (Thursday), 2014 5:00 pm – June 29 (Sunday) 11:00 am 

Fee: $325 - $350 (as you are able)  

Commuter: $225 - $250 (as you are able)

Location:

Mariandale Retreat and Conference Center 

299 North Highland Avenue , Ossining, NY 10562

INVITATION TO AUTHENTIC PRAYER: HEALING OUR CONTAMINATED

IMAGES OF GOD

In this conference/guided retreat, Don will address our greatest blockage to prayer – an unconscious attachment to a toxic image of God which is not God. This conference will guide us to examine the distorted images we have, both inherited and created, and invite us to authentic relationship with God in prayer and meditation.

July 07 (Monday), 2014 3:00 pm – July 13 (Sunday) 1:00 pm

Fee: $515, deposit $100 (weeklong retreat)

Location:

Stella Maris Retreat Center 

981 Ocean Avenue , Long Branch, New Jersey 07740

19 Events (dates in red indicate the event is finished)

Don Bisson Featuring: Jungian-Christian Dialog

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Friday, 19 June – Sunday, 21 June 2020