Due to unforeseen scheduling conflicts, this workshop will be rescheduled for Fall 2024. Thank you for your interest and for your patience.
"No matter how far along we are in the spiritual life, there is no time when retreat--or strategic withdrawal--ceases to be an essential practice."
~ Ruth Haley Barton, Invitation to Retreat
Offering retreats can be such a meaningful way to share your gifts with the world. Retreats invite us to connect with God, one’s soul, and others. A guided retreat generally focuses on a particular theme and includes talks by the presenter, time for silent reflection and experience, and sharing. Sometimes, retreatants are also given the opportunity to meet individually with the presenter.
Susan Stabile and Peter Watkins, each gifted and experienced spiritual directors, teachers, and retreat leaders, will lead participants through this two-day exploration of planning and giving guided retreats.
On Saturday February 24, come explore the various elements of a guided retreat and how these retreats may be approached and presented. We will consider the nature of the audience, developing a theme, the arc and flow of a retreat, and how to incorporate various elements such as ritual, individual prayer time, and sharing.
On March 2, participants will share and receive feedback on their ideas for a retreat they might give for a particular audience. The goal is not to have a fully formed retreat at the end of these two days. Rather, participants will come away with the skills and confidence to proceed and develop their retreat ideas.
Cost: $120
Susan Stabile is an experienced spiritual director and retreat director trained in the Ignatian tradition, who offers retreats and other programs of spiritual formation in parishes, retreat houses and other venues around the country. She teaches in the second year of Sacred Ground’s program for the training of spiritual directors and also trains people to direct the Spiritual Exercises of St. Ignatius. She is a Distinguished Senior Fellow at the University of St. Thomas School of Law and an adjunct Instructor in Theology at St. Catherine’s University, where she co-directs a Lilly Grant secured by that university to bring contemplative practices to congregations and parishes. Susan previously served as Director of the University of St. Thomas’s Office for Spirituality, and is the author of numerous publications, including Growing in Love and Wisdom (Oxford University Press 2013).
Peter Watkins is a certified spiritual director, guides folks through the Ignatian Exercises, and is a retreat leader in the Twin Cities area. He holds a Master’s of Divinity degree from the University of St. Thomas, and a B.A. in Philosophy from St. John’s University in Minnesota. Peter retired in 2021from his work as a high school theology teacher of 25 years at Cretin-Derham Hall high school in St. Paul. He has also taught graduate classes in Old Testament Theology, and Adolescent Psychology and Spirituality, and has co-authored a high school text book, Guarding the Fire: A Spiritual Guide for Young Men through Good Ground Press. Peter helps lead ministry discernment groups for the Episcopal Church in Minnesota, has three grown children, loves going on pilgrimages, and is a life-long runner.