Retreats
Note: If you are interested in hosting or facilitating a retreat, course, or day-seminar at your church or fellowship group please e-mail info@imagodeicommunity.ca for information.
Living the Gospels:
an introduction to the Ignatian Spiritual Exercises
In the Spiritual Exercises, five sessions are given in which a progressive appreciation of our relationship and commitment to God’s purposes is encouraged. The first session is devoted to an appreciation of God’s love for us. The second session is a contemplation of sin and disorder in ourselves and in the world. In the third session we are taken up with the life of Christ—his birth and public ministry up to Palm Sunday. The fourth session deepens our relationship to the Lord’s Passion and the fifth deals with the relationship of our own lives to the Resurrection and present life of Jesus in the world around us.
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Following Your God-Given Desires:
an introduction to Ignatian Spiritual Discernment
In his Spiritual Exercises, St. Ignatius offers practical wisdom for how we might discern and follow the movements of God’s spirit in our lives. His approach is both pragmatic as well as one that cultivates a genuine love and desire to follow God’s will as the natural response to Christ’s love for us. A working understanding of such spiritual theology is essential for every Christian who desires to live an authentic life in the Spirit.
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Rightly Related to All Things
“In Christ, all things hold together” Col. 1:17
We all need to make adjustments in our lives. But we’re often not sure how much is needed. Some people procrastinate over making changes. Some resign themselves to off-kilter relationships. Others tend to overcompensate in the adjustments they make to life.
Rightly Related to All Things applies Ignatius’ “Principle and Foundation” to all the relationships of our lives The weekend retreat will include teaching, discussion and opportunities for prayer in the belief that, the more we find the center of our lives in God, the more we will find our proper relationship to all things.
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Quieting the Heart: an introduction to Contemplative Prayer
My heart says of you, “Seek his face!” Your face, LORD, I will seek. Psalm 27:8
Most Christians feel some attraction to the Contemplative life. But we all resist it as well. This retreat will provide an opportunity to savour the invitation that God extends to each person to quiet their hearts in order to better know the Lord.
Through discussions, instruction and the encouragement of silence and solitude we will have many opportunities to respond to God’s call to “be still, and know that I am the Lord.”
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Belonging to Life
“I am my Beloved’s and He is mine.” Song of Songs 6:3
Every person longs for the deep assurance of belonging. We were meant to enjoy a profound sense of inter-connectedness with life but our experience of belonging is one that often gets distorted by life, and by our misperceptions of life. This retreat looks at the themes of self-acceptance and of hospitality of the soul as ways to foster a greater sense in us of our belonging to God, to ourselves and to others.
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These retreats and seminars are available through Imago Dei (www.imagodeicommunity.ca) and can be adapted for week-long, weekend or one-day formats. They are also available as courses for seminaries or colleges.
For more information contact Rob Des Cotes at: info@imagodeicommunity.caa or (604) 874-6246
