Contemplative Retreat: Giving Our Deaths Away

From Friday–Sunday, October 31–November 2, join us for a Spiritual Life retreat on Halloween, All Saints Day, and the Day of the Dead at the Villa Maria Education and Spirituality Center in Pulaski, Pennsylvania. Amid our normal retreat rhythms of solitude and community, silence and conversation, stillness and activity, we will explore our mortality, our hopes and fears surrounding death, and what our tradition(s) have to say about death and eternal communion we have with saints and ancestors.

According to the Spanish mystic John of the Cross, we have three essential struggles in life: 1) To get our lives together, 2) To give our lives away, and 3) To give our deaths away.

What is asked of us in the first two struggles is more obvious and captured in the first half of life. But what does it mean to give our deaths away in the later parts of our life? How we approach death and dying leaves a legacy, a particular spirit, which either nurtures or haunts those left behind. If we die at peace with ourselves, loved ones, the world, and with God, then like Jesus, we will leave behind a spirit that nourishes, warms, consoles, and gives our loved one’s sacred permission to be at peace. How do we do that? What are our stories, fears, concerns, and anxieties that inhibit us from giving our death away.

Join us as we sit with these questions, listen to God and ourselves, and explore this on retreat in community with one another.

RSVP to Norma Meyer at 412.441.3800 x211 by Sunday, October 19. Cost options are listed below. Contact Pastor BJ to discuss scholarships.

One Night

• Friday–Saturday or Saturday–Sunday | Private Room and Common Bath | $100

Two Nights

• Friday–Sunday | Private Room/Common Bath | $150

One Day

• Saturday | $50