Nazareth Retreat Center Makes a Great Gift

Nazareth Retreat Center is featured in today's Louisville Courier Journal newspaper as a terrific Christmas gift idea. The article highlights the hermitages on Nazareth's campus and suggests gift certificates to Nazareth Retreat Center as a perfect gift of relaxation for your loved ones. Check out the article here. Please contact Nazareth Retreat Center for more information, 502-348-1597 or 502-348-1513.

Healing Prayer Group at Nazareth Retreat Center in Photos

Spiritual Direction Internship

Download the brochure here.


Spiritual Direction Internship offered September 2012 – May 2013

THE INTERNSHIP

The Spiritual Direction Internship is ecumeni- cal in nature and designed for persons who feel called to accompany others on their life jour- ney. The focus is how to be with directees as they reflect on life and their relationship with God.

The internship is experiential in nature. Its con- tent unfolds in the context of group process and reflection, not lecture. The Internship experi- ence includes one-to-one supervision, peer group supervision, assigned readings, and practice in the art of Spiritual Direction.

It is limited to approximately eight persons. The internship begins with a two-day intensive beginning on September 17 and meets each Tuesday through May. All meetings are at Nazareth, Ky.


For more information see the brochure here.

Sixth Sunday of Lent: Palm Sunday

Hosanna, Hosanna, Hosanna
Blessed is He.  Blessed is He who comes in the name of our God.
Blessed is He.  Blessed is He who comes in the name of our God.

The hymn rings out and the people cry in exaltation for the One who comes in the Name of God.

What extremes of emotions pivot today’s readings.  In Mark’s Gospel read following  the blessing  of the palm, we hear the people crying out “Hosanna.”  And then during the Mass  the Passion according to Mark is proclaimed. In this extended version of the Gospel, the scene begins in Bethany where Jesus is among his friends for the Feast of Passover. An unnamed woman broke an expensive alabaster jar of perfumed oil and poured it on Jesus’ head.  The drama of the next three days has begun.  The woman sensed the darkness beginning to unfold around Jesus.  Jesus defends her saying ; “She has done a good thing for me.  She has done what she could.  She has anticipated anointing my body for burial.”

The rest of the Passion story we know so well, the foretelling of betrayal, the breaking of the bread and sharing of the wine, the garden of Gethsemane,  the arrest, trial, torture and finally the crucifixion.  During  this heart-breaking time we hear Jesus warning the disciples that their faith will be shaken.  We hear  Jesus say  ; “My soul is sorrowful even to death.” We hear the denial of Peter.  And finally we are with Jesus the Christ crucified, standing with women, his Mother Mary, Mary Magdalene, Mary the Mother of James and Joses, and Salome. Joseph of Arimathea receives the body of Jesus and with the women, buries this sacred corpse in a tomb hewn from stone.

This drama is more than we can bear it seems. Yet what else can we do but remember,
lest we forget.  We remember the fidelity of Jesus the Christ to His God, to God’s message of love given to Jesus for us all.  We remember the fear of the disciples and their sorrow.

We remember the unwavering faithfulness of the women.  We ponder, where would we be on that day.  How are we faithful today to this Jesus the Christ who gave so much for us. Would Jesus say of us “She has done what she could.”  We remember that we are already living the resurrected life in Jesus the Christ.  So in gratitude we say “Hosanna”  Christ our Light.

Fifth Sunday of Lent

The days are coming, says the Lord, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and the house of Judah…. I will place my law within them and write it upon their hearts; I will be their God, and they shall be my people.   (Jeremiah 31:31; 33)


“The hour has come….Unless a grain of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it remains just a grain of wheat;  but if it dies, it produces much fruit…..I am troubled”( John 12:23 - 24 ; 27)

With the readings from Jeremiah and John we are given deeper understandings of Jesus relationship with God.  We are also invited to a deeper embracing of the relationship God offers to us.  Throughout scripture we have been told of God’s covenant relationship with God’s people as first spoken to Abraham and then given to Moses in the Ten Commandments.  In both of these scriptures God promises, I will be their God.  In Jeremiah, that covenant relationship initiated by God is deepened.  It is not a covenant governed only by external laws but rather by God’s law written within the hearts of the people.  Let us ponder for a moment what this might mean for us.  Here God is promising us that God’s Spirit will be given to abide within each of us, within our deepest, most intimate being, within our heart.  So that if we listen, really listen, we will know God’s ways.  We will never be separated from the life and way of God.

In John’s Gospel we hear Jesus listening, really listening to the unfolding of events that will eventually lead to his crucifixion.  Jesus listens to the movements of the people, to the questions, to the wonderings, even to the acclamations.  And yet he knows that this “Grain of Wheat” must fall in order to bear fruit.  He senses that if he is to remain true to his own teachings, to his own relationship with God the Creator, then he will suffer.  How poignant it is when he says, “I am troubled.  Yet what should I say.”  Listening to his heart, listening to the voice of God which resounds within him, listening to the “thunder” of his soul, he trusts in that covenant relationship he has with God the Creator who is within his heart.  Such fidelity to one’s own knowing of God’s way is not easy. Yet it is the only way to new life.

We are invited this week to spend some quiet time with Jesus’ words “I am troubled.  Yet what can I say?”   What must that time have been like for him?  Where in our lives do we find ourselves faced with embracing fidelity to our covenant with God, in conflict perhaps with our culture, with our society, with our neighbors and colleagues, family and friends?

Can we remain faithful to our covenant relationship with God, as given to us through Jesus the Christ?  What does that yes ask of us today?

Fourth Sunday of Lent

“God so loved the world as to give the Only Begotten One, that whoever believes may not die, but have eternal life….People who live by the truth come out into the light, so that it may be plainly seen that what they do is done in God.”  (John 3:16 & 21)

This week we reflect upon the text from the Gospel  according to John.  We find words that remind us of why we celebrate the Christ, stopping for a moment within Lent to remember that Jesus came so that we might come into the Light, the Light of God’s love, the Light of God’s continued covenant, the Light which brings us out of the darkness of fear, into the Light of trust and love.

I find it interesting this year that this Fourth Sunday of Lent falls right between the liturgical feasts of St. Patrick and St. Joseph.  What models they are for us, both men of faith. Certainly both experienced darkness within their lives.  As we are told, Patrick was captured and enslaved as a young boy. The fears of that time, the darkness  he must have experienced at that time we can only imagine.  As well with Joseph, the fear and uncertainty he surely experienced as described in the Gospel of Matthew (1:18 – 25) was a darkness.  Yet both of these men, hearing God’s word within them were led to the Light and became for us mentors of faith, faith in God’s unconditional love, even when all seems dark.

“God, who is rich in mercy, because of the great love God has for us…brought us to life with Christ.”  (Eph:2:4-5)

So this week may we remember, as did Joseph and Patrick, that in the midst of our darkness, by faith we know that we have been given the Light of God in Christ Jesus.  Neither fear nor darkness can keep us from the Light of God’s Love.

This week, let us stop to notice the beams of light which are inviting us to life and love in Christ Jesus……notice in nature, notice in the faces of those you love, notice in the quiet moments.  As the Exultet will proclaim on Holy Saturday…” The Light of Christ surrounds us.”

What are you doing for another to make the world a better place?

Universal Call to Holiness and Service College Retreat

Reflections for Single Young Adult Women and Men in their College Years

Click here for more information about this special online retreat

We are inviting you to take a few minutes out of your hectic schedule to reflect with us and your peers around what are you desiring in life, now and in the future. Does your relationship with God have a role to play in your decision making, in your life choices? What gifts do you have to give to society and how might you find ways to make a difference in this very complex world in which we live?

The next question we propose is:

What are you doing for another to make the world a better place?

Please respond below in the comments section.