Prayer Beyond Words

2018 Spiritual Retreat Weekend
Pro Mundi Vita: Prayer Beyond Words 

February 23-25
Loon Lake Lodge & Retreat Centre
Maple Ridge, BC

Anglicans are shaped by words. Our prayers and liturgies form us theologically and spiritually.  So one might expect that a distinctly Anglican spiritual retreat would have lots of spoken words.  Pro Mundi Vita does.  The Daily Office – Morning, Mid-Day, and Evening Prayer plus Compline - undergirds this retreat.  During the first two pilot weekends, several participants discovered the Daily Office to be new and refreshing.  One remarked, “I’ve never done Compline before. I like it.”  And at both retreats, participants found Morning Prayer to be particularly resonant and powerful. 

But this retreat is also about Prayer Beyond Words. It uses the Ignatian practice of lectio divina as its paradigm.  Through creative structured exercises, music, poetry and art, retreat participants experienced prayer as a way of listening to and resting in the presence of God.

The experience was deepened by small group discussion. Participants were given space to share their experience of prayer - where it’s been meaningful or felt empty- and what their experience of God is like.  One participant wrote, “That was the best part.  I never get to talk about these things in my daily life.” 

Participant Sharon wrote:

"I came to the retreat hoping to deepen my spiritual experience with the Holy Spirit. From the first moments of the weekend to the final ringing of the bell, I felt safe, welcome and enriched.  The material content of this retreat was well researched and presented. There were more ways to pray than I knew were possible through music, poetry, art, meditation and scripture.  Each activity drew me deeper into my personal experience of prayer.  I went home feeling renewed and enriched with many tools to move forward into a spiritual life and into life itself.”

If you would like to participate in the final pilot project Retreat Weekend on Feb. 23-25, 2018, please register on line here.

(Register by Feb. 9th)

Your subsidized $30 fee includes all accommodation/meals/snacks. Retreat costs are generously subsidized by our project sponsors - The Anglican Foundation of Canada, The Anglican Church of Canada and The Diocese of New Westminster. 

 Please download the retreat information and schedule brochure attached below.