BENEDICTINE SPIRITUALITY RETREAT: Hospitality as a Paradigm of the Spiritual Life

monastery. Virtually every Benedictine monastery has a guest house to provide the disciple-monks the opportunity to ‘welcome guests as Christ Himself.’  This retreat will show that the virtue of hospitality can be seen through the larger lens of human and spiritual relatedness.  We all have implicit and explicit relationships with God, with self and with others. In prayer, one makes room for God, the Initiator of our life and consciousness, commits time to the desire God has for us to be and to ‘be love’ in God’s likeness.  Being made in God’s image, we cannot be fulfilled without a daily and conscious devotion to the Source of our being.  In the interior life of the soul, God manifests His presence and divine will, leading us toward self-knowledge, ongoing conversion and human maturity. In our communal relations, the love of God is the Source that overflows in our families, friendships and ministries, in our welcome of pilgrim, stranger, neighbor, and the poor.

Presenters:  Fr. Francis Benedict, OSB and Elizabeth Seward, Obl.OSB