Dark Love  Eight Meditations on Mary Magdalene’s encounter with the Risen Lord in John’s Gospel.   The meeting of the soul with Divine Love in mystical union in the “dark love” of contemplation (Mary coming to the tomb in the dark) opens to Apostolic Union (Mary is "sent out" to proclaim the Resurrection). Using renderings of Mary Magdalene in art, we see how she carries many archetypes, all of which can help us in our own deepening experience of faith.  

Inhabiting Your Prayer: Creating  an Abbey of the Imagination  By placing aspects of a life of prayer into the context of an imaginary cathedral-like church with gardens and guesthouses, cloisters and towers, participants design a balanced interior life.  Based upon the medieval use of “memory palaces” the Abbey of the Imagination reclaims a playful and traditional tool for growing in depth and prayerfulness.

Bible Play   Using basic improvisational techniques, participants learn to embody a Biblical text for an experience of “deep play.”  Rather than a performance, “playing the text” involves everyone, creating scenes of people, objects, and settings. Sharing personal revelations after “playing” reveals unusual and original insights into scripture. This technique can be used with any age group and across generations.

Advent Retreat  (with Brother Bede OHC) An annual tradition at Holy Cross Monastery for more than 15 years. The Advent Retreat might include themes of prophecy, apocalypse, conversion, repentance, acceptance, icons, pilgrimage, time and space, and will include solitary time as well as either the building of the cresche scene or slow pilgrimage to it, with live music and sound-scapes by Sister Helena Marie.