For Journey into Silence Retreats, click on words
Dominican Center offers a contemplative environment for those desiring retreat at a comfortable driving distance. A unique setting for retreat, Dominican Center is a spirituality center which reserves a few overnight rooms in a very quiet atmosphere. Whether you are seeking a time to ponder, a time for silence and solitude, and / or a time for reflective study, meditation and prayer, Dominican Center can offer a day or a few days during which the ordinary rhythms of life are stilled into the simplicity of a retreat.
During your time apart, you may want to be companioned by a spiritual director who is able to facilitate your discernment - the sorting of your reflections -- in a confidential conversation.
No aspect or element of human experience needs to be excluded from or foreign to retreat. All is gift. All is grace. All is grist for the Spirit-mill of a retreat.
Accommodations may include:
- Peaceful, quiet, contemplative atmosphere
- Spiritual Direction opportunity - appointments arranged at time of registration
- Dominican Center / Marywood Chapel
- Opportunity for communal prayer with the Dominican Community
- Quiet reading / reflection room
- Tranquil campus grounds and safe walking in a quiet residential area
- Reeds Lake & Meijer Gardens nearby
- Private bedroom with bath
- Simple, nourishing meals
- Massage and bodywork sessions - by appointment only
The four elements of Dominican Spirituality (community, prayer, study and ministry) are nourished by " retreat opportunities." Integration of these four key elements enables a person to reach authenticity. . . truth - Veritas. When a person is integrated there is a consistency between personal identity, thinking, and living. One's voice communicates to others a sense of wholeness and holiness.
If the inner self is awakened, it communicates a new life to the intelligence where it lives, so that it becomes a living awareness of itself. And this awareness is not something that we have, but something that we are. It is a new and indefinable quality of our living being.
- Thomas Merton