| Serenity Retreat Topics | Serenity Retreats Schedule | Fees & Reservations |
About Father Charlie Wehrley:
Apopular homilist, Fr. Wehrley has concentrated on using his homilies to bring the Word to the world of the average person. He believes strongly that God’s Word has to be applied to the joys and hardships of everyday life. His homilies serve as wake-up calls.
Through his homilies, people come to see how Jesus Christ is working in their lives today. They are challenged to move out of their comfort zones and to grow into utilizing their God-given gifts, as well as to have the courage to face the obstacles in their lives that may be keeping them from becoming better persons.
Serenity Retreat Topics:
Perfect Love Between Imperfect People (A Retreat for Couples)
Good communications and acceptance skills are essential to good relations between love partners. Perfect love exists (through God) but unfortunately no perfect person does. We all bring our character defects into our love relationships, and too often these lead to poor communications and lack of acceptance. Family upbringing, past hurts and grievances, self-loathing, emoti0nal shut-down, mistrust, jealousy and fear are among the many causes of communication gaps and a lack of acceptance that leads to eventual relationship breakdown. Love of another requires love of self and an ability to understand one's own behavior. If we don't love and understand ourselves, we will never love or understand a lover or spouse. This retreat provides spiritual insight to help transform human flaws that hinder love between couples.
Open Up Your Heart and Let Yourself Out!
O
pen hearts are happy hearts. Yet many of us learned in childhood to close down our hearts as a protection mechanism against chaos in our households. We feared not being "good enough" and we likewise feared abandonment by others. As we grew older, we became whomever others wanted us to be. The more we people-pleased, the more we lost touch with our true needs and desires. Now, when we look in a mirror, we aren't sure who we are. This retreat is for those who are ready to stop running from themselves, and to stop living by everyone else's expectations. Learn to peel away your false self, and honor your true self by taking back power over your life. Come know, be and love the true you God created!
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Free to Forgive
Forgiveness is the entire story of Jesus Christ summed up in one word. Forgiveness and mercy are central to Jesus’ teaching of love your God, your neighbor and yourself. Yet, many of us hold ourselves in a lifetime bondage of misery by refusing to forgive ourselves and others who have hurt us. Our hearts rage with an on-going anger over a past betrayal and as a result, we are never fully free or happy. Nor are we fully in communion with God because we cannot expect God to forgive us our sins if we are not willing to forgive ourselves or others. Redemption requires forgiveness and reconciliation. If you are suffering from an unforgiving heart, this retreat is designed for you!
Invitation to Happiness
Seems we're all searching for happiness in all the wrong ways. We try endlessly to find it through people, places, material objects and events, only to come up empty, disappointed, frustrated and lonely. And although we fail to find lasting happiness, we keep trying the same old methods again. ..and again...and again. If you are tired of trying to find happiness through people, shopping, career changes, traveling or cross-country moves this retreat is for you! This is your invitation to lasting happiness. come learn to tap into the one true source of happiness and take responsibility for your own well-being.
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Hasty Hearts - Facing Codependence
Hasty Hearts is a 12-Step retreat designed especially for those who suffer from codependency. Codependent hearts are lonely and are often hasty to find a fix for their emptiness. Shopping, eating, sex, TV, internet surfing, gambling or making another person into a power greater than one's self are among the methods used to gain a fix. God is the only true fix, however and the only true higher power. If happiness is eluding you like a butterfly that's always just out of your grasp, then come learn to change your way of thinking from co-dependent to God-dependent, and begin to enjoy the happiness you deserve!
Soulswept
Fear is like a cancer of the soul. Faith is the medicine for healing that cancer. Today we live with more fears than at any time since the Great Depression, and we can learn many lessons from that era. People learned to cope with hard times in the 1930s by having faith that God wanted them to succeed and by facing their feelings: they grieved their losses through torch songs and they danced their way to better times through Swing music. Come learn to cope through Faith and music.
Love Does No Harm
Many of us have difficulty living "love your God, your neighbor and your self." We will study scriptures and learn to live by the mantra "Love Does No Harm - to anyone."
Christ Within Me
Jesus Christ is a perplexing image of manliness for American men who are used to idealizing Rambo and Dirty Harry. These heroes teach us feelings b etray weakness, but Jesus teaches us that feelings show strength. Jesus shows us that it takes more than brawn and bullets to be fully alive. It takes great self-knowledge and the ability to be fully responsible for our lives and behaviors. This retreat will help you strike a balance between the "Terminator" and the "Christ" within you. Come learn to be the real man that you are: the one Jesus calls you to be; the one your significant other will love more.
12-Steppin' with the Holy Spirit ~ A Series of Day Retreats
The 12 Steps of Alcoholics Anonymous have been used by many individuals and recovery groups to enable peace of mind through surrender to God, or a Higher Power. The Steps enable us to let go of our need to control: 1) our negative emotions. 2) people, 3) reality and msot every other aspect of life that we aren't comfortable with facing.
Relinquishing our need to control helps us to also relinquish our need for addicitve acting-out. When we choose to surrender our anxious feelings to God and to sit with them until they pass, we no longer need to medicate the feelings away with beer, chocolate or a shopping spree. We are free. through surrender we face our fears and we regain power over our lives.
One doesn't have to be an alcoholic or addict to use the 12 Steps. They are also effective for those who desire to be better spiritual people.
This series of day retreats is broken down over several Saturdays to allow people time to understand each step and to develop the skills to put them into practice. Each retreat will run from 9:00 am to 4:00 pm. It will include a gourmet lunch and ample free time for meditation, journaling and walking our 120 acres of beautiful grounds with God.
A Study in 12 Steps: Workbook Study
12step spirituality is based in the simple idea of surrender. Surrender means 1) we admit we are often powerless over life and our compulsions; and 2) we will allow a Higher Power to return us to sanity. Surrender helps us to look honestly at ourselves and to take responsibility for our lives and behaviors. As we develop spiritually, surrender helps us to make amends to people we have harmed, including ourselves, and it helps us to forgive those who have hurt us. This will be an on-going 12 Step workbook study. It will meet Tuesday evenings from 7:00 - 8:30 p.m.
Truly, Deeply, Madly
Most American women have been living examples of the ancient proverb "if the eyes had no tears, the soul would have no rain-bow." They've known how to process their emotions through a living spirituality. But this seems to be changing in today's hectic world.
More women are losing touch with their feelings and with their spirituality due to changing societal pressures. Stress, fear and worry pollute their self-love and interrupt their self-care as they are forced to juggle the needs of spouses, children, friend, neighbors, church and careers.
If you are feeling like a multi-task maniac, come and learn to get back in-touch with your self and your feelings. Uncover the healthy spiritual woman under all of that rubble: the one Christ calls you to be!
My Name is a Holy Word: Treat Me as a Gift from God Day Retreat
To say "My Name is a holy word. You will treat me as a gift from God" is to set a proper boundary. This boundary proclaims that I am created in the image and likeness of God, and that I am to be treated with proper respect. It makes things clear: I am a gift from God and I will not settle for being treated as anything less. I am to be treasured and honored. And I do not accept abuse from anyone.
Setting proper boundaries is one of the most important ways in which we take proper care of ourselves. Boundaries are how we best honor ourselves. We say "No" when we are not comfortable doing something. We say "Excuse me, but no one talks to me that way" when someone tries to shame or belittle us.
This day retreat will provide the information you need to build a foundation of self-love which will enable you to establish proper boundaries. The retreat will run from 9:00 am to 4:00 pm. It will include a gourmet lunch and ample free time for meditaiton, journaling and walking our 120 acres of beautiful desert grounds with God. Cost is $25 (includes lunch).
Celebrate Yourself
Many of us are hesitant to celebrate our real selves. We have been socialized into cookie-cutter molds of what's acceptable, and if the quirks of being "me" fall outside these proper parameters, we fear being rejected. This fear then leads us to abandon our true selves. It's time to get past our fears, to get in touch with our real selves and to celebrate the persons God created us to be! This retreat will provide the tools for self-celebration.
The Surrender Box
ASurrender Box is a small box with a removable top. It is sacred. We place inside it the names of people we wish to give to God. In doing so, we surrender our powerlessness over these people to God. We also place any issues we have with life into the box and surrender them to God; whether our issues be financial, relational, health-related or extremely personal. We let go and stop trying to control the reality of life. This day retreat will give you the chance to create your own surrender Box and to begin the prayer and practice of letting go and living life again. Cost, including lunch, is $35.
My Heart Made Me the Blessed One ~ A Day Retreat
How often do we take the time to allow our hearts to make us the blessed one? Most of us are too busy to notice a moment's worth of blessings. Drinking in a sunrise with every cell of our being, breathing in the sweet smell of desert blossoms, or sitting still long enough to allow a butterfly to alight on our shoulders are just a few of the blessings that we reject every day.
By-passed blessings become curses. Every time we miss out on a moment's blessings, we rob our souls of spiritual nourishment. Our insides begin to feel flat, grey and lifeless. And our daily lives tome to lose their beauty. If this resonates with you, then come take a day off from being busy. Allow yourself to move at a snail's pace, and to see-hear-smell-touch-taste all the day has to offer. The retreat will run from 9:00 am to 4:00 pm. It will include a gourmet lunch and ample free time for meditations, journaling and walking our 120 acres of beautiful desert grounds with God. cost is $25.
Resting in the Spirit ~ A Retreat for Sacred Journaling ~ A Weekend Retreat
Quiet... Stillness... Light... Sand... Desert blossons... In all of these we experience God. The desert provides a symphony of sounds, sights and wonderment into the awe-inspiring treasures of God's creation. There is no searching for God here. There is simply an opening to God: In the desert we stop running and we open ourselves, our hearts and our souls, to God. We discover God within us and all around us. And in doing so, we also find many of the answers to life's questions. When we journal, we take those "a-ha" moments and capture them on paper where, by the grace of God, we can expand on them. Come search for the answers to your life's questions as your breath in God all around you and invite God to nestle within you. This weekend provides a wonderful opportunity for exploring the mysteries of God, nature and your very self.
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Serenity Retreats Schedule:
| January 14, 2012 | Serenity Retreat ~ The Surrender Box |
| January 20-22, 2012 | Serenity Retreat ~ Celebrate Yourself |
| February 10-12, 2012 | Serenity Retreat ~ Love Does No Harm |
| February 17-19, 2012 | Serenity Retreat ~ Dark Victory |
| March 17, 2012 | Serenity Retreat ~ I AM ...Worthy of Love |
| April 20-22, 2012 | Serenity Retreat ~ Invitation to Happiness |
| May 5, 2012 | Serenity Retreat ~ Forgiveness is the Best Revenge |
| May 18-20, 2012 | Serenity Retreat ~ Hasty Hearts |
| June 22-24 | Serenity Retreat ~ Soulswept |
| September 7-9, 2012 | Serenity Retreat ~ Truly, Deeply, Madly - - A Retreat for Women |
Fees & Reservations:
Cost: $190.00 includes the retreat, all materials, private room/private bath and six meals. $300.00 for two people sharing room/bath, which includes the retreat, all materials, and six meals. $95 commuter rate includes the retreat, all materials and six meals. Day retreats: cost is $35 which includes the retreat, all materials and lunch.
Advance registrations are required. A non-refundable deposit of $35.00 is requested to confirm your reservation. For more information, please contact us at 520.744-3400, Ext. 7101, or by email. To request a registration, click the banner below:
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