In this six-day silent retreat, we will immerse ourselves in the flowing of love in our hearts, flowing through all creation, in the flowing of love Gertrude of Helfta names “Beloved of my Heart”.  Creating a small, silent communion, we will pray her Spiritual Exercises – a beautiful collection of affective, heart centred meditations unwaveringly dedicated to ever deepening union with God in contemplation.  

TIn this seven-day silent retreat we will pray the Spiritual Exercises of Gertrude of Helfta as she shows us how our insatiable desire – desiderium – for union with God is God’s desiring for us to be endlessly drawn into the kiss and embrace of beautiful cherishing love.  Each Exercise illuminates the fruition of desire in contemplation from a different perspective: rebirth of the soul in the ground of the heart, becoming a monastery (minneclositer) of love, awakening of desire, fruition, living in joy, transfiguration and mystical dying.  

Gertrude’s Spiritual Exercises teach us to remaining in desire as they draw us into the endless depths of our being in God.   Gertrude offers us profound mystical wisdom for our time. For by its very nature, desire for union with God unifies and heals our fragmented self, our relationships with each other and with our earth. Here, all the division and separation that gives rise to so much suffering and violence in our lives dissolve in the intimacy of the kiss of divine Love.  

Over the seven days, we will create a communion of loving silence and contemplation. We will begin each day with morning meditation, a brief reading and reflection from Gertrude’s text as we taste and enjoy God in contemplation. Spiritual direction will be offered every day. The cost of the retreat will be $460.00