Our personal mission in life is to “Love God, love others and make disciples.” While this sounds like a set of “marching orders,” it is more about first, coming to understand how much God loves and delights in my being who I am, warts and all! Second, that that experience of being loved becomes the force or grace of God in me to love others as I have been loved. From our own experience we know how, when someone treasures us and makes us feel special, it’s so much easier to talk about it and share that love with others. Third, that sharing, that moving out beyond myself to others, extends to wider and wider circles like the ripples in a quiet pond, as when a stone is thrown into its center.

Yes, we’re created and called to an ever fuller life and it’s somewhere in that flow we find ourselves in our loving God, loving others, or making disciples. This retreat day together will put us in greater touch with where we are in this flow and how to move forward. Mass will be offered at 11:00am and lunch is included. Guided by Fr. Nicholas Amato.

Father Nicholas is no stranger at Bon Secours and offers several retreats each year. In 2008 he became an Associate member of Mepkin Trappist Abbey and continues to offer retreats there as well. He has served more than 20 years as a pastor in the Archdiocese of Baltimore and is a graduate of the Shalem Institute of Spiritual Formation in Washington. He has studied at the Vatican and in Israel. He has served as adjunct faculty at the Shalem Institute and as a member of the Spiritual Formation Department at St. Luke Institute in Silver Spring. He has Masters degrees in Counseling and in Theology, as well as a Doctorate in Educational Administration. He is the author of Living in God: Contemplative Prayer and Contemplative Action (2016) and Moving from Stress to Joy (2018). In early 2020 he will publish Seekers: One and All which, as his other books. will also be available from Amazon.