Overview

Offerings

We offer the Spiritual Exercises of St. Ignatius on a monthly and weekly basis, many opportunities to learn and practice contemplative prayer, reading programs on St. John of the Cross and other Carmelite Saints, and contemporary writers such as James Martin, Thomas Keating, Richard Rohr, Thomas Merton and special one-time programs. Six overnight retreatants or up to 25 guests for daytime programs or retreats can be accommodated.

Retreats

We all seek God. More importantly and amazingly, God seeks us. God made us so that only God can satisfy our deepest desires for goodness, beauty, truth and oneness. God completes our incompleteness and heals our wounds. God is the meaning in our meaninglessness, our clarity in confusion and our hope in hopelessness. God is All and everything we need. God is the desire of our hearts and only God can fulfill our desires. “Our hearts are restless,” St. Augustine says, “until they rest in God.”

The following retreats are offered

year-round at Francis House:

Silent Directed Retreats: varying from 3 to 7 days

Silent Directed Retreat Weekends: one each month

Centering Prayer Retreats: 7-Day and Weekend

1-Day Personal Retreats

Weekend and 7-Day Guided Retreats (with conferences)

Each retreatant bedroom has a private bathroom. Francis House is surrounded by beautiful parks for walking and has a large outdoor swimming pool for summer retreats! Enjoy! An indoor chapel is used daily by retreatants, program participants, staff and volunteers. The outdoor Stations of the Cross were carved by Joe Palecki and installed in 1999 and moved to our new home.

Consider having your parish retreat or parish council retreat with us with 25 retreatants for a day program or 6 retreatants for an overnight.

Programs

MONTHLY SERIES

Francis House offers a variety of Monthly Series that meet from September to May. We would love to have you choose one that meets your need for on-going spiritual growth. These are so helpful in providing good content, a little structure for your life with God, and an enjoyable sense of community. There are 20 options from which to choose.

IGNATIAN SPIRITUALITY

All people desire to deepen their life with God and give God first place in their life. Many deeply desire to go away on retreat for that purpose but circumstances prevent it. We offer three options for a retreat in everyday life to fit the various schedules and quantities of time available. The goal is to deepen life with God in everyday life, to grow in prayer and to follow Jesus more closely. All three options are based on the Spiritual Exercises of St. Ignatius of Loyola.

CONTEMPLATIVE LIFE AND PRAYER

Contemplative Prayer changes your life. You become more centered in God, more peaceful, less reactive and more in tune with God’s desires for you. God wants you to receive his healing and transforming love. Francis House is dedicated to the practice of contemplation as a means of growing in love for God, others and our broken world. The fruits of the prayer are noticeable in your life of love. We offer evenings, weekends, and 3 to 7-day retreats on Contemplative Prayer.

Spiritual Direction

Spiritual Direction is a monthly one-on-one conversation about your life with God. With the accompaniment of a spiritual director, you learn to deepen and enjoy your relationship with God, and to be more aware of God’s presence and action in all the events of your life. Spiritual direction is available upon request at Francis House of Prayer. We also offer a 3-year Intern Program for spiritual directors. See the Spiritual Direction page of this website for information on the Intern Program