‘Abide with Me’ Online Mini-Retreat

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Date

April 23, 3-4pm EST

Tickets

Free, or gift option

RSVP

Closes April 23rd

100 seats

Limited availability. 

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Headline Options

  • Discover 9 ways to pray, and pick your favorite to rest in God
  • Experience how God wants to fill you with his love and connection
  • Find out how ‘spiritual success’ is not what you think, and still a lot more
  • Learn to sit with God and feel how special and beloved you are
  • Ready to learn 9 different ways to pray, and how they change everything?
  • Discover ancient, traditional, and effective forms of prayer  that promote rest
  • Did you know: prayer can free your mind to focus on enjoying life more?
  • Step away from the crowd to find your unique path to prayer
  • This free retreat shares the beauty of simple, restful prayer in God

We are all called to pray daily. But how do we actually do that?[or start with your own experience of difficulty in prayer]

Most prayer seems like talking to a wall. Are you still feeling frazzled and frustrated and tired – even after 4 weeks of Lent? Are you still not feeling renewed and rested? Are you privately ready for Easter to be over?

Don’t feel bad. That’s because most of us haven’t yet learned to pray.  We think it’s about asking for things harder. Are you always hoping for something? Do you get distracted easily? Are you worried you did it wrong?’ Are you wondering if God is even listening?

Join Sr Kathryn Hermes FSP for a free, mini-retreat called Abide in Me & I in You: A Retreat on the Presence of God. It’s hosted online on Saturday April 23, 3-4pm EST. We’re going learn about simple forms of prayer that puts all our fears aside.

Instead, we’ll focus on abiding in God.

Register free here: https://smartcatholics.com/rsvp

The event is coordinated by SmartCatholics, the fastest-growing online community to support Pope Francis. It’s free of toxicity, trolls, and ads, and is building a culture of kindness and learning. 

Here’s why I’m excited to share this event with you:

[insert your endorsement]

Come and discover what you’re missing.

  • Discover prayer that is restful, calming, calling you to abide quietly in the presence of God.
  • Join us to talk about the lost practice of prayer where you allow Jesus to actually touch you, and abide in you.
  • Find out how we see the world differently when we are aware of the abiding presence of God – and how nothing can separate us from it!

Come together with us to learn and ask questions, for about 30 minutes. You will be able to chat and meet other members of the retreat one-on-one.

Then, you’re invited to continue with a 9 day ‘challenge,’ or the retreat.

Each day shares with you a different form of prayer. All of them help you do one thing: open up to the holy mystery of Our Lord. To abide in him, and him in you.

Register free here: https://smartcatholics.com/rsvp

[end with your usual flair!]

Headline options:

  • Discover 9 ways to pray, and pick your favorite to rest in God
  • Experience how God wants to fill you with his love and connection
  • Find out how ‘spiritual success’ is not what you think, and still a lot more
  • Learn to sit with God and feel how special and beloved you are
  • Ready to learn 9 different ways to pray, and how they change everything?
  • Discover ancient, traditional, and effective forms of prayer  that promote rest
  • Did you know: prayer can free your mind to focus on enjoying life more?
  • Step away from the crowd to find your unique path to prayer
  • This free retreat shares the beauty of simple, restful prayer in God

The ‘Abide in Me’ event is a chance to discover the calmness of contemplative prayer. Did you know that almost no-one knows this ancient practice? It’s as old as the Church mothers and fathers. The saints loved it.

With the uniquely warm and calming Sr Kathryn as a guide, you’ll start with a short talk on Saturday April 23, from 3-4pm EST. Plus meet up with other attendees!

Then we’ll head into a 9-day retreat. Each day, a short prompt is shared with you. You pick your time, and commit to a short space of prayer.

After 9 days, we reconnect to catch up and share our experience.

What does it cost?

Tickets are free. You’re also invited to support this retreat with a $10 ticket. 50% of all proceeds will be donated to the Pontifical Missions Society, to bring relief to our family in the Ukraine.

Register free here: https://smartcatholics.com/rsvp

Here’s why I think this is an amazing retreat:

[add a comment or memory about your own prayer efforts]

Meet your hosts

Your hosts are Sr Kathryn Hermes FSP, and Dominic de Souza. Sr Kathryn is deeply in love with prayer, and has written many books on prayer and inner peace.

Dominic de Souza, the founder of SmartCatholics, has been (clumsily!) practicing this simple, ancient prayer for almost a year, and it has changed his life. We want to share this joy with you.

The event is coordinated by SmartCatholics, the fastest-growing online community to support Pope Francis. It’s free of toxicity, trolls, and ads, and is building a culture of kindness and learning. 

Yes, it is life changing. Practicing the presence of God does not leave you the same.

It is an invitation to the Holy Spirit to come with his gifts of love, peace, joy, patience, understanding, and many more. We must each of us build the habit of reverence before the holy mystery of God.

Register free here: https://smartcatholics.com/rsvp

How does it work?

Sr Kathryn will host a 30 minute retreat, with time for questions and responses. Chat one-on-one with other members of the retreat. Then, sign up for the 9 day challenge.

Each day of the challenge, Sr Kathryn will provide a short prompt to reflect and pray about. Commit to schedule 10 private minutes to simply rest in God – you decide when. Know that other members are doing it too, just like you!

We will meet up mid-challenge to check in on how everyone is doing. At the end, we’ll come together to share our experiences and thoughts.

That’s it! Hope to see you there!

Why a mini-retreat?

Mini-Retreats help us pause and allow Jesus to touch us with his grace. We intentionally deepen our spiritual lives. “You touched me and now I burn for your peace.” St Augustine

Many of us have never been taught to grow in the practice of resting in God and his love. This is a way of deeper prayer grounded in the Word of God. It has a specific goal: to start changing us from the inside out. Not by forcing anything. Not with pressure, or shame, or wishing. But resting in the presence of God.

When we sit with God in the quiet, to listen and love, we’re opening ourselves to him. We’re allowing him to speak. God doesn’t always use words. He often talks through renewed strength, direction, comfort, insight…

“Everything comes from this: from a heart that feels that it is looked on with love. Then reality is contemplated with different eyes.” Pope Francis

This is not a single path of prayer. Different kinds of prayer exist for different stages of your life. Sister Kathryn will present various ways of entering more deeply into effective and simple abiding with God. It will transform your life.

We learn to pray by praying. That’s why our retreat will move in and out of periods of guided, meditative prayer. We will together follow along and learn how to contemplate the presence of God. We will learn how to avoid the pitfalls.

Register free here: https://smartcatholics.com/rsvp

About the Challenge

Register today to get 9 days of meditation prompts,  and 4 audio guides. These will introduce you to the various ways in which you can enter into deeper prayer. You choose how you rest.

Hold onto the audio guides for those days when you need extra help stilling your soul, to find your way back to rest in God’s love for you.

Every member of SmartCatholics has a special call to discover this form of prayer. As Catholics in the modern world, grounding ourselves in this spirit of calm reverence helps keep us from getting caught up in all the fear, anger, and knee-jerk reactions.

Easter is the beginning of everything, not the end. As you read the Easter Gospels you get the sense that the Apostles began to know Jesus almost for the first time. Thomas touched his wounds. The apostles received gifts of peace and healing from their Master. The twelve began to better understand themselves and the mission Jesus gave them for the next stage of their life.

Jesus ‘paused’ his teaching. Now he touched them deeply so that they would always have him with them. “Abide in me, and I in you.” Jesus

Register free here: https://smartcatholics.com/rsvp

[end with your usual flair]

how we support you

When you support this event, here’s how we help more people learn about you:

Emails

Our list of 11,500 has a 20% open rate each week. Your logo is included with our sponsors.

Expo Booth

Get a booth to meet members live and feature your website link. Or Send a pre-recorded video to greet attendees.

Social Shares

We’ll share your logo on our social media, and @mention you – Facebook, and Instagram.

Community calendar

Each week we promote this event in our community calendar. Your logo is included.

Retreat Materials

Participants enter a 9-day challenge within the community. Your logo and endorsement gets added to the challenge.

Collaborative growth

Our approach to growth is friendship and collaboration. We support you, and together, we support each other and grow our reach.

Registration page

The event registration page features your logo, and a link to your website.

Repurposed Exposure

We plan to repurpose this retreat several times each year. That means your logo and link continues to reach people.

Support Ukraine

We’re gifting 50% of all proceeds to the pontifical missions society for Ukrainian families’ relief.

Got a question?

Send Dominic a message any time!

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