Lenten Retreat

Every Lent, we are called to go apart, to enter into silence, and allow grace to flow more freely within us and through us. This year, rather than going to a desert, Mary Anne Best, LeAnn Billups, and Carolyn Goddard invite you to come to the mountaintop and set an intention to allow ourselves to be transfigured by silence, led deeper into the grace that heals.

Join us to have your heart nourished. It is deep in the heart of silence, beauty, and our common intentionality that we can have ears to hear and take-in the gifts of purification, illumination, and union. Join in receiving these gifts. This is a silent retreat that includes:

-Selected excerpts from the videos of Thomas Keating
-More than 2 ½ hours of Centering Prayer daily
-The practice of Lectio Divina and Visio Divina
-Daily prayerful movement/yoga
-Celebration of the Eucharist
-Opportunity to meet individually for spiritual companioning with retreat leaders
-Silence and solitude

Program begins with a Welcome to St. Mary’s Sewanee at 4 p.m., Friday, February 28 and concludes after lunch and a “Sending Forth” at 1 p.m., Sunday, March 1.

Retreat Leaders:

Mary Anne Best serves as development director of Contemplative Outreach, Ltd., stewarding the raising of funds and the production of special projects. Mary Anne is an editor and coordinator for the development of new works by Thomas Keating, organizes and leads Centering Prayer retreats, and is a principle writer for online courses and the Contemplative Life Program (CLP). She is a member and trustee of a contemplative Christian community in Austin, Texas; mother and grandmother of two beloved grandchildren; and enjoys the silence, walking, yoga, nature, and travel with beloveds to faraway places.

LeAnn Billups leads yoga as prayerful movement on Centering Prayer retreats near and far.  In 1989, she was drawn to yoga because of chronic back pain. She discovered Iyengar and was intrigued by the mental and physical aspects of the practice, the discipline, precision of alignment, and how studies of yoga lead to self-awareness. The transformative power of the practice inspired her to become a certified Iyengar instructor in 2015. LeAnn is a Centering Prayer facilitator and a member of a contemplative Christian community in Austin, Texas. She enjoys time with her two daughters, the outdoors, gardening, sports, yoga and nature.

Carolyn Goddard has taught high school English and religion classes, served as an associate pastor at Christ the King Church and worked for Thistle Farms, a non-profit social enterprise, both in Nashville, Tennessee. She has also volunteered at Cumberland Heights, Nashville Adult Literacy Council and Room in the Inn. Currently, she facilitates weekly Lectio Divina and Bible study groups and is on the board of Contemplative Outreach of Middle Tennessee. Carolyn is married, has two adult children and a beagle named Beatrice.