St Luke's Retreat Centre

Name: St Luke's Retreat Centre
Address: 10 Park Lane, Port Elizabeth, 6001, ZA
Telephone: +27789742861
Rating: 5

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St Luke's Retreat Centre

In the heart of Port Elizabeth, St Luke's Retreat Centre offers a space to reflect and relax.
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21/11/2024

Advent is a time of preparation. Prepare for the coming of the Lord. Join us for our annual Advent Retreat (6-8 Dec) with Redemptorist Father Tyrone Sam CSsR.

Sleep in option (900 ZAR) includes 2 nights accommodation in a single room and all meals from Friday supper to Sunday breakfast. Day attendance (500 ZAR) includes your supper on Friday and Saturday plus lunch on Saturday.

To book, contact Eva at [email protected] or WhatsApp to 083 777 9898

Bookings close Monday 2nd of December.

21/11/2024

The body keeps the score.

The teaching of Saint John Paul II in the Theology of the Body tells us that the body expresses the person and his or her soul. Our body and soul are one and what we do with our bodies matters. And when we experience trauma, our mind and body both get affected. Let me tell you how I experienced this recently.

While having a friendly chat, someone whose opinion I value, made a negative comment. A comment that felt like a punch into my gut, because it triggered a hurt from long ago. At the time the comment was made, I laughed and had a good comeback. But the next day, I started to experience some emotional distress. I stuffed it down and wrote it off as silly and over the next couple weeks I got worse. Unexplainable tremors, stomach pains, restless legs and nights. Doctors could not find anything wrong with me, wrote it off to "stress". Yes, stress it was, but it was caused by a deep hurt to my soul.

Eventually I realised that I had to forgive the person in order to get better. I had to choose to forgive, over and over, as Jesus tells us to bless "our enemies". I went to confession because I had held onto the anger to protect myself from being hurt again. A confessor asked me to write a letter to never be posted because I knew I was waiting for an apology that would not come. Because the person does not even know I was hurt. It seemed silly to even bring it up. And the truth is, that it is not the other person's fault. The fault is mine. The fault is inside of me, because deep down I believed what was said. Because of what it triggered from long ago.

This morning at Mass I felt the Lord calling to me to let it go. As I prayed the rosary after Mass, I listened to the words "forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us", as if I heard them for the first time. I looked at my hands and I realised that God cannot bless me when my hands are holding on to the hurt. Because they are clenched fists. I have to open them to receive God's blessings. I will get hurt again, but God will always be with me and help me through it.

Healing is a process. The tremors stopped slowly with time and medication and support from good spiritual advisors, but something small is still left. Hence, I am really looking forward to Saturday's Capacitar workshop with Moira Boshoff to learn to release traumatic stress from my body and to aid in my own healing. Because I know my body kept that score.

20/11/2024

Only a couple of spots still left. Final reminder for registrations for this great workshop on learning how to release your traumatic stress in a gentle way. To book please email Eva at [email protected] or WhatsApp your details to 083 777 9898

19/11/2024

Movie afternoon at St Luke's this Sunday. For everyone that doesn't want to drive in the dark, we are watching the Christian movie "The Forge" on Sunday afternoon, 24th of November from 2 pm to 4 pm. The movie follows the story of Cynthia and her son the family of Elizabeth, 10 years after the movie "War room".

Going forward we will alternate between movie evenings and afternoons in the hope of making these fellowship events accessible to more people. Tea and coffee will be provided.

Only a few more spaces left for Saturday's Capacitar workshop. Book by Wednesday 20th Nov. Email to retreat@cdpe.co.za o...

18/11/2024

Only a few more spaces left for Saturday's Capacitar workshop. Book by Wednesday 20th Nov. Email to [email protected] or WhatsApp/phone 083 777 9898

18/11/2024

One of the things I love about the Catholic faith, is that we are not scared to look at the ugliness of things and find the beauty in them.

This statue of Jesus chained in the pit after being arrested is in a strategic place at St Luke's under a staircase. Because Jesus spend the time in chains in a prison in a dark place. I know people might think that we are macabre, but they fail to see the beauty of His sacrifice for us. For me. He was spit on, humiliated, flogged, locked up and eventually killed in one of the worst ways humankind has been able to come up with. But he chose to do this. Because He loves us. Even when we don't love him and deny him and mock him in, he died for us. And that is why I love to look at this statue, not only during Lent but even during the upcoming Advent. Christmas would be meaningless without Good Friday and Easter Sunday. We get to be happy because of the pain He suffered for us.

So let us be cheerful and praise God, even when we find ourselves in a pit or other dark place. Because our own Easter Sunday is coming.

15/11/2024

Join us next Saturday, 23rd November, for the Capacitar workshop with the lovely Moira Boshoff who co-authored the recently released book "Come to me - A path through grief and loss". The book is available in the Catholic Resource Center & Bookshop for 80 ZAR which is on the same premises as our Retreat Centre. I got my copy today!

Bookings for the capacitor workshop to learn how to release your traumatic stress through gentle exercises will close on Wednesday 20th of November! Book your spot now!

Our library at St Luke's will open again from Monday 2nd December as we are currently finishing the inventory process. The library will then by open every Monday, Wednesday and Friday from 10:00 to 12:00. However, we are currently putting our catalogue online and will then also be open for lending out and returns by appointment for anyone that can't come through the week. Yearly fee to join the library is 25 ZAR which goes towards the upkeep of the library.

15/11/2024

I know we have been a little quiet... but we are planning exciting things for 2025! We will release our calendar soon but in the meantime don't forget to book for the Capacitar Workshop on Saturday 23rd November. Release your traumatic stress with gentle exercises. Please share the flyer so others may hear and heal too.

20/10/2024

Last chance to book by Tuesday 22nd October. Join us for Midweek lectures on the Synoptic Gospels from Tuesday 5th to Thursday 7th of November 2024, daily from 9 am to 5 pm.

For educational sponsorships, please email us on [email protected]

Registration form available on https://retreatcentre.org.za/synopticgospels/

18/10/2024

Happy Feast Day of St Luke! While thinking today about St Luke, I remembered the movie "Paul Apostle of Christ" with actor Jim Caviezel. If you haven't seen it yet, it is definitely worth watching.
And while the movie is telling the story of St Paul, I always found that Jim Caviezel's performance of St Luke made him the real star of the movie.

There were three things that every time I watched it, stood out to me in the movie:
1. Romans used Christians as street lamps by setting them on fire and that is hard to watch
2. St Paul's conversion was much greater than I had known from Scripture because the movie goes into details of his persecution of Christians and what that actually meant (death for them)
3. St Luke's courage, love and loyalty. He remained with St Paul until the end when St Paul was in prison and they both knew that it was just a matter of time until St Paul would be martyred. This makes him akin to the faithful who remained with Christ underneath the cross until the end.

In Colossians 4:14, St Paul calls him "Luke the beloved physician". St John was also called the beloved and he remained with Christ under the cross until the end. In a time where life is not regarded sacred anymore and euthanasia is becoming the latest evil which countries make lawful, let us remember these two, who were called beloved. They were called beloved by the people with whom they stayed until the end. They were not afraid to see the pain and suffering of the people they were with. Because this is the true mark of love. Love is an action and to be faithful is to pay the price of "willing the good of the other" with no regard of its cost to oneself.

St Luke, the beloved physician, pray for us.

17/10/2024

Weekend Retreat 15-17 November 2024! Please share and of course book to avoid FOMO.

Father Charles Brown will be joining us from the USA to give this retreat here at St Luke's Retreat Centre in Port Elizabeth.

Resource Center & BookshopCatholic Diocese of Port ElizabethSouthern CrossSouthern African Catholic Bishops' ConferenceThe Catholic Diocese of Oudtshoorn

Last chance to book! Email Eva on retreat@cdpe.co.za or WhatsApp 083 777 9898

16/10/2024

Last chance to book! Email Eva on [email protected] or WhatsApp 083 777 9898

11/10/2024

Happy Feast Day of St Pope John XXIII (1881-1963).

Did you know that the Pope prayed a daily decalogue to start his day? A variation of this is used within Alcoholics Anonymous as a pocket card as especially the part of "for 12 hours I can do something that would appal me if I felt I had to do it for the rest of my life" is very applicable. (paraphrased).
Let us pray for each other and have a good weekend fellow pilgrims.

10/10/2024

Don’t miss out on your chance to hear Father Charles Brown, S.C.J. (USA, Priests of the Sacred Heart (Dehonians) and this special 3-day midweek theology series. Consider the origin of the gospel tradition, the relationship between history and sacred text, and the ancient literary genre called “gospel.” Attendees should have a good understanding of scripture. Bookings open till 25 October.

08/10/2024

Bishop Hugh was also instrumental in the writing of the book HIV/AIDS A Call to Action – Responding as Christians - inspired by the positive response he received to a Pastoral Letter he wrote on the issue.
May the soul of Bishop Hugh Patrick Slattery MSC rest in peace, 1934 to 2024

04/10/2024

St Luke's October Bookclub: Story of a soul

I will be honest: the first time I started to read the Autobiography of St Thérèse of Lisieux, I read a few pages and threw the book in frustration into a corner. In my ignorance it appeared to be the scribblings of a foolish little girl and I could not understand how so many people loved this book. But I was merely a Baby-Christian after just having returned back to the Catholic Church, the faith of my childhood and I just could not understand the simplicity with which our Little Flower wrote.

The second time around a few years later I could not stop reading it and re-read it. So many things stood out to me: her own struggles with other people (other nuns so that put some things into perspective about relationships in general), her desire of entering religious life and the fierce determination to get there although she was too young to be accepted as well as many of her stories like her prayers for a murderer on death row whom she named her "first child" or her "elevator to heaven" (you will have to read the book, I don't want to spoil it).

St Thérèse's book helped me to accept my weakness and struggles in praying the rosary. She says in her book:

"When alone, (I am ashamed to admit it) the recitation of the rosary is more difficult for me than the wearing of an instrument of penance. I feel I have said this so poorly! I force myself in vain to meditate on the mysteries of the rosary; I don’t succeed in fixing my mind on them."

But she did not give up. Instead she focused on Mary as a Mother seeing her good will instead of her perfection. This allows me to find the grace to keep trying and praying the rosary as much as I can, even if it is sometimes hard and I do not want to. I pray that this book will guide you in your own life and why not read it this month as October is the month of the Rosary.

If a saint and Doctor of the church experienced such struggles in praying the rosary, maybe there is hope for you and me also.

Please share with us what is your favourite part about the book?

https://retreatcentre.org.za/october-book-club-story-of-a-soul/

03/10/2024

Mark your calendars!!! The Latin Patriarch of Jerusalem called for a day of prayer, penance, and fasting on October 7. The day will coincide with the first anniversary of Hamas’ attack on Israel. It is also the feast of Our Lady of the Rosary.

Pope Francis has seconded the initiative, broadening it to be a day to pray for peace around the world.

Address

10 Park Lane
Port Elizabeth
6001

Telephone

+27789742861

Website

https://retreatcentre.org.za/

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Videos

The weavers are back and entertaining us with their voices. What a beautiful place to just sit and rest in peace and tranquility in the middle of busy Port Elizabeth

Are you feeling anxious and worried right now? Take a deep breath, rest, start the video below and listen in silence for just 15 seconds. Be in the present for just a moment. No worries about the future, no regrets about the past. God has got this. He is in control. Trust in Him and He will guide your path. Just breathe. The weavers are back and entertaining us with their voices while building their nests. In the middle of busy Port Elizabeth, St Luke’s Retreat Centre is an oasis of tranquility. Thank you, Lord for this place 🙏

We are waiting in silence for the arrival of our King. St Luke’s Retreat Centre is closed until 8th of January. We give thanks to God for a year of Grace and Blessings and we are looking forward to serving you again in the New Year.