A lot was talked about for the Prayer Retreat, with lots of practice in prayer. Pulling from last semester’s classes, we’re bringing it all together in a discussion on what was new, what changed about how we view prayer, and how we implement the tools we’ve gained in our lives. Adding another tool, we'll talk about the Sacrament of Reconciliation and how we can use that in our prayer lives.

With this final Retreat session, Matt pulls together the lessons of the previous three by using the Lord's prayer as a model for all prayer. Answering the particular question: how do we make the Our Father come alive and more relevant in our lives?

The first session was all about inserting ourselves into the mystery of God. The second session was all about allowing the mystery of God to come into our own soul. This third session is about the spiritual relationship with God, how to and what it means to pray with the “Body of Christ”.

The first session was all about inserting ourselves in the mystery of God. This session is all about enabling the mystery of God to be inserted into our hearts by creating space for God with the help of discernment techniques.

The Prayer Retreat is broken up into four sessions, all about addressing the prayer pillars found in the Catechism, with an aim to go deeper in prayer, to find a way to tap into the deep spiritual traditions of the Catholic Church.

We continue the Sacramental life pillar with the Sacraments of Healing. Once we have received the one-time Sacraments of Initiation, how are we to keep living in this state of Sacrament Grace? With the assistance of regular reception of the Sacraments of Healing. This class will talk about the importance of these Sacraments, what they are, their Biblical foundations, and how they strengthen us toward our path to Holiness!

We now begin the journey of discussing the Sacraments that you all will receive in one way or another: Baptism, Confirmation, and Holy Communion. We will talk about what makes them Sacraments of Initiation and how they differ from other sacraments.

What is a Sacrament and how does the differ from many Christian demoniyatios? How do Sacraments change they we live our lives? This section is about how we insert ourselves in the story of God’s love that we just learned about in the Creed.

There is no better way to understand the sacraments than by unpacking the Sacrament of Marriage. It is here that we learn the true destining of our humanity! It is here that we truly witness the romance of God’s love for His Children! Outside of Salvation History, this may be one of the most important classes to be present at.

Because of the sensitive nature of human sexuality, we will jump forward to this topic as it so closely relates to Marriage. We will discuss the Church’s views on human sexuality and reveal the deepest sources by which these moral statements arise from. Namely rooted a Christian Anthropology dependent on the mystery of God’s Nature and plurality of persons.

As we approach the end of the Creed, we now deal with the last parts of life on earth as a Catholic. What happens after death? What roles does the body have in the afterlife? How are we judged? Why are we judged twice (did you know that? Is Hell real and why would a loving God “create” Hell? And what are the Saints then?

The Church gives the highest form of veneration to Mary, the Mother of Jesus Christ. Why? What is veneration? Does veneration mean to worship? What’s with all the crazy beliefs about Mary’s sinlessness and perpetual virginity? This topic is a loaded on for our non-Catholic Christian brothers and sisters so there is a lot to talk about here.