The Manresa Retreat: From Love, Of Love, and For Love

The eighth installment of the Manresa Retreat occurred the weekend of April 17 at the Bryn Mawr Retreat Center in Honesdale. Over the span of three days, the retreat focused on exploring the life’s work of the founding Jesuit saint, St. Ignatius of Loyola, and some of his unique contributions to the philosophy of love and religion.

“Manresa was the first retreat of my life and I didn’t know what to expect. I went in with an open mind and came out with new perspectives about God and spirituality. It was a great experience to meet new people and immerse myself in the University culture,” said Matthew Morris ’23.

One of the most outstanding accomplishments of St. Ignatius was his Spiritual Exercises, a prayer and meditation guide written in the town of Manresa in 1548. Ignatius provides a well-developed overview of the Spiritual Exercises in the first five stanzas of its introductory Principle and Foundation. This Principle helped the Manresa retreatants explore the concepts of love for self, for God, and for others. Retreatants uncovered in prayer and in various discussions the meaning of finding God in all things, gratitude and reverence, faith that does justice, Ignatian indifference, and magis and discernment. 

"My experience with the Manresa retreat has been nothing but positive. It has allowed me to recognize the gifts that I see in myself and how I can use them to impact the world around me," said HollyAnn Serp ‘21.

In what was a wonderful and impressionable weekend, everybody left in appreciation of the fact that we are all truly from love, of love, and for love.