Calendar of Retreats

Women’s Retreat

Childless and Catholic

with Pati Kiley
August 8 – 10, 2025

“Are you prepared to accept children lovingly from God and to bring them up according to the law of Christ and his Church?”
– The Order of Celebrating Matrimony

Expectations of having children is an integral part of marriage. If we are not to have children, then what are we supposed to do as a Catholic married couple? What is God’s will for our lives?

Trying to come to terms with infertility as a Catholic creates a burden on one’s heart that is hard to lift. What are the tools we can use to resolve feelings of self-doubt, regret, and shame?

You may have a hole in your heart or a stone. We invite you to join us on this retreat in offering up our suffering, presenting our burdens in sacrifice to our Lord as we strive to understand God’s will in our lives, coming to trust in him.

Childless and Catholic is a retreat for women who are:

• of childbearing age and long for a child, or
• pre and postmenopausal women who continue to grieve the loss of unmet hopes of having children of their own

This retreat is an invitation to come away for awhile and set one’s heart on God alone, immersing oneself in the rhythm of the monks of Mount Angel Abbey – joining them for Mass and the Liturgy of the Hours, the reading of psalms and scripture.

The retreat is comprised of five sessions based upon the mysteries of the Rosary, with opportunities for confession, prayer, contemplative silence, and being in camaraderie with other Childless and Catholic women.

Cost: $350 Single occupancy
Email retreat@mtangel.edu to register

Pati Kiley is a former youth minister who now works full-time for a general contractor and aspires to become a Catholic life coach. From high school throughout college, she participated in Teens Encounter Christ (TEC) weekend retreats in various leadership roles aiding confirmed Catholic youth in exploring their relationship with God and their faith by sharing her own. She has a Bachelor of Science Degree in Graphic Arts Management with a minor in writing.

Throughout her life, Pati has utilized her communication and organizational skills in each industry she has worked in, be it print production, educational materials, and now general contracting. She strives to connect with people whether clients, subcontractors, neighbors, or complete strangers at the grocery store (much to her husband’s chagrin).

The sixth of seven children, with both parents from large families, her husband of 24 years and she are childless. It has been on her heart to share her journey of understanding God’s will in her life as a married Catholic without children with other women who have or are currently struggling with this same question.

Pati strives to deepen her relationship with God through the Mass, prayer, scripture, conversation, and writing. Friends and family are accustomed to receiving texts or calls from her out of the blue to share revelations or questions encountered in everyday life. Pati and her husband live in Keizer, Oregon.

Marian Retreat:
The Spiritual Experience of Mary of Nazareth

with Fr. Ephrem Martinez, OSB
August 15 – 17, 2025

Mount Angel Abbey Invites You to a Spiritual Retreat.

Come and join us in a time of reflection and renewal, guided by the witness of Mary of Nazareth, a model of faith and trust in God.

In an atmosphere of prayer and silence, participants will be invited to explore their personal spiritual journey through discernment rooted in Scripture, learning from Mary the path to spiritual perfection.

This retreat is open to all who seek Christ and desire to deepen their relationship with him through the example of his Mother.

Please note: the schedule is subject to change. A final schedule will be emailed to registrants closer to the retreat.

Faith and Writing 2025

A Quick Trip Through the Afterlife
Praying and Writing with Dante

with Chris Anderson
August 18 – 20, 2025

*Note: This retreat is fully booked. To be added to the waitlist, email retreat@mtangel.edu.

In this retreat, author Chris Anderson leads retreatants on a three-day pilgrimage through the afterlife, taking in the most famous sites in Dante’s Divine Comedy while keeping a travel journal along the way. This is a pilgrimage about love and freedom, about joy, and about a new way of praying and writing.

Please bring a notebook, a journal, or a laptop.

Chris Anderson is an emeritus professor of English at Oregon State University, a Catholic deacon, a poet, and the author of a number of books, most recently, Love Calls Us Here, a book of poems.

Cost: $350 single occupancy; $550 double occupancy

Email retreat@mtangel.edu to register.

2 Become 1: A Retreat to Explore the Beauty and Truth of Catholic Marriage

with Fr. Matt Libra, Patricia Mackie LPC, and Br. Louis de Montfort Nguyen, OSB
September 26 – 28, 2025

The retreat includes marriage inventory, talks on sexual intimacy, spirituality, theology of the body, Mass, beer with the monks, and much more!

Cost: $575 per couple, all inclusive.
Information about financial assistance and scholarship available upon request.

Email retreat@mtangel.edu to register.

Please note: the schedule is subject to change. A final schedule will be emailed to registrants closer to the retreat.

Women’s Retreat

Changing Worry Into Hope

with Christin McIntyre, MD, PhD
November 14 – 16, 2025

*Note: This retreat is fully booked. To be added to the waitlist, email retreat@mtangel.edu.

As women – daughters, sisters, wives and mothers – we are uniquely designed to observe the needs of others and intercede on their behalf.  Yet, too often our loving concern only drives us to worry, while we feel powerless to help the ones we love.  Learn to model our Blessed Mother, Mary, drawing strength from the presence of Jesus within.  Experience “God with us” in Immanuel Moment meditation, allowing His grace to heal our hearts and restore our trust in our loving Father.  Learn to collect treasure from all that God permits to happen, as Mary did, making use of all things in hopeful prayer for the good of those we love.

Dr. Christin McIntyre is a married mother of five who converted to Catholicism in 1997.  She earned a combined MD/PhD degree in Pharmacology and Toxicology from the University of Kansas Medical Center, and returned to Oregon to complete a residency in Psychiatry at OHSU.  She has been in outpatient practice as a psychiatrist in the Portland area since 2003, and she continues to see patients in Oregon and Washington by telehealth since relocating to Idaho in 2021.  Psychotherapy continues to be a main focus of her practice, and to better serve a growing number of Catholic patients in recent years, she has pursued training in Thomistic psychology as well as with the John Paul II Healing Center. 

Cost: $400
Email retreat@mtangel.edu to register.
(Schedule below subject to change)

Advent Silent Retreat:
Advent with the Angels

with Fr. Michael Shrum, OSB
December 5 – 7, 2025

We invite you to a silent retreat this Advent season.

Angels are present throughout the Scriptures, guiding God’s people and bringing them messages. From Genesis to Revelation, angels play key roles in the lives of God’s people. Ultimately, God entrusted his greatest message to the Archangel Gabriel who brought to the Blessed Virgin Mary the news of the Incarnation.

On this retreat, we will prayerfully explore the role of angels in Scripture and Tradition and in our own lives.

Please note: the schedule is subject to change. A final schedule will be emailed to registrants closer to the retreat.

Life in God’s Holy Family:
Parents of Saints Bring Hope to Our Families

with Br. Cyril Drnjevic, OSB
December 12 – 14, 2025

During this retreat, we will encounter hope in our daily Christian Family Life. We will achieve this by learning from several married couples, who raised children that became saints. Their stories will help us to live Advent and our daily lives more deeply. This will help each of us to bring hope to families we encounter. Every family needs hope, which benefits from family healing.

This retreat is part of a series of Family Healing Retreats at Mount Angel Abbey.

For this retreat, we will emphasize a few themes. First, because this is an Advent season retreat, the family of Jesus will be emphasized. Then, we will explore the lives of several other couples who had children who became saints.

The families we will encounter during this retreat include:

For the Advent portion of this retreat:

• The parents of the Blessed Virgin Mary = Saints Joachim and Ann
• The parents of Our Savior Jesus Christ = Saints Joseph and the Blessed Virgin Mary

For the family healing portion of this retreat:

• The parents of Saint Therese of Lisieux = Saints Louis Martin and Zélie (Guérin) Martin
• The parents of Mother Teresa of Calcutta = Nikola and Dranafile Bojaxhiu
• The parents of Pope Saint John Paul the Second = Karol and Emilia Wojtyla
• The parents of soon-to-be-Saint Carlo Acutis = Andrea Acutis and Antonia Salzano

Cost: $350 single occupancy; $550 double occupancy

Email retreat@mtangel.edu to register.

Please note: the schedule is subject to change. A final schedule will be emailed to registrants closer to the retreat.

Ignatian Silent Retreat

with Bill Zuelke, MDiv, MS, Licensed Professional Counselor
January 13 – 15, 2026

The Spiritual Exercises of St. Ignatius of Loyola are a month-long program of meditations, prayers, considerations, and contemplative practices that help faith become more fully alive in the everyday life of contemporary people.

The Spiritual Exercises are divided into a series of four movements or “stages.” These four movements include consideration of the complex reality of human sin; an imagining of the life and public ministry of Jesus, Jesus’ last days, and  Jesus’ Resurrection, and Christ’s continued life in the world.

These Exercises are usually made in one of three different ways: first, extended over approximately thirty days in a silent retreat away from home, which was its original form; or second, as condensed into a weekend or an eight-day retreat based on Ignatian themes; or third, in the midst of daily life, while living at home, over a period of several months. Our retreat will follow the weekend format. We will also remain silent throughout the time of the retreat, including during meals. Our Retreat Director, Bill Zuelke will give 5 conferences throughout the weekend to guide our prayer and our experience of the Exercises of St. Ignatius.

Bill Zuelke is a Spiritual Director and an emeritus staff member of SoulFormation. He provides retreats and assistance with personal discernment experiences through his private practice.

Bill has a degree in philosophy from Gonzaga University (1976) an M.Div. from Boston College (1981) and an M.S. in pastoral counseling from Loyola University, Baltimore (1985). He was a member of the Society of Jesus (Jesuits) for 20 years and an ordained Catholic priest. He is trained in Jesuit spirituality and discernment of spirits and has been providing individual spiritual direction, private and group retreats, and assistance with personal discernment for over 45 years. He is a specialist in the Spiritual Exercises of St. Ignatius and has directed people through the 30 day retreat and has been involved in creating the 19^th annotation retreat program in Portland Oregon and for the Evangelical Community of the Pacific Northwest. He has been involved in Higher Education as a campus minister, counselor, student services director, and Dean for 40+ years. He has been involved in training people in the art of spiritual direction and has worked with faculties at Mount Angel Abbey, Western Evangelical Seminary, George Fox University, and training programs run by Namaste’, The Franciscan Spirituality Center, and SoulFormation. Bill has done retreats and trainings in the Philippines, India, and will soon be going to Thailand to train Spiritual Directors.

Bill has worked as a Licensed Professional Counselor, a trained supervisor, and a certified Life Coach. He also is a glass artist working in the medium of Kiln formed hot glass.

He presently resides in Portland Oregon with his wife Val and they have one adult daughter, Noelle.

Cost: $425 single occupancy

Email retreat@mtangel.edu to register.

Please note: the schedule is subject to change. 

Beginning Calligraphy & Lectio Divina Retreat/Workshop

with Fr. Philip Waibel, OSB
January 16 – 18, 2026

Limited to 25 participants

Calligraphy—handwriting each individual letter of Scripture verses in a beautiful script—is an excellent practice to slow down the mind and body in order to really experience and reflect on the Word of God and engage the whole person in prayerful and artistic reflection.

This retreat/workshop will begin on Friday evening and go through Sunday afternoon.  Meals are included with your stay beginning with dinner on Friday through lunch on Sunday. Our time together will have both a practical side and a prayerful side in the quiet and contemplative atmosphere of the guesthouse, Abbey church, and grounds at Mount Angel Abbey. The Engelberg Room will become the Scriptorium for the weekend. Fr. Philip has over 40 years of calligraphy and teaching experience.

Goals:

1. Participants will learn the fundamentals of the Foundational Hand/Roundhand alphabet, as well as the Uncial alphabet.  For simplicity of learning and to keep costs down, we will use calligraphy marker pens.   We will make several formal calligraphy & lectio projects to pull all the elements we have learned together.
2. We review the fundamentals of Lectio Divina as an ancient monastic practice of reflecting on the Sacred Scriptures which has four steps: lectio, meditatio, oratio, and contemplatio. We will also look at elements of Visio Divina.

No prior experience is necessary. For ease of learning and to keep costs reasonable, Fr. Philip has put together a step-by-step exemplar booklet that covers all the fundamentals of learning calligraphy and specifically the Foundational and Uncial Alphabets. The booklet will cover the fundamentals of Lectio Divina as well.  

Cost: $400 single occupancy | Price includes all materials needed for the retreat.

Email retreat@mtangel.edu to register.

(A wonderful exhibit of Calligraphy will be on display in the Library foyer at Mount Angel Abbey from October 18 through November 15. The title of the calligraphy exhibit is WELCOME WORDS.) See website for days and times to see the exhibit.

Inner Healing with St. Thomas Aquinas

with Christin McIntyre, MD, PhD
February 16 – 18, 2026

Eight hundred years ago, St. Thomas Aquinas described the inner workings of our body-soul composite with profound clarity. Discover how and why the truth of how God made us can set us free from the judgments, lies and ungodly self-reliance rooted in our wounds. The Holy Spirit comes powerfully to our aid as we form our intellect in the truth and conform our will to God’s, restoring the flow of grace in and through us for the healing of ourselves and others.

Dr. Christin McIntyre is a married mother of five who converted to Catholicism in 1997. She earned a combined MD/PhD degree in Pharmacology and Toxicology from the University of Kansas Medical Center, and returned to Oregon to complete a residency in Psychiatry at OHSU. She has been in outpatient practice as a psychiatrist in the Portland area since 2003, transitioning to telehealth in 2020, and now treats patients remotely in four states since relocating to Idaho in 2021. In addition to medication management, psychotherapy continues to be a main focus of her practice. To better serve a growing number of Catholic patients in recent years, she has pursued training in Thomistic psychology as well as with the John Paul II Healing Center, and has been a featured guest on two recent episodes of the Restore the Glory Podcast with Dr. Bob Schuchts and Jake Khym. Dr. McIntyre and her husband are Oblates of Mount Angel Abbey in Oregon, where she offers periodic retreats that draw from her experience in clinical psychiatry, spiritual healing ministry, and the Catholic faith. More information available at www.cjmcintyremd.com.

Cost: $450 single occupancy | $725 double occupancy
Email retreat@mtangel.edu to register.
(Schedule below subject to change)

Faith Over Fifty: St. Augustine and the Prayer of Remembering

with Chris Anderson
March 6 – 8, 2026

“I am an Augustinian, a son of Saint Augustine, who once said, ‘With you I am a Christian, and for you I am a bishop.’ In this sense, all of us can journey together toward the homeland that God has prepared for us.” —Pope Leo XIV

St. Augustine believed that God speaks to us through our lives, in what he called “drops of time,” and when we remember these moments, he speaks to us again. Using several passages from The Confessions, we’ll look back on significant moments in our youth and middle age and reflect on what God is calling us to as we grow old.

The past is not the past. What we experience in time is something timeless, is Christ, and Christ is always present. Nothing is ever lost.

Book recommendations for this retreat is Rex Warner’s translation of Augustine’s Confessions.

Chris Anderson is a retired OSU English Professor, a Catholic deacon, and a poet
and writer in Corvallis, Oregon. Learn more on his website: www.deaconchrisanderson.com.

Cost: $350 single occupancy | $550 double occupancy
Email retreat@mtangel.edu to register.
(Schedule below subject to change)

The Three Ages of Spiritual Life

with Fr. John Paul Le, OSB
July 17 – 19, 2026

This retreat will be an introduction to the three ages of the spiritual life as articulated by the great mystics of the Church and summarized in Garrigou-Lagrange’s The Three Ages of the Spiritual Life. This retreat will go over the process of spiritual growth from the purgative stage to the illuminative stage and finally to the unitive stage. The basic markers of each phase will be addressed as well as the challenges that need to be overcome. By learning about the stages of spiritual growth, one can deepen one’s life in the spirit and grow deeper in intimate union with Christ.

Fr. John Paul was born in 1983 in Garden City Kansas, but most of his childhood was spent on the Southeast Texas coast, where his parents fished for shrimp. They immigrated from Vietnam in 1980. In 1997, his family moved to Washington state where he attended Southridge High School in Kennewick, WA.  He received his B.S. in Life-Science from the University of Portland. After graduation, he did volunteer work in East Timor and Texas with the Salesians. Fr. John Paul entered the monastery of Mount Angel Abbey in 2008 and was ordained to the Sacred Order of the priesthood in 2015. He currently serves in the monastery in various capacities, which include being Subprior, Abbot’s Secretary, Oblate Director, Seminary Professor and Locksmith.

Cost: $350 single occupancy; $550 double occupancy

Email retreat@mtangel.edu to register.

Please note: the schedule is subject to change. A final schedule will be emailed to registrants closer to the retreat.

Faith and Writing: Praying and Writing with St. Augustine

with Chris Anderson
August 24 – 26, 2026

“I am an Augustinian, a son of Saint Augustine, who once said, ‘With you I am a Christian, and for you I am a bishop.’ In this sense, all of us can journey together toward the homeland that God has prepared for us.” —Pope Leo XIV

St. Augustine believed that God speaks to us through our lives, in what he called “drops of time,” and when we remember these moments, he speaks to us again. Using several passages from The Confessions to get us started, we’ll remember a few of our own important moments—and like Augustine, we’ll write about them, informally and from the heart.

For Augustine both writing and remembering can be ways of praying. When we do both, when we write about our past, we begin to see more clearly the sacred story of our lives.

All are welcome, especially those who are insecure about their writing. Please bring your journal or laptop or whatever you write with.

Book recommendations for this retreat is Rex Warner’s translation of Augustine’s Confessions.

Chris Anderson is a retired OSU English Professor, a Catholic deacon, and a poet
and writer in Corvallis, Oregon. Learn more on his website: www.deaconchrisanderson.com.

Cost: $350 single occupancy | $550 double occupancy
Email retreat@mtangel.edu to register.
(Schedule below subject to change)

Inner Healing with St. Thomas Aquinas

with Christin McIntyre, MD, PhD
October 23 – 25, 2026

Eight hundred years ago, St. Thomas Aquinas described the inner workings of our body-soul composite with profound clarity. Discover how and why the truth of how God made us can set us free from the judgments, lies and ungodly self-reliance rooted in our wounds. The Holy Spirit comes powerfully to our aid as we form our intellect in the truth and conform our will to God’s, restoring the flow of grace in and through us for the healing of ourselves and others.

Dr. Christin McIntyre is a married mother of five who converted to Catholicism in 1997. She earned a combined MD/PhD degree in Pharmacology and Toxicology from the University of Kansas Medical Center, and returned to Oregon to complete a residency in Psychiatry at OHSU. She has been in outpatient practice as a psychiatrist in the Portland area since 2003, transitioning to telehealth in 2020, and now treats patients remotely in four states since relocating to Idaho in 2021. In addition to medication management, psychotherapy continues to be a main focus of her practice. To better serve a growing number of Catholic patients in recent years, she has pursued training in Thomistic psychology as well as with the John Paul II Healing Center, and has been a featured guest on two recent episodes of the Restore the Glory Podcast with Dr. Bob Schuchts and Jake Khym. Dr. McIntyre and her husband are Oblates of Mount Angel Abbey in Oregon, where she offers periodic retreats that draw from her experience in clinical psychiatry, spiritual healing ministry, and the Catholic faith. More information available at www.cjmcintyremd.com.

Cost: $450 single occupancy | $725 double occupancy
Email retreat@mtangel.edu to register.
(Schedule below subject to change)

2nd Annual Women’s Saints and Souls Retreat

Hosted by Faith Moments and Dina Marie Hale
October 31 – November 2, 2025

Theme: Follow the Footsteps of Faith: Saintly Wisdom

This retreat features talks by Dina Marie Hale, all meals, private room/bath in the guesthouse, quiet time for prayer, optional time for spiritual direction, confession and adoration, plus join the monks in the Abbey church for Holy Eucharist and Liturgy of the Hours (Lauds, Noon Prayer, Vespers and Compline).

For details and to register: www.dinamarie.org or call 503.380.2575.