Offerings
Learn By Doing
Our retreats and programs go beyond good teaching. When you join us, you will be invited to enter into experiences to discover or deepen your spiritual practice—and bring it into your daily life.
Retreats
Mercy Spirituality Center is a retreat center for people of all faiths. We believe that each of us, individuals and organizations alike, needs time apart to find, deepen, or refresh our connection to what matters most in life. We are deeply grateful to be able to offer our beautiful space to the community for rest, reflection and spiritual growth.
Our facilitated retreats center around contemplative practice, Ignatian Spirituality and finding God in nature. Check our calendar to see what’s up next, or call to arrange an experience tailored to the needs of your group.
We also offer private retreats for groups and individuals. A Day to Call Your Own opens with an optional communal prayer, then the rest of the day is yours. We provide a private room, a simple lunch, and our beautiful house and grounds for you to explore as you wish. If you need a little more time in quiet, consider A Retreat to Call Your Own which includes all of the above plus an overnight and pick-up breakfast. Check our calendar for scheduled opportunities, or contact us to arrange a date that fits your schedule.
Located just one block from Highland Park, Mercy Spirituality Center offers 10 private guest rooms, meeting spaces for groups as small as 5 or as large as 35, kitchen and dining facilities along with various dining options dependent on the length and nature of your stay, a richly stocked library, spacious yard with gazebo and plenty of off-street parking.
Fratelli Tutti Encyclical written by Pope Francis
Beginning with the words of St. Francis Assisi:” Fratelli Tutti”, Pope Francis encourages and then challenges us to work together as one people sharing a common home. While acknowledging the many barriers that stand in our way - poverty, terrorism, political realities, and so many more - he leaves us with the hope-filled call to be “Artisans of Peace.“ Join us as we look at this beautiful encyclical and consider its promise and possibility.
Facilitator: Mary Lou Coffey
Dates: Monday, Jan 25, Feb 1,
Time: 7:00-8:00pm via ZOOM
Fee $10 per session or $15 for both sessions
Note: Please read chapters 1-4 Encyclical of the prior to the first session. Encyclical can be read here: Fratelli Tutti
Mary Lu Coffey is a graduate of St Bernard’s School of Theology and Ministry. She served as Liturgy Coordinator at St. Christopher’s Parish in N.Chili for five years, and then at St. Mary’s Church Downtown for twelve years as Pastoral Associate. She also volunteered at Bethany House and supports local peace initiatives including prayer vigils at the site of homicides in the city of Rochester.
Alignment-Based Therapeutic Yoga
The classes will be grounded in Alignment-based therapeutic yoga techniques. The practice emphasis is on safe and proper body alignment, paying particular attention to the body’s natural yoga centers. When all is expressed with knowledge, confidence, kindness and compassion; expansion and healing can begin. Expanding our heart, reducing self-imposed boundaries, supporting emotional health and maybe get a good stretch. The practice is appropriate for all levels of yoga experience. The class will be 8-weeks, beginning from the ground up. Come to class with a beginner’s mind, open to all possibilities, cultivating kindness and compassion, forgiving yourself along the way, not judging yourself, easily stepping into the gentle flow of your yoga practice and letting GO. Dance like nobody is looking and bring yourself to the mat.
Facilitator: Todd Manning
Dates: Thursday Mornings beginning January 21, 2021- March 11, 2021(8 sessions)
Times: 10:30-11:45am via ZOOM
Fee: $80.00 ($10.00) per session
Orientation Session for more information:
January 7, 2021 at 7:00pm via ZOOM
Todd A. Manning has been practicing yoga for 40 years. In the fall of 2017, he completed his first 200 hour Registered Yoga Teacher Training (200 RYT) in Vinyasa Prana Flow Yoga. Todd then completed his second 200 RYT in Ashaya Awakening Teacher Training, completing in the fall of 2020. Todd has been teaching yoga since 2017 and most recently started teaching classes on Zoom.
The Grace of Les Miserables
How would you like to have a supporting role in Les Miserables? Join us in this six week Lenten program and discover “The Grace of Les Miserables”. We will be using the book and video by Matt Rawle, a lead pastor from Asbury United Methodist Church in Bossier City, Louisiana. He is an international speaker that loves to tell an old story in a new way. Victor Hugo’s Les Miserables is a masterpiece. Although you might not find it in the Christian section of your local bookstore or digital reader, Hugo’s story is steeped in Christian imagery and ethics. Hugo challenges us to wrestle with the nature of grace, the fault of unwavering justice, the tragedy of poverty, the victory of love, the struggle for justice, and ultimately hope. The story is built around the life of the redeemed criminal, Jean Valjean, and his quest to discover the peace of God’s grace. His story is not unlike our own. We, too, struggle with making holy choices, wrestle with poverty and injustice, and how to share love within a world in desperate need of hope.
Facilitators: Joyce Martelli and Sr. Jody Kearney, RSM Dates: Wednesday's, Feb. 17, Feb. 24, Mar. 3, Mar. 10, Mar. 17, Mar. 24.
Time: 10:30am-11:30am via ZOOM
Fee: $100
Note: You will also need to purchase the book, The Grace of Les Miserables by Matt Rawle. You can purchase the book from Amazon for $12.18.
Design Your Path Forward
Who do you want to become? How do you want to improve your life? For many of us, these questions have been top of mind due to the challenging times around us. We may feel stuck on what has become the treadmill of life and feel as though our inspiration and purpose has been lost. But it doesn’t have to be that way. We can live a life of inner peace, freedom, and happiness. It begins by looking beneath the surface of what is, to what our heart and soul truly desire – discovering our authentic selves along the way.
If you’re hungry for freedom, growth and improvement in some or several areas of your life, join us for a practical exercise on how to get from point A to B, balance being and doing, and align to greater well-being. Join us as we walk together through designing our path.
Facilitator: Lori Webster
Date: February 23, 2021
Time: 10:00 – 11:00 AM via Zoom
Fee: $20.00
Quiet Retreats
Our day-long, mini-weekend and full weekend retreats provide opportunities for slowing down and making space for the more in your life. We offer practices designed to quiet busy minds in order to make room for a deeper and richer experience of the divine.
Mercy Spirituality Center is a retreat center for people of all faiths. We believe that each of us, individuals and organizations alike, needs time apart to find, deepen, or refresh our connection to what matters most in life. We are deeply grateful to be able to offer our beautiful space to the community for rest, reflection and spiritual growth.
Our facilitated retreats center around contemplative practice, Ignatian Spirituality and finding God in nature. Check our calendar to see what’s up next, or call to arrange an experience tailored to the needs of your group.
We also offer private retreats for groups and individuals. A Day to Call Your Own opens with an optional communal prayer, then the rest of the day is yours. We provide a private room, a simple lunch, and our beautiful house and grounds for you to explore as you wish. If you need a little more time in quiet, consider A Retreat to Call Your Own which includes all of the above plus an overnight and pick-up breakfast. Check our calendar for scheduled opportunities, or contact us to arrange a date that fits your schedule.
Located just one block from Highland Park, Mercy Spirituality Center offers 10 private guest rooms, meeting spaces for groups as small as 5 or as large as 35, kitchen and dining facilities along with various dining options dependent on the length and nature of your stay, a richly stocked library, spacious yard with gazebo and plenty of off-street parking.
Group Retreat Opportunities
We believe in the value of time apart from the routines of daily life. In our warm, inviting space, Mercy Spirituality Center is uniquely able to offer intimate, experiential, contemplative retreats for your small group. Call us to find out more about our weekend (Friday evening – Sunday brunch) and mini-weekend (Friday evening - Saturday late afternoon) offerings. Call 585-473-6893. Or email us at: [email protected] But contact us early! Available weekends fill quickly.
Ignatian Spirituality
Exercises of St. Ignatius In All Of It's Forms
The Spiritual Exercises of St. Ignatius in all of its forms, create an awareness of God in all things—all people, all creation, every human experience, and especially in the person of Jesus. We offer a model of the Spiritual Exercises designed by St. Ignatius for use in daily life which takes place over 30 weeks, rather than 30 days. This program is currently being offered virtually. Please contact Sr. Jody Kearney via email [email protected]
The Creation Stations
We invite you to contemplate nature on our beautiful grounds; walk our Creation Stations, or perhaps just sit in quiet to experience God in nature. Booklets of prayers and reflections are available for your use.
The Creation Stations at Mercy Spirituality Center were developed out of our desire to assist you in making connections with the natural world and God, our Creator.
Your journey begins at the Peace Garden and follows a path to the Wind, Creatures, Light, Earth, Water, and Trees stations. You are invited to walk these stations in the order they were intended or to just sit quietly at one of the stations.
More Creation Stations
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