Workshops & Classes
Monthly Book Talk
Free • 3rd Saturday • 9:30 am - 12:00 pm
The group currently meets in person. Contact Sr. Dorothy Jean to join. Click here for a complete book list with meeting dates.
December 9, 2023 @ 9:30 a.m. Agatha Hall
Dream Group: Language of the Soul
$20 • 3rd Saturday • 10:00 am - 12:00 pm
Listening to dreams in a group can help us pay attention to God's presence in image and word in our awakened life. Presenter is Clara Jean Dawson.
January 20, 2024 @ 10:00 a.m. Dining Room
Please Note
Vaccination and social distancing
required (Mask are optional). for all attending retreats and workshops in-person at Queen of Angels Monastery. We greatly appreciate your help and support in keeping the sisters and guests safe.
Prayer of the Heart
Free • 3rd Tuesday • 3:30 - 4:30 pm
All are welcome to join this contemplative prayer group. Meetings take place in the Chapel, located on the second floor of the Hospitality Center.
December 19, 2023 @ 3:30 - 4:30 p.m.
The Creative-Spiritual Life Circle via Zoom
Free • 3rd Saturday • 1:15 - 2:30 pm • Zoom
A Benedictine-centered discussion group whose concept is simple: people who gather together on a regular to share, without interruptions, whatever is gratifying us or amazing us or troubling us or puzzling us about the intersection of creativity and spirituality. September through May.
Click here to learn more and to register.
December 16, 2023 @ 1:15 p.m. via Zoom
Ongoing Formation for Spiritual Companions
2nd Friday • 9:30 - 11:30 am
All spiritual directors are welcome to attend the monthly meetings for on-going formation and education featuring lively discussions of pertinent spirituality topics, prayer and skills of the ministry. Meetings taking place via Zoom.
December 8, 2023 @ 9:30 - 11:30 a.m. via Zoom
Retreats & Events
January 27, 2024
9:30 am - 3:30 pm
Chapter Room
$50
Includes Supplies, Bring Your Own Lunch
Experiencing Mary as the Mother of the Divine and the Mother of Us All presented by Nancy Hendricks
With meditative readings, icons, art and time for your own writing and drawing we will spend the day getting to know Mary in many ways.
Presenter: Nancy Hendricks, MA from University of Portland, Oblate of Queen of Angels Monastery, and retreat presenter is creating a 2-acre peace garden with her husband.
To register, call 503 845-2556 or send a check payable to Benedictine Sisters, Attn: Sister Dorothy Jean, 840 S. Main St., Mt. Angel, OR 97362, three days before the retreat.
March 9, 2024
1:00 - 4:00 pm
Chapter Room
$25
Snacks and Beverages Provided
Laetare Retreat: Come Rejoice With Us presented by Nancy Hendricks and Susan Black
Mid-way through the penitential season of Lent comes a bright spot of hope and
joy: the 4th Sunday of Lent, Laetare Sunday. The liturgical color of the day -- rose -- shines like a beacon against the unrelenting purple of Lent, a visual sign to the faithful that Easter is within our sight.
Named for the Latin word for “rejoice”, Laetare Sunday helps us remember God’s grace, mercy and unconditional love. The day gives new energy to our traditional Lenten practices of prayer, fasting and almsgiving, and sharpens our focus on how to live in right relationship with God and others.
Yes, Christ’s suffering, crucifixion and death loom ahead of us. But Laetare Sunday reminds us that from the tragedy of the Passion arises the reality of Christ’s Resurrection, with the assurance that we all share in that miraculous gift of eternal life and light. With our faith thus strengthened, we can resume our Lenten
observances with renewed commitment.
Please join us for a special gathering to celebrate with words, art and music the joyful anticipation of Resurrected life. Our time together will be guided by Susan Black and Nancy Hendricks, Oblates and experienced Shalom at the Monastery retreat leaders.
To register, call 503 845-2556 or send a check payable to Benedictine Sisters, Attn: Sister Dorothy Jean, 840 S. Main St., Mt. Angel, OR 97362, three days before the retreat.
March 23, 2024
1:00 - 3:30 pm
Chapter Room
$20
Book, Snacks and Beverages Provided
Scholarships Available
Making Our Way with Jesus to the Cross
presented by Susan Black
We invite you to prepare to enter Holy Week by freshly experiencing a traditional practice: following the “Way (the “Stations”) of the Cross.” Walk, reflect and pray with Jesus as He is condemned to death, as He makes His tortured way through Jerusalem to Golgotha, as He consoles His Mother, as He encounters the kindness of Veronica and the grief of the women of Jerusalem, as He weakens, stumbles and falls, as He is crucified, dies and is buried. Our faith tells us that death is not the end, that it is the necessary door to eternal life, that the Resurrection belongs to Jesus and to us. Facing the reality of Jesus’s death helps deepen our belief in this mystery.
This retreat will be guided by Susan Black, based on The Way of the Cross: The Path to New Life by Sister Joan Chittister with illustrations by Janet McKenzie. Participants will also have the opportunity to follow the Way using the Monastery’s own unique resources: the outdoor version (on the path to the Benedictine Sisters’ Cemetery) and the wall plaques designed for indoor display. Both of these meditative art resources were reverently crafted by Sister Angela. Susan Black is an Oblate of Queen of Angels Monastery and an experienced Shalom at the Monastery retreat leader.
To register, call 503 845-2556 or send a check payable to Benedictine Sisters, Attn: Sister Dorothy Jean, 840 S. Main St., Mt. Angel, OR 97362, three days before the retreat.
May 4, 2024
1:00pm
Outdoor Labyrinth, West End of Shalom Building
FREE
World Labyrinth Day: Take Steps Together for Peace
The Benedictine Sisters at Shalom at the Monastery invite you to walk with them their outdoor labyrinth on Saturday, May 4, 2024 at 1 p.m. Please gather at the labyrinth at the west end of the Shalom building.
At 12:45 p.m., there will be a brief explanation of the Peace Walk on the labyrinth. We will then walk the 20-minute Silent Peace Walk, using the format of Benedictines For Peace. Following the walk, refreshments will be served in the Benedictine Sisters' dining room. All are welcome!
To register, call Sister Dorothy Jean Beyer, (503) 845-2556 or email her here.
June 22, 2024
9:00 a.m. - 3:30 p.m.
Chapter Room
$50
Snacks/Beverages Provided,
Bring Your Own Lunch
Aging: The Open Door to the Rest of Your Life guided by Susan Black
“The Lord opened a door of opportunity for me.”
2 Corinthians 2:12
“When one door closes, another opens;
but we often look so long and so regretfully
upon the closed door
that we do not see the one which has opened for us.”
Alexander Graham Bell
Are you standing in the liminal space between the closed door of a known past and the open door to an unknown future?
This retreat is designed to help you see the opportunity presented by the open door of aging. If you regard aging as an integral part of God’s gift of life, you can be confident about stepping through that door. How can you support and sustain that confidence? By creating your own Credo of Aging -- a statement of beliefs and approaches that will help you flourish in a new and meaningful stage of life.
This retreat will be a time of personal discovery. Using a variety of creative and spiritual tools, you will review what has brought you to this time of transition. You will design your Credo, an approach to the future that is uniquely yours, because it will be based on your own history and your own aspirations.
Aging is an experience that is both universal and unique. As part of the mortal human community, we all take a journey from birth through life until death. As unique individuals, we take this journey in ways that no one else ever has, or ever will. And along the way, we encounter challenge and opportunity, success and failure, joy and sorrow, clarity and deep mystery. Doors close, doors open, paths unfurl ahead of us and detours and crossroads abound. Always -- if we are paying attention -- there are questions about the meaning of life, and how to fulfill it, how to honor what God has freely given us. Whenever these questions come upon us, that is the time to begin engaging with them. This retreat may be your time.
The retreat will be guided by Susan Black, who has led our monthly Zoom-based discussion group, the Creative/Spiritual Life Circle, since 2021. In 2023, she conducted three well-received retreats: “Enter the New Year with Joy”, “The Virtue of Holy Surprise” and “Finding Treasure in Ancient Practices: Walking the Labyrinth and Making Mandalas”. Susan is an Oblate, an artist and a writer; to learn more about her, go to the website www.BlackStarStudio.me.
To register, call 503 845-2556 or send a check payable to Benedictine Sisters, Attn: Sister Dorothy Jean, 840 S. Main St., Mt. Angel, OR 97362, three days before the retreat.
September 14, 2024
9:30 am - 3:30 pm
Chapter Room
$50
Bring Your Own Lunch
Benedictine Monastic Spirituality & Ecological Wisdom presented by Nancy Hendricks
Benedictine Monastic Spirituality & Ecological Wisdom: The ways that living according to the Rule of Benedict can guide us in our care for the earth.
Benedictine monastic wisdom and spirituality to guide us as we explore ways to care for God's great gift to us: Earth and all of creation. Scripture, The Rule of St. Benedict, and the long monastic tradition will guide us in ways to live in harmony.
Presenter: Nancy Hendricks, MA from University of Portland, Oblate of Queen of Angels Monastery, and retreat presenter is creating a 2-acre peace garden with her husband.
To register, call 503 845-2556 or send a check payable to Benedictine Sisters, Attn: Sister Dorothy Jean, 840 S. Main St., Mt. Angel, OR 97362, three days before the retreat.
November 9, 2024
1:00 - 4:00 pm
Chapter Room
$25
Snacks Provided
The Spirituality of Dorothy Day presented by Nancy Hendricks
Dorothy's Catholic Worker movement applied the teachings of the Gospel to daily living. Dorothy's love of Scripture, particularly the Psalms, kept her fed during her passionately lived life. We will explore this modern-day prophet and her continuing influence in our world.
Presenter: Nancy Nendricks, MA from University of Portland, Oblate of Queen of Angels Monastery, and retreat presenter is creating a 2-acre peace garden with her husband.
To register, call 503 845-2556 or send a check payable to Benedictine Sisters, Attn: Sister Dorothy Jean, 840 S. Main St., Mt. Angel, OR 97362, three days before the retreat.