Feb 24 Saturday Emmanuel Lenten Retreat from 10am to 3pm in the Parish Hall.

Dedicate a day in Lent to a more intensive spiritual practice. This year our retreat will introduce the spiritual practices of the hesychast tradition. These ancient practices comes from the churches in the East. Some people have called it the Christian Yoga. It involves quiet, short repetitive prayer, and some bodily expressions. We will have an opportunity to learn about it and practice different aspects of this tradition together.

We will take this practice home and then on Saturday, March 23 at 4pm we will show a fascinating documentary that takes us to the different sacred places with this practice originated and is still kept. For the first time on film desert hermits, monks and nuns share their practices and invite us into their private cells, caves and sanctuaries in the Middle East, Mediterranean, Eastern Europe and Russia. We can then have a discussion on how this practice has gone for us and how the movie has encouraged us.