hello welcome to mosaic. i am tom burke. retreats are well known and useful spiritual tools i think in all religious traditions but very very well known in the catholic tradition. today we will look at retreats through the lens of valembrosa retreat center in men low park it is operated by the archdiocese of san francisco. we welcome dominican father george matanic. it is a beautiful place i don't say that because it is down the street from a foster freeze it

is a beautiful place you are the executive director. we want to talk about retreats. can we spend just a few minutes, a little time on their purpose, their time, where they found their beginnings? >> retreats are times of going away for quiet,. >> sure. >> for reflection, for prayer, you are right when you say we have a beautiful facility the name comes from a retreat center. >> looking at some beautiful pictures now. >> there you go. yeah. from a bendecitne monastery called the shady glen it reflects the shady glen atmosphere. people walk on to the property and say we are in the middle of the city but you would never

know it. peace and feel quiet we have some bunny rabbits on the property which adds to the flair of the place. >> deer come in every once in awhile don't they? >> i haven't seen any deer. >> okay in my time down there once in awhile i did see them. >> lots of birds. now, as is a real tradition in the catholic church you have a patron saint. >> when i first got there i asked the question what do we celebrate as the feast day and obviously valinbrosa is not a saint but the founder of the original one was st. john or giovani gualberto we decided to take his feast day, july 12th and make that our own. and the wonderful story, you know this is a picture of the

merciful night, john was on his way home on a good friday, when he encountered the man who had murdered his brother and he was seeking revenge he had been seeking revenge against this man for the longest time and discovered he now had the opportunity to kill him. the man extended his hands in the sign of the cross and asked for mercy. john gave him mercy. shortly after that he entered the monastery which he helped to found, the alambrosin order and the rest is history. >> and that is an interesting coincidence because there is no -- it is no small coindense

reconciliation is a huge part of a retreat. you mention and you made your points well about where you wanted to go and everyone calls on retreats from leadership in the church to those of us who have not so much to do with the church but the priest to have archdiocese go there for retreats and study days coming up soon. we have a bishop coming in to lead their thought. >> yes, june 13th, we have two weeks of study days, for the priests of the archdiocese and then they come back in october for a retreat. >> right. >> this year's retreat by the way is for the priest of the archdiocese is going to be given by father rad cliff. >> okay. >> he is the former master general of the dominican order. >> okay so you are old friends. >> actually we are. we are.

>> is he have vallejo dominican like you? >> no, he is british. he was one said to be the finest preacher in all of england. and we have study days in june which is nice what i wanted to point out, everybody lanes on the retreat in the -- leans on the retreat in the church the pope loves a retreat he walks every day in retreat. we want to talk when we come back and not miss the chance father weston will be down we will talk about that and more things here on mosaic. so just lane back and stay with us on mosaic ,,,,,,

welcome back to mosaic. we are talking about retreats and looking at retreats through the lens of valinbrosa retreats

center, ministry of the archdiocese, he has his shirt, the director, dominican father, george metanic and it has quite a history. we will maybe keep father weston as a surprise. but tell us about the original retreat what started down there. >> they have been around for a long time often holy name society. >> archdiocese purchased this property in 1947 and the original mansion that was there was turned into a retreat center for women, since there wasn't any retreat center at that time specifically for women and it wasn't until the 1960s that the present buildings were built to house more retreats. >> here we are. >> that is the porch. >> that is early on. >> of the original mansion. >> the women doubled and

tripled up in bedrooms in the old mansion. 1960s we built the new additions. you can see part of them in the background there. we opened it up to men and teenagers, we now host five catholic high schools doing kiros restreets. i find it amazing to have 60 or 70 high school kids on retreat in silence. it is amazing and they take it so seriously and ... >> i think amazing is a good word because elements of a retreat cross all boundlies, all age boundaries you don't have to have any special kind of -- everyone who goes on retreat be they old or young benefits from the same things restreets bring. >> i had -- retreats bring.

>> i had an experience recreptly where a woman a-- recently where a woman approached me and said why don't you have retreats for widow. i said no body has asked she said i am asking. we are having in october -- august, a retreat, for widows the first reaction was this is for widows who are grieving it will all be about grief and i said the widows i know are well beyond grieving and what they are dealing with are issues of loneliness and isolation, so the focus of the retreat is going to be on that. how do i survive in the world today as a widow, that -- in a place that isolates me and -- where i feel so much alone. >> there is so much foresight there because it is those subsequent days to losing someone, that you really have to adjust to. so that is kind of what you do

too and also the idea of a marriage, a wedding is a day a marriage is a lifetime as a retreat director as putting things together you have to think for us, what maybe our needs are going to be. you have to see maybe things we are not going to see. so how is that as part of your job? do you like that? >> well, marriage preparation is really a wonderful aspect of the ministry. we have been asked to be the marriage and family life center for the archdiocese, and we take that very seriously. so we host engage encounter and marriage encounter, we sponsor our own program called engaging the heart, which is a one day preparation, but we also have people who come for retro ly. marriages close to breaking

up. >> new beginnings for people who have broken up and they are trying to survive the death or divorce in their relationship. >> yeah. >> so we cover the wide spectrum of where people are in terms of their relationship and now the widows. and there is so much going on all hours of the day the website has everything lined up. i mean you can go there and learn about marriage and learn about the retreat for the widowed. archbishop youth needer hauer is going to give a talk. >> he is giving the last of the series on flannery o'connor we have had different speakers this year next year we will do a series on healing.

>> great. >> a totally different topic and a whole different set of new speakers we are just about ready to put that list out. >> okay. >> in our website. >> we are just going to take a break, sneak away we still want to talk about father weston because you talk about healing, and he is -- he has helped so many people heal this man among them. stay with us on mosaic

♪ ♪ ♪ you are with us on mosaic and we are glad. today we are talking about retreats and we are looking at them through the eyes of valimbrosa retreat center a

ministry of the archdiocese of san francisco it is in menlo park down the street from a foster freeze i love and father thanks so much. there is so much to talk about retreats, we can't cover it all today we invite everyone to visit your website www.valimbrosa.org and they can find out so much more and contact you. we just want to open the door but there are things we do want the open the door on one is you say you have a revised advisory board, user friendly website and post card ministry talk to us. >> well, let me start with the post card ministry that is brand new we are just starting. we actually do two thing s with the post card ministry, in every retreat, there is a post card and a little thing that says i am on retreat and while i am here i am praying for you

and we encourage the retreatist to fill it out and send it to someone they love. >> wow. >> put down the date that they are there, and if they drop it at the front desk we put a stamp on it and mail it for them. >> what a nice idea. >> are people taking up on it? >> we just started it. >> well, you keep us informed i thing people would. they are all part -- when you are on retreat you just don't go to the workshops the whole stay is a retreat, right? >> yeah. >> the whole -- whatever it is be it a day or several days. >> and it is not just for you. >> tell us about that. >> that is why we put the post cards, to remind them they can put other people in the retreat. the other part of our post card ministry, is each month at our staff meeting we select the person or church or school in the archdiocese we want to pray

for, for a week and we send them a post card that says during the week you have been selected to be prayed for by the staff. we started with the archbishop. he got the first week. >> nice. >> we are praying for the different schoolparishes to let them know we are there, thinking about them hopefully they will thing about us. >> and prayer works there is no doubt about it. i have been a benefit of prayers for many many people and i am grate and feel my family too. father weston who is an icon in recovery he is going to be leading restreets -- retreats and this also shows the depth of what goes on there is recovery, there is -- wherever you are if you are in a good spiritual place or not in a good emotional place there is going to be something for you but tell us about jesuit father

tom weston he comes every year. he gives retreats around the country. >> i have seen his schedule it is pages long. >> yes. and we are lucky to have him come as one of his stops. it is always booked early and completely so if people are interested in that i believe it is in august, and now would be a good time to register,. >> so they know, and they can find all the information they need to know at www.valimbros a.org >> you wonder with a name like that you don't have to worry about someone else getting it. >> so we want to talk to -- you are talking about a user friendly website but tell us about that i went to it and indeed it is. >> it will be even more so as of today, we are just updating our website, and we were hoping to go online today, so that people don't have to do as much

jumping around from one place to the next on the site. >> and it is -- i mean when i am searching for some thing i might need. i am not going to -- you need something easy to use because you are going to give up the search. you know, because you are a little bit afraid to go on retreat or a little bit shy or -- so that it is easy to locate things is really important. >> i tell my staff if i can use it i know anyone can use it. >> there is a warm, happy welcome you have thought all these things out you know where people are when they are going on retreat. >> one of the comments we get most often on our evaluation sheet is that this is a warm and welcoming place from the moment people walk in the door whether it is the kitchen staff or the maintenance staff or the retreat staff, people are always complementing us on the

hospitality, and the warmth of greeding they receive. >> right i can affirm that i have experienced it myself it is wonderful. let's talk about the nuts and bolts you've got good chow you have nice digs. >> we have. >> great food. >> great food. food is always top on the list for evaluation. some times people will point out things that we don't do so well for awhile we were getting lots of comments about needing more vegetarian food. >> okay. >> we listened to all of those comments and have made changes because of that. some people said why don't you have more locally grown foods well, now we actually have a map that shows where we get our food and it is all locally grown. >> okay. >> so you are not getting any

more rhubarbs about the chow. >> we are getting rhubarb >> that is huge too because a huge part of a retreat is listening you are giving us that example. valimbrossa in menlow park we will talk more about it when we come back on mosaic ,,,,,,

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today on mosaic. we are looking at retreatlooking at them through the lens of valimbrossa retreat center menlow park and father, i love that church,. >> they were over in the

vatican what do they say when the pope comes, is that what people say when you are coming, here he comes. >> here he comes. >> you have a great staff there? >> small stuff great people. >> let's talk about father george you are a vallejo dominican. >> yes, i wear that honor proudly. we have -- for over 100 years the parish was dominican and there was dominican sisters in the elementary school, the high school, and at one point when i graduated from high school, 50 years ago, there were 10 members of my class who entered religious life. >> wow. >> the parish there and the high school really fostered vocations. but for year after year, there were -- there was almost always

one young man who entered the fryers so i can look back over father patrick la bell, martin walsh, raymond finnerty myself, one after another from that parish we got the nickname the vallejo dominicans and we wear that proudly. >> how do you feel today about guiding people through the spiritual gift of a retreat? how do you feel about being the former of that work? >> it is a wonderful job. it really is. i don't actually lead a lot of the retreats i do one retreat every quarter called the silent retreat, and that is for people who really basically want to do their own thing most of the time. so it is as much or as little as they may be looking for in terms of guidance. >> i thing you pointed to it that you can find what you need

at valimbrosa and you are open to ideas, there is plenty of room for plenty of people to stay there is great food, great leadership, great things going on. and it is all vailable at www.valimbrosa.org they can be in touch. i don't want to miss anything we have a new years eve retreat, a mothers day retreat all kinds of special things going on tell us about those they are out of the ordinary. >> well, a new years eve retreat is still up in the air because we have been trying to move in two different directions on that p. have not really found an audience. >> okay. >> for that retreat. and it is a retreat we did years ago but haven't done for awhile. >> okay. >> mothers day was not a retreat but the mass and brunch. >> okay. >> that was a successful event, it was an opportunity for our

choir to really shine they provided the music for the mass. >> they have wonderful work. >> they do a thanksgiving concert and lessons in carolls at christmas. >> okay they do a lenten concert, so they are just a wonderful group of people. >> we have only been able to go around the bases once i think on what is going on. www.valimbrossa.org. you have been wonderful father i hope you will come back. >> thank you happy to. >> people can know about more. can you exhort us, 20 second exhortation about a retreat. >> if there is one i would love to really push, it is the focus training for priest and deacons, focus is premarriage instrument for working with

young couples, and we are trying to train priests and deacons and lay people in how to use that program effectively. >> there is room for all of us. father thank you and thank you for joining us on mosaic. i am tom burke ,,,, lysol knows when the weather is at its best

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