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Love is God's Religion

An Ignatian, Silent Weekend Retreat for Adults

February 23 - 25, 2024

Groups Attending: Individuals

This retreat is currently at capacity or registration is closed. Please call the office at 847.381.1261 with questions.

Summary

These days of retreat will explore how we are to put love in action at the margins, seeking exquisite mutuality and relational wholeness in the vicinity of the poor. The ministry of Homeboy Industries and outreach to gang members and returning citizens, will animate this time of reflection.

Description

This retreat includes several presentations, daily mass, 6 meals, the opportunity for one-on-one spiritual direction with a trained spiritual director, and many other opportunities to explore our 80 acres and almost 60k square feet of  interior space. All activities are optional, but we do ask everyone to respect the quiet of the retreat house for everyone to have the opportunity to read, sleep and reflect in the quiet. 

Bellarmine has two libraries, a resource center, two chapels, and many other common areas. Outdoor spaces include a various walking trails, various prayer gardens, a gazebo, stations of the cross, as well as a few patios and outdoor chairs and benches. Each retreatant has their own bedroom. 

You can learn more about what to expect by visiting this page.

Retreat Experience Gallery

Retreat Leader

Fr. Gregory Boyle, SJ

Father Gregory Boyle is the founder of Homeboy Industries in Los Angeles, the largest gang-intervention, rehabilitation, and re-entry program in the world.

Born and raised in Los Angeles and Jesuit priest, from 1986 to 1992 Fr. Boyle served as pastor of Dolores Mission Church in Boyle Heights. Dolores Mission was the poorest Catholic parish in Los Angeles that also had the highest concentration of gang activity in the city.

Fr. Boyle witnessed the devastating impact of gang violence on his community during the so-called “decade of death” that began in the late 1980s and peaked at 1,000 gang-related killings in 1992. In the face of law enforcement tactics and criminal justice policies of suppression and mass incarceration as the means to end gang violence, he and parish and community members adopted what was a radical approach at the time: treat gang members as human beings. 

In 1988 they started what would eventually become Homeboy Industries, which employs and trains former gang members in a range of social enterprises, as well as provides critical services to thousands of individuals who walk through its doors every year seeking a better life.

Fr. Boyle is the author of the 2010 New York Times-bestseller Tattoos on the Heart: The Power of Boundless Compassion. Followed by Barking to the Choir: The Power of Radical Kinship (2017) and The Whole Language: The Power of Extravagant Tenderness (2021). Most recently, he authored Forgive Everyone Everything, an anthology of writings accompanied by Fabian Debora’s artwork.

He has received the California Peace Prize and been inducted into the California Hall of Fame.  In 2014, President Obama named Fr. Boyle a Champion of Change.  He received the University of Notre Dame’s 2017 Laetare Medal, the oldest honor given to American Catholics. Homeboy Industries was the recipient of the 2020 Hilton Humanitarian Prize validating 32 years of Fr. Greg Boyle’s vision and work by the organization for over three decades.