Are you looking to go deeper in your own spiritual journey?   

Fr. Thomas Haake is returning to St. Michael's and will be taking on a cohort of up to 30 individuals walking through the Ignatian Spiritual Exercises beginning on October 28th. 

Each person will commit to one hour of prayer reflection each day for five months. Material for daily meditation will be provided. Each retreatant will meet with Fr. Haake an average of twice a month for guidance in-person or via Zoom. 

We never want money to be the hurdle preventing anyone from participating. If you need financial help, please choose the Scholarship Payment option when registering. To apply for a scholarship, please contact Nick Johnson at [email protected] - (913) 402-3921.

REGISTRATION FORM

Fr Haake is an Oblate of the Virgin Mary with 40 years of experience in giving the Spiritual Exercises of Saint Ignatius, who wants to accompany you in discovering and pursuing your personal journey to interior freedom. The Ignatian Spiritual Exercises have been given for nearly 500 years and are intended to help participants actualize the reality of their personal relationship with Jesus Christ.    

The Spiritual Exercises with Fr Haake is being discerned to start this fall in November and end about 5 months later.  

Each session of 20 Weeks is limited to the first 30 people who have paid their registration.  

The Spiritual Exercises are a series of personalized meditations drawing the retreatant to personally encounter the saving and liberating power of the Gospel.  This occurs through meditations on the Life, Cross, and Resurrection of Jesus Christ.  There are four parts to the Spiritual Exercises:  God’s plan (sin and mercy), the private and public life of Jesus, His Passion and Death, and the Resurrection. Doing them properly affords a very transformative experience.  They are adaptable to a wide variety of retreatants and life settings.  

St. Ignatius of Loyola (1491-1556) was very convinced of this. So much so that while he was still a student himself, studying philosophy and theology, his roommate used to ridicule him because St Ignatius was always trying to convert people. St. Ignatius then asked his roommate to make the month-long Spiritual Exercises, after which the latter abandoned his professorship and ultimately became known as St Francis-Xavier, the Patron Saint of Missionaries.   

Since 1979 Fr. Thomas Haake, OMV, has fruitfully devoted his life to giving the Exercises. His congregation, the Oblates of the Virgin Mary, was founded principally for giving the Exercises.  They received papal approval in 1826. 

Because not everyone can go to a retreat center for a month and do 4 or 5 meditations per day, the Spiritual Exercises in 20 Weeks calls for one hour of meditation per day for about 5 months.  Therefore, this retreat is designed with the needed flexibility to meditate wherever works for you.  Your 20 weeks will begin on May 28th with an email from Fr. Haake providing you with more instructions and the first 5 days meditations. Also, once every two weeks, each retreatant will have a colloquy (spiritual conversation) virtually or in person with Fr. Haake, which will be scheduled via Sign Up Genius. Thus, these Exercises are truly available to anyone, anywhere... and they are priceless while effecting a marvelous interior change in the retreatant. 

Greater detail is provided HERE in this video. 

Thus far the age range of participants with Fr Haake has been 8 to 76 years old.  There is something here for everybody. Those under 18 are invited to make at least a ½ hour of meditation per day.  Rules for discernment are provided for each of the four parts.  Ten ‘cushion’ days are built into the schedule for when retreatants don’t do that day's meditation.