Dear Friends of the Jesuit Retreat House,

Postponing June 7 picnic

Our June 7 Mass, Picnic, and Mortgage Burning, to celebrate paying off the $6.2 million Manresa Retreatants' Wing and renovated La Storta Conference Center, is being postponed. A future date has yet to be determined. As you might expect we feel it is too soon to draw a large number of people together while the spread of the COVID 19 virus remains a threat and no vaccine is available to prevent it.

I hope you understand that the postponement is simply a delay until the virus and the vaccine are both in-hand. When we do gather at a future date it will be to thank God for his blessings and for the generosity and foresight of retreatants, friends of JRH, and Jesuits who enabled us to pay off the mortgage. The irony is that celebrating our ability to pay off the mortgage a year earlier than planned is having to be delayed a year!

Replenishing support fund

In the meantime we are undergoing a new challenge -- cancelled retreats, limits on the number of people we can host, and changes in our retreat operations -- that was completely unexpected and has left us dependent on a Support Fund to tide us over while retreatants are not able to be here. To have that fund is a reason for thanksgiving to God, retreatants, and friends of JRH as well. Your help in replenishing the Fund is much appreciated so that it remains available when needed.

Possible first on-site retreat date

We hope that our first on-site retreat will begin June 24, which is one of our regularly scheduled eight-day individually directed retreats, but with a reduced number of retreatants and changes in our retreat operations. A virtually directed retreat in which retreatants and retreat directors communicate technologically is going on now, May 26-June 4, taking the place of the on-site retreat that we had scheduled. The virtual option will be available if needed for the rest of our summer retreats as well since we cannot host everybody on-site; some retreatants are restricted because of travel and health and cannot be here in-person.

Keeping you posted

You can keep posted on the latest developments through our website or by giving us a call. We plan to notify summer retreatants three weeks prior to the start of their retreat whether it will be on-site and/or virtual so they can determine if and how they want to participate. We appreciate everyone's patience with the changes that the current public health situation requires.

With prayers,

Fr. Chris Manahan, S.J.
Director