Your directors for this retreat, Following Our Pilgrim Hearts, are Francis and Clare of Assisi, contemporaries who were determined to follow the Christ who spoke to them from the cross of San Damiano and to rebuild the Church by living the gospel of Jesus. You will walk in the footsteps of Francis and Clare through Assisi and the Umbrian countryside, focusing on pilgrimage and retreat, the going forth and the going within of the soul's journey.

A Retreat with Francis & Clare of Assisi: Following Our Pilgrim Hearts

Religion & Spirituality

Murray Bodo

Susan Saint Sing

Christian Books & Bibles

Saint Anthony Messenger Press

Spirituality of Sport focuses on the energy of a benevolent God that humans experience as joy and the impetus to play, dance and compete. In exploring and developing a healthy spirituality for body and soul, Saint Sing tells many personal anecdotes and those of her fellow athletes and coaches. She discusses briefly the history of play and sport, from the ancients to such moderns as Michael Jordan, including St. Francis own play. She describes spiritual and religious trends and reaction to sport and play, the ideal of a balanced person (body, spirit and soul) and connection to the inner athlete, ethical values for Christians engaged in sports, a model of play as energy that is archetypal in nature. She offers sports visualization techniques in the form of prayer and positive reinforcement of the body image.

Spirituality of Sport: Balancing Body and Soul

St. Anthony Messenger Press

The San Damiano crucifix is a stage where a story is being told. There are different sets and players on the stage and we are the audience viewing it; and it too has an audience upon it that is both viewing the crucifixion and playing a part in it….Francis walked onto that stage a person who had within him the violence of war, unrest and severe doubts. And on this stage he became a person of peace. His prayer before the crucifix is also our prayer, 'What will be ours to be and do'? —from the Introduction Francis and the San Damiano Cross: Meditations on Spiritual Transformation is an invaluable prayer resource that uses the cross of San Damiano—the cross that spoke to Francis of Assisi—as inspiration for personal reflection. Susan Saint Sing, a former resident of Assisi and follower of Francis, takes the reader on a journey to the place where Francis prayed before the San Damiano Cross. Not only does she recall her own personal journey to Assisi, she recounts the spiritual and physical transformation of Francis in his quest to "rebuild" the Church—a quest that began in the small, broken-down church of San Damiano but was the catalyst for a much broader reconstruction. These meditations not only detail and explain the images on the cross itself, but they explain the powerful message of the cross—transformation: "It speaks to us still, beckoning us to repair our lives, our relationships, our failings—in honor of Him who gave his life there on the cross in order for us to become more in the fullness of his presence, to be instruments of peace. Christ's death and resurrection, celebrated on this gilded cross is a call to each of us, like it was to Francis, to become great through Him. We are called to live like Francis, to be like him and to be transformed."

Francis and the San Damiano Cross: Meditations on Spiritual Transformation

History

World

Franciscan Media

Saint Sing has spoken internationally for both academic and athletic conferences in several universities-most notably a Vatican appointment in 2009 to speak with an international panel of sport administrators from Africa, Japan, Russia, South America and various nations of the world. Saint Sing earned her bachelor's degree in Physical Education and Fine Arts from Penn State University, her master's degree in Health and Nutrition Science and Exercise Physiology from the University of Cincinnati, and her Ph.D. in Sport History and Philosophy from Penn State in 2004. Saint Sing has coached teams to seven national rowing medals, including two at Stetson for the lightweight women. Under her coaching leadership, Stetson's men won their first Florida State Championship in the men's light four in 2011. In 2010 and 2011 the lightweight women won state and regional titles and medals including two bronze medals at the Dad Vail National Regatta and the team has been nationally ranked in the top 13 in the U.S. for the past two years. St. Francis' Canticle of Brother Sun is a profound articulation of his journey to God. He enters into creatures, becomes one with them, and praises God through them. In this intimate account of that journey Susan Saint Sing enters into creation with Francis and makes the journey with him. Her book is an inside look at how The Canticle was written, and how Francis came to be the man who could sing such a creat

St. Francis Poet of Creation, The Story of The Canticle of Brother Sun

Tau-Publishing

Read all about the sights and sounds of the spiritual city of Assisi, Italy. This books includes color images of some of the most inspirational places that Francis and Clare spent a good part of their lives in.

A Pilgrim in Assisi, Searching for Francis Today