Mount Alvernia Retreat Center in Wappingers Falls (Photo courtesy of Richard/Flickr)
Several retreat centers in the Northeast are offering programs in the coming months that focus on Franciscan spirituality.
In Aston, Pa., Fr. Cyprian Rosen, OFM Cap., will lead a retreat titled “Through the Labyrinth with Francis and Bonaventure” from May 16 to 22 at the Franciscan Spiritual Center. Fr. Cyprian has lectured on the writings of St. Francis to groups in New York, Pennsylvania, Washington, D.C., and England. For 17 years, he served as associate editor of Greyfriars Review and is a member of the Canon Law Society of America. The cost of the retreat is $400. Registration can be completed online.
In Easton, Pa., St. Francis Retreat House will offer a retreat titled “Francis and Clare of Assisi — Their Legend and Their Lives” from Oct. 2 to 4. The program will concentrate on who Francis and Clare were before the legends and what made them saints. The cost of the program will be $165. More information is available on the retreat house’s website.
In Wappingers Falls, N.Y., Fr. Romano Almagno, OFM, of Immaculate Conception Province, will lead a retreat for friars from Oct. 18 to 22 at Mt. Alvernia Retreat Center, where he is a member of the retreat team. Fr. Romano was a religion and ethics professor at the University of Pittsburgh for 30 years and served as guardian and commissary of the Franciscan Monastery of the Holy Land in Washington, D.C., for three. He has led retreats for religious, clergy and bishops in the United States, Italy, Belgium, Germany, the Philippines and Africa. To register, interested participants should mail a check for the requested stipend of $300. to Fr. Roch Ciandella, OFM, at Mt. Alvernia Retreat Center, PO Box 858, Wappingers Falls, NY 12590.
— Compiled by Maria Hayes