A Mother’s Sorrow
Growing our Capacity for Great Grief and Great Love
An online Lenten Retreat with Mary, Mother and Crone
When you tap into the state of our world at this moment, do you sometimes feel a sorrow too big for words? A sorrow much bigger than you, almost like you’re connecting with the heart of everything? You feel its specificity– the losses you’ve endured, the pain you carry, the grief you know, all that has rent your heart. But it’s also bigger, wider, more encompassing. And have you noticed that when you go there– into your grief, into the tenderness of your own heart– it’s somehow a gateway into Life, into wild authenticity, into Love and Liberation? That somehow it connects you with all beings, everywhere, who have suffered?
This is the tragic beauty, alchemy and medicine of the Mother Heart, holding every sorrow. This is the power of Her love. She lives in you, making Her home in the center of your heart. It is also what is known in the Christ-light lineage as the “paschal mystery.” That life, death and rebirth are always cycling through this human life, that evolution is upon us, and that one of the primary gateways into Big Love is grief.
The season of Lent in the Christ-light lineage, preparation for the resurrection of Easter, is about honoring the cycle of sorrow. Of grief. Of the letting go that is an essential part of being human, part of being a creature on this planet earth. It’s about releasing what binds us, so that we might, like Jesus our brother in the Mother, Rise.
This Lent, what would it be like to honor this grief, to feel this sorrow, held in Her love and yours? What if you could do it in the way that’s just right for you– dipping a toe in, or maybe diving deep, always adjusting and honoring to come into more alignment with what’s most true? And what if in doing so, you could grow your capacity to hold Her as She holds you?
What if Lent is not so much a season of shame, but of true “repentance”, turning toward your true heart, the inner beat and rhythm of great grief AND great love?
This Lent, we will journey together through five portals of loss and grief, using the stories of the Sorrowful Mysteries of the Rosary. Each week, we will open to the mystery of life as told through the story of Jesus and Mary. We draw on the archetypal energies of Mother and Crone to do this work, hand in hand with our own deep resources of embodiment and earth connection.
DETAILS
Days & Times
5 retreat sessions during Lent 2023
Wednesdays, 7-8:30 pm Central Time
March 8, 15, 22, 29th and April 5
Zoom Retreat Space. Option to attend in live time or receive recording.
Cost
$111 by March 1st; $133 after. Registration closes by noon on March 8th.
(please ask about a sliding scale if this is needed or you would like to contribute towards helping another person attend the retreat)
Retreat Special: Add an Embodied Soul Session to support your retreat experience. When taken in conjunction with a retreat, this can deepen and enhance your experience! $60 for an hour session (over 40% discount)
Weekly Themes
Week 1: Lay your Body Down (the Agony in the Garden)
Week 2: Public Piercing and Private Pain (the Scourging at the Pillar)
Week 3: The Upside Down (the Crowning with Thorns)
Week 4: Where Blood Drips and Roses Bloom (the Way of the Cross)
Week 5: Return to the Arms of the Mother (the Crucifixion)
What to expect from this retreat experience…
-practices of embodied, contemplative and communal prayer
-soul sharing in small and large groups
-teachings and transmissions
-a wisdom circle of shared insight and revelation
This retreat can help you to….
-grow in your relationship with the Divine Feminine, in particular the ways She tends your heart
-deepen into what it means to be a SoulFull or spiritual human, rooted into, surrounded and guided by Spirit at all times
-access more grief and sorrow held in your heart, bringing you into greater wHoliness
-feel the capacity of your heart and gently increase felt capacity for holding sorrow
-access the Ocean of Divine Love that is around you, in you and moving through you
-connect with others on the journey and remember you are not alone
This retreat is for…
-those wishing to grow in relationship to the Divine Feminine, themselves and those around them
-anyone desiring a way to enter the Lenten season in a fresh way in a loving community of other seekers
-those particularly called to or interested in opening to layers of grief and sorrow within themselves and in the world
-those seeking to develop simple spiritual practice that works for them
-anyone with interest in or curiosity around the intersection of Christianity and the Divine Feminine
Please note: This retreat is open to women, men, trans folks and nonbinary siblings of all races, ethnicities, religions and spiritualities. If you feel called to be part of this experience, you are welcome. Please know that it is a retreat rooted in an emergent, expanding Catholic Christian context and informed deeply by shamanic teachings and embodied spirituality. Please also know that however you identify, this is a space of honoring and re-centering the feminine principle in us, in our spiritual practice, and in the world. Please come with an awareness of your own inner tendencies towards domination, a willingness to learn and adjust, as well as to yield space to anyone coming from a place of greater vulnerability and oppression than you. We agree to live together by the central Catholic Social Teaching, “preferential option for the poor.” This means that whoever has been made least among us by systemic injustices gets to take up more space and have their voice heard when we gather.
The idea for this retreat sprung from a time of deep prayer with Mother Mary during Lent 2020, in the initial isolation of the Covid 19 global pandemic. You can read more about my reflections on the Sorrowful Mysteries of the Mother at that time here.
“Erin's retreat was soothing, sacred, and Spirit-filled. Through her tender and loving facilitation, I felt held in the embrace of Mother Mary! A retreat with Erin is like sitting down to chat with the Divine Mother with a comforting mug of tea. I always look forward to dropping into sacred space with her!” -Kathleen
Your space holder and facilitator:
Erin Duffy-Burke is a contemporary catholic priestess, in service to the reclamation and renewal of Sophia, the Feminine heart of Christ. She is honored to stand in the lineage of Mary Magdalene, Mother Mary, Joan of Arc and so many other female spiritual leaders, healers, teachers and priestesses in the Christ-light lineage. She is excited to re-member and reweave this golden thread of Sophia Christ all the way from the Great Cosmic Mother Goddess into our lives today. She is a trained minister and thealogian, and holds masters degrees in Catholic Education, Multicultural Ministry and Christian Spirituality. Her primary initations and teachers have been the death of her sister by suicide almost 9 years ago and the grief journey; the love of her husband John and building true partnership together; her journey with depression and the deep dark; all of creation and the Beauty Way of it all. She is available for 1-1 Soul work online or in person, wedding officiating, baptism, reconciliation and other sacramental needs, birth doula work and retreat facilitation. She’s also a facilitator of ecstatic dance and a yoga therapist, weaving embodiment into all her work. She lives in the Dutchtown neighborhood of St. Louis with John and their two dogs, Connell and Lupita.