Support El Retiro's Mission
2009 Annual Appeal Letter
2009 Annual Appeal Letter Download .pdf
Dear Friends,
St. Ignatius proposes his Spiritual Exercises as a path to freedom, as a graced movement away from attachment to anything that undermines our authentic living and toward availability for all that our God desires to do in us and for us and through us.
We have all seen, notably in the financial crisis of the past year,
that unhelpful attachments lead to disaster for ourselves and for those
around us. We have seen again that desires for integrity and honesty
and fidelity are too easily overwhelmed by our attachments to satisfactions
less edifying and less lasting.
The Retreat Center’s ministry remains, then, timely for us all. The opportunity for reflection and prayer, for peace and healing, for companionship with Christ and encounter with God’s Spirit continues to draw to this sacred site women and men in search of more complete freedom for more faithful discipleship.
We are blessed to offer here retreats silent and conversational, preached
and individually-directed. This year we served nearly 7,300 guests,
including well over 2,000 high school students. Our benefactors enabled
us again to share the liberating gift of retreat in events for homeless
women, homeless men, and Homeboys—young men moving out of gangs
and into productive and peaceful work—and to welcome our
first group of Homegirls.
Our Pierre Favre Program, preparing directors of the Exercises, graduated its first six in May. This course is transforming El Retiro as its participants, women and men, both join our retreat teams and give the Exercises elsewhere, often in everyday life.
Plant improvements continued to focus on safety, building and systems
integrity, and access. Recent projects have included re-paving of the
Way of the Cross and the Rosary Path; addition of a new handicap accessible
approach, with a dedicated parking spot, to O’Mara Hall; and restoring
the walkway and steps down the slope from the registration office to
the lower property.
Our Advisory Board has provided invaluable guidance in our ongoing process of strategic planning, helping us to envision a renewed facility, ready to serve better our current retreatants and to serve well the needs of generations of retreatants yet to come.
During the 2008-2009 fiscal year, we received over $313,900 in gifts, through personal donations, foundation grants, and bequests. Our next annual report, in early 2010, will provide the details and will acknowledge our many generous benefactors.
We are grateful for your generous response to Annual Appeal 2008. We received nearly $81,000. This included $6,225 toward the elevator for Loyola Hall (for a total, over the last four years, of $199,959), $58,904 to the general fund, and $15,865 specified for other projects or for particular programs.
We again ask your gifts to the general fund, allowing our flexible response to El Retiro’s needs, and toward specific Retreat Center programs and projects you value. (Some of these are listed, for your thoughtful consideration.)
We are grateful for the encouragement of your prayers and for all the ways you support El Retiro, and we especially appreciate your choosing, in these times of continuing global financial concern, to invest in the ministry of the Spiritual Exercises.
You and your intentions remain in our thoughts and prayers.
Sincerely yours in Christ,
Fr. Tom Carroll, S.J.
Executive Director
