http://www.christian-retreat.org/

The House of Prayer, The House of Prayer, East Molesey (2026)

10/04/2026

Explore the life and writings of the German-Jewish philosopher, Carmelite nun and saint, Edith Stein. Edith wrote profoundly on the nature of the spiritual life, inspired by figures such as Teresa of Avila and John of the Cross, and in response to the state of degeneration she witnessed creeping across Europe. We will explore Edith’s understanding of our relationship with God, her distinctive philosophy, and her ethical approach to contemplation, discernment and desire. Edith speaks directly to the modern challenge of living through, and encountering God in, times of change, uncertainty and suffering. The more deeply we are drawn into God, the more we must go out of our ourselves to carry God’s life into the world around us.

📆 Saturday 31 October 2026, 10am – 4pm
💷Cost: £35 / including B&B (Fri - Sat): £110
🍏Bring a packed lunch
❓Have a question or would like to book? E-mail us at [email protected]
👉 Find out more: www.christian-retreat.org/our-programme/living-from-the-heart-praying-with-edith-stein

Kerryn is Director of the House of Prayer and practises as a spiritual director and retreat guide. She draws on the contemplative tradition and has a particular interest in Edith Stein and the relevance of her spiritual anthropology for today.

09/04/2026

Prayer is at the heart of any relationship with God, and this plea from the disciples to Jesus is the universal plea of all who long to draw closer to God. And yet God is already closer to us than we can ever imagine. Prayer helps us realise that. Our short course will look at different ways of praying, with emphasis on the relationship with God that they foster rather than as techniques to be mastered.

Themes will include the Lord’s Prayer, that response of Jesus to the disciples’ request, along with Lectio Divina/Sacred Reading, Imaginative Prayer, Praying with Art and Centering Prayer. Sessions will consist of input on the particular theme of the evening, with times of silence followed by a plenary session as we grow together into a praying community. Additional material will also be offered at the end of each session should people wish to go deeper in their own prayer time during the subsequent week.

📆The course will meet on Zoom on Tuesdays:
• Tuesday 27 October, 7pm - 8.15pm
• Tuesday 3 November, 7pm - 8.15pm
• Tuesday 10 November, 7pm - 8.15pm
• Tuesday 17 November, 7pm - 8.15pm
• Tuesday 24 November, 7pm - 8.15pm
• Tuesday 1 December, 7pm - 8.15pm
• Tuesday 8 December, 7pm - 8.15pm
💷Cost: £55
❓Have a question or would like to book? E-mail us at [email protected]
👉Find out more: www.christian-retreat.org/our-programme/lordteachustopray

08/04/2026

Come and make a Byzantine icon. This introductory course offers participants the opportunity to make an icon over six weeks. All materials will be provided including pigments and an authentic gessoed panel. With Cari’s guidance and support, participants will be able to choose between two head and shoulders Byzantine images. During the course, we will learn how to transfer the drawn image onto the panel, mix pigments and consider colours, and add layers of highlights beginning with the initial Proplasmos. We will not use gold leaf, but there will be gold paint for haloes, wings and garments. At the end of the course, our icons will be blessed.

📆 Wednesdays, 10am - 4pm: 28 October; 4, 11, 18, 25 November; 2 December.
💷Cost: £360
🍏Bring a packed lunch
❓Have a question or would like to book? E-mail us at [email protected]
👉 Find out more: www.christian-retreat.org/our-programme/icon-making-workshop

Cari has worked as an Art psychotherapist for the past 20 years initially with children in the public sector and then with adults as a private practitioner with a special interest in spiritual abuse. She trained to be an Ignatian Spiritual Director eight years ago with an interest in the interface between trauma and an authentic spiritual journey. She started her career with a Degree in Art at Birmingham University and more recently going on to learn to make Icons with Peter Murphy (Master Iconographer) in Canterbury. “The liminal space in which all the arts exist seems to be an important place to heal and to grow in reflective contemplation”.

07/04/2026

When we pray with the Psalms, we share in an unbroken thread of continual prayer that reaches back over 2,000 years. The Psalms not only contain the most beautiful and consoling lines in Scripture, they take us on a tumultuous journey of human emotion and experience lived in relationship with God. This retreat morning offers suggestions to explore how we can pray the Psalms with our own voices, both for ourselves and our communities. Bring a Bible and journal with you.

📆 Friday 9 October, 10am - 1pm
💷Cost: £15
🍏Bring a packed lunch
❓Have a question or would like to book? E-mail us at [email protected]
👉 Find out more: www.christian-retreat.org/our-programme/quiet-morning-praying-the-psalms

06/04/2026

“Listen, I am standing at the door knocking. If you hear my voice and open the door, I will come in and eat with you, and you with me.” Revelation 2: 20

This weekend training retreat is for those interested in leading an Open Door Retreat in their parish, pastoral area or other environment. Also, for those seeking to refresh their experience of ODRs. The weekend will be experienced on two levels: firstly, you will have authentic experience as a retreatant, and secondly, thorough guidance on facilitating/leading an ODR. All materials will be provided. Participants should have knowledge of Ignatian spirituality, some training and experience in spiritual direction, and ideally attend as pairs with the person with whom they hope to facilitate. ODRs are always facilitated in pairs.

📆Friday 2 - Sunday 4 October 2026
💷Cost: Standard: £240, En-suite: £260, £125. Contact us for further information about bursaries.
❓Have a question or would like to book? E-mail [email protected]
👉Find out more: www.christian-retreat.org/our-programme/open-door-retreat

Tina was received into the Catholic Church 30 years ago. She is a spiritual director and Diocesan Pastoral Supervisor. Tina is a Benedictine Oblate but is also drawn to Ignatian Spirituality and has led on and trained leaders for the ODR. Tina works full time as a community palliative care nurse with a local hospice. Tina has recently completed her master’s degree in Bioethics and Medical law.

Sarah has been involved in facilitating the Open Door Retreat (ODR) in her parish for many years. More recently she has co-facilitated ODR training weekends for the Portsmouth diocese Spiritual Formation Team. She is a member of the Ignatian Christian Life Community (CLC) and loves everything about Ignatian Spirituality and the ODR! She has recently retired from a career in education and is open to future possibilities.

05/04/2026

When we pray we instinctively use our bodies because as children we were taught to put our hands together and shut our eyes. What if we could develop that early learning, not just for those times when there are no words, but bringing all of ourselves into prayer?

In this workshop, we will explore prayer without words. We will examine how our bodies can deepen our connection with God during prayer, and learn how to use physical gestures and movements to enhance the prayer experience. We will also explore the barriers that prevent us from bringing our whole selves into prayer. Through reflective practices and experiential learning, we will build a toolkit of embodied prayers that can be used when words fail.

📆 Saturday 26 September 2026, 10am – 4pm
💷Cost: £35 / including B&B (Fri - Sat): £110
🍏Bring a packed lunch
❓Have a question or would like to book? E-mail us at [email protected]
👉 Find out more: www.christian-retreat.org/our-programme/praying-with-all-of-ourselves

Karen is an experienced spiritual director and priest with a passion for embodied prayer. She is currently the priest in charge at St Edward’s Church Stow on the Wold. Karen has been dancing since her university days and has seen the potential for prayer in gesture and bringing all of ourselves into prayer.

03/04/2026

A weekend with Matthew 18: 3 - exploring the spirituality of storytelling and childhood

How do we accept the Kingdom of God like a little child, as Jesus tells us to do, and how can stories help us experience that openness, vulnerability and joy? This weekend will explore how storytelling can help us in our spiritual journey, and how looking at our life through a child’s eyes can draw us closer to God the storyteller, and inspire us as adult disciples. We will take a deeper look both at the stories we are told by society and our families, and the stories we tell ourselves, and compare them to the stories Jesus told us about the Kingdom of God and our place in it. We will ponder how we imagine and experience God as storyteller in our lives, look at images of childhood itself, and discover a range of beautiful classic and contemporary picture books for children, using them as a basis for prayer.

📆Friday 18 - Sunday 20 September 2026
💷Cost: Standard: £240, En-suite: £260, Day Guest: £125. Contact us for further information about bursaries.
❓Have a question or would like to book? E-mail [email protected]
👉Find out more: www.christian-retreat.org/our-programme/entering-the-kingdom

Anne is a married mum of four, with an MA in Children’s Literature and another in Creative Writing and a postgraduate diploma in Pastoral Theology from Heythrop College. She is a qualified Spiritual Director. She is an author of more than twenty-five books for children and two novels for adults, published by Penguin Harvill Secker, and regularly writes a column for ’The Tablet’. She believes in the power of storytelling, and the use of fiction to help our relationship with God. She is a passionate fan of Children’s Book illustration and, as well as working on future books, is currently studying part-time for an MA in Children’s Book Illustration at Anglia Ruskin University, Cambridge.

02/04/2026

Jesus says that if we keep his word, then he will make his home in us. This retreat explores the incarnational aspects of our daily lives through prayer and the Alexander Technique. The Alexander Technique is holistic and allows us to release extra tension so that we can become more present in the moment, not only in stillness but also in action. The main principles of the technique will be taught. Natural breathing and the use of the breath to symbolise the Holy Spirit will be explored. We will also touch on maintaining spiritual poise when transitioning from contemplation to movement.

Please be aware that teaching Alexander Technique involves the use of a light hand contact by the teacher.

📆Thursday 30 July - Sunday 2 August 2026
💷Cost: Standard: £360, En-suite: £390. Contact us for further information about bursaries.
❓Have a question or would like to book? E-mail [email protected]
👉Find out more: www.christian-retreat.org/our-programme/contemplation-and-alexander-technique

From her early years, Margaret has talked to (and sometimes shouted at) God. This informal communication developed into meditation and led, over years in a monastic environment, to contemplation. This was followed by work in the field of science and then Special Educational Needs in Higher Education while she explored the practice of Christian Zen meditation or, simply, sitting with God. Before retirement, Margaret trained and qualified as a teacher of the Alexander Technique (MSTAT) which she uses, in conjunction with prayer, to integrate body, mind and spirit. Margaret holds a PhD in Chemistry and an AMBDA FE/HE and is a Senior Fellow of the Higher Education Academy.

01/04/2026

The world we inhabit can seem pretty mad at times and often intolerable. Jesus would clearly have agreed. He knew societal insanity in his heart and bones every day. So how did he stay sane? It’s a question worth asking; and the answers may both surprise and delight as we ponder his journey and our own. The day will include input, silence and readings from Simon’s Jesus novel, ‘Gospel, Rumours of Love’ which Bishop Rachel of Gloucester called ‘exhilarating and disturbing’.

📆 Saturday 25 July 2026, 10am – 4pm
💷Cost: £35 / including B&B (Fri - Sat): £110
🍏Bring a packed lunch
❓Have a question or would like to book? E-mail us at [email protected]
👉 Find out more: ww.christian-retreat.org/our-programme/staying-sane-in-insane-times

Simon is a therapist and writer, who once wrote for Spitting Image and was a priest in London for twenty years before leaving for different-shaped adventures.

31/03/2026

How to live a life without worry in a worrying world: a showing of Love in troubled times

Julian of Norwich was a solitary from late fourteenth century, living through a time of epidemic (the Black Death), social upheaval (the Peasant’s Revolt) and repeated military conflict (the Hundred Years War) - a time of uncertainty not unlike our own and yet she had a message of hope and reassurance. This weekend retreat will look at the Sixteen ‘Showings’ or ‘Revelations’ she received as a young woman and her reflection on their meaning during the time of voluntary ‘lockdown’ as an Anchoress that she chose afterwards. We will explore how the meaning she distills is very helpful and relevant for us today - teaching us how to trust that ‘All will be well.’

📆Friday 17 - Sunday 19 July 2026
💷Cost: Standard: £240, En-suite: £260, Day guest: £125. Contact us for further information about bursaries.
❓Have a question or would like to book? E-mail [email protected]
👉Find out more: www.christian-retreat.org/our-programme/how-to-live

Stefan is author of ‘Living with the Mind of Christ: Mindfulness in Christian Spirituality’ (DLT, 2016) and ‘The Wisdom of Love in the Song of Songs’ (Hikari Press, 2018). He did his doctoral studies on Julian of Norwich at London University where he also did Masters studies in both History and in Inter-Religious Dialogue. He is a Benedictine Oblate of the World Community for Christian Meditation and coordinator for Oblates in Ireland. He lives in Ireland where he works for the Irish Cistercians and, with his wife, organises tours in Europe for the UK ‘Victorian Society.’ He writes Icons and poetry and is a keen gardener.

30/03/2026

‘If anyone is seeking God, the Beloved is seeking that person much more’ (John of the Cross, The Living Flame of Love 3:28)

Frequently referred to as the ‘Mystical Doctor’ for his writings on the intimacy of union with God in prayer, John of the Cross is a sure guide for our spiritual lives.

Join us as we explore the life and teaching of this great 16th Century Carmelite saint and close associate of St Teresa of Avila. John knew the extremes of poverty, hardship and pain but in the depths of suffering also knew the beauty and goodness of God dwelling deep within his soul. He believed that God pours these gifts on all of creation, clothing everything entirely in beauty and dignity. We come to know and understand this more and more as we are drawn into intimate union with the Beloved.

As we pray with some of John’s writings, so rich in Scripture, may we too rejoice in our Beloved and learn to behold ourselves in his beauty (cf. Spiritual Canticle, 36).

📆 Saturday 27 June 2026, 10am – 4pm
💷Cost: £35 / including B&B (Fri - Sat): £110
🍏Bring a packed lunch
❓Have a question or would like to book? E-mail us at [email protected]
👉 Find out more: www.christian-retreat.org/our-programme/john-of-the-cross

Audrey is a long-standing friend of the House of Prayer. Formed in the Ignatian and Carmelite traditions she offers spiritual direction, retreats and workshops and is passionate about helping people connect with God in the busyness of daily life. She is a facilitator on the Spiritual Direction Formation Programme at Boars Hill and also regularly contributes to the programme at the Cockfosters Centre for Spirituality in North London and the London Centre for Spiritual Direction.

Icon of St John of the Cross by the Carmelite Nuns of Lebanon (Carmel of the Theotokos)

The House of Prayer

10/04/2026

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08/04/2026

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