ANUARY IS THE TIME for the Australian Sacred Music Association’s annual monastic retreat for men. The retreat lasts 5 days (4 nights) from January 2 – 6 and is held at the Benedict XVI Retreat Centre, Grose Vale.
Discover the heart of monastic life. Enter into and participate in a complete monastic Horarium and the Sung Monastic Office – the retreat is guided by the liturgy alone in an atmosphere of silence. Personal spiritual direction will be available each day. Day one will be devoted to workshops and training supplied by the Australian Sacred Music Association (ASMA). Day two the retreat begins at Matins with the Rule of St. Benedict from then being observed.
Fr Glen Tattersall is the chaplain. He is the Parish Priest of the Personal Parish of Bl. John Henry Newman, the Latin Mass community in Melbourne.
Grose Vale is in the North West fringes of Sydney in the foothills of the Blue Mountains. The Benedict XVI Retreat Centre is an amazing construction coming from the archdiocese of Sydney in Cardinal Pell’s care.
For more details download the brochure from the Australian Sacred Music website.
Also in January are two mens retreat run by the Benedictine Monks from St Joseph de Clairval Abbey in Flavigny, France. These are run at Hartzer Park in Bowral, about an hour’s drive south of Sydney.
The dates for 2017 are 16-21 January and 23-28 January.
Again the Traditional Latin Mass is offered daily, but there is less focus on the music and more on the Spiritual Exercises of St Ignatius.
These ones tend to fill up, so it’s good to get in early – their December bulletin said there were still some vacancies. They also run some short ladies’ retreats, but they book out even sooner.
The community is moving down to Tasmania. You can find more information including bank details for donations in this article from Sydney’s Catholic Weekly.
If you can’t decide between the Sacred Music retreat in Grose Vale and the Ignatian retreat in Bowral, maybe you could try both?
