Learning and Opening to the Body’s Experience of Living in God
CCE Overnight Retreat
March 6-8, 2026
Friday 3:0o p.m. to Friday 12:00 p.m. (ET)
Nancy Benben, Donna O’Connor, and Mike Smoolca
Jesuits, Fr. Edwin McMahon and Fr. Peter Campbell, incorporated the embodied practice of Focusing into the larger context of BioSpirituality. Their work allows us to know ourselves as parts of the greater Whole, the Body of Christ. This weekend opens us to experience BioSpiritual Focusing and explore, among other things, the embodied experience of grace and becoming a living expression of love. We’ll learn to reconnect to ourselves, one another, and to God, the Reality in whom we live and move and have our being.
Offering: Private Room, Private Bath: $600
Private Room, Hall Bath: $475
Commuter: $375
Scholarships are available, please contact Mike Smoolca at cce@holyfamilyretreat.org for more information.
Presenter Profiles
Nancy Benben
Nancy Benben is a teacher of Spiritual Companionship at the Spiritual Life Center in Hartford, CT and has been a Seeker her entire life, exploring many spiritual paths along the way. Nancy has been a Spiritual Companion and teacher for many years. She has extensive training using the Enneagram and Bio-Spiritual Focusing and as tools for spiritual companioning and personal growth. Nancy believes that our desire for relationship with the Divine is the essence of spirituality.
Donna O’Connor
Donna O’Connor has served as the BioSpiritual Focusing Coordinator at Genesis Spiritual Life Center in Westfield, MA, a retreat leader, a long-time spiritual director and BioSpiritual Companion and teacher. Donna has a special interest in helping people who struggle with weight, body-image, and eating disorders and is experienced in 12-Step spirituality.
Mike Smoolca
Mike Smoolca is a contemplative group and workshop facilitator, and a dedicated teacher and student of contemplative practice and wisdom spirituality. He is a Contemplative Outreach presenter and coordinator for the Christian Contemplative Experience at Holy Family, Contemplative Outreach of CT, and the Northern CT Chapter of the International Thomas Merton Society. Mike is a spiritual director and supervisor as well as a BioSpiritual Focusing companion and teacher.
Dietary restrictions? Holy Family is committed to making your stay as comfortable and enjoyable as possible, and to that end, we can accommodate most dietary needs. Please email Ted, our registrar, at tjastrzebski@holyfamilyretreat.org, if you have any dietary restrictions or food allergies, so that we may make preparations in advance of your retreat.