The Office for Life and Family is proud to sponsor the inaugural Life-Giving Wounds Retreat in the Archdiocese of Philadelphia September 12-14, 2025 at Malvern Retreat House (315 S. Warren Road, Malvern, PA).
Retreat Info
No matter your age when it happened, the effects of your parents’ divorce or separation are deep and long-lasting. Life-Giving Wounds is a national ministry specifically for adults (18+) whose parents are divorced or separated — providing a unique opportunity for men and women who are the children of divorced or separated parents to give voice to their pain and experience Christ’s transformational healing, together with peers who know the challenges that broken homes cause.
The Life-Giving Wounds retreat is a three-day retreat for young adults and adults with divorced or separated parents. It invites participants to move through the broken image of love that appeared to them in their parents’ relationship to their deepest identity found in God. The retreat gives participants a greater understanding of the wound of divorce and the ways it affects their lives, offers advice about the difficulties concerning love and trust of others, and explains how the Catholic faith, spiritual practices, and the Sacraments are essential to self-knowledge and healing. This retreat has something for any adult child of divorce or separation, no matter how much healing you have already received or need. Topics covered include: Grief and Beginning to Name our Wounds; Finding Our Deepest Identity; Faith and Our Relationship with God; Love, Dating, and the Sacrament of Marriage; Anger, Anxiety, and Sin; False Guilt and Shame; Forgiveness and Reconciliation; Family Boundaries; The Christian Meaning of Suffering; Healing and the Sacraments of Reconciliation and the Eucharist; and more!
The Philadelphia retreat will be held onsite at Malvern Retreat House (315 S. Warren Road, Malvern, PA).This is an overnight retreat with lodging and meals included with the cost of registration
Click HERE for answers to Frequently Asked Questions.
The retreat cost is $350.00 per person. Please write to Dr. Daniel Drain, Director of the Office for Life and Family (ddrain@archphila.org) if the cost of attendance is a hardship for you.
The retreat will begin late afternoon on Friday, September 12 (can arrive to Malvern as early as 3pm, dinner served on-site, retreat proper starts at 7pm), and will end around 3:30pm on Sunday (after the celebration of Mass).
