What’s On in 2025

Ignatian Heart Spirituality offers a range of opportunities for you to explore your spiritual journey in ways that meet yourindividual needs and desires.

Our planned offerings are regularly updated on this ‘What’s On’ page and in our newsletters, however we are also able to develop and facilitate something ‘just for you’.

For those involved in Education and Parishes, we can develop a spiritual formation program for Leadership, Groups and Individuals.

For further information or to discuss your needs, in the first instance please contact: contact@ignatianheartspirituality.com

February 2025

At the end of a busy week, take some quiet personal time to be with God in prayerful reflection. Each morning commences with a quiet prayer focus followed by the opportunity of space for personal prayer, access to a local sacred garden or walking / sitting in the beautiful tree lined Alexandra Avenue.

Every Second Saturday of the Month
Saturday February 8

Time: 9.30am - 11.30am
Venue: Gartrell Uniting Church
Cnr Alexandra Ave and Prescott Tce, Rose Park

No Booking Required. Enquiries to Wayne Brabin: 0411269630 wayne.ignatianheart@gmail.com

March 2025

At the end of a busy week, take some quiet personal time to be with God in prayerful reflection. Each morning commences with a quiet prayer focus followed by the opportunity of space for personal prayer, access to a local sacred garden or walking / sitting in the beautiful tree lined Alexandra Avenue.

Every Second Saturday of the Month
Saturday March 8

Time: 9.30am - 11.30am
Venue: Gartrell Uniting Church
Cnr Alexandra Ave and Prescott Tce, Rose Park

No Booking Required. Enquiries to Wayne Brabin: 0411269630 wayne.ignatianheart@gmail.com

April 2025

At the end of a busy week, take some quiet personal time to be with God in prayerful reflection. Each morning commences with a quiet prayer focus followed by the opportunity of space for personal prayer, access to a local sacred garden or walking / sitting in the beautiful tree lined Alexandra Avenue.

Every Second Saturday of the Month
Easter Saturday April 12

Time: 9.30am - 11.30am
Venue: Gartrell Uniting Church
Cnr Alexandra Ave and Prescott Tce, Rose Park

No Booking Required. Enquiries to Wayne Brabin: 0411269630 wayne.ignatianheart@gmail.com

May 2025

Hearth Gatherings: Encounters with mystics

who can light our way.

You are invited to join others who are seeking to deepen their relationship with the One who creates, restores and sustains us. We can learn so much from those men and women who have travelled this way before us. Give yourself some quiet time to reflect on their lives and teachings and how these might influence your life today.

Medieval English Mystics: Lessons for Ordinary People and Beginners on the Way.

The Cloud of Unknowing, probably written about 1370 was the ‘earliest instance in any vernacular literature of a direct, practical instruction in the entrance and progress in the contemplative life understood as the life of mystical, infused prayer.’

This book influenced both Walter Hinton (1330 to 1396) and Julian of Norwich (1342 to 1416).

Date: Saturday 3rd May 11.00 am to 2.00 pm

Venue: St. Theodore’s Anglican Church and Quiet Garden 46 Prescott Terrace, Toorak Gardens

Cost $30 ($20 Pensioner/ Student) Payment by card or cash Registration: Contact Angela one week prior to the session SMS to 0407600124 or angelaandjack@gmail.com BYO Lunch if required. Coffee, tea, and snacks provided.

At the end of a busy week, take some quiet personal time to be with God in prayerful reflection. Each morning commences with a quiet prayer focus followed by the opportunity of space for personal prayer, access to a local sacred garden or walking / sitting in the beautiful tree lined Alexandra Avenue.

Every Second Saturday of the Month
Saturday May 10

Time: 9.30am - 11.30am
Venue: Gartrell Uniting Church
Cnr Alexandra Ave and Prescott Tce, Rose Park

No Booking Required. Enquiries to Wayne Brabin: 0411269630 wayne.ignatianheart@gmail.com

Enter into a quiet space where you can trace the graces and gifts that have been blooming along your life path and nurture seeds of delight and gratefulness for the ongoing journey.

Date: Friday 16th May, 4pm to Sunday 18th May, 2pm, 2025

Venue: Mary Knoll Retreat House, Beetaloo Valley

Cost: $360 Live In

Enquiries and Bookings:

Chris McCabe, 0439901019, chris.mccabe08@gmail.com

Lesli Townsend, lesligulubaliyato@gmail.com

June 2025

Hearth Gatherings: Encounters with mystics

who can light our way.

You are invited to join others who are seeking to deepen their relationship with the One who creates, restores and sustains us. We can learn so much from those men and women who have travelled this way before us. Give yourself some quiet time to reflect on their lives and teachings and how these might influence your life today.

St. Thomas Aquinas: Theologian and Mystic?

Thomas Aquinas was born in the south of Italy in 1225 and died less than 50 years later already recognized as a great philosopher and theologian. But could the man whose writings explored the relationship between the mind of man and the mind of God, reconciling the teachings of Aristotle proving God’s existence through logic and reason also be a mystic?

Date: Saturday 7th June 11.00 am to 2.00 pm

Venue: St. Theodore’s Anglican Church and Quiet Garden 46 Prescott Terrace, Toorak Gardens

Cost $30 ($20 Pensioner/ Student) Payment by card or cash Registration: Contact Angela one week prior to the session SMS to 0407600124 or angelaandjack@gmail.com BYO Lunch if required. Coffee, tea, and snacks provided.

At the end of a busy week, take some quiet personal time to be with God in prayerful reflection. Each morning commences with a quiet prayer focus followed by the opportunity of space for personal prayer, access to a local sacred garden or walking / sitting in the beautiful tree lined Alexandra Avenue.

Every Second Saturday of the Month
Saturday June 14

Time: 9.30am - 11.30am
Venue: Gartrell Uniting Church
Cnr Alexandra Ave and Prescott Tce, Rose Park

No Booking Required. Enquiries to Wayne Brabin: 0411269630 wayne.ignatianheart@gmail.com

July 2025

Hearth Gatherings: Encounters with mystics

who can light our way.

You are invited to join others who are seeking to deepen their relationship with the One who creates, restores and sustains us. We can learn so much from those men and women who have travelled this way before us. Give yourself some quiet time to reflect on their lives and teachings and how these might influence your life today.

Hope and Beauty find expression in Anguished Souls

Gerard Manly Hopkins and Henri Nouwen both experienced periods of deep depression and a sense of worthlessness and yet some of the most healing and hope-filled words shine through their writings. Allow your spirit to be consoled by these gifts.

Date: Saturday 5th July 11.00 am to 2.00 pm

Venue: St. Theodore’s Anglican Church and Quiet Garden 46 Prescott Terrace, Toorak Gardens

Cost $30 ($20 Pensioner/ Student) Payment by card or cash Registration: Contact Angela one week prior to the session SMS to 0407600124 or angelaandjack@gmail.com BYO Lunch if required. Coffee, tea, and snacks provided.

At the end of a busy week, take some quiet personal time to be with God in prayerful reflection. Each morning commences with a quiet prayer focus followed by the opportunity of space for personal prayer, access to a local sacred garden or walking / sitting in the beautiful tree lined Alexandra Avenue.

Every Second Saturday of the Month
Saturday July 12

Time: 9.30am - 11.30am
Venue: Gartrell Uniting Church
Cnr Alexandra Ave and Prescott Tce, Rose Park

No Booking Required. Enquiries to Wayne Brabin: 0411269630 wayne.ignatianheart@gmail.com

Are you seeking a contemplative opportunity amid your busy schedule to stop for a while and spend time with yourself and God in silence, prayer and reflection?

One way of being able to realise this is to undertake a personal retreat online for one or more days at a time that suits your own circumstances and individual needs. You would be supported with guidance during this time.

Cost: $60 per Day

For further information or to discuss your own needs and desires, please contact:
Wayne Brabin, 0411269630, wayne.ignatianheart@gmail.com

August 2025

Hearth Gatherings: Encounters with mystics

who can light our way.

You are invited to join others who are seeking to deepen their relationship with the One who creates, restores and sustains us. We can learn so much from those men and women who have travelled this way before us. Give yourself some quiet time to reflect on their lives and teachings and how these might influence your life today.

Prayer and Presence in the Wisdom Years

People talk about two halves of life which may have made sense when we only lived to 60 or 65. Most of us in the Western World can expect 20 to 30 years longer than that. So, the question is what are you going to do when you are no longer doing the work that defined you, your children have left home, and grandchildren may be starting to enter your life? The Hindus call this the Forest Dwelling Stage , the time when you let go of those things that no longer serve you and explore what matters most now and the kind of legacy you will leave. We will draw on the wisdom of people like Joan Chittister, Mary Earle and Parker J Palmer. Do not worry if you have not heard of them – they are easy to get to know.

Date: Saturday 2nd August 11.00 am to 2.00 pm

Venue: St. Theodore’s Anglican Church and Quiet Garden 46 Prescott Terrace, Toorak Gardens

Cost $30 ($20 Pensioner/ Student) Payment by card or cash Registration: Contact Angela one week prior to the session SMS to 0407600124 or angelaandjack@gmail.com BYO Lunch if required. Coffee, tea, and snacks provided.

At the end of a busy week, take some quiet personal time to be with God in prayerful reflection. Each morning commences with a quiet prayer focus followed by the opportunity of space for personal prayer, access to a local sacred garden or walking / sitting in the beautiful tree lined Alexandra Avenue.

Every Second Saturday of the Month
Saturday August 9

Time: 9.30am - 11.30am
Venue: Gartrell Uniting Church
Cnr Alexandra Ave and Prescott Tce, Rose Park

No Booking Required. Enquiries to Wayne Brabin: 0411269630 wayne.ignatianheart@gmail.com

Walking a path can be just a way of getting from Point A to Point B, or it can become an adventure, a means of discovering ourselves, God, Creation, gratitude, perseverance, acceptance. It can even become a prayer and a way of praying. Together we will walk and see what comes. We will offer our footsteps as a prayer and listen for what God might say in return.

At the end of Luke’s Gospel is the story of two disciples heading away from Jerusalem and towards their home (?) in Emmaus.  They were just walking and talking with no expectation that what they were doing was anything more than a necessity.  Yet, along the way they were met by a stranger, a stranger who they finally, fleetingly, recognised as Jesus.  The encounter immediately propelled them back out onto the road again and back the way that they had come.

On the mount of Transfiguration, Jesus and three disciples first climbed up the hill and then after the experience in the cloud, made their way down again and back into the demands of their ministry in the world.

At Mount Horeb, Moses climbed up into the darkness and the thunder, received the tablets of stone and then returned down again to face the realities of the children of Israel.

The walk will be an out and back journey mirroring the there-and-back nature of the road to Emmaus, and the up-the-mountain-and-back-down-again walked by Jesus and the disciples, and by Moses.  We will go open to receive whatever it is God has for us and accepting of whatever it is God gives.  At the very least it will be fresh air and an experience of nature!  At the midpoint of the walk will be an opportunity for personal prayer and reflection and at the end of the walk will be an opportunity for brief sharing.  Reflection materials will be provided. 

Walk: Laratinga Wetlands, Mount Barker (starting from the picnic area near Bald Hills Rd carpark)

When: Saturday 2 August 2025. 9.30am – 12pm (BYO snacks/drink)

Further Information /Enquiries: Mark Finlay 0413764760

A donation of $10 to the Quiet Place program is suggested.

Registration: https://www.hillsbaptist.com/event/quiet-place---contemplative-walks

September 2025

Come ... Rest, Reflect, and be Refreshed. This gentle day will provide a space to review the life paths you have been travelling and to discover the gifts and grace of your own journey …....

The day will provide brief input and music, and opportunity for personal prayerful reflection, conversation and creativity.

Date: Thursday 4th September 2025

Time: 9.30am – 3.30pm
Facilitators: Stephanie Brabin and Chris McCabe
Cost:             Donation to cover costs.

Morning and afternoon tea provided, BYO Lunch

Venue: Library in the Brighton Parish Activity Centre, 24 Strathmore Terrace, Brighton

Car Parking available on Strathmore Terrace or onsite carpark. (entry via Old Beach Rd)  

Register with Chris 0439 901019 by Aug 29th 2025

Hearth Gatherings: Encounters with mystics

who can light our way.

You are invited to join others who are seeking to deepen their relationship with the One who creates, restores and sustains us. We can learn so much from those men and women who have travelled this way before us. Give yourself some quiet time to reflect on their lives and teachings and how these might influence your life today.

Pierre Teilhard de Chardin on Love and Evolution

“The day will come when,

after harnessing space, winds, the tides and gravitation,

we shall harness for God the energies of love.

And, on that day,

for the second time in the history of the world,

humans will have discovered fire”.

Pierre Teilhard de Chardin was born in France in 1881. He was a Jesuit priest who first studied literature and was encouraged by his novice master to keep studying science as a legitimate way to God. Some years later as a Scholastic in East Sussex he synthesised his scientific, theological and philosophical knowledge in the light of evolution.

As a scientist and a theologian, he was convinced that God created this evolving universe because God is Love and each of us is God’s gift to the world.

Date: Saturday 6th September 11.00 am to 2.00 pm

Venue: St. Theodore’s Anglican Church and Quiet Garden 46 Prescott Terrace, Toorak Gardens

Cost $30 ($20 Pensioner/ Student) Payment by card or cash Registration: Contact Angela one week prior to the session SMS to 0407600124 or angelaandjack@gmail.com BYO Lunch if required. Coffee, tea, and snacks provided.

At the end of a busy week, take some quiet personal time to be with God in prayerful reflection. Each morning commences with a quiet prayer focus followed by the opportunity of space for personal prayer, access to a local sacred garden or walking / sitting in the beautiful tree lined Alexandra Avenue.

Every Second Saturday of the Month
Saturday September 13

Time: 9.30am - 11.30am
Venue: Gartrell Uniting Church
Cnr Alexandra Ave and Prescott Tce, Rose Park

No Booking Required. Enquiries to Wayne Brabin: 0411269630 wayne.ignatianheart@gmail.com

Enter into a quiet space where you can trace the graces and gifts that have been blooming along your life path and future the seeds of delight and gratefulness for the ongoing journey.

Date: Friday 26 September, 4.00pm to Sunday 28 September, 2.00pm
Facilitators: Chris McCabe and Lesli Townsend
Cost: $360 Live In

Venue: Mary Knoll Retreat House, Beetaloo Valley

Enquiries and Bookings:
Chris McCabe, 0439 901 019 chris.mccabe08@gmail.com
Lesli Townsend, lesligulubaliyato@gmail.com

October 2025

At the end of a busy week, take some quiet personal time to be with God in prayerful reflection. Each morning commences with a quiet prayer focus followed by the opportunity of space for personal prayer, access to a local sacred garden or walking / sitting in the beautiful tree lined Alexandra Avenue.

Every Second Saturday of the Month
Saturday October 11

Time: 9.30am - 11.30am
Venue: Gartrell Uniting Church
Cnr Alexandra Ave and Prescott Tce, Rose Park

No Booking Required. Enquiries to Wayne Brabin: 0411269630 wayne.ignatianheart@gmail.com

Coming to faith and following Jesus lies at the heart of the Gospels and invites us, as disciples, to be transformed, as we encounter the risen Jesus in our midst. Mary Magdalene embodies the search and gradual journey into faith that each of us encounters.
This prayer reflection day gives us time and space to explore the Gospel texts that give us some insight into this significant disciple of Jesus. Mary Magdalene, who today is given by the church, the title, ‘Apostle to the Apostles’ joins us, as we bring our own stories of seeking and journeying to this place.

Our day will offer a number of creative processes that can support contemplative prayer and assist us to discover our own inner truth.

(This day is suitable for all adults. It is also approved by CESA as a System Accredited Module for teachers requiring the submission of a 1500 word reflection paper).

Date: Saturday 11 October Time: 9.30am - 4.00pm
Facilitator: Val De Brenni
Cost: $180 ex GST or $198 incl Tax, Lunch and Morning Tea included. Venue: Bethany at Mary MacKillop Precinct, 4 High Street, Kensington
Registration Essential By 12 noon Friday 26 September TryBooking: https://www.trybooking.com/DAEXV Enquiries: 8130 5916 Email: admin.mmpsa@sosjspirit.org.au

November 2025

Walking a path can be just a way of getting from Point A to Point B, or it can become an adventure, a means of discovering ourselves, God, Creation, gratitude, perseverance, acceptance. It can even become a prayer and a way of praying. Together we will walk and see what comes. We will offer our footsteps as a prayer and listen for what God might say in return.

At the end of Luke’s Gospel is the story of two disciples heading away from Jerusalem and towards their home (?) in Emmaus.  They were just walking and talking with no expectation that what they were doing was anything more than a necessity.  Yet, along the way they were met by a stranger, a stranger who they finally, fleetingly, recognised as Jesus.  The encounter immediately propelled them back out onto the road again and back the way that they had come.

On the mount of Transfiguration, Jesus and three disciples first climbed up the hill and then after the experience in the cloud, made their way down again and back into the demands of their ministry in the world.

At Mount Horeb, Moses climbed up into the darkness and the thunder, received the tablets of stone and then returned down again to face the realities of the children of Israel.

The walk will be an out and back journey mirroring the there-and-back nature of the road to Emmaus, and the up-the-mountain-and-back-down-again walked by Jesus and the disciples, and by Moses.  We will go open to receive whatever it is God has for us and accepting of whatever it is God gives.  At the very least it will be fresh air and an experience of nature!  At the midpoint of the walk will be an opportunity for personal prayer and reflection and at the end of the walk will be an opportunity for brief sharing.  Reflection materials will be provided. 

Walk: (13kms approx.): Sunset Rock Uniting Church to Mount Lofty Summit

When: Saturday 1 November 2025. 9.30am – 3pm (BYO snacks/drink/lunch or purchase at the café)

Further Information/Enquiries: Mark Finlay 0413764760

A donation of $10 to the Quiet Place program is suggested.

Registration: https://www.hillsbaptist.com/event/quiet-place---contemplative-walks

At the end of a busy week, take some quiet personal time to be with God in prayerful reflection. Each morning commences with a quiet prayer focus followed by the opportunity of space for personal prayer, access to a local sacred garden or walking / sitting in the beautiful tree lined Alexandra Avenue.

Every Second Saturday of the Month
Saturday November 8

Time: 9.30am - 11.30am
Venue: Gartrell Uniting Church
Cnr Alexandra Ave and Prescott Tce, Rose Park

No Booking Required. Enquiries to Wayne Brabin: 0411269630 wayne.ignatianheart@gmail.com

December 2025

At the end of a busy week, take some quiet personal time to be with God in prayerful reflection. Each morning commences with a quiet prayer focus followed by the opportunity of space for personal prayer, access to a local sacred garden or walking / sitting in the beautiful tree lined Alexandra Avenue.

Every Second Saturday of the Month
Saturday December 13

Time: 9.30am - 11.30am
Venue: Gartrell Uniting Church
Cnr Alexandra Ave and Prescott Tce, Rose Park

No Booking Required. Enquiries to Wayne Brabin: 0411269630 wayne.ignatianheart@gmail.com