Honouring Our Common Home
A Lenten Ignatian Weekend Retreat Online
February 27, 2026 @ 4:00 pm – March 1, 2026 @ 12:00 pm PST
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Photo by Alice Popkorn used with permission.
The Earth is what
we all share in common.Wendell Berry
Let us embrace
a spirituality of intimacy
with the natural world
seeing the divine revealed
in the visible world around us.Adapted from Thomas Berry
Join spiritual directors Jan Evans and Esther Hizsa for a silent, guided prayer retreat opening to the desire to engage in God’s compassion for the earth and all her creatures using Ignatian prayer practices such as Lectio Divina, Imaginative Prayer and Prayer of Examen.
DATE & TIME
Friday, February 27, 2026 at 4:00 pm PT (7:00 pm ET) to Sunday, March 1, 2026 at noon PT (3 pm ET)
Location:
Online (Zoom link will be sent to you).
COST
$100. Register early. Spaces are limited.
FORMAT
- Silence is observed after the first session Friday until the closing sharing on Sunday.
- Four group input sessions exploring various dimensions of this theme.
- Four 45-60 minute periods for assigned personal prayer spaced throughout the retreat
- Three 15 minute one-on-one spiritual direction sessions with Jan, Esther or another spiritual director.
Participants are encouraged to retreat in a physical space conducive to maintaining silence while they vacation with the Lord. More details will be sent following registration.
FACILITATORS
Jan Evans
Jan has accompanied persons through the Ignatian Spiritual Exercises in Daily Life (Annotation 19) for many years. She received her Ignatian training through workshops offered by Loyola House, Ignatian Spirituality Centre in Guelph, and a supervised practicum with a Loyola House spiritual director. Jan lives in Collingwood, Ontario where she enjoys outdoor play with her dog, Bella, along the shores of Georgian Bay.
Esther Hizsa
Esther has also accompanied people praying the Ignatian Spiritual Exercises and was trained by JSAV (Jesuit Apostolate Spirituality of Vancouver). She posts weekly on her blog An Everyday Pilgrim and is the author of Stories of an Everyday Pilgrim, Seed Cracked Open, and In the Heart of the Beloved. Esther lives in Vernon, BC where she and her husband, Fred, enjoy the outdoor beauty of the Okanagan.
Jan and Esther are graduates of SoulStream’s Art of Spiritual Direction, co-facilitate SoulStream’s Ignatian Spiritual Exercises and are members of SoulStream, a dispersed, contemplative Christian community.
* * *
Sowing Seeds of Hope and Resilience in Times of Uncertainty
April 24, 2026 @ 5:00 pm – April 26, 2026 @ 12:00 pm PDT
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Image: https://stockcake.com/i/planting-hope-together_272502_54341
The Beloved says to all who will hear,
“Come. Walk with me. Let us
give birth to a new Earth!”
For, the Spirit is the One who makes
all things new, and ever
awaits our “yes” to the Dance.
–Psalm 110: 1-2Nan Merrill, Psalms for Praying
Join spiritual directors Jan Evans and Esther Hizsa for a weekend retreat engaging in God’s dream for our world by planting and nurturing seeds of community, compassion, creativity, and connectedness.
DATE & TIME
Friday, April 24, 2026 at 5:00 pm to Sunday, April 26, 2026 at noon
Location:
Rivendell Retreat Centre, Bowen Island, BC
COST
$340. Includes a light supper on Friday, breakfast, lunch and supper on Saturday and breakfast on Sunday.
Register early https://soulstream.org/event/sowing-seeds-of-hope-and-resilience-in-times-of-uncertainty/ . Spaces are limited.
FACILITATORS
Jan Evans
Jan lives in Collingwood, Ontario where she enjoys outdoor play with her dog, Bella, along the shores of Georgian Bay.
Esther Hizsa
Esther lives in Vernon, BC where she and her husband, Fred, enjoy the outdoor beauty of the Okanagan. She posts weekly on her blog An Everyday Pilgrim.
Jan and Esther co-facilitate the SoulStream Ignatian Spiritual Exercises Retreat in Daily Life and are members of SoulStream, a dispersed, contemplative Christian community.
* * *
SoulStream presents a course in
Living from the Heart offers a learning community that invites participants to deepen their experience of intimacy with Jesus. Biblically, the heart is the very core of life out of which intellect, emotions, and intentions flow. Opening to God’s heart of love with our whole heart, especially in our most broken places, brings a healing integration within and provides the courage to offer our lives in loving compassion to the world around us.
Course Content
The Way of the Heart: opens us to encounter God personally, integrates body, soul, mind, and spirit, and helps us live out of who we truly are in Christ.
Spiritual Awareness and Receptivity: We explore ways to become more open to respond to God’s presence in all of life and identify what inhibits our receptivity.
Spiritual Transformation: We gain a deep sensitivity to the dimensions of spiritual transformation into Jesus’ image, coming to freedom in our deepest truth in God, dealing with the masks we hide behind, and cultivating spiritual practices that support our life in God.
Contemplative Prayer and Discernment: We come to understand that prayer is responsiveness to the living and active presence of the Holy Spirit, learn ancient contemplative practices, and discover how prayer is integrated into all of life and deepens our ability to discern God’s will.
Contemplative Living: As Jesus’s friends, we are called to love our neighbour, care for the earth, and seek justice. With joy, we discover that our response to the world becomes a natural outflow of contemplative prayer and practice.
Learning and Teaching Approaches
A variety of collaborative learning and teaching approaches are used including mini-presentations; short, structured written personal reflections on assigned reading; demonstrations; small group discussion and activities. Participants will be invited to engage their imaginations with the use of textures, colours, music, poetry, prayers—and plain old fun! Between teaching times, we encourage mutual support among participants through community gatherings. The small team of facilitators provides feedback on reflection papers and offers what they teach honestly and vulnerably, sharing experiences from their own lives.
Requirements for Participants
- Full participation in the teaching days or intensives
- Full participation in monthly small group sessions
- Reading and reflective book responses
- Receiving regular spiritual direction
For testimonies of past participants, course locations and other details go here. Registration opens in January 2026.
* * *
SoulStream Ignatian Spiritual Exercises
SoulStream offers accompaniment in The Spiritual Exercises of St. Ignatius of Loyola
Ignatian Spirituality affirms God is present “in all things” and “labours on our behalf” to draw us close to God. Jesuit educator and author Kevin O’Brien SJ, says that in the Exercises, “Ignatius invites us into an intimate encounter with God revealed in Jesus Christ so that we can think and act more like Christ.”
Why the Spiritual Exercises?
In the Spiritual Exercises, the retreatant engages in an intimate encounter with Jesus, journeying with him from his birth to his death and resurrection. The Exercises are good for increasing one’s openness to the movement of the Spirit, for bringing to light hindrances within us that may obstruct one’s attunement to the Spirit and their truest self, and for strengthening and supporting them to open more fully to God’s boundless love and live more freely from this truth.
Ignatian Spirituality affirms that God is present in all things—creation, our relationships, our jobs, our thoughts, our culture—and in all we do, allowing us to be who we were created to be.
What is the 19th Annotation/Retreat in Daily Life?
St. Ignatius of Loyola (1491-1556) initially intended that the Spiritual Exercises be given by a spiritual guide and made by a retreatant in a thirty-day silent retreat of daily prayer and daily sessions with the guide. However, he soon realized that many who desired to make the Exercises were not in circumstances that allowed them to leave their homes, families, and responsibilities for a month. Thus, he developed the 19th Annotation, an adaptation to the Exercises, to make it possible to complete the full Spiritual Exercises in 30-35 weeks while living their daily life. In this format, a retreatant commits to a disciplined daily habit of prayer and exercises of 45-60 minutes per day, six days a week over a period of eight to nine months.
The Retreat in Daily Life offers an opportunity for the retreatant to integrate the blessings of their prayers into all aspects of their life, engage in various prayer forms, deepen their trust and intimacy with God, and grow in discernment that will last a lifetime.
The Structure of the Spiritual Exercises
The Spiritual Exercises follow closely the key events in the life and ministry of Jesus. By engaging with scripture and prayer, and with exercises of the imagination called meditations and contemplations, the Spiritual Exercises help the retreatant to consider who they are for God and who God is for them.
The Spiritual Exercises is structured into four phases, or what Ignatius called “weeks”, with a preparatory phase before entering. The preparatory phase is an introduction to the prayer forms and sets the context for entry into the body of the exercises. The Weeks organize distinct themes of prayers, contemplations, and meditations for the retreatant to learn to experience God’s nearness and God’s graces.
Each retreatant meets individually with their spiritual companion weekly. During these sessions, their spiritual guide listens to the prayer experiences of the retreatant from the week before and assigns prayer exercises for the week ahead. Each of our companions has received training in guiding those making the Spiritual Exercises.
SoulStream’s Retreat in Daily Life 2026-2027
The mission of SoulStream is to nurture contemplative experience with Christ leading to inner freedom and loving service. SoulStream’s values are reflected in the way the Exercises are offered and are co-facilitated by SoulStream partners, Jan Evans and Esther Hizsa.
Program Details
September 2026 to May 2027
Cost: $1775 plus a $75 non-refundable registration fee.
Included:
- 33 individual weekly sessions (50-60 minutes, virtual or in-person) with their assigned spiritual guide/companion
- Seven group teaching sessions (60-minute, virtual) held each four to six weeks on a
Monday at 4pm PT / 7pm ET
The group sessions will include teachings that will support a deepening of prayer and an opportunity for brief sharing around the circle. These sharing times allow us all to hear the many unique ways God’s loving presence and invitations may be experienced. (NB: All sharing times are voluntary.) The teaching segment of group sessions will be recorded and made available to participants.
What participants have said…
“The rhythm of the Ignatian spiritual exercises, exploring where my curiosity took me, and opening my heart and soul to be surprised, invited me to love more clearly and deeply and enabled me to trust more fully. Especially through deep sorrows that landed unexpectedly, I was held with tenderness and accompanied on a pathway forward. I am not alone. I belong to Love.”
“I found the discipline of the exercises to be beneficial to my scattered soul. The weekly spiritual direction seemed like a lot before I began but turned into a powerful accompaniment helping me to go deeper with God in my practice. I can’t begin to explain the richness of my experience.”
“The exercises opened a door for me to regular meetings with Jesus, which surprised my soul and engaged me more fully and deeply than any other intentional path I had taken before. My spiritual director held my heart with gentleness and openness, helping me feel nurtured and cared for. Together, with the encounters with Jesus and the tender listening of my director, I experienced the most significant and beautiful grace-filled journey of my life.”
Cancellation Policy
Would you like to know more?
Jan and Esther are hosting a time to answer any questions you may have about SoulStream’s offering of the Ignatian Spiritual Exercises.
Join us online
Date TBD
If you would like to participate in this online conversation, please give us your name and email and we will send you a Zoom link prior to the event. Go here to register https://soulstream.org/soulstream-ignatian-spiritual-exercises/. Registration opens in January 2026.
Facilitators
Jan Evans has accompanied many persons through the Ignatian Spiritual Exercises in Daily Life (Annotation 19) over the past 12 years. She received her Ignatian training through workshops offered by Loyola House Ignatian Spirituality Centre in Guelph and a supervised practicum with a Loyola House spiritual director. She currently offers spiritual direction from her home in Collingwood, Ontario and facilitates contemplative retreats.
Esther Hizsa has also accompanied many people praying the Ignatian Spiritual Exercises and was trained by JSAV (Jesuit Apostolate Spirituality of Vancouver). She has an M Div from Regent College, co-facilitates Living from the Heart and is on the Leadership Team of SoulStream. She posts weekly on her blog An Everyday Pilgrim and is the author of Stories of an Everyday Pilgrim, Seed Cracked Open, and In the Heart of the Beloved. She also offers spiritual direction from her home in Vernon, B.C.
Jan and Esther co-facilitate the SoulStream Ignatian Spiritual Exercises Retreat in Daily Life and are partners of SoulStream, a dispersed, contemplative Christian community.
SoulStream has other courses and events. You can check them out here: https://soulstream.org/
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