Manresa Jesuit Retreat House celebrates 100 years: 'People sense it's God's place'

Founded in 1926 by laymen desiring Ignatian spirituality, Manresa continues to offer retreats, spiritual comfort all year

BLOOMFIELD HILLS — When Sr. Linda Sevcik, SM, first visited the grounds of Manresa Jesuit Retreat House in the 1970s, the lay-run center was already half a century old. Now, as the executive director for almost five years, Sr. Sevcik gets to witness Manresa’s 100-year birthday, beginning this September.

Manresa Retreat House — named for Manresa, Spain, where St. Ignatius of Loyola, the founder of the Jesuit order, made his 30-day retreat in 1522 — is founded on encountering God through Ignatian spirituality. From 1917 to 1925, Catholic laymen in Michigan who wanted to make Ignatian retreats traveled by steamship to Cleveland, Ohio, where the nearest Ignatian retreat center was located.

Manresa Jesuit Retreat House, at 1390 Quarton Road in Bloomfield Hills, will kick off its 100th anniversary celebration with Mass at 2 p.m. Sunday, Sept. 28. All are welcome.

However, in 1923, these men banded together to create The Laymen’s Retreat League and raised the necessary funds to purchase property on the corner of Woodward Avenue and Quarton Road, just 16 miles north of Detroit. From Sept. 23-26, 1926, 16 men attended the first-ever retreat at the center.

Over the years, the center has changed and grown, but it has remained on the original 39 acres purchased in 1926. The building burned down in 1934, and even in the midst of the Great Depression, the laymen raised the money to rebuild. Additions were built first in the 1950s, then in the 1960s and again in the 1980s. Each addition has added more bedrooms, small chapels and administrative offices.

When Sr. Sevcik first visited in the 1970s, the center had only recently opened its doors to allow women to attend retreats; however, Sr. Sevcik was unaware that her presence at the retreat house was part of a historic moment.

“I was in my early 20s, and when I first saw Manresa, I felt it was different from any place I had ever been. I could feel the sacredness, and that has stayed with me over the years,” Sr. Sevcik told Detroit Catholic. “To me, there is something about this place where people sense it’s God’s place. The Irish have that expression of thin places where the veil between heaven and earth is thinner, and I really think Manresa is one of those places.”

Manresa continues to be overseen by a board of lay people, with Jesuits and other religious serving as staff and certified spiritual companions who offer spiritual direction during retreats.

Fr. Peter Fennessy, SJ, the superior of the local Jesuit community and a retreat director, believes Manresa is the first-ever lay-founded retreat center in North America.

“I think of Manresa as ‘the little house that grew,’” Fr. Fennessy told Detroit Catholic. “Over the years, the people who come on retreat expanded, and more and more people come on retreat.”

In the years following the 1970s, when women were first welcomed, the center also opened its doors to high school groups and has added other opportunities beyond retreats, including days of recollection, classes, and support groups, Fr. Fennessy explained.

With the exception of the last two weeks of December and the first two weeks of July, Manresa has consistently hosted retreats for both individuals and groups since its founding, Sr. Sevcik said.

While the most common type is a weekly group retreat from Friday to Sunday, the house offers individually run and high school retreats, including Kairos, Sr. Sevcik said. Each retreat follows a similar structure: times of silence broken up by Mass, meals, conferences and spiritual direction.

Not everyone who attends a retreat is Catholic, Sr. Sevcik added.

“There was one guy who came recently, and it happens that he was not Catholic,” Sr. Sevcik said. “I usually meet with the first-time retreatants early in the weekend to ask them why they came here and answer any questions. When I asked why this man’s group was here, each one responded briefly, and he said, ‘All my life, people have been telling me I should have a conversation with God, and for some reason, I have never done it. But this morning I sat in the chapel and had that conversation with God.’ He was just radiant and thought that was so amazing. It kind of made my week, honestly, that at this age of his life, he tried something he had never tried and felt a different relationship with God.”

Manresa’s legacy is built on the countless people who have sought God on the grounds over the years and have found a deeper relationship with the Lord, Sr. Sevcik added.

“For many, this was one of the most important places of their lives,” Sr. Sevcik said. “The legacy is really a history of connecting people in a deeper way with God, and that’s what’s so wonderful about working here because I hear people witness to that almost weekly.”

As Manresa enters its second century, Sr. Sevcik said she is discerning how to reach more people in an ever-changing world and allow young people, in particular, to experience what Manresa has to offer.

“I love working here because people who are coming here directly want to work on their faith — they want to deepen their relationship with God,” Sr. Sevcik said. “I feel so privileged to be able to be part of this and to have any part in helping them with that.”