As with any relationship in your life, your relationship with the Lord takes time and care to grow deeper and stronger. Our virtual workshops are specifically engineered to help you focus on this most important relationship in your life, and we’re excited to announce a new virtual workshop to meet those needs.
The Path to Healing Our Broken Hearts is our newest virtual workshop, led by Fr. Shawn Monahan, OMV. Before it’s available for our community (stay tuned!), we wanted to take this opportunity to introduce Fr. Shawn and his upcoming workshop.
Meet Fr. Shawn Monahan, OMV
Fr. Shawn Monahan, OMV, was ordained a priest for the Oblates of the Virgin Mary in 2002. Since then, he has been blessed to experience a variety of apostolic ministry throughout his years of priesthood as a parish priest in New Jersey and Illinois, as a certified retreat and spiritual director at Our Lady of Perpetual Help, and as a Novice Master helping young men discern their vocation at Our Lady of Grace Seminary.
This work has helped Fr. Shawn to develop a deep understanding of the dynamics of growth and maturity in Christian life and how to overcome and heal the wounds that hold us back from experiencing Jesus’ deepest desire for each of us: “I came so that they might have life and have it more abundantly.”
He has a passion for helping others heal the wounds that come from living in a broken world so that they may experience Jesus’s deepest desire to live a more abundant life.
Through this new virtual workshop, he shares his insights on hope and healing to grow closer to God in today’s world.
Q&A on The Path to Healing Our Broken Hearts
We spoke with Fr. Shawn about his workshop, The Path to Healing Our Broken Hearts, and have shared our questions and his answers below.
Tell us about the upcoming workshop, The Path to Healing Our Broken Hearts.
The workshop will help you gain insight into where your personal heartbreaks lie and how you can work to heal those wounds and let God into your heart.
First, we have to acknowledge that we are all born into a broken world to imperfect parents. No one can escape going through this life without experiencing some kind of heartbreak.
Pope Benedict XVI said that “our heart is the organ that we see God with.” Our hearts were created to love and be loved.
Because of this, it’s important to be aware of how our hearts have been broken and how those wounds have shaped and distorted how we see ourselves, God, others and the world around us.
This awareness is essential if we are going to allow Jesus to meet us where we prefer not to be met — within those wounded areas of our heart. It is there, at that intersection of letting Jesus meet us in our brokenness, that we discover not just the path to our healing and wholeness but also our unique path to our own sanctification and transformation.
What should someone expect to take away from the workshop?
First, you’ll take away an awareness of your own brokenness and be able to acknowledge that brokenness without any shame or discouragement.
Then, you’ll learn how to begin to leverage your emotional and spiritual wounds as a path for encountering the Lord’s compassionate love, which is the source of deep penetrating healing.
What do you mean by the “gift of healing” in the workshop?
We often say ‘faith is a gift,’ meaning it is unmerited. It is a grace freely given to us by God, which is communicated to us in a variety of ways. It is a gift that needs to be accepted, nurtured and reciprocated, because it is an invitation to be in relationship with the living God.
Whenever we read about Jesus saying “your faith has saved you” in scripture, that word ‘saved’ in the original Greek can also be translated as ‘healed.’ “Your faith has healed you.” Jesus’ name also means ‘God saves.’ He is the one who has come to ‘heal the brokenhearted’.
Healing is a gift that Jesus extends to all of us, but we have to want it and recognize our need for it in order to receive it.
Who should sign up for the workshop?
Anyone desires to grow in their relationship with God should sign up. You will need to be open to discovering places in your heart where you may need healing in order to experience Jesus’ deepest desire for all of us — to live a more abundant life.
Where did the idea for the workshop come from?
After the damaging flood waters from Hurricane Ian shut down our retreat center in Florida last September, I started going to local parish groups to offer days of recollection, retreats, and parish missions. Much of the material I have presented in these workshop sessions is the fruit from those talks.
Whenever someone would ask me when I would present this material again, I’d respond, “with your prayers and God’s grace, I hope to do a film series that will be available online for all who desire it.”. A big thank you to all those who prayed that this might come to fruition!
This year’s annual appeal is all about giving “a simple gift.” How does your workshop tie into that theme?
One of the dynamics of growth and maturing in the Christian life that I address in the workshop is ‘Self-Gift.’
Saint John Paul II spoke of the “law of the gift,” that it is only in making a gift of ourselves that we discover ourselves. God has gifted each of us with unique simple gifts to build up his kingdom.
Additionally, I’m reminded of St. Catherine Siena, who said, “Discover who you are called to be, and you will set the world on fire.” It’s an invitation to consider your gifts, your time, your talents, and your treasures that the Lord may be inviting you to share and give back to others.
Finally, there is a paradox in giving a simple gift. For as St. Francis once said, “It is in giving that we receive.” You can never out do God in generosity.
How to Attend the Virtual Workshop
The new online workshop, The Path to Healing Our Broken Hearts, is free and open to all, with a paid option that includes a nice array of extras. Everyone can explore and strengthen your faith at your own pace.
Do you have questions about the upcoming workshop with Fr. Shawn? Let us know in the comments below.
please inform me when workshop is live. thanks
Sign-up will be live on January 17, 2024. Thank you for your inquiry.
Looking forward for working with Fr. Shawn!
I would like to attend the workshop. How can i participate?
Sign-up will be live on January 17, 2024. Thank you for your inquiry.
Look forward to this workshop with Fr Shawn.
I’m looking forward to this series.
will we be able to view the sessions after the fact, in the evening, if we have a job that won’t allow us to watch it live?
The recordings will be available to watch at your convenience. Thank you for your inquiry.
I
Do we have to privately or publicly state our brokenness? Thank-you
The sessions are not interactive. Comments and questions will be welcome after each video. Thank you for your inquiry.
I remember at Mass many Sunday’s ago Fr Shawn in his homily said And Pray for Your Broken Heart I have and do. Words that lasted.❤️
Interested in path to healing workshop
Looking forward to the series!
I’m so happy to see this, Fr. Shawn! I’m hoping that we can take advantage of your great teaching!
Very interested in this healing workshop
I’d like to sign up for Fr Shawn’s workshop
Sign-up will be live on January 17, 2024. Thank you for your inquiry.
Please let me know when registration is open for this retreat
Sign-up will be live on January 17, 2024. Thank you for your inquiry.
I am very interested in this virtual workshop
I would be interested in taking this workshop. Please email me when it is available.
Sign-up will be live on January 17, 2024. Thank you for your inquiry.
I am looking forward to attending this virtual workshop so I can give back to others.
A most timely workshop given dominant happenings in the world today.
No comment but grateful in the list
Do you know when this will be offered?
Good Morning! Are we able to attend the workshop at our own pace? (Can we log in after the workshop has taken place?) Thanks so much!
so looking forward to this workshop with father shawn. he has been a blessing to all of us in the cathedral parish of venice,florida and the diocese of venice. so supportive to us in the covid pandemic and post hurricane ian.
personnally helpful to me during my husband’s terminal illness.
marjorie scowcroft
I look forward to joining this workshop.
When is this workshop is scheduled to start?
Please add me to the email list for this workshop.
Looking forward to this workshop with Fr. Shawn.
Please add me to the email list. Thank you.
Hi! Here is the link to register: https://www.omvusa.org/our-work/virtual-workshops/path-healing-broken-hearts/
Looking forward to the workshop.
I’m interested in this series
Please add me to the email list for this workshop.
Hello! Here is the link to register for the workshop: https://www.omvusa.org/our-work/virtual-workshops/path-healing-broken-hearts/