Dawn Stringfield, executive director of Mercy Conference and Retreat Center in St. Louis MO, published the following article in Viva Mercy! about the importance of retreat centers and what makes Mercy centers so unique. Now more than ever, there is a need for ministries like Mercy Conference and Retreat Center (St. Louis, Missouri) and the other retreat centers of the Sisters of Mercy of the Americas. We live in a world that is divided: I am Republican or Democrat; Christian or Muslim; citizen, immigrant or refugee. We need places where one can say, “I am a part of the human family, a child of the Divine.” We live in a world that is constantly inundating us from all sides with information (fake and real), often in the form of tweets and sound bites. We need places where one can stop, listen deeply and reflect clearly on what matters, with opportunities for silence and for sharing in more than hashtags and 140 characters.Read more