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A retreat for moms and daughters

Katie Scott | Catholic Herald

A mother and her daughter light their candles during a Holy Hour at a mother-daughter retreat hosted by Our Lady of Bethesda in Maryland last year. St. Timothy parishioner Angela Maria Velásquez-Kanazeh was inspired to organize a similar program in the Arlington Diocese after attending the retreat with her daughter.

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Mothers and daughters can share one of life’s most cherished
relationships, one that begins at birth and deepens into
adulthood. But there are rough patches, especially during
adolescence, when family life becomes especially hectic and
teens are given and assert more independence.

A retreat sponsored by St. Timothy Church in Chantilly Jan.
30-31 will be a chance for fifth- through 12th-grade girls
and their mothers to step back from the busyness and nurture
their bond through time shared with each other and Christ in
the sacraments.

“It’s a chance for participants to quiet themselves, to
remove themselves from the chatter and noise in the world and
that sometimes is just in everyday home life,” said organizer
Angela Maria Velásquez-Kanazeh.

Held at San Damiano Retreat Center in White Post, the retreat
will include ice breakers, workshops, eucharistic adoration
and Mass celebrated by Legionaries Father Jeremy Lambert. Led
by two consecrated women of Regnum Christi and two Regnum
Christi missionaries, sessions will address gratitude,
feminine genius and how to love your mother/daughter.

Members of Regnum Christi serve at St. Timothy and with the
Legionaries of Christ run Our Lady of Bethesda, a Catholic
retreat house in Maryland. The Legionaries and Regnum Christi
form one of the ecclesial movements in the Catholic Church.

Velásquez-Kanazeh, who leads the St. Timothy girls
club, attended a retreat at Our Lady of Bethesda with her
11-year-old daughter last year. That experience and the words
of Pope Francis inspired her to organize this year’s program.

“The pope has been saying to us we need to go out and make
noise and to meet people where they are,” said
Velásquez-Kanazeh. The retreat is “making noise” by
sharing, listening and having meaningful conversations
grounded in faith, she said.

“The teenage years can be full of a lot of confusion and
maybe even a lack of communication between parents and teens.
And as moms we don’t always want to have those sometimes
uncomfortable conversations with daughters; we delay them or
say we don’t have time for them,” said
Velásquez-Kanazeh. “Setting aside time for daughters
shows them they are a priority … and helps (a
daughter) know how much she is loved.”

Carla Sola signed up for the retreat with her 17-year-old
daughter, Emily, a high school junior. Sola said since she
and her husband will be “sending Emily out into the world in
a couple short years,” the retreat is an opportunity to savor
meaningful time together away from typical weekend
activities.

Sola said it’s also a chance to shift slightly from her
parenting role and have “the two of us learning together,
mutually sharing in spiritual growth.”

Amelia Hoover, one of the consecrated women guiding
retreatants, said mothers and daughters face a number of
challenges.

“From a very competitive and demanding culture to the good
desires of wanting to excel and feel she has a place, moms
and daughters are constantly having to find and choose the
stable foundation they can put their own security and
self-worth in,” said Hoover. “So it is crucially important
that mothers and daughters are given the space to receive the
affirmation of their own worth and gifts.”

Velásquez-Kanazeh said she prays the retreat will
provide such a space as well as spark a dialogue that
continues beyond the weekend.

“I hope mothers and daughters will continue to have
conversations based on love and understanding,” she said,
“and really based in Christ.”

To register

For more information and to register, go here.

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