Meet Christine Jurisich
This Is My Favorite Place to Be
I often tell people when we're gathered for a retreat, "This is my favorite thing to do. There is no other place I'd rather be."
There is something beautiful, comforting, and healing about coming together in faith. Sharing a meditation in community or listening to one another's experience of God is truly a sacred moment.
We bring our joys, fears, questions, grief, and hopes to a retreat. Sometimes there are tears and sometimes laughter. No matter what, I come away feeling like I can survive whatever life brings because I have a sacred space to sort it out and be held in prayer.
One of my greatest joys of this ministry is gathering online with people from across the country and around the world. We come from different places, backgrounds, and perspectives, yet so often discover that we share the same fears, longings, and dreams.
Some of the most special moments for me are when someone shares the importance of feeling seen and heard and says, "I thought I was the only one who felt this way." Or when I hear how someone's relationship with God has deepened or how they've discovered something new about themselves.
Founder of Retreat, Reflect, Renew
Author | Retreat Facilitator
A Reporter at Heart
Long before I founded Retreat, Reflect, Renew, I was a television reporter and anchor. It was the career I had dreamed of since fifth grade. I loved asking questions and listening, telling stories, and discovering something meaningful to share with others.
Yet it turned out that God had other plans for me.
After ten years, I left my television career to become a stay-at-home mom and I struggled with the transition. So much of my identity had been wrapped up in what I accomplished. Without that professional title, I found myself questioning my worth and filling my days with too many activities in an effort to feel valuable again.
What I was really longing for was something deeper: a sense of peace and meaning.
Through a Benedictine spiritual growth ministry called Ministry of Mothers Sharing, I began discovering a different way of living. I came to understand that my worth wasn't something I had to earn. I was already loved and worthy in God's eyes. It became a place I could use my gifts and worked for the ministry for several years.
Still a reporter at heart, I began exploring personal and spiritual growth, interviewing spiritual directors, retreat leaders, psychologists, and others whose wisdom helped me deepen my understanding of faith and the human experience.
Eventually, those discoveries led me to create a personal retreat journal and found Retreat, Reflect, Renew.
Growing Through Life's Joys and Sorrows
In 2018, my life changed in a way I could never have imagined. My precious 16-year-old son, Peter, died from a brain aneurysm.
My faith didn't take away the pain yet the spiritual practices and experience of God I had spent years exploring and sharing kept me grounded. I have come to know in a deeper way what it means to live with grief, mystery, joy, love, sorrow, and gratitude all woven together.
The loss has deepened my call to provide welcoming spaces for people to grow in faith and connect in a meaningful and healing way. I simply do not know any other way to survive loss and embrace the joys of life. I want people to know they are not alone.
Why I Created Retreat, Reflect, Renew
Growing in faith is not simply about learning more about God. It is about making space to experience the Sacred in our everyday lives.
It is about noticing, listening, asking questions, and trusting that the Sacred is already at work within us.
My Catholic faith has been an important part of my spiritual journey, and over the years, I've been deeply enriched by the wisdom and experiences of people from different Christian traditions. I've discovered how much we can learn from one another when we come together with open hearts, curiosity, and a willingness to listen.
This spirit of openness, asking questions, and mutual discovery is at the heart of Retreat, Reflect, Renew and shapes everything we offer. Rather than simply presenting information, we create guided spiritual experiences that invite people to reflect, pray, explore, and discover their own wisdom.
I believe there is something especially meaningful about doing this in community. We need places where we can be ourselves, where our questions are welcome, and where we can listen to one another without judgment or advice.
We need opportunities to return to what matters most when the demands, distractions, and worries of everyday life pull us away.
These are the experiences I love creating and would love to share with you.
An Invitation to You
In my recently published book, Awakening to the Sacred, I explore what it means to live in the flow of Infinite Love—to notice God's presence, open ourselves to receiving that love, and allow it to flow through us into the world.
I don't believe we ever arrive at a place where we have all the answers. But I do believe we can help one another keep awakening to the Sacred, one moment at a time.
Whatever brings you here—curiosity, longing, a life transition, a desire for deeper prayer, or simply the need to pause—I hope you'll find something that speaks to you.
I would love to share the journey with you.
A Little More About Me
Christine Jurisich, M.A., is the founder of Retreat, Reflect, Renew, an author, spiritual director, and retreat facilitator. She holds a Master's degree in Theology with an emphasis in Mercy Spirituality and received her spiritual direction training through the Mercy Institute of Spiritual Formation at Mercy Center Burlingame.
A Mercy Associate and adjunct facilitator with Mercy Center Auburn, Christine draws on Christian contemplative, Benedictine, and Mercy spiritual traditions. She is the author of Awakening to the Sacred: An Invitation to Live in the Flow of Infinite Love and Retreat, Reflect, Renew: A Sacred Journal for a More Peaceful You.
Her greatest joy is creating welcoming spaces and prayer practices where people can discover the Sacred within themselves, in one another, and in everyday life