Life-Giving Wounds Retreat
A Retreat For Adult Children of Divorced/Separated Parents
Dealing with our parents’ divorce is not easy but confronting this wound with faith can allow us to find great healing. We hope that you will become part of our supportive community and receive the many graces available through this ministry.
Healing Retreat
Attending the three-day retreat is a great way to start this journey of healing. The retreat focuses on discovering our identity as children of God, although it also focuses on overcoming the effects of parental divorce, forgiving our parents, and connecting with others from this background.
This retreat has something for any adult child of divorce or separation, no matter how much healing you have received or need.
The weekend includes presentations, small group sharing, adoration, spiritual direction, and Mass. This three-day retreat is the centerpiece of this ministry.
Themes covered on the weekend include:
• Finding Our Deepest Identity
• Faith and Our Relationship with God
• Love, Dating, and the Sacrament of Marriage
• Loneliness
• Anger and Anxiety
• False Guilt and Shame
• Forgiveness and Reconciliation
• Family Boundaries
• The Christian Meaning of Suffering
• Healing and the Sacraments of Reconciliation and the Eucharist
• and more!
Fr Luke’s testimony
You can find other resources at www.lifegivingwounds.org (including online groups, other retreats, etc).
Retreat team leaders
Father Carl
Fr. Carl entered the Order of Preachers, commonly known as the Dominicans, of the Western Province in 1990 and was ordained in
1998. He currently serves as Prior (superior) and Parochial Vicar at St. Dominic, San Francisco. St. Dominic, San Francisco houses the Novitiate (the first year of formation in religious life) for the Western Dominican Province, as well as a vibrant parish. Before San Francisco, he has served at a variety of parishes and campus ministries throughout the West, including the University of Utah and Stanford University, as well as Vicar Provincial to assist the retired and elderly friars of the Province. He is a San Francisco Bay Area native.
Fr. Carl is an only child whose parents divorced when he was seven. He is an alum of the first Life-Giving Wounds retreat on the West Coast. On his retreat, he found a passion for helping other adult children of divorce overcome the pain and stigma of talking about the experience of being a child of separated or divorced parents. Like many LGW retreatants, he found it a beautiful and unique experience to be in a room filled with other children of divorce for the first time. He is excited to both experience and witness the healing that comes from a LWG weekend and the ongoing healing that comes from staying engaged with fellow adult children of divorce.
Janelle
Janelle grew up in the Bay Area but now considers Carlsbad/San Diego home. She has been married to her husband, Richard, since 2014. They have two sons, Nicky (3rd grade) and Danny (1st grade). Ergo, day-to-day life consists of a lot of Hot Wheels cars and fart jokes.
Janelle holds BA in Sociology from University of California, Santa Barbara and a MDiv from the Jesuit School of Theology in Berkeley (now affiliated with Santa Clara University). Professionally, Janelle works as an Associate Director in the Office for Family Life & Spirituality at the Diocese of San Diego. She leads marriage-preparation retreats, accompanies divorced & separated Catholic families, supports mental health ministries and offers a pastoral care for families at all ages and stages. She is a regular contributor to Catholic Mom and last year America published her short take on How Catholic marriage prep is better serving adults from divorced families. When not ministering, she enjoys Friday night pizza with her family, baking, traveling, hiking and cataloguing Golden Girls references.
Mark and Katherine
Katherine grew up Portland, Maine with her four siblings. She graduated from The University of New Hampshire with her Master’s in
Occupational Therapy (OT). She spent several years as a travel OT and ended up in San Francisco. Her parents divorced and annulled their marriage when she was 6 years old, and she began the journey of intentional healing in early adulthood through therapy and reversion to the Catholic faith that deepened her relationship with God. Katherine attended her first Life Giving Wounds retreat in SF in March 2022, and since then has assisted with the SF chapter as well as national virtual retreats. She met Mark in March of 2024.
Mark grew up in Georgetown, CA and is the second oldest of six kids. He loves the mountains and snowboarding. He moved to Oregon where he works as a carpenter & general contractor. Mark’s parents separated when he was 8 years old. He has found great healing in the Sacraments, especially confession and the Eucharist. He was invited to LGW by Katherine and attended the November 2024 retreat. He found it to be a grace-filled accelerated experience of healing. Katherine & Mark were married in June of 2025 and now reside in Oregon. They are honored to accompany all those sharing the wound of a fractured family.
Hallie
Hallie knew from a very young age that God created her to be a servant to others. As a young child she set up a folding lawn chair in her driveway and offered neighborhood kids advice for all their life’s problems. That love of helping others continues with her to this day, and she has spent her life educating herself in the field of psychology and mental health.
Hallie holds a doctorate in clinical psychology and has worked with several populations, including Catholic seminarians as adjunct professor at St. Patrick’s seminary in Menlo Park, and the school counselor for two archdiocese K-8 schools. Dr. Colorado has also spent years working with engaged couples leading Engaging the Heart, as well as working at Stanford Children’s hospital’s pediatric cardiology unit.
She is currently the Director of Parish Outreach and Community at St. Raymond Catholic church where she and her family have been parishioners for over a decade. Hallie is the proud mother of a beautiful group of little ladies, and is happily married to her favorite guy. She is an adult child of divorce and is incredibly passionate about helping others through the grief, trauma and healing associated with this life altering event.
Teresa
Teresa’s path of healing has been a life-long journey where Jesus has continually walked with her. Jesus is with her on mountain tops, in
the stillness of a lake, on the ebb and flow of the ocean, in the vastness of the night sky, and during the dawning of the sun; eyes and heart wide open listening to God speak! And after 51 years, Jesus is still healing her heart.
Teresa is a life-long Catholic and volunteers at her parish as a Eucharistic Minister at mass as well as brings the Eucharist to the sick. She teaches prayer through art during parish retreats, and coordinates a parish ministry that informs Catholics about the Eucharist and Adoration.
Teresa attended the Life Giving Wounds Retreat in 2022 where she received much healing. In the spring of 2025, she joined the Life Giving Wounds retreat team where she walks, listens and shares her testimony with other adult children of divorce, which is a great privilege and grace. In addition, she completed the Spiritual Exercises of St. Ingnatius in 2025.
Teresa has been married for 33 years and is a mother to an adult son. Her career was in commercial and fine art photography. She still finds great joy in photographing the natural world. Teresa loves to travel, hike, kayak, ski, garden, write and cook for family and friends.
Before registering, please be aware of the following:
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- All are very welcome to join us on retreat whether you are Catholic or not, but please be aware that the content of this retreat will be Catholic.
- A team of presenters will speak about this wound and its effects, and there will be moments for you to share your experiences with others in small groups.
- As with all retreats, everything will be treated on a strictly confidential basis. This is a spiritual retreat, not primarily psychological, but we will have a list of counselors available as a resource outside of the retreat itself for those who are interested.
- Healing retreats pair well with counseling and/or spiritual direction. If you are not already working through this wound with someone, we would encourage you to consider it. If you would like a recommendation, please give us a call.
