What People Say About Their Visit

“More than 10 years ago, I drove from Nashville to Sewanee in search of St. Mary’s Sewanee to attend a Benedictine Gardening Retreat. While I was not sure if I would find a monastery or a convent at the end of the drive, I was sure that the four-day retreat would bring much-needed silence and rest to my life. The retreat offered not only silence and glorious work in God’s garden, but also sacred time and space that brought restoration to my soul. I have been returning to St. Mary’s Sewanee ever since for silence, retreat, rest and restoration.”

-Jean Jackson

“Our church staff has been going to St. Mary’s Sewanee for our annual three-day staff retreat for more than 20 years. We keep returning because the location on the bluff and the beauty of the surroundings enable us to pull away from the pressure-cooker demands of serving a large and complex congregation and to reconnect with God’s Spirit within us and with the sense of call that got us into ministry in the first place.”

-K.C. Ptomey

“We give thanks to St. Mary’s Sewanee because it is a place of unrivaled beauty offering a wide variety of opportunities for mental, emotional and spiritual growth. It also has been a source of prayer and concern for each of us during serious health issues. We know those prayers played a role in our recovery. St. Mary’s Sewanee truly is a “place apart” for anyone seeking to strengthen their faith or find new ways of experiencing God’s love in all its marvelous diversity.

-Elizabeth and Chuck Dunlop

“Unless clergy are highly intentional, we rarely take the opportunity to step away from the role of ‘leader’ and just ‘be’ with God. St. Mary’s Sewanee is my place of intention. I cannot imagine my life and my vocation without my annual winter retreat in Sewanee. I come each year to this holy altar for peace, for solace, to lose myself, to find myself and to give thanks. And I always come away found, fed and made new.”

– Bill Combs