Spiritual Directors at Loretto Maryholme
Jane McDonell
Since 1990 Sr. Jane has been accompanying individuals and groups on their spiritual journeys both in Canada and abroad in England, India, and Ireland. As Director of Loretto Maryholme she facilitates retreats, workshops, assemblies, and group activities. Now with Covid -19 she is turning her gifts to online programming. Along with her experience of fifty + years as a woman religious, Jane is a graduate of the Shalem Program for Spiritual Directors with additional training at Regis College, Toronto and Loyola House, Guelph. With a background in education, social work, refugee housing, and congregational leadership she brings deep listening and discernment skills to the art of spiritual accompaniment. The interplay of Mary Ward/Ignatian, evolutionary, and feminist spiritualities sustain her. The Enneagram, labyrinth, art, poetry, music, and the outdoors are avenues of exploration and encounter with the Divine. |
Mary Lou Gormley
Mary Lou has been an active spiritual director since 2008 when she completed her Master of Ministry and Spirituality and the Diploma in Spiritual Direction from Regis College, at the University of Toronto. She is a member of Spiritual Director’s International and has offered this ministry both to individuals as well as groups in several retreat centres, parishes, non-profit organizations and in private practise, additionally Mary Lou is a spiritual direction supervisor for students exploring this call. Mary Lou’s interests and expertise are in the area of Ignatian, Celtic and Indigenous spirituality, the arts and their intersection with the Divine, nature as Holy revelation, body prayer and poetry as prayer. Her personal experience and professional training in the field of grief, loss and transition enhance her capacity to serve our community. She is a married mom of one, a step mother to three and a delighted Nana to seven grandchildren who continually provide her with windows to the Spirit at work. |
Brenda Peddigrew
Brenda Peddigrew RSM is a Sister of Mercy (NL), who has lived and worked from the Algonquin Highlands, ON, for the past twenty years, traveling to many countries in order to facilitate meetings for religious Congregations and other groups, as well as teaching facilitation skills in Dublin, Ireland for twelve summers. Brenda maintains strong connections with her family and community in NL, visiting there 3 times a year, but finds her deepest roots in the forests and river on which she lives. She is a writer with six books of poetry, one of essays, and the book written from her doctoral thesis: Original Fire: the hidden heart of religious women. (all are available on amazon.ca) |
Donna
Donna is a layperson, a Loretto Associate and a hospital chaplain who has a long standing appreciation for Ignatian spirituality, holistic health and the sacred found in nature and the arts. She specializes in mental health and is a Registered Psychotherapist with the College of Registered Psychotherapists of Ontario. Donna is a graduate of Regis College, Toronto, having completed a Master of Divinity and Master of Theology, and is a Certified Spiritual Care Practitioner with the Canadian Association for Spiritual Care. In both her personal and professional life, Donna holds a deep understanding of the gift and challenge of caregiving, the restorative quality of prayerful silence and the importance of rest, recreation and play.
(We respect Donna's need to limit personal information as she works in the mental health field.)

"Spiritual Directors....are not the chief agent, guide and mover of souls... the principal guide is the Holy Spirit." St. Ignatius