The registration for the healing phase sessions is now live. The links to the registration are found below.
The healing phase of the reconciliation process builds on the earlier phases of the process, which were designed to prepare people to engage in the healing phase in a spirit of grace and conciliation. The timeline for those phases included:
- March 2 to April 22, 2025 – a series of telephone interviews with key stakeholders in order to gather background information.
- May 3 – an all-day educational workshop on “Systems Thinking and Conflict Transformation,” to equip participants with understandings and skills to be drawn upon during the sessions in the healing phase.
- May 17, 19 & June 2, 2025 – five small group sessions to document the full range of interests that will be addressed during the problem-solving phase of the process.
The sessions in the healing phase are scheduled for September 6 and September 13, 2025. The setting for the September 6 session will be St. Paul’s Episcopal Church, 815 E Grace Street, Richmond, VA. The September 13 session will take place at St. Peter’s Episcopal Church, 4250 N Glebe Road, Arlington, VA. Both sessions will begin at 9:00 am and end at 1:30 pm. Unlike the small groups, where people chose to attend one session, people are encouraged to attend both sessions. The sessions build upon one another, which means that people will miss important moments of healing if they only attend one session. These sessions will only be conducted in person.
The two sessions will take place within the context of a large-group structured dialogue process. The sessions will provide a safe context for people to bring forward unresolved hurts from the past in order to seek reconciliation with those who they believe may have contributed to their hurt.
As was stated in the educational workshop, the key to seeking reconciliation from a systems perspective is to recognize that we all play a role when there is anxiety and conflict in our relationships. The process challenges all parties to move beyond blame and to take responsibility for their part of the conflict, as a way of inviting God’s Spirit to bring healing.
Participants who wish to bring a past hurt forward will share their hurt via an I-statement with another person they have invited to be a listener. After sharing the I-statement, the listener will be asked to summarize the hurt. The exchange will continue in that fashion until the speaker has said everything they want to share about the impact the situation had on them, and after the speaker senses that the listener has genuinely understood the depth of the hurt that was experienced. The speaker and the listener will then be invited to share statements of regret with the other.
Afterward, the speaker will be asked if they are ready to let go of the hurt, to put it in the past and not allow it to get in the way of the relationship for the future. When the hurt has been released – and God’s role in the healing has been celebrated – the next person who is ready to process a hurt will have an opportunity to do the same. The session continues in that manner until all the hurts have been let go. The process serves to clear away all such hurts, so that participants can next focus on problem-solving for the future, unencumbered by the hurts of the past.
When all parties are able to participate in the intended spirit of conciliation and grace, the reconciliation process has the potential to be very moving. Sessions are often accompanied by healing statements of regret, confession, and forgiveness that give clear evidence of God’s reconciling Spirit being at work in the process. All who have been impacted by past conflicts – and have a deep desire to see Shrine Mont Camps flourish for the future – are encouraged to place a high priority on attending both sessions in the healing phase.
Register Online
Session #1: September 6
9:00AM-1:30PM
St. Paul’s Episcopal Church, Richmond
Session #2 September 13
9:00AM-1:30PM
St. Peter’s Episcopal Church, Arlington