Loyola Jesuit Center provides a refuge to feed today’s spiritual hungers by enabling people to discover God’s life within them through contemplative silent retreats. People come looking for answers and solutions and leave with insight and enthusiasm. They return home with a renewed sense of peace and are empowered to act on the call of Jesus Christ to communicate and share that life with others.
In silence and solitude, in conversation and discussions, let your experience at Loyola heighten your awareness of His presence. Let this be a journey of the soul. Nourish your hunger for growth as a person.
Think of your experience at Loyola Jesuit Center as a gift to yourself. Capture the sense of your own place as a child of God called to goodness, filled with hope, and rich in love. Live with confidence in a time of restlessness.
Below is a sample schedule for a typical Weekend Retreat
Friday
4:00pm – 6:00pm – Check-in, Settle In
6:00pm – Dinner
7:00pm –Evening Program/Talk by Retreat Director, Night Prayers, Personal Reflection
Saturday
8:00am – Breakfast
9:00am – Morning Program/Talk by Retreat Director, Personal Reflection & Prayer Time
10:00am – Free time, One-on-One Consultations with a Spiritual Director (optional for Silent retreatants)
11:15am – Communal Service of Reconciliation
12:15pm – Lunch
1:00pm – Stations of the Cross (outdoor and/or indoor)
2:00pm – Free time, One-on-One Consultations with a Spiritual Director (optional)
3:15pm – Afternoon Program/Talk by Retreat Director, Personal Reflection & Prayer Time
4:45pm – Healing Mass and Eucharist
5:45pm – Dinner
7:30pm – Evening Program/Talk by Retreat Director, Night Prayers
Sunday
8:00am – Breakfast
9:00am – Morning Program/Talk led by Retreat Director, Personal Reflection & Prayer Time
10:00am – Free time, One-on-One Consultations with a Spiritual Director (optional)
11:00am – Rosary
11:30am – Sunday Mass
12:30pm – Lunch & Departure
Loyola offers beautiful landscaped gardens surrounded by woodlands in a quiet, peaceful setting for reflection and contemplation. Indoors, the chapels, meeting spaces, dining hall and individual private rooms maintain a comfortable and tranquil environment for retreatants. Loyola is your “home away from home.”
Loyola has room to accommodate over 70+ individuals. Retreatants enjoy private rooms with a sink and mirror. All rooms are furnished with single beds, linens, towels, a small desk for study or writing and a kneeler for prayer. Showers are located on each floor.
Meals are served family or buffet style in our beautiful, bright dining hall. During a majority of retreats silence is maintained during meals with appropriate contemplative music playing in the background. Snacks, beverages and coffee/tea are available at all times. Should you have specific dietary needs, please let us know when registering.
The gardens and surrounding woodlands play an important role in the retreat experience at Loyola. In this fast-paced world, it’s more important than ever to have a place to unplug from technology and plug-in to God through nature. The Frank Diassi, Sr. Memorial Gardens allow retreatants the sacred space to do just that. With generous donations from our Loyola community, our gardens continue to grow in the same way we hope that those who come on retreat will continue to grow in their spiritual lives.
On June 10, 1927, Loyola House of Retreats (now Loyola Jesuit Center) in Morristown, New Jersey was officially opened as a retreat center on the former grounds of the Foote family estate. Retreats were very popular around the turn of the century and Fr. Herman Storck, S.J., a Jesuit priest on staff at Mount Manresa in Staten Island at the time, began looking for a place to hold retreats in the Northern New Jersey area. Fr. Storck soon discovered the Foote estate, one of the most stately homes in New Jersey when it was built in 1904. Having found the place, Fr. Stork’s next challenge was to secure financing for the purchase of the property. Fr. Storck was directed to Welcome Bender, a wealthy lawyer from Elizabeth, NJ, by Bender’s brother, Frederick. Fr. Storck, early in 1926, went directly to Welcome’s office and asked him if he would purchase the Foote estate and donate it to the Jesuits. Mr. Bender said no to the request and asked Fr. Storck never to mention the subject to him again. Meanwhile, another offer was made to donate an estate in Saddle River, along with $100,000 to build a new retreat house. The Jesuit Provincial gave Fr. Storck an ultimatum—if he could not finance the Foote estate, he would have to accept the Saddle River property. But Fr. Storck had his heart set on the property in Morristown. Fr. Storck pleaded with the Provincial for time to pray until the end of the Novena of Grace in honor of St. Francis Xavier. His prayers were answered on the last day of the Novena, March 12, 1927. Over one year after his initial rejection, Welcome Bender notified Fr. Storck that he had a change of heart. He would purchase the Foote estate after all and donate it to the Jesuits in memory of his mother, Mrs. Katherine Bender. The purchase and transfer took place in Morristown on April 27, 1927. Fr. Herman Storck, S.J. received the gift of the house and property from Mr. Bender in the name of the Society of Jesus and became Loyola’s first director.
“The presentation of the Loyola House of Retreats is certainly one of the greatest and most joyous occasions of my life. As I formally tender the deed of this estate to the Society of Jesus, I feel that it is a dedication to my mother that certainly will repay me a hundredfold by the joy of the giving. I want to thank God for granting me this opportunity and for blessing me with the means to take advantage of it. I want to thank Father Storck for assisting me to realize the ambition of my lifetime to establish as a memorial to my mother a house dedicated to God.” – Welcome Bender
And so we give thanks to our co-founders, Welcome Bender who made Loyola possible and Fr. Storck who made Loyola Retreat Center a reality. Thanks to God’s loving grace, Loyola has remained and flourishes as a house of prayer and a sacred space since 1927. It is clear that the hand of God has been at work, not only through Loyola’s past directors like Fr. Storck but also through its generations of devoted promoters and retreatants, staff and employees, friends and benefactors, shaping the people and events that are the story of Loyola Jesuit Center.
Fr. Storck Room: An elegantly appointed sitting room for welcoming our guests sits to the right of the main entrance. A chalice dating back to the 16th century is on display in this room as well as the original chalice used for Mass when the retreat house first opened.
Click here to read about Loyola’s interesting connection to Spring Brook Country Club right here in Morristown. Spring Brook was originally part of the estate owned by Robert Foote before it was donated to the Society of Jesus in 1927 becoming Loyola House of Retreats. Prior to this, in 1921, Robert Foote sold 160 acres of his property to a group of Morristown businessmen who established Spring Brook Country Club, which opened in 1922.
The gardens were extensively renovated in 2010 to include new landscaping and a large reflection pool lined with benches for contemplation through a gift from Frank Diassi Jr. and his wife Marianne. The renovation also included a new brick garden wall and fountains dedicated to the sanctity of human life, especially the unborn, donated by Sam Singer, a frequent retreatant and his wife, Nancy.
The gardens were officially dedicated in memory of Frank Diassi Sr. in 2015. At the dedication, Frank Diassi, Jr. recalled memories of his father tending to the gardens at Loyola. He said his father walked two miles from his Harrison Street home in Morristown to Loyola every day through his early 80s. “He loved this place. He worked very hard and took pride in caring for the gardens as if they were his own,” said Diassi, Jr. of his late father. “The vegetables from my father’s garden even fed the clergy and those on retreat. I know my father would be very proud of how the gardens look today, that they were dedicated to him and that they continue to provide a peaceful atmosphere for retreatants,” said the junior Diassi.