What leaders are saying about Life-Giving Wounds:

“The work of Dan Meola and the entire Life-Giving Wounds team is commendable and I am very grateful for their courage to address such a difficult issue in the Church. Decades of divorce have left millions of wounded children in its wake, struggling to find their own identity and sustain meaningful relationships. This wound is both profound and hidden as the pain is often invalidated or suppressed. Life-Giving Wounds is a remarkable effort to not only give a voice to the unspoken pain of adults who come from a broken family but to transform these wounds into an opportunity for deeper intimacy with God for healing and the recovery of our true origin: children loved and cherished by our heavenly Father. It was an honor to work with Dan to bring the Life-Giving Wounds retreat team and retreats to the Diocese of St. Augustine. I strongly encourage family life directors and ministry leaders to consider hosting a retreat in their own parish or diocese.”

 
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-Mike Day, Director of the Office of Family Life for the Diocese of Saint Augustine and former president of the National Association of Catholic Family Life Ministers

 
 

“Since publishing Primal Loss: The Now-Adult Children of Divorce Speak, I have been painfully aware of the lack of effective resources to help those who suffer from their parents' divorce and loss of their family, even decades later. However, when I became acquainted with Dan Meola and learned of his traveling retreat team Life-Giving Wounds, which offers an outstanding retreat for adult children of divorce, I was elated! Why? Because finally I had a resource I could recommend to countless wounded souls, one that would not reinforce the false cultural mantra, echoed by too many therapists, that "the children are resilient" and that "love changes with divorce, but all is well when the parents are happy." I cannot thank Dan enough for providing truth and solutions (in that order) for moving through understanding, forgiveness, and redemption. Dan's approach is the future of healing for the adult children of divorce, a healing grounded in right order and God's grace, and I encourage you to accept no substitutes.” 

 
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-Leila Miller, editor of Primal Loss: The Now-Adult Children of Divorce Speak (2017)

 
 

"I started helping at a Life-Giving Wounds retreat many years ago, thinking that I, as a priest, was there to bring God’s mercy to others through the sacraments. I knew that I could relate to the attendees because my own parents had divorced when I was in college, but I myself didn’t expect to receive much—and didn’t think that I needed it—since I was older when the divorced occurred. What I discovered, however, was that I too needed healing, and I was very blessed to receive much from the talks and the times of reflection and sharing. If you are a priest whose life has been touched by divorce, separation or brokenness in your parents’ marriage, please consider attending a Life-Giving Wounds retreat and please help introduce the people in your faith-community to this beautiful and much-needed ministry."

 
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- Fr. Jim McCormack, MIC, spiritual advisor

 

“The children of divorce often grow up strong and resourceful, pillars of love and support for their suffering parents. Eventually though, the woundedness deep within can and does rear its head in young adulthood and at continuing pivotal stages in life. The retreat led by the Life-Giving Wounds retreat team provides a chance to not only see (perhaps for the first time) the effects of our parents’ divorce on our own life story, but also to encounter the truth that we are not alone in our suffering. Other children of divorce are also wounded yet seeking true healing, from the source of all goodness and truth - Jesus Christ himself. If you as an adult child of divorce are longing to leave behind anxiety, perfectionism and fear, make time to attend this retreat. God’s has something to show you there.” 

 
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- Beth Sri, creator of borntodothis.org, board member of Life-Giving Wounds, and Denver chapter lead

 
 

“I hosted LGW at The Catholic Center at New York University in summer 2019, without knowing a lot about the ministry, other than what was communicated on LGW's website. Being an ACOD myself and a spiritual father, I desired a ministry like this to come to NYU, so I gave LGW a try. I can go into more detail, but in sum: The LGW retreat was one of the best Catholic retreats that I have seen and attended. For structure, it was beautifully balanced with lots of time for personal prayer, silence, journaling, time for small groups, the sacraments, and a family-style dinner, all accompanied by music. For content, I found the speakers to be very engaging who each artfully blended theology and story-telling in recounting the pain of their personal wounds with the hope of redemption by Christ. This ministry is very much needed in the Church, and God's children in this particular lens of ACOD need to know that they are seen, known, and loved. I encourage all priests and religious to consider being involved with LGW's ministry to ACOD to win these souls back to the loving family of God.”

 
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- Fr. John Baptist Hoang, OP, Chaplain of Catholic campus ministry at the University of Louisville (formerly at NYU)

 

“Life-Giving Wounds is the very embodiment of the life that can flow from the deep wound of divorce.  Dan Meola, who knows first-hand how bad divorce is, for the child caught in the middle of it, offers to others the Life he has seen through the broken image of it.  The proof is in the fruit he has borne in the hundreds now who have come to his retreats to recover their deepest Origin.”

 
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- Dr. Margaret Harper McCarthy, Associate Professor of Theological Anthropology at the Pontifical John Paul II Institute for Studies on Marriage and Family (Washington, D.C. session), Editor of Torn Asunder: Children, the Myth of the Good Divorce, and the Recovery of Origins (Eerdmans, 2017).

 

For participant feedback of our retreat, view “Testimonials”.