2025 EASTER SEASON: Reflection Guides & Resources Available Now!

Participant Reflections

On a Maryknoll immersion trip, the pilgrims experience the culture and hear the stories of our brothers and sisters around the world. Immersion trips through the Deacon Mission Partners Program are focused on solidarity building that prepare the deacon and wife to integrate the experience into their ministries when they return.

Immersion trips include: pre-trip orientation, on-site introduction to the cultural, economic, and political realities, opportunities to meet the people and hear their stories of challenge and hope, daily communal prayer, liturgies and theological reflection, visits to tourist and cultural sites, and post-trip debriefing and reflection. Credits for Continuing Education and Annual Retreats.

immersion to central america for clergy

“My participation in the 2014 Pilgrimage Retreat to Central America sponsored by Maryknoll was a life-changing experience for me…a moment of metanoia. I hope and pray that my brother deacons and priests serving the Lord’s flock in the United States would consider taking part in the next pilgrimage. To pray at the tombs of the Latin American martyrs...to listen to the witness of the people of El Salvador and Guatemala…to listen to the witness of the Maryknoll brothers and priests that have accompanied the Lord’s flock…it was a breathtaking experience and brought about in me a renewal of my own heart.”

The Most Reverend David P. Talley, M.S.W., J.C.D.

Auxiliary Bishop of Atlanta

(Episcopal Vicar, Region II)

Share the Joy of Mission

In June 2013 a small group of people left the comfort of their homes in the U.S. to embark on an adventure, a treasure hunt, to discover the sacred presence of God in the people of Guatemala. These are their stories.

Inspired by the book “What They Taught Us” edited by Joseph A. Heim, M.M., participants of the 2013 Mission Immersion Program in Guatemala, Esquipulas were asked to write a reflection on one of their experiences. With minimal editing, the essays were printed and the present booklet produced in hopes that others who have engaged in a short term mission immersion program might reflect on their experience of what the poor have taught them.