Sr. Linda Sevcik, SM,is a Marist Sister born and raised in Wheeling, West Virginia. She entered the community in Detroit, Michigan following high school and attended Marygrove College and the University of Detroit, earning a Master’s in Education. She taught at St. Albert the Great elementary school in Dearborn Heights and served as Principal there before earning a Licentiate at the Pontifical Gregorian University in Rome at its Institute of Psychology. She ministered in formation work for her community in Hull, Quebec, and Chicago, IL, where she also served as Pastoral Associate and Music Director at Our Lady of the Snows Parish and maintained a private practice in counseling and spiritual direction. She was a founding member and chair of the board of the Marist Volunteer Program, which placed college graduates in local communities of all branches of the Marist family for one year of community experience and ministry. She was named to the faculty of Mundelein Seminary in the Archdiocese of Chicago in 1996, where she taught pastoral counseling and served as Field Education Director and Formator for 12 years. Returning to her hometown, she ministered as Director of the Catholic Charities Neighborhood Center, which serves the poor and homeless of the area. She relocated back to this area in 2011, to Roseville, to serve as regional leader with the Marist Sisters of Ireland, Canada, Mexico, Venezuela and Brazil, in addition to the US. In the past several years she has been ministering in counseling and spiritual direction as well as directing occasional weekend retreats at Manresa. For the past 20 years, she taught seminarians from all over the US about human and spiritual foundations of sexuality and celibacy with the Institute for Priestly Formation at Creighton University in Omaha, Nebraska. In 2021 she became the Executive Director of Manresa Jesuit Retreat House.

Sr. Kathleen Budesky, IHM was graduated from Mundelein College with a Master’s Degree in Religious Studies and Spirituality. Kathie has served in secondary schools both in religious studies departments and administration, most recently at Marian High School. She is currently a presenter and facilitator at Visitation North Spirituality Center in Bloomfield Hills, of which she is also the director.

Dcn. Brian Carroll, is currently the parish deacon at St. Mark Catholic Church in Warren, MI and an adjunct spirituality instructor at Guest House, a residential Catholic addiction treatment center in Lake Orion, MI. He was born in Dublin, Ireland and raised in Glasgow, Scotland before coming to the US in 1967. He studied at Sacred Heart Major Seminary in Detroit before being ordained to the permanent diaconate in 1979. Dcn. Carroll has served as pastoral associate at St. Regis in Bloomfield Hills and Our Lady of LaSalette in Berkley. In addition to preaching at daily and weekend liturgies, his ministries have included: adult religious education (RCIA director); the Stephen Ministry program (director); pastoral counseling; ministry to the sick and shut-ins; marriage preparation; bereavement support and funeral services; and spiritual direction. Dcn. Carroll graduated from Manresa’s Internship in Ignatian Spirituality in 2007.

Fr. Patrick Fairbanks, SJ, of the Midwest Jesuit Province, is pastor of St Francis Xavier Church in Cincinnati, OH. After graduating from Miami University in 1976, he taught high school and served in parish youth ministry for 12 years. He entered the Jesuits in 1989 and continued philosophy, classical language and theology studies at Jesuit universities in the US. Ordained in 2000, Fr. Pat worked for 13 years in Chicago at St. Ignatius College Prep, serving six years as Vocations Director for the Jesuits. Fr. Pat plays piano and guitar by ear and is an avid fan of the Beatles, John Denver and astronomy. His motto in life: “A splendid time is guaranteed for all.”

Fr. Robert Flack, SJ, was born in 1948 in Chicago. He attended the seminary system in the Chicago Archdiocese and was ordained at Mundelein Seminary in 1974, serving at several parishes of the Archdiocese before entering the Society of Jesus in 1983. He has a PhD from the University of Washington (Seattle). He taught sociology for two years at Xavier University in Cincinnati and urban studies for seven years in St. Louis University’s Department of Public Policy Studies. Fr. Flack has been trained as a spiritual director at the Jesuit Center for Spiritual Growth in Wernersville, PA. He served on the staff of the Bellarmine Jesuit Retreat House in Illinois, including several months as administrator. He has preached retreats at the Bellarmine Jesuit Retreat House, the Jesuit Spirituality Center in Milford, OH, Manresa Jesuit Retreat House, and the Cenacle in Chicago. Before joining Manresa’s staff in 2019, he served as Director of Spiritual Life at St. Joseph College Seminary in Chicago.

Fr. Steve Hurd, SJ, a Jesuit of the Chicago-Detroit Jesuit Province, came to Manresa to help out during Fr. Chamberlain’s recuperation, and since then is a full-time member of the staff. He had most recently been pastor of St. Agnes, St. Bridget, and St. Charles parishes on the Rosebud Reservation in South Dakota. Steve has been retreat master at the Jesuit Spiritual Center at Milford, Ohio and at Bellarmine Jesuit Retreat House in Barrington, IL, of which he was also director.

Sr. Karen Jackson, CSC
“Through God’s grace via an Intervention orchestrated by my local religion community,” Sr. Karen wrote, “I have enjoyed continuous sobriety for over half of my life. This includes a minimum of two closed AA meetings per week and an identified sponsor and home group.” Sr. Karen’s recovery retreat ministry started in 1987 at a retreat center located on the grounds of the Holy Cross Motherhouse in South Bend, Indiana. For these 30-plus years, she has presented both men-only and women-only retreats, and co-ed retreats. She has developed a one-day retreat for women in AA/AL Anon over the past five years, which are held twice a year in Northbrook, Illinois, as well as in South Bend, Indiana. Her conferences are based on the Twelve Steps and are presented utilizing her personal experience, strength, and hope, and delivered with a lively sense of humor.

Her ministry experience has been teaching in elementary schools, addiction counseling and supervision responsibilities and, last, but by no means least, 13 years as an early childhood educator.

DiAnne Patterson Schultz, a life-long Detroiter, is a 2003 graduate of Manresa’s Internship Program, a trained spiritual director, and has led people through the Spiritual Exercises of St. Ignatius. She has experience in retreat facilitation and presenting spiritual workshops and days of reflection. DiAnne has degrees in Public Administration and Pastoral Ministry and is a trained mediator. She retired from the City of Detroit after 34 years and spent another nine years working in a Detroit non-profit mediation agency. DiAnne is currently an ESL tutor and board member at All Saints Literacy Center in Southwest Detroit. She is part of the Manresa Internship Supervision team, a member of Manresa’s Board and an active parishioner of Gesu Catholic Church in Detroit. DiAnne is widowed with three adult children and four adult stepchildren and is blessed with 12 grandchildren.

Fr. Tom Sweetser, SJ is the founder and current director of the Parish Evaluation Project, established in 1973. He works with pastors, staffs and lay leaders through the Parish Leadership Retreat experience of spiritual growth, community-building and outreach. His most recent book, published in May, 2019, is called Can Francis Change the Church? How American Catholics Are Responding to His Leadership (Crossroad Publishing). He is a Jesuit priest of the Upper Midwest Province. His original home is Minneapolis, Minnesota, but he has spent 31 years in Chicago, where he became a diehard Cubs fan. He now resides at the Arrupe Jesuit Community near Marquette University in Milwaukee.

Fr. Joe Wagner, SJ, was born and raised in Erie, Pennsylvania, an only child and a spoiled only grandchild. He graduated with a degree in Mathematics from MIT. Following a Master’s in Mathematics at the University of Wisconsin—Madison, he entered the Society of Jesus in 1988. Always a bit slow, he needed more schooling, so he completed his theology studies at the Jesuit School of Theology Berkeley, and remained in the Bay Area to complete a Ph.D. in Mathematics Education at the University of California, Berkeley.

In the middle of those years, he was ordained a priest in 1998. After thirteen years on the Mathematics faculty at Xavier University, Cincinnati, OH, he decided he had his fill of academia and wanted pastoral ministry to be a bigger part of his life. In 2016 he arrived at St. Mary Student Parish where he has happily found a new home.