with Assumpta, – psychologist, theologian and former nun at Sant Benet
Date: 23 August 2025 at 10:00 – we end with breakfast on 27 August
Language: English
Location: Ignatius Healing and Retreat
We are very excited to announce that Assumpta is coming to Ignatius Healing and Retreat again this year. She will hold an intensive course in the Song of Songs from the Old Testament.
Assumpta is a former nun at the St Benet Monastery on Montserrat. She also has a background as a psychologist and theologian.
Through the wonderful lyrics of the Song of Songs, we learn how to express our longing to be united with God, with Christ or with the Divine. Meditation, contemplation and prayer are included as practices. The purpose is to enter into a deep, unreserved and heartfelt relationship and sense of the Divine in the deeper currents of our hearts. The Christian mystics have read the Song of Songs in this way and through this opened their hearts into a deep passionate Love relationship and Oneness with the Divine. In the course, Assumpta will go through the practices with us and help us to open ourselves to the texts.
There will also be the opportunity for individual conversations with Assumpta during the programme.
Max 12 participants. Please note binding registration. Payment must be due no later than 1 July. Price DKK 7,600 including accommodation and catering in a single room, DKK 6,600 in a double room.
See Assumpta’s presentation of herself and the course below.
For registration please go to calendar
Assumpta Arasa Altimira is a theologian, clinical psychologist, and biblical scholar with a degree in Fine Arts, and a deep commitment to bridging academic study and contemplative practice. Her research focuses on biblical spirituality, the mysticism of the Old and New Testament, and the role of symbolic language in Scripture. She has taught courses on the Psalms, Wisdom literature, and prophetic texts, and regularly leads workshops on Lectio Divina and the spiritual reading
Intensive Course on the Song of Songs
“All Scripture is holy, but the Song of Songs is the Holy of Holies” — Rabbi Akiva
This year, I would like to propose a journey into one of the most enigmatic and luminous books of the Old Testament: The Song of Songs. Throughout the centuries, these love poems have captivated the hearts of mystics, monastics, and theologians, becoming a privileged space for contemplating the mystery of divine love. The title Song of Songs employs a typical Hebrew superlative form, meaning “the most exquisite of songs.” While the surface of the text appears to celebrate human, even erotic, love between two lovers, both Jewish and Christian traditions have consistently discerned in it a deeper spiritual dimension. This is a song not merely about desire, but about the infinite desire that God has for humanity, and the soul’s restless longing for union with the divine.
The Song has thus been read as an allegory of the covenantal love between God and Israel, the nuptial love between Christ and the Church, and the intimate dialogue between Christ and the individual soul. For the mystics, it became a mirror of the inner path: a school of love, purification, and divine encounter. Our course will be structured in eight sessions that will combine rigorous theological, historical-critical, and literary analysis with spiritual reading through the ancient tradition of Lectio Divina. Each class will open both the mind and the heart to the symbolic depth of these texts, inviting participants to experience Scripture not merely as an object of study but as a space of prayer and transformation. Through this approach, we hope to rediscover the Song of Songs not simply as literature, but as sacred revelation—a text that speaks to the deepest yearning of the human heart and the self-giving love of God. I warmly invite you to take part in this spiritual and intellectual exploration. May it be a space of encounter, insight, and grace.
See you in August,
Assumpta Arasa Altimira