Sr. Kemps Korner


Sr. Joyce Kemp currently lives in Warrenville, IL, and can be reached at 630-836-2043 if you are looking for a spiritual director, a musician, a talk in a parish or a retreat/workshop leader.

Contact her by mail at
P.O. Box 797
Warrenville, IL 60555

E-mail her at:
jkemp64@hotmail.com

Please put “retreat” or “spiritual direction” on the subject line to catch her attention as you will probably pop up under “junk” mail.

Sr. Joyce Kemp, rc, PhD, has been a Religious of the Cenacle for 45 years. She has served in the Chicago area since 1969 in administration and ministry, working with preschoolers, high school students, young adults and beyond to the wisdom years. She has sponsored retreats in Spanish for women since 1970, first in Chicago and then in Warrenville, IL. When the Warrenville Cenacle was sold to the DuPage County Forest Preserve, she moved into a small house on the east side of Warrenville and continues both her spiritual ministry and a lot of volunteer work in the Warrenville Community, including being the religion editor for a newborn local newspaper, the Warrenville Sentinel; the coordinator of local ministers who belong to Warrenville Persons in Ministry; and a member of the Warrenville Youth and Family Services Hispanic Council.

She is planning an after school program for middle school students in improvisation. She has studied improv at Second City in Chicago and will be working with the new director of WYFS who has a background in psychodrama. Sister has a B.A. in English and History and Secondary Education from Mount Mary College and a Master’s Degree in Religious Education from Boston College. She received her Doctor of Philosophy degree in Applied Spirituality from the Union Institute in Cincinnati in 1995. Raised in the Wisconsin Synod of the Lutheran Church, she converted to Catholicism at the age of 19.

  • Some of her background in the Cenacle includes:


  • Middle School religious education for public school students in Boston 1967-1969


  • High School Retreats in Boston 1967-1969


  • Director of Pre-school Religious Education Program and training pre-school teachers at the Longwood Cenacle and in parishes. Leader of the pre-school mother’s group. 1969-1979


  • High School retreats at the Longwood Cenacle in Morgan Park, IL. 1969-1979


  • The co-founding of a singles group at the Longwood Cenacle. 1975-1979


  • Being in charge of the financial and all aspects of running a retreat house from the material side of things: maintenance, food service, purchasing, paying bills, payroll records, bookkeeping, care of grounds and parking lot, and much more that kept her grounded in the real world. 1971-1993


  • Music ministry for liturgies 1963 to present.


  • Spiritual Direction of adult men and women, lay and religious. 1966 to present.


  • Retreats and Days of Prayer for the Spanish-speaking 1970 to present.


  • Leading pilgrimages to Switzerland and France 1989-2004


  • Team member of the Diocesan Program “Encuentros Conjugales” (Marriage Encounter). 1980s


  • Spiritual Formation of deacons in training and their wives for the Chicago Diocese. 1980s


  • Co-founding the Cenacle Affiliate Program in North America starting at the Chicago Cenacle on Fullerton Ave. Adult men and women who wish to live the spirituality of the Cenacle in their daily lives and to be more closely associated with the Cenacle sisters now number more than 150 in North America and also exist in the Philippines, New Zealand, and Singapore. 1988 to present


  • Adjunct Professor at Mundelein College in the late 1980s teaching courses in the Art of Spiritual Direction.


  • Consultant certified by Dialogue House to lead Intensive Journal Workshops created by Dr. Ira Progoff since 1982. These workshops provide a neutral process of discernment that once mastered, can be done on one’s own to find where one’s life wants to take them. Devoid of doctrine and dogma, the process leads the person inward to perceive the inner movement of their life and to find their path through going into their depths and recording the images, memories, emotions, body feelings and other perceptions they experience there, bringing the deeper-than-conscious level of the psyche to a conscious level. Visit www.intensivejournal.org for more details. Anyone interested in making these workshops can contact Sr. Kemp at 630-836-2043.


  • Host for the Fellowship Group of the Blue Mountain Center of Meditation founded by Sri Eknath Easwaran that met at the Warrenville Cenacle from 1996 until 2008.


  • Participation in the World Parliament of Religions in Chicago in 1993 and in Barcelona in 2004 (as presenter and translator). Participation in the Spiritual Circle of the World Parliament created by Br. Wayne Teasdale, a inter religious group that met monthly to share each other’s prayer forms and spirituality including Islam, Jain, Hindu, Buddhist, Roman Catholic, Jewish and Navajo.


  • Program-planning, marketing and public-relations for the Warrenville Cenacle. Newsletters for the Cenacle 1979-2008


  • Author of The Spiritual Path of Caryll Houselander published by Paulist Press in 2001. She is available to give talks and retreats on the spirituality of Caryll Houselander.


  • Author of a chapter on Life Tasks and the Intensive Journal in Spirituality in Depth: Essays in Honor of Sister Irene Dugan, r.c. (Chiron 2002) edited by Dr. Avis Clendenen.


  • Co-editor with Sr. Mary Hennessey, r.c., of The Fire of God’s Spirit: Reflective Writings and Images Compiled to Honor Saint Therese Couderc (1805-1885) published in 2005 by the North American Province of the Congregation of Our Lady of the Cenacle (Chicago).


  • Producer of DVD on the history of the Warrenville Cenacle, 1938-2008.


  • At-Home Retreats in Spanish. “Retiros en Casa” en Español. 2009


    • Retreats or workshops in English or Spanish on the following themes:

    Current thought on Jesus the Christ

    The Spirituality of Caryll Houselander

    Contemplative Prayer

    The Mystics

    Discovering God’s Dream for You

    Staying Centered in a Frenetic World

    Discernment

    Spiritual Exercises of St. Ignatius

    A topic of your choice