5 Key Ways to Prepare for Spiritual Direction

Posted on September 6, 2017 by GREG

Guest post by Deacon Dominic Cerrato, Ph.D.

Spiritual direction is a great way to grow closer to Jesus Christ and His Church. This is particularly true when there is a good “fit” between the director and directee. That said, simply going to spiritual direction for its own sake is not enough. Spiritual direction is not an end-in-itself, but a means to an end; intimate communion with our Lord through growth in the interior life.

To better appreciate this important distinction, consider this analogy. When we’re sick we typically visit our primary care provider to seek relief. If our provider prescribes a particular procedure, drug or therapy and if we don’t follow this counsel, we shouldn’t expect to get better. Simply put, we need to actively participate in the therapeutic process if we are to be healed.

The same is true for spiritual direction. For spiritual direction to be effective, for the directee to draw closer to Jesus, he or she must actively participate in the process. There is nothing more challenging as a spiritual director than to have a directee come to direction unprepared hoping that the director, by his intercession and counsel, will fix the problem. Authentic spiritual direction requires work on the part of the directee. This is not at all to suggest that grace is not operative. In fact, it assumes grace to be in effect such that the “work” represents the directee’s response to a divine initiative already begun in his or her life.

Here are five key ways to better prepare and participate in spiritual direction.

Approach the Session in a State of Grace Spiritual direction helps the directee to hear God more clearly and follow Him more faithfully. These essential aspects of the interior life are significantly diminished if we are not in a state of grace. The state of grace is the condition of a person who is free from mortal sin and living in an ever-deepening friendship with Jesus Christ. If the director is not a priest, then the directee should seek the Sacrament of Reconciliation prior to the session. If the director is a priest, then Reconciliation can take place during the session.

Keep a Journal or Notebook We can tend to think of our encounters with God as separate and disconnected events. Like occasionally bumping into someone we know while out shopping, the relationship lacks a sense of continuity and intimacy. Nothing is further from the truth when it comes to God. He is ever-present and always communicating His love to us. By keeping a journal or small notebook and recording these events, we begin to see that they are not fragmented messages, but parts of a larger conversation. Writing them down enables us to see patterns and these patterns can be brought into spiritual direction to discover, in a deeper sense, God’s plan for our lives.

Prioritize What You Want to Talk About Spiritual direction occurs in sessions that are, by their very nature, limited. If it has been a while between sessions, the directee may want to discuss several things. By prayerfully prioritizing the list, he or she can ensure that the most important things are addressed making the session fruitful and effective.

This prioritization can also have another effect. It can help us to distinguish the more important aspects of spiritual growth from the less important aspects. Too often we are distracted and confused by the many spiritual challenges we face. Prioritizing our talking points within the context of prayer and meditation refocuses our spiritual life so that the secondary aspects don’t diminish the primary enabling us to make real progress in the spiritual life.

Recognize that Spiritual Direction Is Not Pastoral Counseling Properly understood, the primary focus of spiritual direction is the directees’ relationship with God and concerns the promptings of the Holy Spirit. In this respect, it is aimed at the salvation of the directees’ soul through a response to our Lord’s personal initiative to follow Him. Consequently, direction always takes place within the framework of prayer and spiritual intimacy.

Pastoral Counseling, on the other hand, seeks to address, struggle through, and resolve problems in our lives and relationships within a Christian context. Where spiritual direction tends to look forward toward growth in intimacy with Jesus Christ, pastoral counseling tends to look backward toward healing past hurts. That said, both must bring the directee/client into the present.

Because the interior life must, by its very nature, express itself in the exterior life, the life of our choices and actions; spiritual direction also includes pastoral guidance. This involves sound, practical, and prudent counsel by the spiritual director to the directee regarding their choices and actions. This insures integrity and consistency between the faith we believe and the moral life we live.

While there is some overlap between spiritual direction and pastoral counseling, the focus, emphasis and gifts of the spiritual director and counselor are different and address different concerns. The person should understand these differences and not seek pastoral counseling in spiritual direction and vice versa. However, in some cases, a person may benefit from both provided they are consistent in their Christian approach as with the Pastoral Solutions Institute.

Work on the “Take Aways” Effective spiritual direction should always leave the directee with spiritual and practical “take aways.” This is to say that during the course of direction the directees discover something about their relationship with God or themselves and, through prayerful discussion with their director arrive at certain remedies. These remedies are suggestions made by the director to aid in the cultivation of the directees’ interior and moral life. In all cases, this counsel simply represents suggestions made by the director to the directee to prayerfully and prudently apply to his or her life. In the Catholic tradition, the director may never bind the directee under spiritual obedience, only offer good counsel. These “take aways” are the directees’ homework and represent the basis of conversation for the next session.

For moral information on spiritual direction or pastoral counseling, visit the Pastoral Solutions institute at https://www.catholiccounselors.com

Deacon Dominic Cerrato is the director of Pastoral Solutions Spiritual Direction Services

5 Reasons Why Spiritual Direction Might Be Right for You

Posted on August 28, 2017 by GREG

Guest post by Deacon Dominic Cerrato, Ph.D.

A life lived in faith has only one final goal, intimate communion with Jesus Christ. Without Him, life is empty and stripped of its ultimate meaning. With Him, we gain a sense of fulfillment and purpose. While perfect communion only exists when, at the end of our lives, we see God in the face; the nature of the Christian life is to grow in ever-deepening intimacy with Him during our earthly walk.

Over the centuries, the Church has used several terms and phrases to describe this dynamic such as conversion, divinization, growth in holiness, and cultivation of the interior life. All of these are meant to convey a sense that God, who is Love, desires us more than we can possibly desire Him. Because of this, and in spite of our sinfulness, He draws us to Himself through the passion, death and resurrection of His Son Jesus Christ. Beyond this, He established the Church, guided by the Holy Spirit, through which the fullness of truth and sanctification subsists.

This said, we live in a pluralistic society that can easily distract us from our final goal and the experience of intimate communion during this life. God, who knows all things, knows this and so provides us with the grace to refocus and reorder our lives. This grace is experienced through such things as: prayer, meditating on the sacred Scriptures, frequenting the Sacraments, active parish life, and ongoing adult formation.

Despite the many ways to encounter our Lord through these pious activities and thus grow in intimate communion with Him, all can benefit from spiritual direction. Here are five basic reasons why spiritual direction might be right for you. This is by no means an exhaustive list, but represents key elements in the discernment of spiritual direction:

Cultivating a Richer Prayer Life We often forget that prayer, as important as it is, is not an end in itself, but a means to an end. We simply don’t pray for the sake of prayer, but to encounter the God who saves us. As we progress in the spiritual life, we can experience dryness or constant distractions. Good spiritual direction helps directees to enter into prayer in a more profound way, to see it as a kind of dialogue in which we are called to listen first and, only after we listen, speak.
Greater Awareness of God It’s very easy, amid the hustle and bustle of life, to compartmentalize our experiences of God. We are aware of His presence in religious activities, but God is all around us constantly communicating to us through the often-mundane aspects of our lives. Spiritual direction helps directees to better attune themselves to the nudgings of the Holy Spirit in all areas of their life.
Transform Faith into Action The interior life does not exist in a vacuum. As St. James reminds us, “Faith without works is dead (Jas 2:17).” The interior life finds it’s expression and realization in the exterior life, the life of choices and actions. The more we are aware of the presence of God throughout the day the more likely we are to order our choices to Him. These not only impact the world outside of us by witnessing to others, it also has an inward transformative effect. Spiritual direction helps directees to consider their actions in light of their faith revealing Christ in often subtle, but nonetheless profound ways.
Help Make Major Decisions Life this side of heaven often brings us to crossroads; places where we must make major decisions in the course of our lives. These decisions can be about relationships, career opportunities or even the level of participation in the life of the parish. To a greater or lesser degree, these test our faith and the core values that flow from that faith. Good spiritual direction helps to refocus faith, tap into the grace we received at Baptism, and reaffirm our Christian values so that we are better equipped to make these decisions.
Get Spiritually Unstuck Because the spiritual life is about growing in a deeper more intimate communion with Jesus Christ, it is, by its very nature, dynamic. At times and for different reasons, we may find our relationship with Him as rather static. At it’s worse, we can experience what seems like an abandonment from God resulting in a kind of spiritual paralysis. This paralysis will negatively impact our prayer life, our reception of the sacraments and the way we see Christ in others. Sound spiritual direction can help identify the reasons for this paralysis and provide spiritual and pastoral guidance.

Though spiritual direction is not a requirement of the Christian life, everyone seeking a more intimate relationship with Jesus Christ can benefit from it. If you would like to pursue spiritual direction, consult your pastor to recommend a solid spiritual director in your area or contact the Pastoral Solutions Institute about spiritual direction over the phone.

Deacon Dominic Cerrato is the director of Pastoral Solutions Spiritual Direction Services

When Sex Isn’t About Sex: 3 Things You Need to Know

Posted on August 22, 2017 by GREG

The Church’s teachings on sex and love are among most provocative and the least understood things in Catholicism. What difference does it make what we do in the bedroom? Does God really care about our sex lives that much?

St John Paul’s Theology of the Body reminds us that the Church’s teachings on love and sex aren’t just about sex, they are ultimately the way that lay people can give their whole selves–soul, mind, and body–to Christ. Because of the incarnation, Christianity is an embodied spirituality that has to be expressed not just spiritually or mentally, but concretely and physically. Just like clergy and religious practice celibacy as a way of giving themselves totally and completely to God, living the Catholic vision of love and sex is the way lay Christians can make a total loving response to Jesus giving himself to us body, blood, soul, and divinity. God holds nothing back from us, even taking on a body so that we could feel his love more concretely. How can we hold anything back from Him. God doesn’t just deserve our minds and hearts. He deserves for us to dedicate our bodies to his service. Living the Catholic vision of love isn’t always easy, but it is a privilege that lets us make an embodied response to Christ’s gift of his body to us.

Whether you’re a life-long Catholic or just learning about the faith, there are three things that you may not have known about the Church’s teaching on sex and sexuality!

1. Your Body is A Prayer–Most people tend to think that as long as they pray and go to church, what they do with their bodies doesn’t really matter. But this belief is a heresy called gnosticism. Gnosticism is the disembodied spirituality that grew up alongside of Christianity but has always been rejected by the Church since the beginning. God created our bodies. He pronounced them good. He loves our bodies so much that he plans to save not just our souls but our bodies too, that’s what believing in the resurrection of the body means! For the Christian, the body isn’t just something we can choose to do with as we please. It is a prayer, that allows us to be God’s physical presence in the world. When we use our bodies in ways that God didn’t intend, its like defacing the image of God. Treat your body like the prayer it is. Dedicate yourself to learning how to use your body to love others only in the ways that respect God design of your body and the godly purpose of your body–that is, to bring his free, total, faithful, and fruitful love to the world.

2. Your Body Requires Healing–Most people recognize the value of diet and exercise. These things are hard, and often, not a lot of fun, but we do them because we recognize that our bodies don’t always tell us what is best for them. Because of sin, our body’s desires are out of whack with reality. If we give our body whatever it says it wants when it says it wants it, we’ll become sluggish and unhealthy. But if that’s true in the way our body’s express its appetites for food and for rest, isn’t it the same with the way our body expresses its appetite for love? The desires for food, rest, and love aren’t bad, but sin makes the body want to express those desires in ways that are bad for us and others, and can even make us sick. Like a healthy diet and exercise, practicing Catholic teachings about love and sex bears tremendous benefits. Maintaining a healthy diet teaches us to eat well. Maintaining a healthy exercise schedule trains our bodies to move well. And practicing the Catholic vision of love heals our body so that it can love well. Our bodies require healing to be as whole and healthy as God created them to be. Let God give you the healing you need to live and love more abundantly.

3. Your Body is a Gift–We tend to think that what we do with our body is entirely personal. That’s why so many people believe the pro-abortion statement, “My body, my choice.” But the Christian knows that our body is meant to be a gift. We were given our bodies not to do whatever WE want with them, but so that we can work for the good of other people. Each one of us is, literally, God’s gift to the world, and our bodies are the means of communicating that gift. If you wanted to give someone a gift, would you just throw it at them? Or try to shame them into accepting it at some inappropriate time? Or just leave it laying around? Of course not! You’d look for just the right way, just the right time, to give the person you loved your gift in a way that would be really meaningful. Not just once, but EVERY time you gave them a gift. Practicing the Catholic vision of love allows you to pick the right way, the right time, and the right means by which to give the gift of yourself in the most meaningful and beautiful way to the person you love. Your body is a gift. Practice the Catholic vision of love and learn to appreciate it for the gift it is.

For more information on the Church’s teaching on sex and sexuality, check out my book, Holy Sex! and discover many more resources—including information about Catholic counseling services—at www.CatholicCounselors.com

Zombie Apocalypse: Spirituality, Sex, and the Lay Vocation

Posted on June 20, 2017 by GREG

At the upcoming USCCB Convocation of Catholic Leaders in Orlando, my wife and co-author, Lisa Popcak, will be leading a panel titled, The Family and Sexuality: Challenges and Opportunities. One of the first questions the panel will address is, “What is often overlooked when attempting to evangelize people about the Catholic vision of sex and love especially in marriage and family life?”

Our response? The single most overlooked point in communicating the importance of the Church’s view on sex in marriage is that sex stands at the center of the lay vocation. Attempting to practice a lay spirituality while ignoring sex is like living a zombie spirituality that divorces the body from the soul. If the Church is serious about the universal call to holiness, she has to get serious about proclaiming and helping people live the Catholic vision of sex and love. What am I talking about? I’m glad you asked.

Lay People: Spiritual Also-Rans?

Historically speaking, until Vatican II, lay people were all-but officially considered to be “spiritual also-rans” who, if they wanted to be serious about their faith, were welcome to borrow whatever spiritual equipment (e.g., Liturgy of the Hours, Lectio Divina, contemplative prayer, etc.) they could from the spiritual A-Team—clergy and religious.

But it isn’t always easy for lay people to use these tools. Lisa and I regularly hear from listeners to More2Life who complain, “Since I had kids, I just don’t have time to pray like I used to.” The problem isn’t that lay people are spiritually lax. It’s that many of the tools Catholics consider to be our spiritual stock-in-trade were primarily developed for clergy and religious and don’t easily translate to life in the domestic church.

Until Vatican II’s earth-shattering proclamation of the “universal call to holiness” declaring that priests, religious, and lay people alike are capable of real sanctity, no one really considered what an authentically home-grown, lay approach to spirituality would even consist of.

Lay Spirituality: A New Approach

Enter St John Paul the Great. As (effectively) the first post-Vatican II pope, he dedicated his life to laying the foundations of a lay spirituality that fit the demands of the domestic church. Because lay people’s lives are consumed the minutiae of paying bills and raising families, he made St. Therese of Lisieux a Doctor of the Church. Her “Little Way” of holiness offers a path to sainthood that consists of doing even these little things with great love. Acknowledging how few examples of sanctity the Church offered to lay people, he canonized more lay and married saints than any pope before him. Considering the challenges lay people face trying to live a holy life in the midst of a troubled world, he promoted devotion to Divine Mercy. Viewing the rosary as the layperson’s easiest entrée into contemplative prayer, he wrote an apostolic letter on how to pray it properly and added an entire set of mysteries highlighting events every family could relate to; a baptism, a wedding, teaching children life lessons through stories, a father raising up his beloved son, a family meal.

And the crown jewel in this effort? St John Paul’s Theology of the Body, through which, week-after-week, over the course of 129 Wednesday audiences, he promoted a marriage-centric, nuptial view of the pursuit of holiness, the sacraments, salvation history, the Church, and the gospel itself.

Sex: The Heart of the Lay Vocation

And what was at the center of the Theology of the Body, this massive reflection on lay spirituality? Sex. Why? Not, as some critics alleged, because St John Paul had a weird obsession with pelvic issues, but because virtually every waking moment of the lay person’s life is spent seeking a mate, maintaining their relationship with their mate, conceiving children, dealing with struggles related to conceiving children, and raising those children to find good and godly spouses. It all comes down to tasks related, in one way or another to sex and sexuality.

Christianity is an incarnational faith. It begins with conception; with God emptying himself and becoming embodied. As such, an authentically Christian spiritual life must also be embodied. If celibacy allows priests and religious to dedicate their bodies to work for the good of God’s Kingdom, how could a lay person share in this work? The Theology of the Body answers this question by encouraging lay people to resist the secular world’s reconception of fertility as a disease, and to refuse to engage in sexual practices that treat people as sexual objects, create barriers to the two becoming one flesh, and think of children merely as a burden.

That’s why any lay spirituality that seeks to divorce itself from the sexual character of the lay vocation is little more than a zombie spirituality; a body stumbling around desperately seeking redemption for its basic hungers. Christians, especially lay Christians, can do better. It’s time for Church to give lay people their rightful spiritual inheritance by boldly proclaiming and supporting lay people in living an authentic, embodied, home-grown, nuptial, spiritual life. And it is time for lay people to claim their sacred right to live the universal call to holiness in the unique ways only lay people can.

When we talk about the Church’s teaching on sexual love, and NFP in particular, we as a Church need to do a better job to help people see that we aren’t just talking about a way to regulate fertility. We’re really talking about the foundations of a lay spirituality where couples join priests and religious in bringing their sexuality to God for the greater glory of his Kingdom and the building of an authentic Civilization of Love.

To learn more about how you can begin to celebrate the Catholic vision of in a way that can invigorate every part of your life–especially your spiritual life–check out Holy Sex! The Catholic Guide to Mind-Blowing, Toe-Curling, Infallible Loving

Does My Husband Have a Right to Sex?

Posted on June 12, 2017 by GREG

On her Facebook page, Rose Sweet, who has a wonderful ministry to divorced Catholics, posted the troubling story of a woman whose husband was cheating on her. The couple’s pastor counseled the wife that her decision to place a moratorium on her sexual relationship with her husband as long as he was cheating on him actually placed an undue burden on her cheating husband and was driving him away further in part, because sex is a “right” of marriage.

A little clarification might be in order. Yes, according to the Church, sex is a “right” of marriage. But the Church defines “right” a little differently than the world does.

To say that sex is a “right” of marriage means that marriage is the right place for people to have sex. It does not mean you have a license to demand sex no matter what.

Marriage is the normative–that is, “right”–place for sexual love to be expressed between a man and a woman. Assuming a healthy, loving respectful relationship, this is true. It is also true, as St. John Paul observed that a couple who does not love, respect and cherish each other could very well commit the sin of adultery even in marriage by using each other as objects rather than loving each other as persons.

Assuming you have a healthy, loving, cherishing relationship, marriage is the right place for sexual love to be shared. If you don’t have that kind of marriage, then you have a right to stop having sex and start learning how to actually love each other.

Older texts on moral theology and canon law tend to use words like “right” and “marital debt” when discussing sex. These words are technical terms and taking them at face value can lead to a lot of problems.

Properly understood, referring to sex as a debt that husbands and wives owe to each other means that, in a loving marriage, loving spouses do not have a right to withhold sex from each other. As St Paul puts it in 1 Corinthians 7:5

The husband should fulfill his duty toward his wife, and likewise the wife toward her husband. A wife does not have authority over her own body, but rather her husband, and similarly a husband does not have authority over his own body, but rather his wife. Do not deprive each other, except perhaps by mutual consent for a time, to be free for prayer, but then return to one another….

All of this means that marriage is the right place for sexual love to be expressed–assuming the couple is living their marriage as the Church defines it. Namely, as an “intimate partnership.” (c.f., Gaudium et Spes).

But there is a deeper debt the married couple owes to each other that precedes sexual union. They owe each other the love, respect, cherishing that characterized their dating relationship—the relationship that continues to serve as the foundation for their marriage. Sex, if you will, is the house that sits on this foundation of love, respect, and cherishing. If the “foundation” (love, respect, and cherishing) is bad, the “house” (sex) is unsafe to live in. Why? Because if love, respect, and cherishing are absent, sex stops being sex and becomes mere lust and using. Marriage is no place for lust and use.

No one has a right to abuse someone else. No one owes someone else the “debt” of using them.

To discover more about how you can live the Catholic vision of love and sex in ways that are healthy and fulfilling, check out Holy Sex: The Catholic Guide to Toe-Curling, Mind-Blowing, Infallible Loving.

St. Joseph: Our Father? – Part 1

Posted on May 18, 2017 by GREG

Guest post by Dave McClow.

Fatherlessness has become an epidemic in our society: 43% of our kids grow up without fathers (US Census), approaching a catastrophe rivaling the 1918 flu pandemic when an estimated 56% of the world was infected. Fatherlessness is devastating—legally, morally, psychologically, and spiritually. A shocking snapshot of our fatherless youth shows they comprise 63% of youth suicides (US Dept. Of Health/Census)–5 times the average; 90% of all homeless and runaway children–32 times the average; 85% of all children who show behavior disorders–20 times the average (Center for Disease Control); 80% of rapists with anger problems–14 times the average (Justice & Behavior, Vol 14, p. 403-26); and 71% of all high school dropouts–9 times the average (National Principals Association Report).

Fatherlessness is a Catholic problem in two ways: 1) because God is father, it creates a crisis of faith and is partly responsible for the rise of the religious “nones” (70% are millennials, 23% are adults, and 57% are men) and 2) it challenges how we evangelize the fatherless.

The antidote is men fully living out their faith as spiritual fathers by informally adopting our lost generation. Our faith calls us to care for the “least” and the vulnerable (Mt. 25:40) and to “Go and make disciples of all nations” (Mt. 28:19)—that’s spiritual fatherhood; that’s the summit of being a man, and St. Joseph is our prototypical model.

How is St. Joseph a Spiritual Father?

St. Joseph took two roads to spiritual fatherhood: 1) through the incarnation, and 2) through participation in a new order of family.

God the Father, our real prototype of spiritual fatherhood (Eph. 3:14), asked St. Joseph to be Jesus’ father. John Paul II says that even though his fatherhood is not biological, he is not just an “apparent” or “substitute” father. Rather, he “fully shares in authentic human fatherhood and the mission of a father in the family“ (RC, 21). How is this so? As the Incarnation, Jesus’ whole purpose is to reveal the Father and true fatherhood (Jn 14:9). And John Paul II explains that the Holy Family is inserted directly into the mystery of the Incarnation. And so, though St. Joseph is not Jesus’ biological father, when he reveals, relives, and radiates the very fatherhood of God, he becomes Jesus’ authentic human, and I would add spiritual, father. His masculinity is fully expressed in his spiritual fatherhood, as it should be for all men, first and foremost, even if they are not biological fathers.

A New Order of Family

“Who are my mother and brothers? Whoever does the will of God is my brother, and sister, and mother” (Mt. 12:46-50; cf., Mk. 3:31-35; Lk 27-28). Is Jesus trying to escape a stereotypical overbearing Jewish mother? I don’t think so! Instead, John Paul II believes Jesus is establishing a whole new order of family and parenthood based on obedience. And who is more obedient than Mary? Jesus is preparing her for the crowning event of her new spiritual motherhood at the foot of cross: “Son, behold your Mother” (Jn 19:26-27). In the new order, Jesus gives us and the Church his own mother.

Similarly, St. Joseph, as Jesus’ spiritual father, can also be our father. Spiritual fatherhood (or motherhood) includes any action of care for others, i.e., the corporal or spiritual works of mercy.

“Joseph did.…” These two words and their variants, “he took the child…and went…” define St. Joseph’s role in salvation history. He is not known for what he said in the Gospels—he said nothing! But he listens to God in his inner life—his dreams—and then does the hard thing! He protects the Son of God and his mother through many obstacles and threats—spiritual fatherhood is always an adventure! He cares for and educates a child who is not his own in obedience to God’s word. And as a just and generous man, he is willing to sacrifice much. He is a good spiritual father to Jesus, and to us.

Spiritual fatherhood, as the summit of masculinity, is open to any age. For years I watched the 5th and 6th grade boys at my local parish mentor or shepherd the younger boys during Mass. When men or boys live out who they are created to be as spiritual fathers, they become more themselves, more masculine; they follow St. Joseph, our model, in revealing, reliving, and radiating God’s fatherhood to others. In Part 2 I will explore more of the practical side of St. Joseph’s spiritual fatherhood as priest, prophet, and king.

The fatherlessness of this generation will spread like a cancer if unopposed. Catholic men must be a witness, exercising their God-given gender and masculinity as spiritual fathers. Our Church and culture depend on us! We must imitate our father St. Joseph in revealing, reliving, and radiating God’s fatherhood to spiritual children who are not our own. To whom can you be a spiritual father in your neighborhood or parish today?

Guest post by Dave McClow Associate Counselor, Pastoral Solutions Institute

Only the Godless Die Young

Posted on August 3, 2016 by GREG

With apologies to Billy Joel, new research from Harvard shows that, irrespective of the state of their general health, only the godless die young.

Over the last 20 years, research has gradually accumulated suggesting that religious service attendance is associated with better physical and mental health. For example, research articles have indicated that regular religious service attendance is associated with a 30 per cent reduction in depression, a five-fold reduction in the likelihood of suicide, and a 30 per cent reduction in mortality, over 16 years of follow-up.

There have been a number of prior studies on religious service attendance and longevity. Many of these had been criticised for poor methodology, for instance allowing the possibility of reverse causation — ie, that only those who are healthy can attend services, so that attendance isn’t necessarily influencing health.

Papers recently published out of Harvard University have tried to address this concern by using repeated measurements of service attendance and health over time to control for whether changes in health preceded changes in service attendance. The associations between religious service attendance and longevity, suicide and depression were all robust. Results indicated that compared with women who never attended religious services, women who attended more than once a week had a 33 per cent lower mortality risk during the study period. Those who attended weekly had a 26 per cent lower risk and those who attended less than once a week had a 13 per cent lower risk. (The data comes from women who worked as nurses in the US, most of whom identified as Catholic or Protestant, so most of the religious services would be at churches. However, the definition encompassed a range of different places of worship.)

NOT Just Social Benefits

Although historically researchers have suggested that the positive health benefits of religious involvement could be largely attributed to the social aspects of church attendance–socialization being an established contributor to well-being–more sophisticated statistical analysis shows that the social dimensions of faith account for only about 20% of the life-extending benefits of religion. According to researchers…

Other mechanisms might also be operative. The development of self-discipline and a sense of meaning and purpose in life have been proposed in the literature as potential factors. The association between service attendance and health seems not to be explainable by just one mechanism alone. Rather, there appear to be many pathways from religion to health. Religious service attendance affects many aspects of a person’s life and the cumulative effect of all of these seems to have a substantial influence on health.

Of course, studies can’t statistically account for, y’know, that grace thingy.

“Spiritual Not Religious” Dying Sooner As Well.

The research also had some bad news for all the “spiritual but not religious” folks out there…

it appears to be religious service attendance, rather than self-assessed religiosity or spirituality or private practices, that most powerfully predicts health.

You can read the rest here. For more on how you and your kids live longer more faithful lives, check out Discovering God Together: The Catholic Guide to Raising Faithful Kids.

What Faith Stage Are You? The 6 Stages of Seeking Meaning, Significance, and Transcendence.

Posted on August 3, 2016 by GREG

The following article is adapted from Discovering God Together: The Catholic Guide to Raising Faithful Kids

Most people think that faith is something you either have or you don’t. But research by Emory University’s Dr. James Fowler revealed that faith evolves in discernible stages throughout our lifespan. At each stage, a person’s faith needs to be nourished in different ways if it is to grow and mature into the next stage. If we don’t receive the right kind of support, faith development can stall or even wither. Because Fowler viewed faith as a natural and essential part of every human person’s search for meaning, significance, and transcendence, Fowler’s Stages of Faith track with other developmental stages you might remember from your Psych 101 class, such as Erik Erikson’s Stages of Psychosocial Development and Lawrence Kohlberg’s Stages of Moral Development.

What Stage of Faith are you at? And what do you need to do to more effectively continue your search for meaning, significance, and transcendence?

STAGE 0: Primal Faith (Infancy)– People might be surprised to realize that babies have faith. It’s true that they don’t have a conscious experience of faith and can’t articulate specific beliefs, but this stage is tremendously important because it sets the stage for baby’s view of God and the world. If parents respond to baby’s needs promptly, generously, and consistently, baby learns the basic, gut-level sense of trust that is necessary to believe that when I call out, God will answer. If parents delay responding to baby’s cries, baby develops gut-level insecurity that anyone will respond when I cry out or that there is anyone to bother crying out to in the first place.

Stage 1: Intuitive Projective Faith (Early Childhood)–This is the “feeling stage” of faith. Children of this age are not capable of abstract thinking. They understand everything in terms of “does it feel good or does it feel bad?” Parents do well to make the child’s experience of faith at this stage as warm, loving, pleasant, and even “cuddly” as possible. Whether or not a parent does this determines whether the child envisions the idea that “God is watching over you” as a positive, loving, and safe thing (“How wonderful, a loving God is looking out for me!”) or a judging, condemning, scary thing (“I always feel like somebody’s watching me!“). Everyone eventually outgrows Stage 0 and Stage 1 but the gut-level lessons they take from these stages often stay with them throughout their lives, making faith development a joy or a constant struggle depending upon the experiences they have had up to this point.

Stage 2: Mythic-Literal Faith (Primary School Age to Adulthood)– This is the “story stage.” The stage of fables and bible stories and rules. These stories and rules form the basic structures of a child’s faith system. At this stage, God is a “person” in the same sense that Superman or Santa Claus is a person. A “larger than life” being with superpowers to help him maintain order in the universe. Again, depending on how parents present their own faith story (i.e., how they live and explain their own faith life to their kids), God could either be perceived as a benevolent ruler of the universe or a tyrant. Either way, for the person at this stage, following the rules, doing things “just so” and working hard not to upset God are the prime motivators and primary ways faith is expressed. Generous amounts of parental affirmation allow the person to move through this to the next stage. By contrast, adults who become stuck at this stage tend to be fairly scrupulous in their approach to faith and overly concerned with liturgical rules, moral rules, and proving themselves to be “good enough”. For these individuals, faith can become an exhausting trial of constantly trying to prove themselves to God or the people they imagine to be the “official judges of goodness.”

Stage 3: Synthetic Conventional Faith (Adolescence to Adulthood)— This is the “relationship stage” of faith. A person at this stage tends to decide that something is “true” if it makes their relationships easier and makes people feel affirmed. By contrast, it is “false” if it makes relationships more complicated or makes people feel challenged or guilty in some way. The hard and fast rules of the mythic-literal stage are now revisioned in light of one’s relationships and the need to affirm others where they are at in their present struggles. Many adults remain at this stage for their entire lives. Community is very important at this stage. The down side of this is that faith can be a bit tribalistic (i.e., us v. them), even within a particular denomination. A faithful, supportive community will enable people to sustain their faith at this stage, the absence of such a community,or the presence of an angry, judgmental community could cause the loss of faith. Regardless, a person will tend to be faithful to the degree that the people around them are faithful and affirming of their efforts. They have a harder time feeling confident in their faith and values without a cheering section.

Stage 4: Individuative-Reflective Faith (Early-Middle Adulthood)–This is the “Questioning and Seeking” stage of faith. The person at this stage owns their faith, is not worried about whether people approve of them or not, and begins questioning many basic assumptions they had previously accepted as gospel. The person at this stage is “kicking the tires” of their faith, asking hard questions to see what will stand and what may fall away. Often the people around this individual consider them to be backsliding and are threatened by this individual’s willingness to question the structures of rules and relationships that people at the lower stages of faith need to hold onto for security. At this stage, the person is much more concerned with internal conversion than with outward expressions of piety and righteousness. They tend to withdraw a bit from others, both needing less affirmation and more time to reflect and consider where they are in their journey and who God is asking them to be moving forward. The downside is that they can be a bit smug, looking down their noses at those who they consider to be less evolved. The other danger is that many people at this stage come to believe that the act of questioning is an end in itself and that actually finding actual answers is somehow beneath them. The process of “seeking and questioning” though imminently valuable and necessary, can become its own idol. In classic terms, this stage marks the end of the Purgative Way and the beginning of the Illuminative Way.

Stage 5: Conjunctive Faith (Middle-Later Adulthood)–This is the “wisdom stage” of faith. The person at this stage has achieved what seems to others to be an almost effortless integration of their faith and life. Things seem, somehow, genuinely less messy for them than for other’s lives. Others may be tempted to write this off as “luck” but in reality, this is the result of decades of struggle and effort. The person at this stage has achieved a true, authentic, integration between what they profess and how they live. This is essence of wisdom; the practiced knowledge of how to live their beliefs–authentically, honestly, and effectively–in the real world. People at this stage aren’t interested in proving anything. They also experience a “willed naivety” which allows them to revisit beliefs and practices that they formerly rejected as somehow beneath them. Also, unlike people at the answer-phobic individuative-reflective stage, people at the conjunctive stage accept that although there may not be perfect answers to the “Big Questions” there are often “very good answers” that are almost universally applicable. In classic terms, the person at this stage is squarely in the Illuminative Stage of the spiritual walk and perhaps the beginning of the Unitive Stage.

Stage 6: Universalizing Faith (Later Adulthood)–For want of a better way to describe it, this is the “saintly stage.” Without any attempt on their part to put on a show, people at this stage are acknowledged by those around them for being living, breathing, examples of faith and virtue and an inspiration to others. People at this stage can still be polarizing and challenging to others, but there is a compassion that comes with these challenges that tempers any sense of condemnation others may feel. There is a simplicity to outward expressions of this person’s faith that belies the depth of belief and wisdom that lies beneath the surface. This person is in at least the beginning stages of the Unitive Way.

So, what stage are you? Where would you like to be? Negotiating the challenges of these stages can be difficult on our own. That’s where a spiritual director can be a great help. If you’d like to learn more about how spiritual direction can help you navigate the challenges of these stages and achieve greater confidence in your spiritual walk, contact us at SpiritualDirection@CatholicCounselors.com And, for a more in-depth look at each of these stages and how you, as a parent, can help your kids grow up to have a healthy, mature faith, check out, Discovering God Together: The Catholic Guide to Raising Faithful Kids

5 Ways Spiritual Direction Can Change YOUR Life

Posted on July 24, 2016 by GREG

A guest blog by Deacon Dominic Cerrato, Ph.D., Director of the Pastoral Solutions Institute’s Spiritual Direction Program.

Traditionally, spiritual direction was most closely associated with clergy and religious as part of growth in the interior life. Throughout the history of the Church, few lay people received formal spiritual direction relying instead on the confessional and private devotions. As a result of the Second Vatican Council with its emphasis on the vocation of the laity, spiritual direction is no longer primarily reserved for the clergy, but available for all.

In its most basic sense, spiritual direction is primarily concerned with the directee’s relationship with God. It is the assistance given by the director to help the directee to pay attention to God’s personal communication to him or her and to respond to this personal communication in concrete ways. Spiritual direction is a means to grow in holiness through the development of the interior life.

Here are five ways spiritual direction can change your life.

Ongoing Spiritual Direction Reminds Us that We Do Not Journey Alone
While the Christian life has a deeply personal component, it’s never meant to be private – just me and Jesus in my prayer closet. To be Christian is to belong to a faith community and one aspect of that community is mutual support. Ongoing spiritual direction reminds us that we are not alone. Instead, it provides us with someone we can trust who can guide us to growth in the interior life.
Ongoing Spiritual Direction Keeps Us Attentive to the Presence of God
It’s far too easy, in the hustle and bustle of everyday life, to forget that we are always in God’s presence. Ongoing spiritual direction helps us to be more attentive to the promptings of the Holy Spirit as He speaks to us in prayer and through our experiences with one another.
Ongoing Spiritual Direction Calls Us to Participate More Fully in the Life of the Parish
The parish is our primary faith community. It is the place where we encounter Jesus in His Word and Sacraments, most fully in the Eucharist. And yet, it’s easy to treat the parish as a kind of weekly stop for spiritual fuel with little else to offer in our busy schedule. Ongoing spiritual direction reorients our lives to be more active in the community, more giving in our hearts.
Ongoing Spiritual Direction Draws us into a More Intimate Communion with Jesus Christ
The goal of the Christian life is intimate communion with Jesus Christ. While this is accomplished fully when we receive His eternal embrace at the end of this life, our Lord offers us a bit of heaven here on earth. Ongoing spiritual direction fosters a deeper experience of God’s love on a personal level. It is a life-long process in which our relationship with Him is cultivated and enriched. In this, we gain a sense of self-confidence and fulfillment. Spiritual direction disposes us to anticipate and even yearn for eternal life without losing sight of the here and now.
Ongoing Spiritual Direction Transforms Our Lives
Authentic growth in the spiritual life is gauged by growth in the exterior life; that is, in our everyday choices. Jesus tells us that we shall know a tree by its fruits. If, in spiritual direction we seek to somehow leave this world to find Christ, we will simply pass Him on the way. Jesus Christ is here. He is present in those around us and particularly in those that suffer. Ongoing spiritual direction has the potential to transform our lives allowing the love of God we experience to change and inspire us to become more loving to others.

For most of us, the challenge with spiritual direction is finding a director whose time is flexible enough to accommodate our busy schedules. Recognizing this deeply felt need, the Pastoral Solutions Institute offers spiritual direction by phone at the convenience of the directee. Whether you’re an at-home or working mom, a busy dad or just someone who can’t find a good director close by, spiritual direction by the Pastoral Solutions Institute may be just what you’re seeking.

For more information, contact us at SpiritualDirection@CatholicCounselors.com

ABOUT DEACON DOMINIC

Deacon Dominic Cerrato is the director of the Pastoral Solutions Institute’s Spiritual Direction Program and is Founder of Diaconal Ministries. Formerly, he served in full-time pastoral ministry specializing in adult formation. He has also taught theology at Franciscan University of Steubenville and Duquesne University of the Holy Ghost along with ethics at Thomas Nelson Community College. While at Franciscan University, Deacon Dominic also established and developed the Distance Learning Masters in Theology Program. He has nearly 30 years of experience in catechetical and pastoral ministry on both the diocesan and parish levels.

Deacon Dominic possesses a BA in Theology from Franciscan University, a MA in Theology from Duquesne University where he also completed his Ph.D. course work with a concentration in healthcare ethics. In 2009, he was awarded a Ph.D in Theology from the Graduate Theological Foundation. Ordained in 1995 as the first permanent deacon of the Diocese of Steubenville, Deacon Dominic has developed a number of formation/catechetical programs included a highly successful program for returning Catholics that was featured in USA Today and Our Sunday Visitor. He is a national speaker and author. He and his wife Judith have been married for 34 years and they have seven children and six grandchildren.

Got Spiritual Direction? New Resource Helps YOU Get the Most from Your Spiritual Life!

Posted on July 18, 2016 by GREG

Image: Shutterstock

You don’t have to be a saint to want to draw closer to God or have more confidence in what he wants for your life.

Spiritual direction is an important ministry that helps people at every stage of the spiritual walk draw closer to God and have more confidence in his will for their lives. In fact, the Church acknowledges the incredible value of spiritual direction and encourages anyone who is serious about their spiritual walk to seek a competent, qualified director (Catechism #2690). The problem is finding a person who is both qualified to be a spiritual director (in training and spiritual maturity) and who has the time to see you. There simply aren’t enough clergy to go around in the first place, and of those who are, many either don’t have the time or training to do ongoing spiritual direction.

What’s a sincere Christian to do?

A New Service for YOU

In addition to our well-respected Catholic Tele-Counseling practice, the Pastoral Solutions Institute now offers telephone based Catholic Spiritual Direction Services. Now, whatever your state in life, whatever your place in your spiritual walk, and wherever you are in the world, faithful, competent, compassionate spiritual direction is as accessible as your smartphone.

Deacon Dominic Cerrato, Ph.D.

Deacon Dominic Cerrato, Ph.D. heads up the Pastoral Solutions Institute’s Spiritual Direction Program. Deacon Dominic combines nearly 30 years of experience in pastoral and catechetical ministry with a Ph.D in theology and a graduate certificate in bioethics. Ordained in 1995 as the first permanent deacon of the Diocese of Steubenville, he is the founder of Diaconal Ministries. In these roles, Deacon Dominic has served for many years as a popular speaker, trainer, and spiritual director for priests, and deacons, and seminarians throughout the country. In addition to his scholarly writing, he is the author of, In the Person of Christ the Servant, a book that explores the nature of the diaconate and is used in many diaconal training programs across the country. He has also been a popular guest on many Catholic radio and television programs (Please see his full bio below).

For more information on the Pastoral Solutions Institute’s Spiritual Direction Services, including rates and availability, I invite you to send a message to SpiritualDirection@CatholicCounselors.com and/or review both the FAQ and Deacon Dominic Cerrito’s full bio below.

SPIRITUAL DIRECTION FAQ

What is spiritual direction?

The purpose of spiritual direction is to enable you to listen and respond more effectively to God’s personal communication in your life. This, in turn, cultivates the interior spiritual life where you meet the Holy Spirit one-on-one and true transformation takes place. The ultimate goal of spiritual direction is to deepen your intimacy with Jesus Christ and to help you live the Christian life more effectively. It is about helping you place your life more fully under the dominion of the Holy Spirit who is the primary spiritual director.

What does a spiritual director do?

The Pastoral Solutions Institute’s spiritual direction program exists to assist you in your conversation with God. Your spiritual director will help you be more attentive to the promptings of the Holy Spirit and encourage your progress in the spiritual life, A good spiritual director is careful not to come between you and God. Instead, the director plays a supportive role in your relationship with God by encouraging you to engage in a process of ongoing spiritual growth that is grounded in an active parish life, supported by a commitment to prayer in its many forms, enlivened by the reading and study of Scripture, deepened through ongoing catechetical formation, and nourished through frequent use of the sacraments—especially Reconciliation and the Eucharist.

Can spiritual direction work over the phone?

Absolutely. In fact, telephone-based spiritual direction helps facilitate a major goal of spiritual direction; namely, that the spiritual director should be as little a distraction as possible so that you can become more aware of the presence of God in your session rather than the presence of the director in the session.

What should I expect from spiritual direction through Pastoral Solutions?

The Church has long recognized that living the faith is not a “one size fits all” proposition. Just as there are a number of schools of spirituality within the Catholic tradition, there are a number of valid approaches to spiritual direction. The key is choosing one that best empowers you to discover the unique relationship God desires with you.

In your sessions, your spiritual director will adopt a contemplative posture; listening to both you and God. As your director prayerfully attends to your time together, he will help you be attentive to and “stay with” the movements of God within the depths of your soul. In this experience, you will discover a safe harbor from which to explore and develop more particular spiritualties such as Marian, Ignatian, Carmelite, Dominican and Franciscan. As you progress in your work, your spiritual director will help you discover the spiritual model that is best suited to the work God is doing in your life.

Do I have to be “spiritually advanced” to benefit from spiritual direction?

Absolutely not. All you need is a desire to take your spiritual life more seriously. To this end, in addition to facilitating your ongoing conversation with God and looking at ways to deepen your spiritual life, your spiritual director will help you get more out of basic spiritual practices such as regular church attendance, participation in the sacraments, and a day-to-day prayer life. Beyond these things, to get the full benefit of spiritual direction, the only other things you’ll need is a willingness to meet regularly with your director, and a sincere desire both for greater union with God and openness to the movement of the Holy Spirit.

Does the director tell the directee what to do?

Your relationship with God is sacred and personal. As such you will always have the right to make the final decision about how that relationship should unfold. Your spiritual director will certainly offer suggestions he prayerfully feels would be helpful for deepening your relationship with God but he will never tell you what to do. It is your spiritual director’s job to ask you questions that help him understand where you are at in your spiritual journey and give you the tools to discover the best way forward. Good spiritual direction respects your free will just as God does.

How often is spiritual direction necessary?

There is no strict timetable for spiritual direction though it should be regular. After the initial spiritual assessment period, where your director helps you take stock of your spiritual journey thus far, you and your director will decide on the frequency that best serves you and your goals. However often you decide to meet (monthly at minimum), it will be important to be faithful to your time together. Your commitment builds a relationship of trust between you and your spiritual director so that,together, you may be more responsive to ways God is working in both of you.

How is spiritual direction different from counseling?

Spiritual direction can certainly be a healing process. But though spiritual direction can be a helpful part of recovery from emotional problems or relational conflict, the primary goal of spiritual direction is not recovery from problems so much as it is deepening your relationship with God, attending to God’s will more effectively, and being more confident in the ways God is working in and through you in your present circumstances.

Beyond this, where counseling is more directive, focused on teaching techniques, building skills and concentrated on resolving problems, spiritual direction is most interested in helping you develop the quiet place in your heart where you can encounter God more personally and receive whatever blessings, graces, and wisdom he wishes to share with you.

Is it ever advisable to undergo counseling and spiritual direction at the same time?

Depending on their particular circumstances and needs, a directee/client will often choose either spiritual direction or counseling. Even so, there is nothing that would prevent you from experiencing the benefits of both as they are intended to be complementary to each other.

Along these lines, it may also be the case that, in the course of spiritual direction, a director may make a referral to counseling or, in the course of counseling, a counselor may make a referral to spiritual direction. In such an event, you would be free to work with a director or counselor of your choosing—whether or not they were associated with the Pastoral Solutions Institute. That said, Pastoral Solutions Institute therapists and spiritual directors are part of the same team. We learn from each other, value each other’s input, and work together closely to help our clients achieve their goals in the most efficient way possible.

Are the sessions confidential?

Yes. Any disclosure that a directee makes during the sessions is strictly confidential. The director may never reveal it or use it. The only possible exception to this standard of confidentiality would be the case of grave, immediate, or mortal danger involving the directee or another person.

Do I have to be Catholic to have spiritual direction?

No. All Christians are welcome. While the Pastoral Solutions Institute spiritual direction program is deeply rooted within the Catholic tradition, the directee need not be Catholic. Accommodation can be made to direct the directee from a more general Christian approach.

Is there a charge for spiritual direction?

Yes. Spiritual direction is a demanding profession that requires many years of academic and personal preparation to do well. That said, we have set the cost of our service so that almost anyone could afford to take advantage of these services. For rates and availability, please send a request for additional information to SpiritualDirection@CatholicCounselors.com .

ABOUT DEACON DOMINIC

Deacon Dominic Cerrato offers spiritual direction under the Pastoral Solutions Institute and is Director of Diaconal Ministries. Formerly, he served in full-time pastoral ministry specializing in adult formation. He has also taught theology at Franciscan University of Steubenville and Duquesne University of the Holy Ghost along with ethics at Thomas Nelson Community College. While at Franciscan University, Deacon Dominic also established and developed the Distance Learning Masters in Theology Program. He has nearly 30 years of experience in catechetical and pastoral ministry on both the diocesan and parish levels.