Interior Integration for Catholics Peter T. Malinoski, Ph.D.

What makes good spiritual direction?  What makes good spiritual directors?  And what gets in the way in spiritual direction?  To answers these questions, Fr. Boniface Hicks, joins us as continue our series on the integration of personal formation for Catholics. Fr. Boniface is a Benedictine monk and the Director of Spiritual Formation at St. Vincent Seminary as well as the Director of the Institute for Ministry Formation.  He is an accomplished retreat master, author of four books on the spiritual life, and a seasoned expert in what it takes to accompany others on their spiritual journeys.   We explore the formation that spiritual directors need, how you can recognize when something is lacking in your spiritual direction and the most common human formation challenges and deficits that Catholic spiritual directors are likely to encounter in themselves and in those they serve.  

What do the roots, trunk, branches, leaves, and apples of a tree have to do with your Catholic formation?  Find out how these, combined with sunlight, water, and soil, bring us an integrated understanding of personal formation grounded in a Catholic understanding of the human person, drawing from Church documents and the sciences of the natural world.  By looking at an apple tree, we can understand our own formation and where we need to change and grow much better – and not just as solitary trees, but together, in community, in a forest.  Join me, Dr. Peter Malinoski, as we learn how to flourish in love and for love, as Catholics journeying together.  

In this episode, we discuss how models help us more fully understand Catholic personal formation by showing distinctions and relationships among human formation, spiritual formation, intellectual formation, and pastoral formation. Next, we examine my new model that views formation through a mathematical lens. I explain each dimension of formation, likening them to a branch of mathematics, and draw from Pastores Dabo Vobis and other Church documents to illuminate the inter-dimensional relationships in personal formation. Finally, I tell a fictional story that illustrates how deficits in one domain of formation can negatively impact all the other dimensions of formation.  Check out the video on our Interior Integration for Catholics on YouTube at https://youtu.be/YDztbbNBBtk or on our IIC landing page at https://www.soulsandhearts.com/iic

In this episode, philosopher Matthew Walz, Ph.D. the Director of Intellectual Formation at Holy Trinity Seminary, explains the integration of the four pillars of formation laid out in Pope St. John Paul II's Pastores Dabo Vobis. We dive into why it is so important to integrate the four types of formation and whether there is a hierarchy or sequence among them. We then discuss Dr. Walz’s models of integrated formation first presented in his article, “Toward a Causal Account of Priestly Formation: A Reading of Pastores Dabo Vobis”, which can be found here: https://www.hprweb.com/2021/01/toward-a-causal-account-of-priestly-formation/. Dr. Walz explains how the four dimensions of formation — human formation, spiritual formation, intellectual formation, and pastoral formation — parallel Aristotle’s four causes, which are the material, formal, efficient, and final causes. The types of formation also parallel the “four loves”— love of self, love of God, love of truth, and love of neighbor. Finally, these four kinds of formation parallel the dimensions of Christ — Christ in His human nature and as priest, prophet, and king. We wrap up this episode by discussing what Dr. Walz means by “dimensional trespassing" in the process of formation.  

My guest, Dr. Gerry, answers questions from our live audience about his new book, Litanies of the Heart: Relieving Post-Traumatic Stress and Calming Anxiety Through Healing Our Parts. We begin by receiving some wonderful feedback for Dr. Gerry about his book. Then we dive into some questions our audience has for Dr. Gerry: 1) Can 58 years of rearranging my life to recycle the feelings of shame from being molested be resolved? 2) Can it be true that not all parts can know Jesus or not all parts can have a relationship with Him? 3) Are we naturally in self as children, before experiencing trauma? 4) In attachment terms, can misattunement happen pre-verbally, affecting access to your inmost self before you are able to express it? 5) How much culpability do we have for sinful behaviors driven by the unmet needs of parts who have good intentions? 6) What are the relationships among the inmost self, the intellect, and the will?

In this episode, I address a controversial clip from episode 79 of the Restore the Glory podcast, in which host Jake Khym provides an example of how he brings Jesus into his own parts work. I explain the potential issues I see with bringing God into human formation work. Then, I dive into the seven reasons why I initially focus on the natural realm: 1) Almost no one else focuses on human formation grounded in a Catholic understanding of the human person; 2) Human formation is the basis of all formation, according to St. John Paul II; 3) There is a huge wealth of information from secular sources that I can and should bring to the Church; 4) So many spiritual problems are spiritual consequences of human formation deficits; 5) My training and experience are in human formation, not spiritual formation; 6) Natural means are primarily used for the early development of infants, toddlers, and preschoolers; 7) Explicitly God-centric approaches are not optimal for every part in every person, and may even be harmful in some cases.