In this episode, I discuss the central importance of love as the marker of well-being from a Catholic perspective -- our capacity to live out  the two great commandments.  We explore how love is the distinguishing characteristics of Christians, we detail the eight different kinds of love, and we discuss Catholic theologian Bernard Brady's five attributes or characteristics of love -- how love is affective, affirming, responsive, unitive and steadfast.  We discuss what is commonly missing from philosophical and theological approaches to love, and we briefly touch in the death of love and distortions of love.

94 The Primacy of Love

The mission of this podcast is the formation of your heart in love and for love,  Together, we shore up the natural, human foundation for your spiritual formation as a Catholic. St. Thomas Aquinas asserts that without this inner unity, without this interior integration, without ordered self-love, you cannot enter loving union with God, your Blessed Mother, or your neighbor.  Informed by Internal Family Systems approaches and grounded firmly in a Catholic understanding of the human person, this podcast brings you the best information, the illuminating stories, and the experiential exercises you need to become more whole in the natural realm.  This restored human formation then frees you to better live out the three loves in the two Great Commandments – loving God, your neighbor, and yourself.  Check out the Resilient Catholics Community which grew up around this podcast at https://www.soulsandhearts.com/rcc.

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Catholic thought leader, human formation specialist, and podcaster Jake Khym has more than 20 years of experience in a wide variety of ministry settings and he joins me in this episode to discuss integrated personal formation.  In this episode, we focus on these major themes: 1) your heart; 2) your identity as a beloved little son or daughter of God; 3) the integration of formation within the heart; 4) love as the gift of oneself; 5) change vs. growth vs. flourishing; 6) the importance of emotions; 7) how good formation requires relationship; 8) getting into the messy business of your own personal formation; and 9) Jake’s top resources for personal formation.  

138 Personal Formation with Jake Khym: Restore the Glory and Life Restoration

Fr. Boniface Hicks joins us once again as we continue our series on integrated personal formation, this time with a Q&A; from our live audience. Fr. Boniface answers a wide range of questions about spiritual and pastoral formation, including: 1) What counsel can you give to those who have experienced poor spiritual formation, especially from formators who only acknowledge the spiritual realm? 2) How do you deal with St. Ignatius of Loyola’s “evil spirits” from the IFS perspective? Would this involve a more compassionate approach to temptation? 3) How do you leverage parts in spiritual direction when your director has no experience with IFS? 4) In the context of Colossians 1:15-20, can you share how your inmost self holds space for an encounter with Jesus and some of your exiled parts? 5) Can spiritual direction be positive and productive if the directee has a strong hiding part or protectors that don’t want to be transparent with the director? 6) Can you talk about the prophetic timing of human formation in the context of Pastores Dabo Vobis, given the cultural issues of the meltdown of the family, marriage, etc.? 7) How do different kinds of suffering relate to our parts? 8) In resisting spiritual bypassing, is there not also the risk of bypassing the spiritual, bypassing the walk with Jesus? Is there a way to navigate this?

137 Live Q&A with Fr. Boniface Hicks on Spiritual Direction and Personal Formation

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.  

136 Spiritual Direction and Personal Formation with Fr. Boniface Hicks

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.  

135 The Tree of Catholic Personal Formation: An Integrative Model

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

94 The Primacy of Love

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