Biopsychosocial Development

InFormation Bulletins - InFormation 2018 No.2 Summer

"Several years ago, our congregation established six standing committees as resources for life and mission. These committees ordinarily meet quarterly to review, study and share with the entire community various aspects of living our Dominican charism of Preaching. The Ongoing Formation Committee (OGFC) consists of eight to twelve members who volunteer for a term of three years, renewable for a second three-year term. During the past three years the committee has focused on the integration of all areas of lifelong formation."

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InFormation Bulletins - InFormation 2018 No.2 Summer

"Ongoing/lifelong formation focuses on the continual growth of the whole person to promote a deeper, fuller commitment. Again, it is not about professional recycling or giving more information or helping members to be better informed. Ongoing formation is not the complement or correction of initial formation. Contrary to much of our thinking and structures, it doesn’t begin when initial formation is 'completed'."

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Based on the recently released book, Can You Let Go of a Grudge? Learn to Forgive and Get on with Your Life (Paulist Press, January 2014) Fr. Desiderio will give a brief overview of the spirituality of forgiveness based on five steps:

• L - Look deeply at what went wrong
• E - Empathy for the other is key
• T - Tell the story differently
• G - Give the gift of forgiveness
• O - One day at a time, keep forgiveness strong.

This webinar will offer practical tools for women and men religious who want to bring peace to persons caught in a web of unreconciled relationships whom they encounter in their various pastoral, administrative, peace and social justice ministries. It will also offer inspiration about living more peaceably with oneself and in community and healing rifts through reconciliation. 

Frank Desiderio, C.S.P. has been a parish priest and campus minister (UCLA), a radio and TV producer and, currently, is director of the Paulist Center in Boston. He is the executive producer of the documentary “The Big Question: A Film About Forgiveness” which launched him into a new ministry of forgiveness and reconciliation. Since 2009 he has offered retreats, parish missions and days of recollection on the spirituality of forgiveness. From Victoria, B.C. to Washington D.C. retreatants have said, "this is the best retreat I've ever been on." Participants come away saying; "I have been waiting for this for a long time", "this is exactly the kind of thing the Church should do", "I feel so much lighter", "this is what I needed to heal."

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Being resilient in the face of adversity requires us to look inward rather than outward and examine our approach, our expectations, and our reactions to situations. This webinar will focus on the following topics: the definition of resilience, the factors that enhance our ability to be resilient, the distorted scripts that lead to burnout, the difference between healthy vs. unhealthy self-sacrifice, and the importance of establishing a self-care plan. 

Eran Talitman, Ph.D., C. Psych. is a registered psychologist in the province of Ontario, Canada. He has provided assessment and treatment services to individuals, couples, and families in both a hospital setting and private practice. He has also been a consultant to individuals diagnosed with HIV, cancer, and traumatic brain injury. For the past 16 years, he has been at the Southdown Institute and has provided individual and group therapy as well as assessment services to religious and clergy. He has provided workshops and presentations on Intimacy, Healthy Sexuality, Developing Healthy Ministerial Boundaries, Keeping Our Soul Alive, Effective Leadership, and Working with Personality Disorders. 

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This webinar will weave the Universe Story and the Paschal Mystery using art, poetry and theological reflection. The Great Flaring Forth of the universe is an invitation to contemplate how Divine Mystery enfolds the cosmos. On Earth Day and during the Easter Season, participants in this webinar will ponder and celebrate the mysteries of Deep Incarnation, Kenosis, Deep Resurrection and the Cosmic Story.

Linda Neil, SCJ, is a member of the Albany Province of the Sisters of Saint Joseph of Carondolet.  An experienced educator who holds Masters’ degrees in Earth Literacy and in Religious Studies, Linda has presented programs created to inform minds, engage hearts, fire passion for transformation, and celebrate our relationship with the Earth Community in a variety of retreat centers and other venues.

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Mindfulness been introduced and accepted into the mainstream of mental health treatment as an important tool in assisting the regulation of emotion, flexibility in responding to life situations, and the development of healthy relationships and self-concept. However, mindfulness has a deep religious context and origin as a spiritual tradition, including the Christian contemplative tradition. In this Advent webinar participants will explore mindfulness, as a Christian discipline and practice that helps us uncover the sacred in our everyday experience.

Benjamin Williams, Ph.D., is on the clinical staff at Southdown in Ontario, Canada. For more than fifty years, Southdown has offered compassionate care to vowed religious and diocesan clergy.

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Presented by Religious Formation Conference (RFC) in partnership with Conference of Major Superiors of Men (CMSM)

Part One: The Basics

Part Two: Dealing with Difficult findings and Difficult Realities

Part Three: Developing and Managing Intercultural Competencies Within Formation

Fr. Jerry McGlone, SJ, PhD, Associate Director, Conference of Major Superiors of Men (CMSM)

Hope is a powerful emotion that arises from the most basic human longings – it is a life- sustaining force, rooted in relationship and our relationship with the future. In our challenging and chaotic present time, hope is more essential than ever.

In our time together, we will explore the connection between reality, grief and hope, how our thoughts and feelings create the unique energy of hope, some core competencies to help us move beyond our personal and present limits to create a better tomorrow, understanding hopelessness and how hope can be learned and is a ministry shared with others.

In this Year for Consecrated Life we have been urged by Pope Francis to make a grateful remembrance of the recent past and to embrace the future with hope. If not now, when? If not us, then who?

Artwork credit: “Journey of the Soul” © Doris Klein, CSA. Used with permission. See additional work by Doris Klein, CSA at www.doriskleincsa.com

Lynn M. Levo, CSJ, Ph.D.

is a Sister of St. Joseph of Carondelet, and a licensed psychologist, lecturer and consultant. She received her Ph.D. from the University of New York at Albany, completing her clinical training at The University of Kansas School of Medicine. Lynn consults with religious congregations of women and men, dioceses and health systems on mutuality, transitions and stress, anger, managing conflict, aging and healthy personal, sexual and spiritual development across the life span. Lynn has presented nationally and internationally to women and men religious, intercommunity novitiates and seminaries, on fostering healthy integrated sexuality, celibacy, relationships, intimacy, mutuality in community, emotional intelligence, collaborative leadership, hope, living at the edge of chaos and the call to be evolutionaries. In addition, Lynn also facilitates team development for several leadership teams of women religious, utilizing her experience as a former congregational leader and consultant.

After completing 12 years of ministering as Director of Education at Saint Luke Institute, a residential treatment facility for women and men religious, Lynn currently is a Consulting Psychologist in private practice, offering consultations and presentations/workshops both in the U.S. and abroad.

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Conversations at the Well: Crossing-over to Meet the Other and Oneself

Acting on the Journey of Transformation

The call to transformation and to “reading the signs of the times” can simultaneously elicit deep attraction and provoke corresponding resistance.

In this workshop, beginning Friday evening, participants and the presenter will explore the shadow and the journey of consciousness; crossing over from repression and fear to humility and integration.  Praying dangerously, acting radically, living the gospel will fuel the crossing to personal and communal transformation.

The workshop included input, personal journaling, table and large group conversation. (November 18-19, 2016; Rancho Palos Verdes, CA)

Donald Bisson, FMS

Donald Bisson, FMS, is first and foremost a spiritual director.  A Marist Brother based in New York, Don is engaged in the training, formation, and supervision of spiritual directors.  In addition to his doctoral work in spiritual direction and Jungian psychology, he holds graduate degrees in spirituality and liturgy.

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The Leadership Conference of Women Religious (LCWR) publishes resource for members and others to use in reflecting on grief and trauma.

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Formation Resources - Resource Manuals - Volume III

Part I: Code of Professional Ethics for Formation Ministers

• 3. "Formation Ministry and Healthy Boundaries" by Rev. John Heagle, J.C.L. & Fran Ferder, FSPA, Ph.D.

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