Overview of the Spiritual Direction Certificate with Maria Brackett

0:00Hello. Good afternoon. Good to have you here. I see that you're coming in right now to the webinar. Thank you for, coming to this monthly webinar that we have to talk about the spiritual direction certificate here at Divine Mercy University. As you come in, if you can just put your maybe just your first name and where you're connecting from, just to get a sense of who's here. See if I know any of you. Just put it in the chat box there. That would be great. If you'd like to do that, that would be helpful. We're just gonna leave about a minute more just to let people in. So happy to see you. My name is Maria Brackett, as you can see there on the screen, and I'm the director of the spiritual direction certificate here at Divine Mercy University.

1:01Again, thank you for taking some time to connect this evening. I am not expecting this webinar to go over forty five minutes. My purpose here is to just give you more information about the spiritual direction certificate here at Divine Mercy University and answer any questions that you might have about it. We try to host these webinars on the first Thursday of every month just to allow you the opportunity to, get this information. We also do have a YouTube channel. Divine Mercy University has a YouTube channel, and there is a playlist, for the spiritual direction certificate where there are interviews with alumni and with present students, and where we talk about different themes that have to do with spiritual direction, and there are also some informative webinars there.

2:06So you can always look there for more information if you'd like that. So let's get started here. Let's see. Some of you Doug from Los Angeles. Thank you. Catherine from Canada. So happy to see both of you. That's one of the reasons we host this webinar at 08:00 just to give you all on the West Coast an opportunity to get on. So good to see you. Anyone else out there that wants to comment, first name, and just where they're connecting from, that would be great. Always so happy to have you you all here. So let's get started. The spiritual direction certificate here at Divine Mercy University is a two year certificate, nondegree program, that trains people to be, spiritual directors within the Catholic Christian tradition.

3:01What do I mean by that? Well, I will be explaining spiritual direction a little bit more farther along the way. But, basically, the, the theology that we use is the Catholic Christian theology. You know, definitely very much within the Catholic understanding. But when we're talking about spiritual theology, much of that overlaps with Christian faiths. So, we do have people of other faiths of of Christian faiths. Well or, you know, I don't know how to say that exactly, but of Christian faiths in our program, Anglicans, evangelicals, people that want to want to learn in the Catholic Christian tradition. Thank you again for being here, all of you. Greg from Connecticut, Christy from Virginia. Happy to have you.

4:01So let's just talk a little bit, what's what we're gonna talk about this evening. Who we are as a university, what is spiritual direction, just about the program and the time frame and the tuition for the program. Divine Mercy University is a graduate school, primarily for psychologists and counselors or what we call the human sciences, here in Northern Virginia within, the DC Metro Area. It is dedicated to the mission of the integration of the human sciences and with faith, really grounding in in a understanding of the human person, an integral understanding of the human person, a whole understanding of the human person. And as a university, we are always trying to do research to update our underintegration of faith with the human sciences.

5:10In 2017, the university began developing the spiritual direction certificate to to bring this understanding of the human person, which is which is which is an integration of philosophy, theology, and psychology to bring this to the field of ministries and other helping professions. And that's, and seeing spiritual direction is just such an important place, and a one on one relationship. The university thought that they should work there. So in 2019, January 2019, we launched a spiritual direction certificate. So that means we're a little bit over five years old. And at this point, we already have a 170 graduates of the certificate. So this kind of just explains the programs that we have and who we are.

6:17We are a university accredited, by all the different boards of accreditation necessary to be accredited by. Just for you to know, it doesn't really affect that much the spiritual direction certificate because we're not a degree program, But it's good to for you to know that we do have all these accreditations for our to run as a university and for our counseling and psychology programs. So what I wanna talk about now before we get into the program itself is kind of the the framework of the program. What do we you know, how do we describe spiritual direction? I know this is important for people when they're looking for training for spiritual direction. That's why we wanna talk about it here right at the beginning, so that you can see if this is what you're looking for.

7:15We do, you know, find our definition of spiritual direction within the Catholic understanding of spiritual direction, within that Catholic Christian tradition of spiritual direction, you know, as a type of accompaniment, assisting a person, on their path to the Lord. They act of deep listening and being there for them, listening to the directee to help them to deepen in their experience of the Lord and his narrative and their advice, the act of being there for them, to walk alongside with them them and their pilgrimage to God, not designed as therapy. It's not designed for problem solving, but more as a deep listening. Of course, there are times of teaching. There are times maybe when there is some problem solving that happens, but it's not that it's designated or designed for that purpose.

8:18It's not coaching. It's not catechism class or, you know, OCIA or RCIA. It's really to help someone to grow in that relationship with god. So it's usually given to people that have already made some type of commitment to grow in their relationship with the lord and want some help in doing that. Another way to understand it is, you know, helping someone to become a disciple of the lord. As we'll talk about a little bit later as, you know, Christ himself walked with his apostles and taught them this way of following him. And we if we, you know, are interested in this, it's probably because we have been discipled by the lord, and we probably have had a spiritual director. And we want to help other people to be helped the way that we were and to grow in our relationship with the lord.

9:14So this is kind of the way that we understand it. Spiritual direction has really seen a resurgence, within the Catholic Christian world since, you know, probably in the seventies. Just because, you know, really, the way that I think of it is because of the emphasis that the Catholic church put on the lay, lay people being involved in, helping others to grow closer to the Lord and also, in Vatican too, the way that it talks about the universal call to holiness. That holiness was not just something for ministers or priests or religious, but it was something that a path and a desire that the lord wanted for each of us. So then it became kind of clear. Well, if the lord is calling me to this this, you know, like, this quote here that's from pope Benedict, if the lord is calling me to this, you know, life in him, then I do probably need someone to help me along that.

10:26And this is what pope Benedict says who, at the time, I don't think he was a pope when he said this, but everyone, in fact, especially those who have heeded the divine call to follow Christ closely, needs to be accompanied personally by a guide, reliable in doctrine and expert in the things of god. Right? So this is what a spiritual director, another way to talk about a spiritual director and also this need that we have. And and pope Benedict says here, it's not just for Catholics. Every Christian who wishes to live responsibly his or her baptism, that is this new life in Christ. So the catechism of the Catholic church, talks about spiritual directors in this number. It says the holy spirit gives to certain of the faithful the gifts of wisdom, faith, and discernment for the sake of this common good, which is prayer, spiritual direction.

11:16That parenthetical expression is of the catechism. We didn't put that in. Men and women so endowed are true servants of the living tradition of prayer. So it talks about spiritual directors as being servants of the living tradition of prayer. And you can imagine, you know, servants of that that person's, you know, that directee's prayer and also of this tradition, you know, like, learning how to pray and be with the lord and follow him and then helping others to do the same, although they're going to be, you know, unique and different than you. So just other ways that you can talk about spiritual direction, focus on a relationship with god, something to be discovered, deepened, celebrated. Definitely for people that want to grow in their relationship with the lord.

12:10Right? The biblical roots of spiritual direction also confirm its necessity. God it seems that god has always given us people to help us, in our lives, in our relationship with him. You know, in the Old Testament prophets, figures of faith, and in the New Testament, the, apostles. And Jesus himself walked with the apostles, as I was saying before, to help them to learn how, to follow him and to learn how to live this relationship with the Lord, this new life in in him. Right? So spiritual direction is a sacred and safe space. We talk about this here because it is a space where, a, you know, a good relationship of trust needs to be able to grow. It's a sacred space, safe space. It is a space of confidentiality, where the directee, discerns and speaks about those innermost thoughts and feelings, doubts, fears.

13:15And, and in speaking them and talking to them sometimes realizes just what's happening inside of themselves. Right? Definitely allows the person to open their heart, you know, and to really bring yourself to, this moment so as to share. This is a quote taken from a document of the Catholic church that I think also came out in 2011. The principal objective of spiritual direction is to discern the signs of God's will for our journey of vocation, prayer, perfection for our daily life and for our fraternal mission. So, you know, it's to discern where we're seeing the Lord in our lives, where we're encountering him, what he might be saying to us, where he might be calling us. And this is done just by that deep listening of the director as we kind of tell our story and talk about these things, and asking us questions to deepen in this and to understand where the lord might be.

14:28Sometimes, you know, we call this myths about spiritual direction, but, you know, what are the things that maybe can be misconceptions about spiritual direction that you might have heard out there. While all priests are spiritual directors, it's true that all priests are really given training to give spiritual counsel, and a lot of priests nowadays in their seminary days are learning how to give pastoral counseling. Right? And spiritual counseling, you know, spiritual direction is a type of spiritual counseling. But in that document that I quoted before, that's here, the priest minister divine mercy and a for confessors and spiritual directors that the Catholic church put out in 2011, it did say that in present circumstances, while there's an increasing demand for spiritual direction on the part of the faithful, there is likewise an increasing need to better prepare priests to give spiritual direction.

15:25Such training should enable them to afford spiritual counsel with greater diligence, discernment, and spiritual accompaniment. So this is why, the church kinda has made a shift here, asking priests to be trained to be spiritual directors. And so that's something that, you know, we definitely have priests that go through our program and that are doing that. And, also, be another thing is that you might meet priests that do not want to be spiritual directors. They feel like they don't have the training or they don't have the availability to be able to do that. So you can't just assume that any priest that you approach feels like he's got this preparation or has gotten this preparation or feels that he's got that availability to be spiritual director.

16:17Definitely, they can give you spiritual counsel. They do that in confession. Sometimes if you have appointments with them, the same thing. And sometimes I think you might if you're Christians, you might find the same thing in your churches. Another misconception is laypeople cannot be spiritual directors. The Catholic church doesn't have any document that says who can or cannot be spiritual direction directors. Right? And I don't think necessary you know, there's so many different Christian denominations, but it really kinda depends on their traditions. But, typically, there's not this type of restriction. And in addition, within the Catholic church, there's a long history of laypeople being spiritual directors.

17:06And, again, from this document, here's a quote. While spiritual direction was always imparted by monks and priests, other members of the faithful religious and lay, Saint Catherine of Siena, for example, who maybe most people don't even realize she wasn't a religious. She was a laywoman, have have also given spiritual counsel. There to be found also well formed laypeople, both men and women, who offer this this service of counsel along the journey in holiness. I always like to point out the early desert fathers and mothers as examples of this and also Saint John Paul the second's first spiritual director who was a layman. And Saint John Paul the second credits him for having an you know, introduced him to to mystical prayer.

17:54So often people might need someone that they can speak to that that they can relate to that has their particular life vocation. Maybe they're looking for a man or woman who has a similar walk of life as they do, someone that they can trust, someone that feel that they can, that feels that they understand them. So the the place of lady people giving spiritual direction is considerable, and it's a great benefit, to their faith communities. Another myth is that Catholic parishes or diocese don't have spiritual directors. And, and I don't think that this is true either just through my own experience. This is a quote from that same document just saying that sometimes ecclesiastical authorities or communities can, set up offices, where they see about offering spiritual direction to people.

18:49Right? I know that some of the people that come to our program have been sent by their parish priest to or their, faith leaders to get trained at our program so that they can be a spiritual director and offer that to their faith community. And I know that there are diocese that have offices where they and they train spiritual directors, where they vet spiritual directors, where they publish lists of spiritual directors so that the faithful of their local community can find those. So these are some things sometimes things that we hear, but, you know, we always just like to address these things to kind of understand because we definitely have laypeople in our program. We've got all vocations in our program, which is really beautiful and very enriching.

19:41So let's move to the spiritual direction certificate itself, and let's talk about it. I forgot to mention, if you have any questions as we're going along, just put them into I think there should be, like, a q and a. Yeah. There should be a q and a. So you can just put them into there, and at the end, I'll look there and answer them, since as I know there might be things that happen, information that you need as we go along. So the spiritual direction certificate, as I mentioned at the beginning, takes two years to complete. Sometimes it takes a little bit longer because of the practicum hours if you're doing those a little bit slower, but the courses themselves can be completed in two years.

20:28They're all online courses. There's six of them. They're what we call asynchronous, meaning that you, work through each of the modules, or each of the weeks of the courses with a cohort. But within that time, within that week, you can do the the work whenever it fits into your schedule and, just respecting the deadlines that are in the course themselves. Right? There's usually a couple, there's usually, like, two assignments due each week. We do offer live meetings, that are in real time. They're never required, and they're always recorded. Just to sometimes, you know, we've just seen in our experience that students want that opportunity to have some face to face with their instructors. So the instructors always do hold those meetings.

21:27So there are six courses for the certificate, and there are two residencies. So that means that twice in your time of studying the certificate, you'll have to come to Northern Virginia for a residency. We're actually running one right now, and these days, they start on Wednesday evening. So we started last night, and they ran to Sunday lunch. I'll explain a little bit more of those going forward. Then we also have a requirement of sixty practicum hours. That means that at some point in the program, in the fifth course, we'll you will have prepared you sufficiently to start seeing people in spiritual direction. We ask you to log those hours, and we ask you to get forty eight hours of seeing people in spiritual direction and twelve hours of supervision.

22:17The supervision is actually given within the fifth and sixth courses themselves, so So it's not like you have to find a supervisor or anything like that. We just ask you to log those hours so that you between the forty eight hours of seeing spiritual direction and the twelve hours of supervision, you fulfill your 60 practicum hours. So these are the courses, the six courses that are part of the certificate. There if you go on our website, you know, it's the the you see the address there below. We're on the divine mercy website under academic programs. There are course descriptions. So there's a paragraph describing what each of these courses are about. You'll see that these courses really are addressing two different aspects, in spiritual direction, which is that theological, spiritual theology, development of the life of grace within the human person and that relationship with the Lord, and then the human elements.

23:24What human development is, human relationships, and those skills that you'll need, those human listening skills, those human interaction skills that you'll need as a spiritual director and the training in those. So we're always working in our program in knowledge and skills. Right? So content, readings, videos, definitely essays, although they're not that long, different activities to help you to learn and to know content, actual information, and then training, in skills. Skill training where we're doing triad videos, all over the Internet, right, to help you to keep on learning your skills that you'll need to be a spiritual director. So I talked about the residencies a little bit earlier. I mentioned them.

24:25The residencies, as I said, are two of them. They're you know, the program is two years, so you're coming once a year to Sterling, Virginia. And it's a and it's an opportunity to put into practice the skills and the knowledge that you're learning as you're going through the course. The first residency happens at the end of your third course, so kind of finishing your first year. And the second residency start, is at this week two of your fifth course. So it's kind of, like, halfway through your second year. And each residency has, as you saw with a name on it, the, it's basically about the the human skills that you need to be a spiritual director, but they just, you know, the first one is the basic listening skills and sitting with someone.

25:18And then the second residency is a little bit more complicated because we're we're getting you ready to start seeing people in spiritual direction. So it's a it's more complex themes. The way that we run each residency, you know, the first and the second are very similar, but the themes in the second one are just more about boundaries and, just kind of the invisible interplay that might be happening in a relationship so that you know how to manage that. So each, you know, we work on a term based. We run three terms a year. Each term is eight weeks, and you only do one course at a time. And, usually, it takes about six to nine hours a week, when you're taking a course. Then we roughly have a break of about nine to ten weeks between each term.

26:23Although between the summer term and the fall term, it's just four weeks. But right now, we're gonna be finishing up the term, and I think in two weeks, and then we won't start class again until January. And as I said before, it's completed in two years. The cost of the certificate is $800 per course. And, when when you have a residency, it's 1,350, and that covers the teaching, the material, most of the meals, and putting you up in a hotel. But what we don't cover is you getting to and from Northern Virginia and, three of the dinners we ask you to take care of. If you have to continue in practicum, in different moments within the course, it's $50 a term. If you need to get supervision during that time, it's a $100.

27:21But, usually, for students that, you know, you don't do probably more than two terms if you needed to do that. So it's not it's either, you know, a $100 or 200 on the I think it's about 7,600 when you all this add this up altogether. How to apply? We do have a two tier application process where you enter into the first two courses. So you do that by going on our website. There's an application there. You play the $25 application, and you just provide a letter of recommendation from your pastor or a leader of your faith community. And that's how you enter into that first tier of the program. And then when you're in the program, finishing 200 is after that experience, if you wanna apply to the second tier of the program, which is 300 through through 600, you do there.

28:19There's no cost for it. We and we guide you through that process. If you would like more information about the program or get on the phone call, with someone to just talk about it and get some more questions answered, you can contact Greg Shapiro. He is our admissions adviser here at the university. This is his phone number that also accepts calls and text messages, and he will get in touch with you and set up a time, to be able to talk, so that he can answer your questions about the program. Okay. I wanted to go to any questions you might have. Feel free to put them in the chat or in the q and a. If there's anything that you would like to know about the program, hope I've given you enough information just generally so that you understand, kind of its dynamics, the way it works, and what we're kind of striving for.

29:26Okay. Doug, can you put your question in the chat or in the q and a? I'm going to stop sharing. That helps me to be able to see the q and a. Okay, Doug. I see this. I don't see your question yet, though. Questions? Doug, are you able to put that into the, the key the chat box? Okay. Great. Is this certification accepted by most diocese? Yes. It is. So just for you to know, and you probably all know this, like, spiritual direction is not a licensed field or ministry. But what most ISAs wanna see is that you've been trained by a serious institution, and they might even wanna see your curriculum. Right? And that's what the university can offer. Right? We have not had a problem that this has not been accepted by diocese.

31:00The university has a pretty good name, out there, so it's pretty well esteemed. And I think the work of our own of our own diet of our own students. Yes. We've got students from the Archdiocese of, Los Angeles and San Diego. San Bernardino, I'm not certain, but I know of Los Mercedes of Los Angeles and San Diego, we both have. Orange. Yes. Actually, there's two sisters that are right that are with us right now. Is Catherine asked, is there anything special in traditional student needs? No. There isn't, Catherine. Sometimes when we've had students of course, if you're coming from Canada, there's there's no difficulties because even coming for the residencies, it's just not a long stay, so you don't need any special visa.

31:59But sometimes we've had to help. Like, we've had some students come from Africa or things like that, and we've had to help them get their their, visa for them. Jasmine, the tuition total is about 7,600. Each course, it costs 800, and the residency is 1,350. You can see that that breakdown is also on the website. Jasmine, the course is, two years. I know that you got here a little bit late, so no worries. You take three courses three courses a year, and the certificate takes two years. I'm happy to see you here. Thank you for your interest in becoming spiritual directors. There's definitely a need out there. And I know with my experience of and now I've been the director of the program, it's gonna be five years And, in July, so I just finished four years.

33:05Right? The students are just so varied, and the ways that they got into the program and the way that they've gotten into spiritual direction is just so is so interesting, but just really beautiful people. I always am so inspired. Jasmine, the course is not self paced. You go through each course with your cohort, and there's weekly assignments. So we ask you within that eight week period, you're going through the course week by week with your cohort and discussions and assignments and things like that. Of course, you can do all that reading and the assignments on your own time, just respecting those weekly deadlines, but it's not self paced. Anyone else have any other questions? As I said, you know, the students are diverse group, men, women, sisters, deacons, Catholics, Christians, priests, full time missionaries.

34:32It's really beautiful. I, myself, am a spiritual director. Sometimes I get the opportunity to teach some of the courses. I'm not too busy. Specific parish rule. Okay. So it really depends upon the parish, Doug, if they if they have a spiritual directors on staff or not. So this doesn't necessarily give you a job at a parish. It really just depends upon the parish priest and and how they work with spiritual directors. Definitely helps you. I know that some of the spirit our spiritual directors have got involved in chaplain ministry at hospitals, even though some of that training, you might need a little bit more specific training to go into a hospital environment, but, definitely, our training is a good way to begin that.

35:37And, also, people support at retreats, especially retreat house often are looking for spiritual directors to to walk along with people and their retreat experience. So, Doug, yeah, the secular world in business, you definitely could. We definitely have, men and women that are in the business world that get to know people that want spiritual direction. Right? But this is not coaching. This is not like life coaching or even Catholic coaching or Christian coaching. This is really directed to accompany someone in their spiritual life. Jasmine, the course schedule. Yeah. Gosh. I'm just realizing I don't have that slide for that. So thank you for that. So we open, courses in August, January, and May.

36:36And the courses are eight weeks, so they run, like, the end of August to the middle of October, beginning of January to the middle of March, and end of May to the, middle of July. Jasmine, there really aren't scholarships available just because we try to, do the lowest cost possible so that people, can take this. And then we do have what's called the STC grant. You'll see it on our website where we say, you know, if you're interested in this program or if you're interested in in giving money so other people can study this program, we do do that. But that's really based on how much money we get in. It hasn't been as successful as I wish it could be. Right? We need people to step forward and wanna give money so that we have money to be able to give away.

37:41So that's basically how that works. Doug, I hope I answered that question that you had. Any other questions? Thanks, Doug. Just make sure I've answered the ones that you've sent them. Greg can also get you in touch of someone that's graduated from the program, if that would be helpful for you to talk to someone maybe in your area. As I said, we've got a pretty good network of graduates throughout the country and and in Canada. So sometimes that helps too to talk to someone that's been through the program that's maybe in your area or has a similar you know, that's if you're a deacon, that's a deacon or something like that. Doug, do you get barred from the program? We do ask you, Doug, to take the first two courses consecutively just because there's a lot of spacing between the courses, and we want you to get a real sense of the fit for the program and, and learning, like a learning rhythm.

39:09Right? So, so we ask you to take those two course courses consecutively and then to go into that third course right after that. And then you can space out your fourth, fifth, and sixth course. I forget the actual I think we asked you to have it done by three years. No? So that gives you a little bit of room there. Arturo, I see you're raising your hand. Could you put the question in the chat box? And, Doug, of course, sometimes life just happens, and there are some exceptions that just need to be considered. But in general, that's that's how the policies work. Great. I am gonna put my email here. It's also on the website in case there's any type of questions that you have that you wanna follow-up with me.

40:21Greg's email is also on the website too. Oh, Arturo, do you have the book, the divine mercy in Spanish? I don't think we do. Even though our university is called divine mercy, it's not like we publish those books. So probably some people have them just that they read the the diary of Divine Mercy. Right? But, it's not like we sell them or have them. But I would think that you would go like, I know in Massachusetts, there is a shrine to divine mercy in Stockbridge, Massachusetts. And I would sure I would think that their website website would have that book in Spanish. Right, Thank you so much. If there's not any more questions, I'm gonna sign off. Well, god bless you all, and thank you. Where's your email?

41:30Jasmine, I put it in there to everyone, so I just did. So I'll put it again. It's also on the website of the university. Let me just show that to you guys so that you see the website of the university so you get to see what I'm talking about. So this is the website of the university that I'm talking about. If you go to academic programs, you'll see spiritual direction certificate. Click there, and that's where the information of the course descriptions, tuition. Alright. So you can see the URL here to find marcy.edu. We are out of Northern Virginia and Metro DC. Well, thank you all. Good night, and God bless.