SDC Webinar with program director Maria Brackett

0:05Hello, everyone. I see you're coming in right now. Welcome to the webinar. It's good to have you here. Tonight, we're gonna be dedicating this time to talk about the spiritual direction certificate program at Divine Mercy University. My name is Maria Brackett. I'm the director of the program, at the university. Okay. So let's get started. Well, Divine Mercy University, is a graduate school for actually counselors and psychologists, but we're really dedicated to an articulation of the Catholic. We also emphasize Christian, meaning followers of Jesus Christ, understanding of the human person. So let me talk a little bit about that mission of the university first because that helps you to kinda understand the nature or kind of the difference of our program.

1:06So Divine Mercy University was started in, 1999. We're actually gonna be celebrating our twenty fifth anniversary next year. And, I think in this fall, we're gonna kick it off. So it was the university, as I said, founded by psychologists and counselors, the Christians and Catholics that really wanted to kind of redeem or take back psychology from a secular understanding of it and reroute it back into this real understanding, you know, the the Catholic Christian understanding of the person. So they took they studied that theological, philosophical, and anthropological principles, taken from Catholic theology and philosophy and especially Thomas Aquinas. And, and then looked at the human sciences, psychology and counseling, and really just started to kind of weed through that and just show how they can be compatible.

2:14So it's a university that's highly rooted, or deeply rooted in the faith, in the Catholic faith, and that's understanding of the human person, but also deeply rooted in science and research. And so that all of, the graduates in the counseling and psychology field really are professional, in this field of science. And in 2016, the university decided to to open a certificate well, to create a certificate, to train spiritual directors because this understanding of the human person, we thought that would help to kind of just train spiritual directors, not only in the art of giving spiritual direction, but also, that spiritual life, but also how the human person fits together with all its dimensions.

3:08And so that's why the university, work started in 2016, late in 2016. And then in 2019, we launched the certificate here at the university. The university itself is accredited by sorry. We're still a little bit in allergy season here in Virginia. That certificate is the university is accredited by, you know, the state of Virginia, SACS, which is typical for university accreditation, but also APA because it's a psychological institute. And, also, just recently, we got for the counseling program. So it is an accredited university. The certificate itself is not a, degree program. It's a certificate program, and that's and we wanted to set it that way just to allow people with diverse learning backgrounds and experience to be able to take the certificate, not not need a bachelor's degree.

4:24So, I think it's important that, as we talk about the certificate, you're probably wondering just how we conceptualize or understand spiritual direction. Even though the Catholic and the Christian tradition are pretty clear about what spiritual direction is, still there's so much coaching going on in this world now, and, there's a lot of other traditions of spiritual mentorship, and other faith traditions. And so this it's just always good to kinda start out this way. It's not, you know, it's not that we've come up with any great or newfangled definitions of spiritual direction, but we just wanted to articulate it. So we really see spiritual direction as an accompaniment, assisting people on their path to the lord in that one on one relationship, sitting down in those sessions one on one, the act of being there for the directee and service both to them and to the lord, a deep listening to the directee to help them deepen in their experience of the Lord and his narrative in their lives.

5:34Right? And it's also, to help, you know, to help that person grow in their relationship with the Lord. It's not therapy. It's not designed that way. We don't train you in that way. It's a walking with the Lord. I like to say it's listening. Listen to the directory as they listen to the Lord and kind of, mirror that back to them and ask them questions that help them to go deeper into that experience so they can get more clarity about where the Lord is in their lives. And it's also a type of formation. Right? The the program itself is very formative. We have this whole aspect of just helping you grow in your own relationship with the lord, But it's also formative for your directees to be in spiritual direction, because it's opportunities for them to learn how to to grow in their discipleship and their following of the board and to learn from him, but also to find resources and means put means to keep on growing and learning.

6:50Spiritual direction is increasingly more popular among Catholics and Christians since about the '19 about 1985. Some of that we think in the Catholic church is just because of the call and Vatican two, the call to holiness that was made so clear for all laity and not just for religious or priests or, right, those consecrated to the lord, but for everyone and how we're all called to a very intimate relationship with the lord. There's a quote here. I won't read all of it. It's a beautiful quote taken from, John Paul. It's not John Paul the second. I should have them change the picture. It's a quote taken from Benedict the sixteenth. Just saying that, you know, as she has always done today, the church continues to recommend the practice of spiritual direction, not only to those who desire to follow the Lord closely, but to every Christian who wishes to live responsibly, his or her baptism.

7:52That is new life in Christ. Right? And the catechism of the Catholic church refers to spiritual directors in this way. The holy spirit gives to a certain to certain of the faithful the gifts of wisdom, faith, and discernment for the sake of this common good, which is prayer. Men and women so endowed are true servants of the living tradition of prayer. And that, parenthetical expression there, after prayer, what says spiritual direction, that's from the catechism. So that's what they're talking about. People that have these gifts of wisdom, faith, and discernment, who become servants of prayer. So you become a servant of the prayer of your directee and helping them to deepen in that experience and understand better where the Lord might be there.

8:40It's a beautiful way to think of a spiritual director. Right? Spiritual direction focuses on a relationship with God. Right? Something to be discovered, deepened in, celebrated, and it's an opportunity to continue re reorienting the directee towards that relationship. And, you know, we have in sacred scripture, Old Testament and New Testament, just examples of these type of figures of spiritual direction or people that walked along with others to help them grow in their relationship, whether prophets, figures of faith, angels, apostles. Jesus himself did this with the first apostles. So so as to help, you know, an individual just reignite their spiritual life or grow in that relationship with the lord, help them maybe through an experience, a traumatic event, but where they've broken off that relationship with the lord or it's just harder for them to find it, or maybe some type of internal spiritual trial, that they could be going through where they just need the help and the guidance to be able to go through that.

9:53So it's it could be an ongoing relationship, or it could be something that just lasts for a few years. But, definitely, it's it has the purpose of helping the directee to grow in their relationship with the Lord. So spirit it is important, the spiritual direction, that we see it. You know, we try to see it in two ways, a safe space and a sacred space. Right? So the role of the spiritual director is to help the director see god's presence in their life. Right? But the direct director also has to create, like, a safe environment. That's why we teach that the spiritual direction relationship is confidential. That is a very sacred space. It's where it's one where we invoke the holy spirit to be present there and to guide us, and we're both listening.

10:49Both the director and the director are listening to the Lord and, trying to be be obedient to where he is. So in this document that was written in, 02/2013, that's called the priest minister of divine mercy and aid for confessors and spiritual directors. This is a document put out by one of the congregations, the congregation clergy. And the Catholic church has said the principal objective of spiritual direction is to discern the signs of God's will for our journey of vocation. God's will for our prayer, perfection for our daily life, our fraternal mission. Right? Greater listening and discerning where the Lord is. We'd like to talk about some myths, that are about spiritual direction and spiritual directors.

11:49Just because, you know, sometimes we just think all priests are spiritual directors or all pastors are spiritual directors. So they definitely are spiritual fathers, and they are definitely trained in spiritual counseling. But the Catholic church and in this document again says that there is a certain a specific training to be a spiritual director. And it's important for priests to have that training and or pastors or, our community faith leaders. Right? It can't just be assumed that because they studied theology, that they know how to give spiritual direction just because of the need to be able to sit with someone to, a a deep level of discernment, and accompaniment that is demanded by spiritual direction.

12:38So it could be possible that your pastor or priest doesn't feel like he's capable or not trained to do this, or maybe not in a pace in his life where he can do this. Right? Another myth that we'd like to talk about is that laypeople cannot be spiritual directors. I think this just sometimes is I mean, we call it a myth. It's just something that's kind of maybe understood culturally in different circles, but, really, this is not what is the tradition in the Catholic or even just a larger, you know, Christian tradition. The Catholic church, of course, doesn't have any document that says who can or cannot be spiritual directors. It's not attached to a a vocation or a permanent way of life. And in fact, this document that is referred to at the top there says, while spiritual direction was always imparted by monks and priests, other members of the faithful religious and lay, Saint Catherine of Siena, for example, have also given spiritual counsel.

13:42They are to be found also well formed laypeople, both men and women, who offer the service of counsel along the journey of holiness. Right? The early desert fathers and mothers are examples of this. The first spiritual director that John Paul the second had was also a layman. Saint Catherine of Cement that we mentioned here because she wasn't a religious. She was a lay a laywoman dedicated, to the spirituality of the Dominicans, like a third order, but she was not a religious. So there there is this tradition within the church and within the Christian circles also, so it doesn't have to be an ordained minister. And so another myth might be Catholic parishes or diocese do not have spiritual directors.

14:31Right? They don't they can't refer you to them. They don't know of them. They don't have a list of them. I think little by little, you'll start seeing in diocese, more and more that they are beginning to do this, and and some even have offices dedicated to, to oversee the spiritual directors in their diocese. I I think, you know, it makes sense that a community, FA community, would wanna have some spiritual directors associated to the community or that they could refer people to just because that walk with the lord. It it is done in a group, of course, and in a community, but it also needs that personal that personal attention that a spiritual direction allows for. If any questions are coming up, just make sure you put them in the q and a box as we move along here just so that you don't forget them, and that's a great way to capture them there.

15:32So what to expect in our certificate here at the university? Well, the the certificate is an it consists of six online courses, asynchronous with two residencies here in Virginia, two four day residencies, and 60 hours that you do towards the end of the certificate that consists of, seeing people in spiritual direction and receiving supervision for that during that time. The courses are online except the two residencies here in Virginia. So it takes you about two years to go through the courses. So you should, you'd have one residency each year. And the residencies, I'll talk a little bit more about them a little later. It's asynchronous, meaning that you don't usually need to get online for class.

16:28Right? Every once in a while within that eight weeks, the teacher might hold a meeting. And in fact, in the first two courses, there is a meeting held almost every week, but it's not obligatory. You can do the assignments in another way. We try to always have you know, if there is something synchronous, we try to always have another option of how you can do it. The triad work where you meet with other you know, another two members of your cohort of your class, that usually is not optional to do it any other way. But that's a little bit easier to schedule because you're just trying to schedule between a couple of you and, really, the instances of that as you go through the courses. It's really much more in the three the third course or the fourth course, fifth course, sixth course, And they tend to be, you know, sessions that might be every two weeks or every two weeks or not that as every week.

17:31There are six courses, as I said to you before. These are the courses. You can find the the course descriptions on our website. We actually just changed the title of that first course to life in Christ and spiritual direction just to make it a little bit shorter. And, basically, the course just try to move through, the the at first, you know, the understanding of spiritual direction, the understanding of the spiritual life, where spiritual direction fits in that, and then, deep dive into human development in the second course just to understand this human person that comes to spiritual direction. It's important. We can't be out of touch. We're not angels. We are human beings, so we have different dimensions.

18:19So it's important to understand this, who who the human person is. And then three hundred and five hundred are skill courses that help you to understand better how to sit with someone and give spiritual direction and work through there really are a lot of work about those skills and practicing those skills. And four hundred and six hundred are just much more spiritual courses that are helping you understand discernment and spiritual growth and some of the difficult situations that might, you might encounter at a directee and how to deal with those, trying to understand their nature and then what to do. Five hundred and six hundred have a lot is where supervision happens. So that's where you're already starting to see people in spiritual direction, logging your practicum hours, and getting supervision from your instructor in those classes.

19:19The residences, as I said to you before, there are two four day residences, on campus in Sterling, Virginia. They allow us to just train you, see you, get to know you, and do some work with you, where we have a faculty member sit with you. And the three in the first residency, it's triad groups where you have a faculty member helping you practice the skills and critiquing you and, working with you and teaching those. And then in the last one, there are groups of four, but the same type of working through skills and practicing them. We always start each day with, with, you know, class time together, but then we break up pretty quick into these groups so that we can do these practice sessions of working on the skills.

20:11We have a time midday. We have mass, lunch altogether. We all, we all we put you up all at the same hotel, which is just about a five minute walk from the university. It's kind of like a retreat and learning experience all built in one. And, of course, a lot of happiness for the people to get to spend this time together when they've been online learning together during this time. So the residencies happen. The first one happens at the end of the third course, and the second one happens at the beginning of the second course. Let me see if the questions here if there's anything that pertains to what we're talking about. Pastor Doug, I assume this program is open to non Catholics. Yes. This program is open to anyone that learns to learn about spiritual direction, from the Catholic Christian tradition.

21:14You know, that understanding of putting Christian is to emphasize that all Catholics are Christians, but, also, what we do here since we're talking about the spiritual life is we really talk about that growth in Christ. So, yes, we do have all different, faiths in the courses that predominantly Catholics, but we definitely have other people too that are in the course. We've, you know, Episcopalian minister, Lutheran ministers. We've had different people. As you go through the courses, I wouldn't be able to give you the percentage, but, yeah, definitely, it's open to anyone who wants to learn from this tradition. The courses are taught the, the the human development course is usually taught by a mental health counselor or a clinician, someone in the behavior sciences that can really talk to you about human development.

22:07We we really talk about, you know, what happens in the stages of human development and, how relationships are formed over that time. And then the other courses are taught by, people that have their master's degree in theology and that, are spiritual directors. I'm trying to think if we have anyone teaching the courses that aren't spiritual directors. No. I think they're all spiritual directors. But people that really are dedicated to this work, and they, they also do other things, but that, you know, that have a heart for teaching. As far as, Juanita, your question about supervision, the supervision is given to you in the fifth course and the sixth course. And so that means that, you don't it's given to you online by your instructors as part of the course.

23:08So you don't have to find a supervisor or anything like that. You do have to find directees, and we ask you to do that, but we work with you as we go through the courses. We really start in the 300, the third course, talking to you about how to find those directees, maybe starting to just kind of sit with people as prayer partners and, like, little by little move into that. So, but you should be finding your own directees. We we you your the supervisors are are our instructors. Thank you so much for those questions. So you said, did you provide so, Juanita, I hope you understand that Do do you provide supervision, virtually? Yeah. It's it's part of the classes, so it is done virtually like some of the other meetings that are done on the platform.

24:05So I read about Rainy and Christie being associated with your program. Well, as far as that, the, the Divine Mercy University is a university that's sponsored by the legionaries of Christ. So sponsored by the legionaries of Christ means that, you know, when a Catholic university wants to start, they have to either be diocesan or they have to be sponsored by religious order. So the people that started Divine Mercy University, these clinicians decided that they wanted, the legionaries of Christ to sponsor them. So the legionaries of Christ sponsor them. The president of Divine Mercy University will always be a legionary. They have a few, seats on the board. Great relationship with the Diocese of Arlington here.

24:56Tons of support by the Bishop. So I hope that answers your question. Great. I think I have answered the questions that have come up for now. Thank you. Okay. So let's move on. So I explained a little bit this way. Each term is eight weeks. So the classes when we're talking about a course, we're talking about a course being eight weeks long. Right now, we're in the summer term, so we're actually in we just started the third week of the summer term. So we do you take one course at a time. Every term, we also offer all the courses. So if you need we ask that you take the first and the second course consecutively. But once you get into the second tier of the program, you can take a leave of absence if you need to.

25:52We just don't want you to do that at the beginning because we think it's important for you to get, you know, a certain momentum going with your learning. Typically, it requires six to nine hours a week of work, you know, between listening to videos, watching videos that we have on the platform, doing the readings, doing the assignments. Right? That's what we built it for, and that's that's what the students report to us. Roughly, there is about nine to ten week break between each term. The only exception is between now and the summer term. It finishes, like, July I forget. It's, like, the sixteenth or something, and then the fall term starts, like, August 21. So this is when it's a little bit shorter.

26:39But other than that, there's usually about a nine to ten week break. So that means that we run a term from August through October, then we have a break. The next term is January through March, then there's a break, and then the next term is May through July. So this just allows you to do take care of the other things that you need to be taken care of in your life as you move along. And, we'd like it also just to allow you we don't wanna rush you through the program. There's there's certain things that just need to be assimilated over time. So we wanna continue in this continue in this educational formative process for two years and just accompany you through that. So this is the cost of the program right now.

27:36I do have a caveat here. We just had to raise the price of the residency just because of the way price things are going up. So you'll actually see that on the website. I didn't get a chance to change it on the slide. So the courses still are $800, of course, but the residency has gone up to 1,350. The residency cost covers the lodging, the materials, most meals. You're responsible for dinner Thursday, Friday, and Saturday, but we give you dinner on Wednesday when you arrive. And breakfast is a part of your your hotel stay, and, then we have dinner we have lunch together at the university each day. And then there there is a fee of practicum or practicum with supervision. This happens when you maybe finish that scenario that you finished all the classes, but you haven't finished your practicum hours.

28:31And if that were to happen, this is the price, $50 per term or a $100 per term if you're receiving supervision through one of our instructors. It really depends upon how fast you finish your practicum hours. All to all altogether, we're looking at a price of 7,500, dollars. There are people that come to us that have partnerships with the university, so a certain discount is given at 10% discount. And then, if you go on further in the program and get accepted to the second tier, which is in the 300, there's discounts for people that are active in their church and can get, like, a letter of good standing, just to show us that, you know, they're really gonna be at the service of the church. So we we just weren't really wanna help them support their faith communities.

29:26Let me just the application itself is online. I'm gonna I'm gonna bring you to our website just as we finish this, but I did wanna say that this is the information of the person, our admissions adviser, Greg Shapiro. This is his email. I'm gonna show you where you can find this online, because sometimes it can be hard, just to keep this information. But please feel free to take a picture of this so you can get in touch with Greg. It's always great to talk with him so you can kinda just talk about your personal needs. So let me see if there's any more questions here. So, Kevin, you're asking I'm thinking this addresses one's autobiography where one is in her his or her interior life. How could we how can we put in perspective if we're ready to enter such a program?

30:26Yeah. Definitely, it is a discernment. We do not ask you to know if you want to definitely know if you wanna be a spiritual director. The first couple of courses really can kinda work you through that. But you definitely have to be someone that, you know, maybe has had an experience of spiritual direction and definitely someone that has been involved in a faith community, has a, you know, a decent knowledge of your own faith, and has walked with the Lord. We're we're looking at people that you know, the people that come to these courses are not saints or holy people or, untouchables. Right? But they definitely are people that have lived lived a committed relationship with the Lord. And if you do have a spiritual director, we ask you to kind of talk to them about this and discern with them, you know, if this is the time for you, if this is a program for you.

31:23We definitely do spend time, Kevin, with some of the different we have you journaling as you're going through the certificate and the different courses. And, also, the second course, we you know, as we're talking about human development, we have you do some activities that where you're just reflecting upon your own human development and how relationships reform over your life. So that should be helpful. And, Juanita, you're asking I read a little further incident here and he said the d SDC program provides expertise of DMU with the spiritual apostolic. Yeah. So because the legionaries are in are Reunion Christi members, they belong to the spiritual family that's called Reunion Christi. So there's definitely, the course has a lot of spirituality in it, from all different traditions.

32:15So I don't really say it's like Reunion Christie. It's just that the legionaries belong to Reunion Christie. So that tradition is just part of the school. That spirituality is just part of the school. I hope that answers that to you, Juanita. And we do have Randy Christie members that study in the program and, and as well as other or other organizations that send their people to our program. It's a real diverse group of people that you will find, in the program. Juanita, you can always if you need maybe it's just to talk it through to try to understand it because I don't know if you're if you're understanding. You can always get in touch with Greg or my also, my email is there on the website, and we can set up a time to talk if there's anything in particular that I can help you there with.

33:17Well, is there anything else, any other way that I can help you all to understand a little bit more about our program? I hope this has been informative for you. As with any training program, there's, like, ins and outs. Right? There's a practicum. We also ask you to do a retreat experience, a vacation retreat experience if you haven't had that. So there's a lot of different little components, but I think we've covered everything in this time. I hope that helps you to give, give a good sense of the program and just, whether you're interested or not, please get in touch with Greg or with myself. As I said, our information, as I showed you, is there on the website. We'd love to hear from you all.

34:04I hope this has been help helpful. God bless you, and thank you all. We enjoyed having you here.