December SDC Webinar

0:00We try to run these webinars on the first Thursday of each month at eight 08:00PM Eastern Standard Time, just to be able to give some information about the program. Sometimes when I'm able, I try to get a faculty member or an alumni or a student on with me to talk about the program. My name is Maria Brackett. I'm the director of the spiritual direction certificate here at Divine Mercy University. Have a pleasure to be to have this great job. So I'm a spiritual director myself, and, and I enjoy I enjoy it. It's a beautiful ministry, and I enjoy helping others also to become a spiritual director. So welcome. Great to have you here. Let's get started. As I was saying, if you have any questions that come up, please put them in the q and a box, and I'll answer them at the end end of the webinar.

0:58But just, you know, put them right there as they come to you so that you don't forget. Right? So we can get to that. I will leave some time at the end. This is what we're gonna cover tonight, to the, you know, who we are as a university, what is spiritual direction about our program, time frame intuition, and how to apply. Divine Mercy University actually is celebrating twenty five years this year as a university started by a group of Catholics and Christians in the human sciences, the field of psychology and counseling, who really wanted to integrate faith and science. And these laypeople got together and founded this university. And as they were doing it, they realized that one of the things that was missing from the field of psychology was an articulation of the Catholic Christian understanding of the human person.

1:56So that's really has become the heart of the work of the university. They published a book. We published a book in 2020, that's called the Catholic Christian meta model of the human person, which talks about which says Catholic philosophy, theology, and the human sciences, and talks about who the human person is and all their different aspects and how they can fulfill find fulfillment in what we call flourishing and in human existence. So it's a joy for me and a great honor, truthfully, to work at the university. I started working with the university back in 2016 when we designed the spiritual direction certificate. And in 2020, I came on as the director of the spiritual direction certificate.

2:48We're in our sixth year now as a certificate. We've graduated, a 175 students at this point in time, so it's pretty exciting. The university itself has all the accreditations that is needed for a university as well as those that are needed for a university that teaches counseling and psychology and grants those degrees. So you can be sure that the university is, a good university. And just recently, the the Newman Guide just started working with universities and approved our university. So that's just a great honor for us. Those that are Catholic probably are very familiar with that organization. I always like to talk about what spiritual direction is and kind of how we understand it right from the get go because I think it's important all of you that are looking to be trained as spiritual directors or looking into this ministry.

4:00I think it's probably a question that you have. You're you're probably looking for a training program that has a very similar understanding that you have to spiritual direction. Of course, our understanding of spiritual direction is nothing new. We really, really kind of embed it within the Catholic tradition, being a Catholic university ourselves, and and really just try to share the richness of that tradition of spiritual direction. The Catholic church really has the oldest tradition of spiritual direction, and everyone will tell you that because it's kind of where it was born, within the monastic tradition. So, what is spiritual direction? How we do understand it? We understand it as a type of accompaniment, assisting people on their path to the Lord.

4:55Needless to say, it is one on one relationship sitting with someone, listening to them, helping them to grow in their relationship with the Lord. See acts of being there for that person and service both to them and to the Lord. Deep listening. And, again, deep listening to the person and deep listening to the Lord. And really trying to help that person, that direct deed to deepen in their experience of the Lord and his narrative or how he might be present in their lives. The goal really is to help a person in their pilgrimage here on this earth to grow closer to God. It's not designed as therapy. It's definitely not mental health counseling. It's not therapy of any sort. It's really designed as a walking with someone as they walk with the Lord.

5:53It can be a type of formation because as we are discipled by the Lord and walk with him, of course, he's a great teacher and he's always teaching us. So someone that is trying to follow him will learn from him. And there are moments and spiritual direction where you might illuminate or just illuminate is a big word, but, you know, teach a little bit about something if you feel like the directee might need that. I often just, refer them to resources where I think they can find helpful information. What spiritual direction is not? Well, I said it's not therapy. Therapy is really, geared to human functioning difficulties, or human, health mental health issues. Right? But spiritual direction is really about faith, and the walk of faith.

6:48It you know, catechists or teaching, that's a classes or type of formation that you go to. And it's very intro helpful and important for our faith life, because we need to eliminate our intelligence to help us to grow in our faith. But this really is more of a listening, a walking with that kinda accompaniment. Evangelization also is a really noble ministry with a purpose of proclaiming the gospel to those who might not have faith. And spiritual direction and contrast is for those people who who do have faith and wanna deepen in that faith. Some I call this slide myths about spiritual direction spiritual direction within the Catholic church and also within the Christian tradition really grew up through the monastic.

7:51Well, at first, it was Jesus with his apostles. Right? And then the apostles going out and, doing this with others. Right? And then we have the the early desert mothers and fathers, right, where people would go out to the desert and get, seek spiritual counsel from them. But very quickly, it became associated with monastic life and, therefore, associated with clerical life. Right? And so that's why it's kind of natural as for us to assume that all priests are spiritual directors. But in 2011, the Catholic church came out with this document that's called the priest minister divine mercy and aid for confessors and spiritual directors. And it talks about how even priests need training to be spiritual directors.

8:41Right? So the understanding of the church is that a priest definitely is trained to give spiritual counsel. That's what they give when they go when you go to, confession often. Or if you just ask a priest, you know, for a meeting to talk, that's what he'll be doing. But spiritual direction is really building a relationship and especially helping someone to discern. So the church really in that document says, you know, that there is a need for greater preparation to afford the the priest's ability to for diligence, discernment, and spiritual accompaniment. And in that same document, myth number two that laypeople cannot be spiritual directors is also talked about. And it says, you know, while spiritual direction was always imparted by monks and priests, other members of the faithful, religious and lay, Saint Catherine of Sienna, for example, who was not a religious, who was a lay woman, have also given spiritual counsel.

9:45They are to found also well formed lay people, both men and women, who offer this this service and counsel along the journey of holiness. I like to point out always that the, you know, the first spiritual director that Pope John Paul the second had was a layman, Jan Tranowski. Right? And he's the one that taught John Paul the second about mystical prayer and began journeying with him in that in that beautiful tradition of prayer. And oftentimes people are looking for someone that lives the same vocation that they live or, can understand their reality a little bit more. So that's why, you know, a layperson, is someone that can practice this ministry. So don't feel strange if you are a layperson and you're feeling called to this or moved to this.

10:35There's definitely a place for it. Myth number three just talks about Catholic parishes or diocese or faith communities, Christian faith communities. Why don't they can they not have offices? Can they not recommend? Can they not have a list of spiritual directors? And this also is addressed in this document that know that there can be, that these these diocese or offices can have, you know, they can oversee spiritual direction, and, they can offer spiritual directors to their community. It does take a little bit of work. I think that's on sometimes why diocese just don't get that wrap their arms around that, but they definitely can do that, and parishes can too or other, you know, faith communities.

11:31So let's talk about, the program itself. Right? The program itself is a six course program, with two residencies that occur here in Sterling, Virginia at the university. So that does mean that everything is online, but you do have to come to Sterling twice in the time that you're taking the program. We've made that that those residencies as short as we can, but we do feel like they're necessary for your training because there's just some things that can't be done online. So I'll talk about those residencies and the practicum hours a little bit further along. But the so it's six courses, and they are asynchronous. And what does that mean? That means that you don't have to get on at a certain time to do a class.

12:33You you go through the material with a cohort, with a group of people, and you have weekly deadlines. And if you meet those weekly deadlines, that's what you need to be doing. In the first two classes, we offer weekly meetings where the instructor gets online with you. And you can go to those, or there's another way to do that assignment. But we do offer them because there is that need for connection, and we've seen that it's really helpful for our students to have it. When you go into the third course and the fourth course, you still have those, but they're less because you're doing more of other type of work. And then the fifth and the sixth course, you don't have them because you're meeting for other reasons and doing other things.

13:25So these are the six courses. I just wanna say that these are also on our website, divinemercy.edu. And you just look under academics, find the spiritual direction certificate, and there you can find these courses. The course descriptions are what are on the website and might be important for you because I can give you just a general idea of each course. But if you really want to see kind of a summary of the syllabus, go online and you'll find it there. So there are six courses. Basically, we're we dedicate it to, the certificate to you learning the knowledge and the skills needed to be a spiritual director. Right? So it's a mixture of spiritual theology, and understanding of the human person, and the skills that you would need to sit with someone.

14:22So life in Christ and spiritual direction just introduces you to the whole tradition of spiritual direction and the place that it has and a believer's growth in the Lord. The second one of the 200 is about human development and human relationships and for spiritual direction. So that is really a human development course and just helping you to understand relating skills, and this is where we have the residencies. The resident 300 is at the end. The residency in 500 is at the beginning. And so both of these courses are dedicated to teaching you the skills that you would need all the way from, like, how to start a spiritual direction relationship to how to, kinda configure the session, how to work through the session, how to build the the spiritual direction relationship over time.

15:31Right? So just a lot of themes, and we do when you come to the residency, I'll explain those a little bit later, but we do a lot of practicing. 400 is discernment and spiritual growth, really about, what this is like and listening to the good shepherd, listen listening to the voice of the good shepherd, listening to the voice of of the thief and trying to discern between those, and also Saint Ignatius and some of the big hitters and and understanding of discernment. 500, I explained that then 600 really is kind of advanced prayer situations that might come up that, you know, someone that might have maybe mental illness and seeking spiritual direction or going through a period of grieving or things like that.

16:21Just how to work, with those people and how to maybe recognize and refer. And and if they need someone else, maybe they maybe they need therapy, maybe they need some other type of support, that you wouldn't be able to give them as a spiritual director. 500 600 both have a lot of coaching in them because, you start doing your practicum at at the beginning of 500. That means you start seeing people in spiritual directions. So five hundred and six hundred have a lot of supervision sessions with your instructors to kinda pull apart that experience that you're having and coach you through it. So the residencies. As I mentioned before, there's two of them. They take place here in Sterling, Virginia.

17:07That's ability to put into practice the skills and the knowledge that you've been getting under the supervision of spiritual directors and therapists that, we always have in our residencies two leaders, one from the theology side and one from the therapeutic side, kind of just human science side. Not because we think that spiritual direction is therapy. Right? But because what we want therapists there just to help you and what you're experiencing, if there's any need for that. But, also, we all come together as a faith community to kind of just learn from me learn from them the skills that are needed to listen. They're you know, we share these these one on one relationship share often the same skills, and so that's what we're learning from them.

17:58And as I said, the first residency is at the end of the third course or the third term, and the second residency is at the beginning of the fifth class or the fifth term. As I mentioned before, it takes you two years to go through this program. So let's talk a little bit about terms because when we think about college and university, we usually think about semesters. But here at the university, we often run our online courses in terms. So it means that every semester usually has two terms. There's the fall semester, the spring semester, and the summer semester. Each term is eight weeks, so each class is eight weeks. It usually typically requires you six to ten hours of work per week at when you're in class.

18:57We offer three terms a year. I have a little calendar here to kinda show you how that works. And we, and there's usually a break about ten to six to ten weeks between each term, and you complete the course, the certificate in two years. So here's here's just to give you shows you just how our academic years work. So, three so there's three eight week terms per year. There's a spring term. In fact, we have one starting right now, January 8, and I do have spots open for that. So if anyone's interested in that, I'm I'm gonna be giving you my information and, information of an admission adviser that that helps me. We would love to talk to you, and if you're interested, get you started in January.

19:57So there's a spring term that begins in early January. This year begins at January 8 and ends in early March. There's a summer term that begins in late May and ends in mid July, and there's a fall term that begins in late August and ends in mid October. So this means that you can come into the program at any of those terms. Right? So we have three entry points a year. And then, basically, you see when the breaks are on the other side here. Right? And just shows you when there's downtime. So there is a considerable amount of downtime. This is very doable with, a job or other things that you're doing, you know, ministry or and it's beautiful. It gives you a whole community of people that just kind of support and journey with you, the the your fellow students in the cohort.

20:55So what is the cost for the program? Well, each course costs $800. So there's six of them. Right? And then the two residencies, each residency costs $1,350. The cost of the residency is real is because we put you up in a hotel right near the university. Really, you can walk from the hotel to the university. The materials, most of the meals, you're just responsible for three of your dinners. So that this is the cost, the residency because of all the different aspects in it. Right? And then that's the cost of the course. Practicum. Practicum, you start it remember I told you, you start it at the beginning of the fifth course. You have to do forty eight hours of seeing people in spiritual direction and twelve hours of supervision.

21:51The supervision we give you in the courses themselves, you don't have to find a supervisor. But it does there can be a scenario that happens that you finish your six courses and you still haven't finished practicum, or you're on a break between five hundred and six hundred and you are working through your practicum hours. So in those situations, we offer, two other courses, practicum or practicum with supervision. And these allow you to and they ensure for us that you are staying enrolled in the program and you're having supervision as you're going through your practicum hours. This is kind of the nature of a program where you're you're giving knowledge, but you're also trying to form skills and you're trying to coach at the same time.

22:42So practicum is is kind of that dynamic and supervision is an important part of it. So that is the information there. As I said, you can apply to the program. The application is right online there, at divinemercy.edu going to the spiritual direction certificate tab that's under academics, you can find the tab that is the application. It shouldn't take you more than fifteen minutes to fill it out. It's, just, you know, just information of data. Then we do ask you to answer, five essay questions, very short, just, you know, kind of your understanding of spiritual direction, what kind of has formed you in your spiritual life, and then a letter of recommendation from your pastor or the leader of your faith community.

23:35If you're religious, we'd like a leader from the, the superior of your community. So it's not an extensive. It doesn't take you that long. You should be able to do it. This gets you into the first and the second course of the program. And then before you start the third course, we do a little bit more extensive. Did we have a group interview? We ask you for a letter of recommendation from your spiritual director, just a little bit more. And it also just gives you an opportunity to see if you wanna continue committing yourself to these studies. At the end of each course, though, you do get a certificate of completion for each course. So you're always getting those certificates that show that you've completed those studies.

24:24Okay. So, I am gonna go to I'm gonna stop sharing because that's the only way I can see your questions in the q and a. And I'm gonna ask you if you have any questions that you'd like to ask me that you do put them in the q and a, and I'll go there and start answering them. Isabelle, I see you're saying, could you take two courses in spring, two in summer? No. We don't allow you to take two courses at a time. I know that some people could have that time to do that, but we do want kind of a slow learning. It's a contemplative process. No. It's not just a training. So we wanna slow learning to be happening. And, we definitely give you a lot of information in, in each course, and, there's, you know, a lot of readings.

25:27All the readings are online. We only ask you to buy two books. But they are sorry. I'm getting a little distracted with the questions that are coming in. But, it's it's substantial. And a lot of people just use, you know, if they have more time, they just use more time to dive into the readings. Let's see. Let me go to the questions. Tony. Yes. And your acceptance, yes. I saw. I realized your acceptance are those books, Tony, are the only books that we ask you to buy in the program. So those those books that are mentioned there are the ones that I said that everything else is on is there on the platform. You'll be able to read them. Since we're a university, we're able to get copyright. And so those books that we asked you to buy, which is like Ralph Martin's fulfillment of all desires, and the father Boniface and father father Hicks' book on spiritual direction.

26:34These are ones that we couldn't get licenses for, so that's why we we asked you to buy them. Tony, what is the attrition rate of the course? So, are you asking Tony, like, how many people enter and how many fin people finish? I guess that's probably what you're asking. It's pretty low, like, the the people that start and don't finish. I think it's 10% or it might be eight. I I don't I'm trying to think the last time I I took those numbers, but it's around that. It's pretty low. Usually, people are, pretty pretty intent upon doing it. No. We will give you feedback as you go through. You do have to pass each course. If they're pass fail, they're not really points. So you, and you have to pass each residency.

27:45If you do fail, of course, you can take it again, but we don't allow you to take it more than once. And if you fail a residency, you can't take it again just because they're just so extensive, and it's a lot of money for you to even come out there. Marcellus, what are the two books needed? Those ones that I just mentioned to you, what is the average age of the students? Usually about 40 to 65 kind of in that window. It's, you know, it's an exception. Anyone that's younger than 40 and usually 65, 70, 75. No. That's about the age. It's pretty wide variety. Okay. Let's see. I think there's still some more questions. Thank you so much for this. Tony, I hope I answered that question. Audrey, at what point in the program do you acquire the services of a spiritual director?

28:47No, Audrey. We don't give you a spiritual director. We, if you, by chance, enter the program without one, we ask you to get one by the end of the first course. We can the teachers in your first class suggest to you places that you can find them. They try to help you troubleshoot that with you, but, no. We don't it's not part of the program that we give you as spiritual director. Okay. Let's see. Thank you so much for all these questions. These are great. I love them because, you know, there's just information that I miss telling you. So, Tony, can you talk a little bit about the tuition aid available? So goodness gracious. There's not a lot of tuition aid available. We the university does have tuition partnerships.

29:47And if you go on to the tuition part of the or financial aid part of the university's page, you can see a list of tuition partnerships. So if you belong to any of those diocese organizations that have tuition partnerships with the university, you get 10% off of the certificate. In the second part of the certificate, we do give to people that are in full time ministry or do you know, volunteering, at their parish or religious or deacons or priest, we do give a 10% there too. But the most you can get in in the course is 10%. It's just the nature. We try to keep our costs low, but we just don't have extra money. We do have something on our website that is called the SDC grant fund, where you can actually we ask people, like, would you like to donate money so that people can study this certificate?

30:49So if they do donate money, we always try to pass that along. And we usually give first dibs to people that are already studying the program and maybe not able to finish it for one reason or another. Thank you. Okay. Patrick, I see you've got a few questions. I recognize your name too. I heard that there's an integrated start step prior to acceptance. No. There isn't, Patrick. You might have heard that because we just redid the whole, admissions process about a year ago. There used to be, but we we we found out that it would be more helpful for people to get into the first two courses, which just give them an introduction, just kind of helps them to understand. And then we do do an interview before the third course.

31:40There's, we call it the first tier, gets you into the first and second course, and the second tier gets you into the third course and above. So that's when that interview would be. Patrick, hotel costs for the on-site work is included in tuition. Yes. Exactly. You'll see that. Great, Patrick. You one of your when you're, friends just graduated and you spoke with him. That's great. I hoped he helped you out with answers. Okay. Let me see. There's some more here. Cecil Edwards. Good to hear from you, Cecil. Glad to see that you come to the webinar. So I take you don't have to stay with your cohort given that there are different classes you can take at different times. You don't have to stay with your cohort.

32:31I can I do confess, though, that people do want to stay with their cohort and, but you don't have to, especially if you need to take a term off for one reason? We run all the courses every term. So if you do get you know, need to take a term off, we you it's easy to get right into the next term. We do ask you to take the first two classes, right after each other. And then as if you get accepted to that second tier, that third class, you take it right after your acceptance. The first two classes, we really don't give in any exceptions on that just because we want you to kinda dig get in, you know, our rhythm going and get into the material and really help yourself see if this is something you wanna continue on in.

33:20So that's how it works. Sandra, can Deakins and presupply? Of course. And I don't know if you I probably didn't leave the picture of the residency up there long enough for you to see just kind of the mix of people that are in our cohorts, but you'll definitely see, religious sisters and brothers and deacons and priests and no. Jeffrey, in the past, I was told you needed to complete a nation retreat during the program. Yes. It is. You know what? I need to put that on the slides. I probably just need to do a slide of that. If you go into the website, you'll see it's very clear the requirements. One of the tabs says requirements for graduation. So they're to pass each class, to fulfill your practicum hours, to do an in nation retreat of at least five days or more, and to also get liability insurance when you start your practicum, which is very easy.

34:20We walk you through the steps of that, and it's only about $35 for a student in training. So it's not a big deal. But, yeah, those are those are the things that are required. Isabelle, when you say you put us in a hotel, is the hotel cost on you or on No. It's on us. It's part of that $1,350 that you pay for the residency. Is this is this a graduate master's or no, Isabel. It doesn't give academic credit. It's not you don't need a degree to go into it nor do you get any type of degree out of it. I mean, it's definitely academically challenging, but it doesn't give you academic credit. Maybe in the future, we'll redesign it so that it does give academic credit, but we really wanted to be open to people that even have just been in ministry called to this.

35:22And so we didn't wanna put the restriction of you needing to have a degree to study it. No? The level of the course. Okay. So you're the yeah. The level of the course. So I would say it's probably between a bachelor's and a master's level. I mean, it's definitely academically challenging. We have yet to have anyone say that it's easy. That's for sure. But all different types of learners definitely do get through it. Tony, great to hear you're a deacon. Thanks for your service. Great. I'm so I just love all your questions. So happy, that you're here. I wanna put my email. Many of you probably already have this, and it is on the website. But if you this is my email. I just put it in the chat.

36:27If you need anything, have any questions, wanna get on, like, a Zoom meeting with me to talk about particular things, sometimes there's, you know, just individual things that you wanna, talk about or understand, please reach out to me and we can set that up. Also, as I said before, Greg Shapiro is an admissions adviser that is gonna be working is works with me, and he's gonna still work with me until January. So this is his, and many you might have spoken to him. This is, his email too in case you wanna talk to him. We're in the middle of me taking on admissions and him moving to another place in the university. So I'm super excited about that. I love talking to you guys. So I enjoy that. Please let me know if there's any other questions.

37:40Kind of looks like Margarita. I'm answering questions that people put in the question and answer, so that's where that's happening. Audrey, thanks so much. Thanks for coming. Isabelle, would there be an opportunity for advanced the up party sort of close to your heart? I mean, I think there's always a sharing among the students, and we're always open to hearing people have come up with different ideas. And sometimes we can just we find opportunities, where those can be used. But, yeah, I really it's kind of something we'd have to see as we go along. Nancy, you did an Ignition retreat about five years ago. Would that count? Well, Nancy, we do set something from about two years before the program.

38:35You're in the program, but not really five because we want you to kind of have, like, a fresh experience, that you can refer to as you're going through the program. So that's why we do that. What's the average time to commitment? Six to ten hours a week when you're in class. So weekly. Yeah. Six to ten hours, Jeff. Do you have to write research papers? No. We don't have your research papers, Beatrice. We do have to write reflection papers. And the most that they would be would be, a thousand words. Right? A typical one that you guys are doing are 500 words. Right? But every once in a while, we do actually do a thousand, but they're all reflection papers. They're not research papers. Is DMU, Tony, is DMU associated with any religious order?

39:33Yes. Every Catholic university has to be attached either to a diocese or to religious order. And when it's attached to a religious order, it's called being sponsored by the religious order. So the people that started Divine Mercy University approached to the legionaries of Christ, twenty five or more years ago and asked them to sponsor the university. So they are, that every university, Catholic university, does that in a different way. But our university means that the president will always be a legionary of Christ and that certain, I I certain number of people on the board, I think it's two or three. I think it's two. Our, our members of Reunion Christie or, another legionary priest. So that's how that works, Tanya.

40:21I hope that answers your question. Isabelle, you're a consecrated virgin. God bless you. Thank you for that. Great. Am I answering your questions? Mary Dotto, so good to see you. Is a term one course? Yes. Sorry if I didn't make that clear. Yes. A term is one course. Each term, you take one course. Great. Good to see you here. I'm seeing people that have applied to the program. I've seen people that have been accepted to the program and just people that are interested in knowing more about it. So thank you so much. Are there any other questions that you have before we sign off here? Patrick, how do you know you're accepted? Usually, within the week that your application, you get your letter of acceptance.

41:28So yours should go up, Patrick, if it hasn't. Because because you are accepted. So it should it should have gone out today or it'll go out tomorrow. Yay. Happy to have you. Okay. Great. Any other questions before we say goodbye? Thank you so much for being here. Love, just having this time with you. God bless all of you, and please reach out if you need anything. We will definitely have you, well, I pray for all of you every day, everyone that's interested in the program, the students, and the alumni. So definitely count on that. God bless you all, and take care.