63 Human Formation: The Critical Missing Element

Apr 12, 2021

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Intro: I am clinical psychologist Peter Malinoski, and you are listening to the weekly podcast Interior Integration for Catholics
1. Today in episode 63, we are discussing human formation -- what is it? What do you mine it's missing for many people?
1. Windup: I am going to start with a bold claim and a controversial claim.
  1. For many, many Catholic adults in our day and age, in our culture, there is a much greater need to focus on human formation than on spiritual formation.
  2. Let me repeat that: Many, many Catholic adults at this point in their lives need solid human formation more than they need spiritual formation.
    1. Serious Catholic adults.
  4. Commitment to human formation is so important in the Catholic married sexual life that it composes two of the four legs of my model of a Catholic marriage bed.
    1. The husband's commitment to human formation -- one leg
    2. The wife's commitment to human formation -- the other leg
    3. Another leg is really understanding attachment and integrity needs (episode 62)
    4. Another leg is a model the Internal family systems-informed model of the person with a self and with parts -- we are a unity and a multiplicity -- episodes 60 and 61.
    5. The floor is the a deep, abiding, childlike trust in Mary our Spiritual Mother and God our Spiritual Father.
    6. Building a whole bed here, starting in episode 58. No need to review all of it now.
  5. So many Catholics with lots of spiritual formation who have built their spiritual lives on a very, very unsound natural foundation, with mediocre or poor human formation.
    1. So their spiritual lives are unstable.
    2. Example of early client -- extreme example
      1. Mid 30's, very earnest Catholic, very sincere, distressed -- I have to help his wife understand the Faith. Wife was Catholic, but a lot of tension between them about his spiritual practices.
    3. 1. Danger of divorce -- wife: get to counseling or I'll divorce you
    4. 1. Wife concerns?
        
        Spending three hours per day in Eucharistic Adoration
        
        Bringing their young children
        
        Our Lady of Lourdes
      2. No gainful employment
      3. Wife feeling constantly criticized by his fraternal corrections, his attempts to help her become more holy.
    5. 1. Spiritual Problems? No -- problems in the natural realm.
        Blended with a part that is so driven by fear.
        Part desperately trying to please an extremely demanding God and Mary -- trying to become holy, Pelagian efforts
        Lack of attunement to children -- alienated from them, they were becoming alienated from the faith
        Wedge in the marriage, wife thinks he's a religious nutcase.
        He recognizes there are problems, wife needs to change
        
        Praying the Rosary
        
        Fatima Visionary Sr. Lucia: There is no problem, I tell you, no matter how difficult it is, that we cannot resolve by the prayer of the Holy Rosary.
    7. Problems come from his distorted human formation.
    8. Priest sex abuse scandal.
      1. Can frame it all spiritually.
        The priest who sexually abused children gave in to lust, it was a violation of the virtue of chastity, among other virtues. Ok. Hmmm. So it was a spiritual problem, a failure, he gave into temptation. No doubt there are spiritual dimensions to this, including a most grave and serious sin.
        Or is a primary issue with his disordered sexual attraction to children and a real lack of impulse control --problems in the natural realm, a problem with his human formation. That makes so much more sense to me as being primary.
    9. Scrupulosity -- so often seen as a spiritual problem, but is one of the most frustrating issues for confessors and spiritual directors encounter -- so often it doesn't resolve with traditional spiritual means.
      1. Primarily in the natural realm. Did a whole episode with Adam Cross The Catholic Therapist on human formation issues, the real issues in the natural realm that underlie scrupulosity.
  6. Serious Devastation -- original sin.
    1. Effect on the human body -- death, illness, pain -- and now intensity of pain in childbirth, physical labor and toil to survive scratching out an existence from cursed ground.
    2. Effect on the rest of our human formation
      1. Distrust of God
    3. 1. Fear
    4. 1. Anger
    5. 1. Loss of harmony
    6. 1. Really a kind of dis-integration -- in the world and inside of us.
  7. Grace perfects nature; it does not destroy it. St. Thomas Aquinas
    1. We need to work with our human natures. We need our human natures to be formed.
  9. Jesus discussed foundations
    1. Discussion of foundations in Scripture -- Matthew 7:24-27
      1. 24 “Everyone then who hears these words of mine and does them will be like a wise man who built his house on the rock. 25 And the rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew and beat on that house, but it did not fall, because it had been founded on the rock. 26 And everyone who hears these words of mine and does not do them will be like a foolish man who built his house on the sand. 27 And the rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew and beat against that house, and it fell, and great was the fall of it.”
  10. 1. Jesus as the cornerstone.
  12. Algebra and arithmetic.
  13. Hold up, we're getting ahead of ourselves here. What is human formation?
Definitions
1. Those who follow this Interior Integration for Catholic Podcast know that I am all about defining our terms.
  1. So much rests on a clear understanding of what we are discussing.
2. 1. Human Formation, to be honest is a nebulous term.
    1. Used a lot in Catholic contexts -- primarily in seminary contexts.
  2. 1. A whole section is devoted to human formation in the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops document entitled "Program of Priestly Formation, Fifth Edition" which came out in 2006. pages 29-42
      1. Longest and most complete discussion of human formation I could find in an official church document
    2. 1. 14 pages -- but no definition of human formation.
        The foundation and center of all human formation is Jesus Christ, the word made flesh, paragraph 75
        Also in paragraph 75, we learn that "human formation is the 'necessary foundation' of priestly formation.
        We learn that the goals of human formation is to foster growth so that a man can become
        A free person
        Of solid moral character
        Prudent and discerning
        Invested in and capable of communion, of relating deeply with others
        With Good communication skills
        Affective maturity - integration of feelings, thoughts and values
        Who cares for his body
        Who relates well with others
        A good steward of material...