Amazing Catechists

Teaching and learning the faith together

Always Discerning, An Ignatian Spirituality for the New Millennium by Joseph A. Tetlow, S.J.

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I have had this book by Joseph A. Tetlow, S.J. for 2 years sitting in my to read stack, always near the top but somehow getting overlooked. Maybe it wasn’t time before now.

This book was excellent; of course, since it was written by someone “hailed as a world authority on Ignatian spirituality” it would be. But it’s not a heavy, textbook read. It made so much sense. I was taking pictures of the text and sending them to my friends and posting them on social media as I read. It is a very accessible book. I often feel like I am “always discerning” and it can get overwhelming and tiresome, not only for my brain but possibly others, if you know what I mean. Which you do if you are also “always discerning.”

The topics covered range from discerning in a Christian way, the great discernments in our life, why discernment is good, desolation and consolation in relation to discernment, gratitude and putting it all together. Each part has 4 to 6 short chapters, a section called “Touchstones” at the end of each part and a beef excerpt of a talk, homily or letter (usually, but not always) from Pope Francis. Fr. Tetlow also begins each chapter with a quote from Pope Francis. A feature of the book format I loved are the callouts, highlighting a key point on various pages.

One idea that has really stuck with me is about engaging our heads, hearts and hands in discernment. It is not about one of those aspects, it’s about using all of them to live out our baptismal call. The chapters on consolation were a help to understanding the concept better and seeing it in my life. He says, “but in fact, just accepting, on a dull workday morning, that God has made me holy is, in itself, a spiritual consolation.”  Another often recurring theme in life is detachment, that line between wanting what is good and becoming consumed with it, letting the desire control you. Think about this instead: “Spiritual detachment requires accepting my true feelings and ideas but wanting to follow them insofar as they lead me toward God.”

There is much wisdom in this book. And it was written for us, in our time, using contemporary examples and writings to respond to them.  Whether you are a student of Ignatian spirituality or not, you can gain much by reading this book. I know I will go back and read different sections again, as the need arises in my spiritual life.

Always Discerning is available on Loyola Press and Amazon.

Breakthrough Resources

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Coaching happens in the gap between where you are and where you want to be

Image courtesy of Pixabay

Dear Friends in Christ,

Attached are the resources I shared in my recent webinar for Catholic creatives, utilizing coaching techniques to break through in life and art. Please feel free to email me with questions or to request additional resources. I may eventually create a monthly newsletter for breakthrough resources if it seems helpful, but in the meantime, I will keep updating this page.

Text or Email the word COACHING for information on private breakthrough coaching and/or groups for Catholic creatives.

Text: 631-235-9340

Email: lisa@mladinich.com

Coaching is About Your BEST Life:

  • Breakthrough: a prayerfully facilitated exploration of your challenges, personal values, dreams, and goals brings accelerated progress toward living a powerful life
  • Empowerment: learning to live into your authentic values and vision creates clarity and momentum, as you acquire skills that last a lifetime
  • Satisfaction: learning and growing beyond your expectations, while knocking down barriers to success
  • Teaching: optional group sessions provide a like-minded association of Catholic creatives prayerfully connecting and providing support, as participants learn from each other’s insights, struggles, and successes

Private Coaching:

  • 1 free, private introductory session to help you decide if coaching is for you
  • 3 private, 45-minute sessions per month, by phone
  • Sessions begin with a brief prayer, which you may lead if you like
  • Each session is a gentle, guided exploration of whatever brings you to the coaching conversation
  • As the client, you are always in charge of the focus of every session
  • As your coach, I listen deeply and prayerfully to what God is speaking into your heart
  • I stay open to wherever that exploration takes us and ask powerful questions that help you step into new perspectives
  • Coaching provides clarity that allows us to co-design steps toward your goals, with your preferred level of accountability
  • Many additional resources are provided or recommended, as needed
  • It is my pleasure to provide ongoing support between sessions
  • $180 per month

Breakthrough Group Coaching:

  • 1 free, private introductory session before your group begins
  • 2 group sessions per month, online
  • 1 private lesson per month, by phone
  • No more than five participants to a group
  • Every online session includes a short presentation on a topic of interest to the group
  • One-on-one coaching, LIVE, in the group–with each participant in control of the focus of their coaching
  • Takeaways, support, and observations from the group accelerate growth
  • $125 per month

CREATIVITY BOOSTERS (summarized from recent webinar)

  1. Mind-mapping for non-linear brainstorming: https://www.mindmapping.com/mind-map.php
  2. Writing with pen and paper to get ideas moving faster
  3. Working out to release the subconscious
  4. Napping to awaken to creative ideas
  5. Dressing up to change your perspective
  6. Reading to calm your brain and generate ideas

RIGHT-BRAIN ACTIVATORS

  • Asking open questions: who, what, why, how, when?
  • Doing something backward (writing, walking, using your non-dominant hand)
  • Naming wrong (spend a few minutes pointing at things and saying the wrong name for them)
  • Sensory stimulation (get outside and use your senses)

Breakthrough Resources

FREE self-assessment tools for gifts and clarifying purpose: (Perhaps start with the VIA strengths test—a well-regarded alternative to Clifton Strengths.) This site has other assessments as well. https://www.authentichappiness.sas.upenn.edu/testcenter

values-exercise (superb worksheet for identifying core values, as a basis for visioning and purpose work)

Creating a Statement of VisionPurposeMission (worksheet with Scriptures)

18-Wheel-of-Life-Exercise

LIFE_CALLING_ASSESSMENT

Goal-setting Worksheet (.jpg)

Remember that you are irrevocably gifted and called:

For the gifts and the call of God are irrevocable.

(Romans 11:29)

Students Praying to Know God’s Will

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Kids learn from their siblings, their friends, and especially their parents. It is important that from an early age kids see their parents praying, working, serving others, and reading. They will imitate them and over time grow and mature with these indispensable habits. In other words, parents are the first Catechists. And if they are close to their children and affectionate they can inspire them. When parents do this they are Amazing Catechists.

family blessingParents should teach their children from a young age that God has a loving plan for each one of them. This plan is one for their happiness here on earth and in heaven. It is a plan that gradually unfolds like a trip in the country that begins in one place in the woods and leads to a lake and then to a mountaintop. The trip entails preparation, sacrifice and perseverance. Happiness or success in life does not  consist in having many trophies or money to buy things. It lies in doing what God planned for us as his children, using well the gifts that He gave us in this world. This is how we reach the mountaintop which is Heaven.

Blessed Cardinal Newman wrote: “God knows what is my greatest happiness, but I do not. There is no rule about what is happy and good; what suits one would not suit another. And the ways by which perfection is reached vary very much; the medicines necessary for our souls are very different from each other. Thus God leads us by strange ways; we know He wills our happiness, but we neither know what our happiness is, nor the way. We are blind; left to ourselves we should take the wrong way; we must leave it to Him” (Meditations and Devotions).

But how does one know God’s plan for one’s life? Another question is: if God has a plan for me, does He give me any real freedom to choose? The answer to the second question requires more time but, in short, God gives us freedom to choose what is good and true, and the best we can choose is what He knows is good for us. Returning to the first question, we usually discover God’s plan gradually in a number of ways: the use of our reason, circumstances such as people and places that God puts in our path, interests and likes that we have, times of personal prayer and the advice that we receive from persons with experience and good formation.

There is another element to discovering God’s plan: asking Him to show it to us. And this is where parents can help their young children: praying with them every day something akin to the following: Lord, I know that you have a loving plan for me; help me to discover the talents that you have given me and to put these at your service. As children study in middle school they can add to their prayer: Lord, show me where I should study high school and what I should do after high school, how I can serve you with the talents that you have given to me.

Children and youth rarely think in this way. If they did they would receive many graces and listen better to the inspirations of God the Holy Spirit. They would also take more seriously their studies, and develop a vocational sense in life. Rather than go about thinking, how can I have as much fun as I can with as little work as possible, they would think, how can I serve God well, developing the gifts He has granted me. Encourage your children to pray in this way, keeping in mind other words of Cardinal Newman: “God has created me to do Him some definite service; He has committed some work to me which He has not committed to another” (Meditations and Devotions).

Your children who are age ten now will begin college or a trade school in only eight years. This time goes by very fast. Inspire them to be the best they can be, to use their time well and to develop good study habits. In a book I just published, A University Education for the 21st Century: The Opening of the American Mind, I suggest the importance of a liberal arts education based on the classical Western Tradition, and discuss how students and parents can choose between colleges and universities. But long before this, children need to grow in love and friendship with Our Father God and his Son Jesus Christ. They need to thank Him for the talents He has bestowed on them and to develop them through good habits of study and work. And they need to pray to Him for the light to know his plans. In the end, responding to God’s grace, through hard work and service to others, sacrifice and perseverance, they will reach Heaven.

university

Fr. Juan R. Vélez, author of Passion for Truth, the Life of John Henry Newman, and most recently A University Education for the 21st Century: The Opening of the American Mind, available through Amazon. Find Father’s writings on Blessed Newman here: www.cardinaljohnhenrynewman.com