This is one of my final assignments for the ACU course in Leading Mission in Catholic Organisations. It gives you some insight into my ongoing development as an authentic person, retreat facilitator and follower of Jesus. I share this to offer you some fellowship and confidence as we all grow in understanding and skills as leaders of the mission.

One who Casts Light

The most important thing I learnt from this unit is how to cast more light as a leader through cultivating the skills to be a more authentic, self-transcending learner and leader, a more courageous confronter of shadows and a more grateful, creative follower of Jesus’ mission.  Firstly, I will discuss how helpful I found Lonergan’s explanation of how a person truly learns, leads and loves to be for my retreats ministry.  Secondly, I will discuss my experience of stepping into the vulnerable space of confronting shadows privately and in the Catholic culture of today help me to become a healthier and more whole-hearted facilitator.  Finally, I will share with you my first mission statement which is a very helpful take-away for me from this unit.

“Human authenticity is a matter of following the built-in law of the human spirit.” ^[1]   

Lonergan’s explanation of self, moral and religious transcendence was very helpful for me to learn.  As a retreat facilitator I am fascinated to learn how a person can most authentically learn, decide, act, lead and love. His work will inform my approach to retreats in general to bring out the best in the participants, to explain the importance of moving from selfish or pleasure/pain motives to motives of living by worthwhile, good values and to inspire them to fall more in love with the world and with God.   I got a lot out of the group process of asking questions about a work issue through being attentive, intelligent, reflective, responsible and I am sure that retreat participants would benefit greatly, too.  Specifically, my reflection questions for the participants will be influenced by these questions when appropriate, to encourage them to reach for their potential in understanding their own stories and leading authentic lives.  

I particularly enjoyed his inclusive and beautiful explanation of religious conversion, especially how he says that being in love is a stabiliser for living noble values amidst challenges.  I will incorporate that content into some of my retreat presentations.  It fills in some gaps for me between living by values and where to get the power to be able to live a self-transcendent life.  Cognitive identification of values to live by is a great first step, but retreat participants will be doubly empowered if they are also encouraged to fill up the deep well within by falling in love with the world, humanity, nature, God, family, community, the poor and thereby unleash their full capacity to give of themselves for the other, as God does.

“Religious love is the basic fulfilment of our conscious intentionality, of our questions for intelligence, for reflection, for deliberation. It is a fulfilment that brings a deep-set joy that can remain despite humiliation, failure, privation, pain, betrayal, desertion. That fulfilment brings a radical peace, the peace that the world cannot give. That fulfilment bears fruit in a love of one’s neighbor that strives mightily to bring about the kingdom of God on this earth.” ^[2]  

In a different part of my ‘Experience Wellbeing’ ministry/business, Lonergan’s questions help me navigate challenging experiences with clients (those staff members who book me to facilitate a retreat).  As a sole operator, I feel a particular vulnerability when my client gives negative feedback and this theory will help me reach a better, whole-picture understanding more accurately.   My goal is to find a small group of sole operators to share the commitment to Lonergan’s authentic learning, leading and loving with.  It would be fantastic to apply the process we enjoyed in class to our small business challenges so we can develop our skills for attentiveness, intelligence, responsibility and understanding as professionals and benefit from each other’s questioning and insights.

“This includes a willingness to address forthrightly whatever hinders the process of understanding in oneself and in one’s organisation.” ^[3]  

Building on Lonergan’s theory, Stebbins challenges me to be an effective leader by pursuing the correct understanding of myself and those I lead by attentively cultivating an authentic way of knowing, acting and loving and I find Brene Brown’s work echoes these ideas.^[4]  To be an authentic retreat facilitator, I must have the courage to ask sensitive, scary questions and overcome challenges that hold me back in my private life.  Otherwise, I at least prevent an abundance of light to nourish my relationships with clients and retreat participants due to a lack of energy, clarity, confidence and peace and at worst I start casting shadows.  This has been difficult, tiring work but it is very helpful and fortifying as I have become more peace-filled and resilient through discovering and putting into practice the resources I found and I look forward to how much freer I will be in my retreats as a result. 

Johnson’s prompt to investigate and deal with the shadows of leadership extended this reflection process for me.  We cannot become light-giving leaders if we never talk about the shadows of leadership. I have journaled on my own power and privilege as a facilitator, and its risk of shadows and potential for light, using some prompting questions from the lectures.  I want to use my power to create conditions for retreat participants to grow and to recognise that my spirituality is at the core of my work and effects the outcome for the students and staff I work for.  For example, I will be conscious of offering small and big affirmations and invitations to ensure the participants feel safe, respected and involved and that the conditions of the retreat allow them to flourish as a result^[5].   

Johnson and the ‘Spotlight’ movie also prodded me to think about the systemic shadows in the Catholic church.  The movie was confronting for me and made me feel re-sensitised to the gravity of the sexual abuse crisis in the Church.  I will endeavour to use more creative, agency-affirming, all-encompassing language when encouraging participants to connect with the mission of Jesus, together with the rest of the Church.  For example, I became aware that the way I had been referring to connecting retreat participants to ‘the Church’ unintentionally prescribed a passive relationship between them and the traditional capital ‘C’ Church.  This missed a crucial opportunity to welcome, include and encourage participants and decision-makers to be change agents in our Church as well as to shine a light on God’s bigger mission beyond the confines of the Catholic community.  A specific example to demonstrate is that I changed a few sentences in my drafting of my guiding principles in my mission statement.

From: “Connection to Church builds resilience for participants”

To: “Finding new ways to follow Jesus personally and communally builds resilience as participants are strengthened by growing in God’s love and by joining our large, diverse and creative pilgrim Church community.” 

This unit has been such a valuable experience as I was guided to write a mission statement, vision, values and guiding principles for my ministry.  The concept that my retreat ministry does not have a mission, but Jesus’ mission has my retreat ministry is very reassuring and grounding for me. 

“The church does not so much have a mission as that the mission has a church. The church is not about itself; it is about the Reign of God that it preaches, serves and witnesses to, and this makes all the difference.” ^[6]

I am struggling to find a way to balance a confident, professional voice and a humble, grace-dependent voice, considering that I am only doing this ministry as a grateful response to God’s grace but I want to instil confidence in faith formation for staff.  I am still to work out how to make that clear.  This is now on my ‘About’ page on my website. 

The journey to become a whole-hearted, authentic retreat facilitator is a lifelong process of learning, leading and loving, confronting shadows and seeking out the leadership of Jesus and the creative, pilgrim Church.  This unit has offered me such deeply rich resources for my ongoing professional and personal development and I am very grateful.  The profound and practical teachings from the course have empowered me as a leader, facilitator, business-woman, family member and Christian.  I look forward to implementing the lessons and growing as an authentic leader who allows more light into her own self so she can cast more light for others.

Bibliography

Lonergan, Bernard J.F. “Self-Transcendence: Intellectual, Moral, Religious,” in Collected Works of Bernard Lonergan: Philosophical and Theological Papers 1965-1980, vol. 17. Edited by Robert C. Croken and Robert M. Doran. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2004.

Bevans, Stephen. “The Mission Has A Church, The Mission Has Ministers.” Compass 43 (2009): 3-14

Stebbins, J. Michael. ‘Leadership, Discernment, and the Elusiveness of Understanding.’ In Business as a Calling: Interdisciplinary Essays on the Meaning of Business from the Catholic Social Tradition. Edited by Michael Naughton and Stephanie Rumpza, ch 13. 2004.

Johnson, Craig E. Meeting the Ethical Challenges of Leadership: Casting Light or Shadow.  Los Angeles: Sage: 2012.

Jacobs-Vandegeer, Dr Christiaan.  THCT505: Leading the Mission in Catholic Organisations Lecture Notes.  Sydney:  ACU:  2019.

1.   Bernard J.F. Lonergan, “Self-Transcendence: Intellectual, Moral, Religious,” in Collected Works of Bernard Lonergan: Philosophical and Theological Papers 1965-1980, vol. 17. ed. Robert C. Croken and Robert M. Doran. (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2004), 318-325.

2.  Lonergan, “Self-Transcendence,” 326.

3.  Michael J. Stebbins, ‘Leadership, Discernment, and the Elusiveness of Understanding,’ in Business as a Calling: Interdisciplinary Essays on the Meaning of Business from the Catholic Social Tradition, ed. Michael Naughton and Stephanie Rumpza, ch 13. (2004), 7.

4.  Dr Christiaan Jacobs-Vandegeer,  THCT505: Leading the Mission in Catholic Organisations Lecture Notes.  (Sydney:  ACU:  2019).

5.  Craig E. Johnson, Meeting the Ethical Challenges of Leadership: Casting Light or Shadow.  (Los Angeles: Sage: 2012). 4-12.

6.  Stephen Bevans, “The Mission Has A Church, The Mission Has Ministers.” Compass 43 (2009): 3.

The goal of Christian faith formation retreat is to assist the participant to grow in discipleship with Jesus and in community with others so she/he is closer to living a fulfilling life of love.  Virtue Ethics with a Christian perspective is a very helpful in my work as a retreats facilitator because it engages retreat participants in a process of whole-person moral development which is very conducive to faith formation. 

The virtues are easily accessible anchor points for a broad range of participants especially given the time constraints of a retreat. The process of learning the importance of virtues from and alongside admirable, virtuous people gives retreat participants a whole-person method of moral development. The living of a virtuous life is respectable and this gives the retreat participant a sense of noble confidence and identity that transcends his/her material circumstances.  The vocation to build virtues into one’s character until they become habitual strengthens his/her resilience through times of failure, loss, change or confusion because there is room to learn from all our experiences and recalibrate our character to more closely align with the virtues.  In the final section of the essay, I will outline an example of how Virtue Ethics influences the retreat experience.

Virtue Ethics offers anchor points that give retreat participants an inner compass for their everyday choices and sense of identity.  Broad ranges of retreat participants readily acknowledge the value of virtues and this enables deeper reflection in the time-restricted retreat context.  The framing of personal moral development in terms of virtue is an inclusive and time-efficient pedagogical tool. Analytical discussion of Natural Law reasoning, Kantian theorising or Utilitarian arguments would be too onerous, academic, impersonal for a retreat setting and may even exclude a portion of the participants.   As Pope Francis emphasises in Amoris Laetitia, according to Bishop Robert Barron (2018), rules are good but on their own they are an insufficient formation process for moral development.  Virtue Ethics gives space to develop one’s character and sensitivities to relationships and circumstances, not just fulfil obligations or do one’s duty.

As an apprentice painter sits with, observes, imitates and learns from his teacher, so the retreat participant learns how to be virtuous by being educated by a virtuous community and by following virtuous role models.  In the retreat program, participants learn from a particular Scriptural story or passage that reveals the character of Jesus to gain a broader understanding of the reasons for the virtue, not simply how to apply the letter of the law.  The participants gain inspiration, encouragement, motivation and wisdom from the role models present in the program and from the stories I share of role models in poverty-stricken communities in rural Malawi, Africa, where volunteers and Canossian Sisters run kindergartens to give hope to the children.  The more connected participants are to virtuous role models, the more they will develop their own virtues and lead more virtuous lives. 

To be a person of virtue is a respectable and resilient identity, one which can carry the retreat participant through the good and bad times, losses and gains, rich and poor times of life.  This is a powerful message for retreat participants who are often searching for anchor points as they work out who they are and what they value.  Virtue Ethics is helpful because it offers a whole-person vocation to living a virtuous life and it has an inbuilt way of dealing with inevitable human flaws and failings.  A person can use times of failure as a way to learn the importance of the virtue due to its absence and recalibrate their position on how to apply the virtues to their circumstances (Braun 2019, Virtue Ethics Lecture).  By recommitting to the virtue and recalibrating one’s understanding and application of the virtue to the circumstances, a person is still able to become more virtuous and thus retain their sense of identity and confidence. 

Virtue Ethics involves the whole person because it requires the development of a rational understanding and application of the virtues and an application of the virtues into their personal character through experience with the aim that they become habitual (Andrews & Miller 2009, p 67).  This process supports with the retreat experience which also appeals to the whole person.

The engagement of the retreat participant’s rational mind involves the following on retreat:

• We explore passages or stories in Scripture to find out what virtues Jesus is demonstrating and/or teaching and why they are important.  For instance, we look at when Jesus tells His listeners during the Sermon on the Mount that they are ‘salt of the earth’ (Matt 5:13).  The meaning we extract from this passage is that like salt we are to preserve the good in others (as salt preserves food), protect the vulnerable (as salt protects wounds from infection), develop our gifts and share them (as salt gives flavour) and be confident in our worth (as salt was used as currency at that time).  So we discover the virtues of beneficence (preserve the good in others), justice (protect the vulnerable), charity (be generous to share our gifts) and modesty (have appropriate self-worth). The reasons why these virtues are important are revealed in the way Jesus is calling His listeners (and us) on a holy vocation to be virtuous, salt of the earth people but the exact application to any given circumstance is not offered.
• I share stories about kindergarten volunteers in Malawi who demonstrate the application of these virtues amidst very challenging circumstances of extreme poverty.  The above ‘salt of the earth’ virtues are demonstrated by these volunteers in their context and this offers inspiration and confidence to the participants.
• The participants then hear a story from one of the role models present on the retreat about how they apply these ‘salt of the earth’ virtues to their day to day choices.  The participants naturally find this very engaging and motivating.
• The participants reflect on their own lived experience to explore the importance of the virtues.  In small groups, they share a story that demonstrates when they learned why a particular ‘salt of the earth’ virtue matters.  E.g.  a retreat participant will typically recall a memory of a time where they were impacted by the virtues of an influential person in his/her personal life.

To develop their character on retreat, participants will:

• Reflect on how virtues are safe in the middle, as opposed to being excessive or insufficient. For example, for modesty, participants will explore how an excessive emphasis on one’s value is egotistic whilst an insufficient view of one’s value is unduly self-depricating.
• Choose one virtue that resonates with them as the most useful at the current time.  E.g. a teenager who is struggling with self-esteem will often pick ‘know my great worth’ because she/he wants to develop a stronger sense of identity and self worth. 
• Commit to developing the virtue in their personal character. This is done in written and spoken reflection and symbolic artwork.  E.g. participants share their chosen virtue with a partner who then paints a symbol of that virtue onto a glass candle holder.  This special momento serves as a reminder to strive for and recalibrate back to the virtue.
•  As participants extract virtues from their own personal stories, their self-confidence and resilience improves as they start to identify with the noble, moral life. 

The retreat offers several opportunities to develop the virtuous habit:

• The participants are arranged into small groups where they have several challenges to accomplish such as team-building games and the respectful sharing of stories. 
• They also have plenty of opportunities in all elements of retreat including meal times, free time and rituals.

The moral theory of Virtue Ethics is the most influential theory for my retreats because it engages the whole-person in moral development.  I find that integrating Virtue Ethics into the retreat experience to be a resilience-building, encouraging and motivating for a broad range of participants.

Reference List

Andrews, A & Miller, S 2009, Ethics in practice moral theories and the professions,  UNSW Press, Sydney.

Bishop Barron, R 2018, Bishop Barron on Pope Francis and Virtue Ethics, Word on Fire, https://www.wordonfire.org/resources/video/bishop-barron-on-pope-francis-and-virtue-ethics/ visited 22/5/19  (comments on Pope Francis’ apostolic exhortation Amoris Laetitia)

Braun, S  2019, notes from Virtue Ethics lecture in PHIL506: Ethics in a Faith Based Context, ACU Melbourne.

How do you define and describe the soul and spirituality for a broad range of people? 

The human soul is the life force within each of us, animated by God[1], our spirituality is how we cultivate and express that energy in either healthy or unhealthy ways[2] and the ultimate fulfillment of a healthy spirituality is to love and be loved[3]. 

Engaging language about the soul can form the basis of a new set of personal narratives for retreat participants that offer new possibilities[4].  In my retreat work with children, teenagers and adults, the above broad definition breaks open what it means to cultivate a healthy spirituality much more readily and invites all participants to reflect genuinely on their lives.

The above empowering definition of the human soul and fulfilment of human life is grounded in Genesis. The main lesson from both Genesis stories is that every person is alive by the love of God and we find fulfilment through living harmoniously with God, each other and the earth[6].  In Genesis 2:7 we learn that we come alive by the very life of God as we read, “and he breathed life into the earth creature’s nostrils to come alive”[7].  Rolheiser profers that our soul is something we are, an unquenchable desire, the very ‘life-pulse’ that makes us alive[8]. Groome explains that we are alive with God’s own life, our breath is his breath of love for us, and our soul is the animating principle of this[9]. 

This soul, this life-force within us, compels us to restlessness, not peace, according to Rolheiser[10].  It seems that our soul is constantly experiencing loneliness, an insatiable hunger for a deeper connection.  It always stirs us forward, outward or inward, striving to quench an unquenchable fire.  Made in the image of God (Genesis 1:27) we are wired for connection and for transcending ourselves in love[11]. 

Everyone has a soul and spirituality.  Spirituality is how we cultivate and express that fire within us.  Our spirituality can be healthy, integrative and life-giving or unhealthy, dismantling and destructive.  A healthy soul and life-giving spirituality, according to Rolheiser, will keep us energised, vibrant and hope-filled as well as keep us ‘fixed together’, integrating our sense of how we belong and why we are here.  Our soul is our aliveness and the way we stay unified throughout our whole person.  The energetic and integrative aspects of our soul can be suffocated by too much order and dissipated by too much chaos, leading to loss of life [12].

The acknowledgment and empowerment of the human soul and development of a healthy spirituality can be a profound source of confidence, resilience and inspiration in a society that often denies human dignity and defines a human by what he/she can consume[13].   If a person identifies themselves as having a soul, a spirituality and a foreseeable path to human fulfilment based on love, then she/he has access to personal narratives that open up many possibilities regarding inner strength, resilience, peace, hope, joy, confidence, healthy relationships and courage.  Creating a new narrative in which the person is the main character shapes meaning and changes the way we interpret the world around us and our agency within it.  What we emphasise or neglect in our personal life narratives has real effects on us and how we behave in the world[14].

In Evangelii Gaudium, Pope Francis explains that the use of images can be a particularly impactful and relatable way of conveying the wonderful truth of the Gospel and awaken a desire within people to move towards love [15].  I have already found that using the above language and images has engaged 3 broad groups of teenagers. 

A thirteen-year-old girl sketched these images at a retreat day recently.  Her first drawing responded to the question, “What does your soul look like today? 

“I have all this fire within me, and even my wings are on fire because I have all this love and happiness inside me, but I can’t work out how to express it to my family.”

Her second sketch responded to the question, ‘How would soul look if it was 100% confident?”

“If my soul was 100% confident I would know how to spread love and happiness easily and freely with my family and everyone. My fire wouldn’t be trapped.”

The following retreat activities invited her and her classmates to make commitments towards creating a healthy spirituality that finds expression in loving and receiving love from others, ourselves and God.  It was clear by the enthusiasm and thoughtfulness showed by the girls that this language engaged them meaningfully and empowered them with new confidence. This particular teenage girl thanked me after retreat for helping her to see new ways she can be confident and more loving in her world.  To me, that is the evidence of effective, empowering language around the soul, spirituality and human fulfilment through love.

The soul is our very life-force, given by God, our spirituality is the way we express and cultivate that energy in either life-giving or destructive ways and our fulfillment is found in loving and being loved.  This broader language is an exciting tool for me to use in retreats as a way of inviting participants to re-write the way they see themselves and their ways of being in this world.  When people are empowered to cultivate healthy spirituality they increase their toolset for building inner strength, confidence, hope, love, peace and joy and so engaging language around this topic is crucial for improving their wellbeing.

Copyright 2019 Donna Power

[1] Groome, T. H. ‘Who do we think we are? Living as graceful people’ in Groome, Thomas H., What Makes Us Catholic? Eight Gifts for Life. 1st ed., (San Francisco: Harper SanFrancisco, 2002) Page 50

[2] Rolheiser, R. The Holy Longing: The Search for a Christian Spirituality. (New York: Doubleday, 1999). Page 6

[3] Francis (2013). Evangelii Gaudium (#39), see www.va.com.au , (accessed March 22 2019)

[4] Freeman J, Epston D, & Lobovits D. Playful Approaches to Serious Problems: Narrative Therapy with Children and their Families. New York: W. W. Norton & Company, 1997. Chapter 3, Page 47

[5] Rolheiser, R. The Holy Longing: The Search for a Christian Spirituality. (New York: Doubleday, 1999). Page 6

[6] Jacobs-Vandegeer, Dr Christiaan.  Lecture notes during THCT504: Catholic Ethos and Care of the Person in Grad Cert in Leadership and Catholic Culture (Melbourne: ACU, 2019) Monday March 18.

[7] Groome,  ‘Who do we think we are?’  p 50

[8] Rolheiser, The Holy Longing: p 12

[9] Groome, ‘Who do we think we are?’  p 50

[10] Rolheiser, The Holy Longing’ p 3

[11] Francis (2013). Evangelii Gaudium (#39), see www.va.com.au , (accessed March 22 2019)

[12] Rolheiser, The Holy Longing P 11-14

[13] Francis,  Evangelii Gaudium (#55)

[14] Freeman, Narrative Therapy with Children p 47

[15] Francis, Evangelii Gaudium (#157)