There were 38 formators from the eight provinces of America, Australia, Mexico, England, Canada and other places participated in it. Br. Bill Hugo Ofm Cap., the International Councilor for Fomation & the President of the NAPCC animated the whole programme with fraternal spirit and thoughtfulness.
Br. Charles Alphonse Ofm Cap., conveyed the special greetings from Br. Mauro Johri Ofm Cap., our General Minister and also read out the letter of Br. Mark Schenk Ofm Cap., the General Councilor for NAPCC.
“I am happy to accept the invitation of Brother Charles Alphonse to send you greetings. I wish I could be with you personally in warm, sunny California, but alas I must be in (hopefully) warm, sunny Rome this week.
In a way, the venue of the Conference is quite fitting since California is an important hub for modern technology and social media. Their impact, however, is felt far beyond the borders of North America. Not to brag, but I have over one hundred Facebook friends. Unfortunately, I don’t know what half of them are writing about because they it is in Swahili, Tagalog, Czech, or some other language that I don’t know. Walk into almost any friary in the world and you will find brothers with cell phones.
The question how modern technology and social media affect the young men who aspire to become Capuchins, both before and during their formation programs, is urgent and widespread, and the General Council is pleased that you are studying it. As Br. Charles will undoubtedly tell you, the issue was also recently studied at a symposium organized by the Franciscan Institute of Spirituality in Rome. Your reflections will be a welcome addition to a small, but growing body of knowledge that will shape the Order’s attitude and practices for years to come.
I hope your week is both pleasant and productive,” were his very words.
There
were 38 formators from the eight provinces of America, Australia, Mexico,
England, Canada and other places participated in it.
On
21st October 2014 Dr. Gerard McGlone Sj a well-known Psychologist
inspired the formators on the following topics: Resources for practices of attention in formation with young
adults-In the face of the benefits of the internet, what are the challenges?
Issues, Strategies and Practices for formators today-Handling the addictions
& Dealing with Affective Sexuality.
Fr.
Gerard McGlone S j had a dialogical approach and elicited responses from the
formators themselves. This lead to a full participation of the friars with
varied valid questions reflecting their formative journey.
The
insights are: We need to take care of the
‘bio-psycho-socio and spiritual aspects of the human beings. Misbehaviour has
its roots in unhealed and ungrieved memories that are behind a person.
Offenders (of paedophile and
other sexual abusers) had no capacity to understand what their behaviour was
doing to the offenders. The most of the offenders did that on Sunday
(tiredness, alcohol, loneliness, lack of grief (we help other people to grieve
but we don’t do it ourselves). Religious are particularly vulnerable because we
move very often. Why we enable addiction in our fraternities? How are you
preparing them? How you make your community healthier? Why is it healthier
individual come in and end up in being sick? Is our system enabling addicting
behaviour? Are we silently enabling that?
In addictions-affective
maturity drops and spirituality decreases-disengagement in any spiritual
practices. They don’t increase the emotional vocabulary-to identify-recognise
and manage emotions. Once emotion is experienced and it must find some
expressions (here Freud is right). In many fraternities there is no place for
the healthy expression of the emotions.
Compassion Fatigue-early stage
of PTSD-early fatigue, the healthcare workers, they will start loose
boundaries. If you give them chance to talk to someone they will process the
unprocessed feelings. Most priests will be with some guilt. Most of us are
living in undiagnosed trauma. What is your reaction to trauma? We isolate, men
in general are angry, restless, not exercising, not sleeping well. You start
ruminating at night-loose more sleep.
A possible response: Each
of us have to look our own journey-what is your Jerusalem that you are walking
away from and walking back to.
We have to start with what it
means to be happy- Fr. Gerard reiterated that if you do something selflessly to
someone you will not suffer loneliness. Learning to handle the loneliness could
be a starting point in healing oneself. Healthy stress management skills would
be a great help for any addictions. Stress will show up in the body. When you
are more stressed your immune system is compromised.
For our Wellness-we have to
limit the technology-when you shut down you rest, relax and you have
spirituality. It increases our creativity; great people were able to come out
with beautiful things when they were resting. Romans had Villas to breathe a
fresh air.
A happy community is
fundamental to the prevention of any addiction. Just as much as disease is
contagious we can have health, happiness and well-being could be contagious.
Vocational crisis is not about the non-willing souls-but it is about happiness.
Why Pope Francis is attractive because he is happy. Full heart (that expressed
inside and outside) & multiple interests (did things that gave sense to
them) are the two indicators of the happy religious elders. We need the
constant company of such elders and to learn from their wisdom. If people could
integrate the well-being aspects then they will have longevity.
Bio-socio-psycho-spiritual characteristic that means I am flourishing. I am
fully alive and fully human. Let our fraternities become the home of true
happiness and well-being.
Good Books
suggested by Fr. Gerard McGlone S j :
-The Myths of Happiness; The
How of Happiness-by Sonya Lyubormirsky
-The Art of Happiness-by
Dalai Lama
Learned
Optimism-by Martin Seligman
The organised Mind (2014)-by
John Levitin-Wellness
No comments:
Post a Comment