Fr. Boniface Hicks joins us once again as we continue our series on integrated personal formation, this time with a Q&A from our live audience. Fr. Boniface answers a wide range of questions about spiritual and pastoral formation, including: 1) What counsel can you give to those who have experienced poor spiritual formation, especially from formators who only acknowledge the spiritual realm? 2) How do you deal with St. Ignatius of Loyola’s “evil spirits” from the IFS perspective? Would this involve a more compassionate approach to temptation? 3) How do you leverage parts in spiritual direction when your director has no experience with IFS? 4) In the context of Colossians 1:15-20, can you share how your inmost self holds space for an encounter with Jesus and some of your exiled parts? 5) Can spiritual direction be positive and productive if the directee has a strong hiding part or protectors that don’t want to be transparent with the director? 6) Can you talk about the prophetic timing of human formation in the context of Pastores Dabo Vobis, given the cultural issues of the meltdown of the family, marriage, etc.? 7) How do different kinds of suffering relate to our parts? 8) In resisting spiritual bypassing, is there not also the risk of bypassing the spiritual, bypassing the walk with Jesus? Is there a way to navigate this?

What makes good spiritual direction? What makes good spiritual directors? And what gets in the way in spiritual direction? To answers these questions, Fr. Boniface Hicks, joins us as continue our series on the integration of personal formation for Catholics. Fr. Boniface is a Benedictine monk and the Director of Spiritual Formation at St. Vincent Seminary as well as the Director of the Institute for Ministry Formation. He is an accomplished retreat master, author of four books on the spiritual life, and a seasoned expert in what it takes to accompany others on their spiritual journeys. We explore the formation that spiritual directors need, how you can recognize when something is lacking in your spiritual direction and the most common human formation challenges and deficits that Catholic spiritual directors are likely to encounter in themselves and in those they serve.

What do the roots, trunk, branches, leaves, and apples of a tree have to do with your Catholic formation? Find out how these, combined with sunlight, water, and soil, bring us an integrated understanding of personal formation grounded in a Catholic understanding of the human person, drawing from Church documents and the sciences of the natural world. By looking at an apple tree, we can understand our own formation and where we need to change and grow much better – and not just as solitary trees, but together, in community, in a forest. Join me, Dr. Peter Malinoski, as we learn how to flourish in love and for love, as Catholics journeying together.