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Integral Formation
Formation as transformation
A journey into freedom
Through stages and processes
Transformation
• Formation is a radical transformation in all the
dimensions of human experience: affective, moral,
socio-political, intellectual, somatic, religious and
vocational dimensions.
• Since the spiritual dimension is central to all the
other dimensions, transformation is essentially
spiritual transformation.
• In short, the goal of the spiritual journey is
transformation, and the purpose of prayer and other
spiritual practices is to foster this transformation.
Transformation
a process of conversion
Jn. 16.13ff; I Cor.15.51-52; 2 Peter 3.8ff
Self transformation
Transformation
of conciousness
Social transformation
Conversion: A turning from irresponsible behaviour and a
turning toward responsible behaviour in some realm ofexperience –
Gelpi
Initial conversion: a preliminary shift from irresponsible to the
responsible behaviour Ongoing conversion: continuous, persisting
development in all dimensions
Three domains of transformation
• Spiritual
• Moral
• Psychological
Meta-domain
Seven Dimensions of
transformation
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Religious/Spiritual
Affective
Moral
Intellectual
Socio-Political
Somatic
Vocational/Charismatic
Somatic
Socio-political
Intellectual
Moral
Affective
Vocatioonal/charismatic
Religious/Spiritual
Spiritual
Practices
Virtues
Spiritual
Moral
Psychological
Self-Capacties
1. Religious and Spiritual
Transformation
• To move away from idols and turn to true God of
Life
• To unconditional commitment to seek God’s Will
as revealed in the person of Jesus and his vision
of the Kingdom of God
• Strategies: Regular prayer, sacraments,
meditation, spiritual reading, fasting etc.
2. Affective transformation
• Taking responsibility for one’s emotional life with
all its feelings, passions and intentions.
• To recognize, accept and integrate emotions to the
rest of life
• Emotional healing: It requires the forgiveness of
past hurts and the replacement of anger, fear, and
guilt with love, compassion, sensitivity and
enthusiasm.
Strategy: spiritual direction, psychological Counselling/therapy,
Progressive ownership of one’s own unconscious capacity for violence and
destructive behaviours
3. Moral Transformation
• move from simple gratification of immediate
personal needs to living by consistent principles of
ethics and justice
• Formed conscience based on Christian moral
principles
• capacity to deal with moral dilemmas and challenges
faced in everyday life
Strategy:
Cultivation of moral virtues
Developing capacity to criticize false value systems that corrupt Christian
conscience
Intellectual Transformation
to pursue the truth relentlessly and confront any form of false
ideology and personal prejudices that rationalize sinful
conduct
• move beyond mere knowledge of religious beliefs and
tenets, and have come to a personal appropriation of these
beliefs
• To understand and express their relationship to God and
Jesus Christ in personally meaningful terms
• easily recognize beliefs that are inconsistent with Gospel
values and eliminate self- deceit and self-righteousness
• sufficient grasp of the theological issues and controversies
surrounding their faith tradition to formulate their own
position or response to these issues.
Socio-political transforamtion
• move and grow beyond personal transformation to
socio-political transformation
• True personal transformation affects the soceity by
confronting the individual with the world, that is the
corporations, institutions, and vested interest groups
that promote other value systems
• Effective participation in the struggle for justice,
peace
Somatic transformation
• Somatic refers to the human body (the temple of the Holy
spirit -1 Cor 6.19), to body structure, and to bodily
sensations, feelings—including sexual feelings—and
memories . It is the physical manifestation of an
individual’s spirit
• Somatic transformation is primarily about wellness. It can
co-exist with disease, and even terminal illness
• to have life-affirming attitudes toward their bodies—
including sexuality—and will have integrated these attitudes
into their philosophy of life.
development of virtues such as temperance and physical fitness
preventive measures such as proper diet, exercise, and sleep to contribute
effectively to one’s vitality, somatic wholeness, and transformation.
Vocational/Charismatic transformation
• Move from a simple attraction to claretian life often
mixed with mundane motives to deeper conviction
and appreciation of the “call expereince”.
• Progressive internalization of the vocational values
and their integration to the rest of life
• Claretian vocation becomes the organizing principle
of ones being and acting.
• One’s spiritual expereince and relational life comes
to be centred in the vocational experience of the
crucified Christ and flow from there
Dynamics of transformation
• “dynamics” refers to the way in which the different forms of
transformation mutually reinforce one another
Eg. Affective trans. animates the other forms of conversion Intellectual trans.
informs and orders the other forms. Moral trans. helps orient the other four
forms toward principles that make ultimate and absolute ethical claims
Somatic
Moral
Vocational
Religious
Religious
spiritual
Affective
Sociopolitical
Intellectual
Counter-Dynamics of transformation
• “Counter-dynamics” refer to the ways in
which the absence of transformation in
one dimension tends to undermine and
subvert transformation in another dimension. Eg. Affective immaturity affects
spiritual transformation.
Self-transcendence
• It is the most basic human drive, which is the radical
desire for a relationship with God
• It is the fundamental desire of the self is to transcend
itself in relationship: to the world, to other, to God.
• only a developed powerful self has the strength to
realize significant transcendence
• The desire to be a self and to reach out beyond the
self must be understood together. . . . This dual
desire of the human heart is. . . self-transcendence
Open to the Other
Centering within
oneself
Formation of the moral domain
cultivation of virtues
• Moral domain includes character, virtue, sin, moral
precepts, and asceticism etc.
• “plant an act, reap a habit; plant a habit, reap a
virtue; plant a virtue, reap a character; plant a
character, reap a destiny”
• Character is a construct which focuses on the
individual’s relationship and responsibility to both
self and community
Self-Care
Physical fitness
Humility
Temperance
Fidelity
compassion
Virtues
Prudence
Justice
Holiness , faith
Obedience,
poverty,
chastity
Fortitude
Charity
Vocational dimension and virtues
Poverty
Chastity
Obedience
community
Enables one to value the tresures of the
Kingdom over against immediate and
perishable goods
Disposes one to transcend love and care
beyond the physical and immediate
gratifications
Ensures the inner freedom to seek God’s will
in one’s life and let oneself be guided by
another for the sake of the Kingdom
Enables one to affecively and effectively live
in community
6 Spiritual practices & methods
Types of practice
Transforming cravings
and redirecting desires
Spiritual method
Healing the heart and
learning to love
Forgiveness; reconciliation; inner
healing work; reframing fear, hurt, and
anger
Centering prayer; meditation;
mantra; community worship;
mindfulness in eating, walking,
listening, and speech
Awakening spiritual
vision
Fasting; single pointed attention;
custody of the senses; exercise
regimen; commitment to simple
living
Living ethically
Practicing right actions, giving up gossip,
practicing truthfulness, confession and
making amends
Developing wisdom
and spiritual
understanding
spiritual reading, committing time to
silence and solitude, recognizing the
sacred in all things
Expressing spirit in
service
Almsgiving, involvement in
volunteer activities, advocating
justice for the poor, etc.
Discernment
Distinguishing between apparent
good and real good.
Accompaniment
13 Self-Capacities
Abilities that are essential for adequate personal functioning and adequate
functioning in relationships and in the community.
Self-Activation
Capacity to identify one’s unique individuality, goals,
and wishes, and then to be assertive in expressing and
achieving them
Self-Mastery
Capacity to achieve a balance of pleasure
and self-control over needs, desires,
wishes, and cravings
SelfAcknowledgment
Capacity to renew belief in one’s own worthiness and to acknowledge having effectively
coped with a crisis or concern
Capacity to experience a wide range of feelings
appropriately, deeply, and without biocking or
deadening their impact
Spontaneity
Self-Soothing
Capacity to limit, minimize, and soothe painful
affects without recourse to emotional numbing,
depersonalization, or de-realization
Intimacy
Capacity to express the self fully in a dose
relationship with minimal anxiety or fears of
rejection
Self-Continuity
Capacity to recognize and to acknowledge that the
inner selfpersists and is continuous through space
and over time
Creativity
Capacity to use the self to replace old
familiar patterns with new, unique, and
different patterns
Autonomy
Capacity to regulate self-esteem and to be alone
with minimal fear of abandonment or engulfment.
Self-Surrender
Commitment
Critical
Reflection
Critical Social
Consciousness
Capacity to forego self-interests that are
obstacles to being caring and
compassionate
Capacity to commit to a personal,
community, or career goal or to a
relationship and then to persevere in that
commitment
Capacity to objectively analyze ideas,
ideologies, and situations and related
underlying assumptions
Capacity to analyze social situations in
terms of ethical and moral assumptions
and consequences
Virtues
Related Spiritual Practices
Religious/Christian
Charity, holiness
Intellectual
prudence
Awakening Spiritual Vision.
meditation
Developing Wisdom and
Understanding
Affective
Self-care,
compassion
Fidelity,
trustworthiness
justice
Healing the Heart, Learning
to Love
Living Ethically
Temperance,
physical fitness
Transforming Cravings
Dimensions of
Transformation
Moral
Sociopolitical
Somatic
Vocational/charismatic Obedience,
chastity, poverty
Expressing Spirit in Service
discernment
Practical application
• Establish a relationship of mutuality
• Begin an assessment of the dimensions of
transformation
• Assess levels of virtues, spiritual practices, and selfcapacities
• Highlight deficits in virtue, spiritual practices, selfcapacities
• Specify a plan
• Implement the plan , assess and monitor progress