Formation Course for Ignatian Retreat-Giving and Spiritual Direction in a Community and Institutional Context
The Formation Course for Ignatian Retreat-Giving and Spiritual Direction in a Community and Institutional Context forms part of the Ignatian Directors Series which is the flagship formation program of the Center for Ignatian Spirituality-Philippines to help train and form retreat-givers and spiritual directors who are capable of accompanying the ever-growing spirituality ministries in lay, diocesan and religious communities of the Church in the Philippines and Asia. As a Jesuit spirituality center, the CIS Philippines recognizes its important role in promoting the Ignatian Exercises in their integrity according to the spirituality of St. Ignatius of Loyola, founder of the Jesuits and the Church’s patron of retreats. Hence the Center invests much time and resources into forming retreat-givers and spiritual directors who will have the proper skills and dispositions to accompany retreatants who want to pray according to the tradition of St. Ignatius of Loyola.
The CIS-Philippines Formation course consists in a total of eight(8) modular courses which help the participants enter, explore, pray and give Ignatian Exercises and acquire the necessary skills and dispositions to accompany others into the process and dynamic of this important apostolic instrument.
Foundations of Ignatian Retreat-Giving and Spiritual Direction
Foundational to the ministry of retreat-giving and spiritual direction is a deep experience of God’s love and the experience of accompaniment that helps one to notice, relish and respond to God’s person and action in oneself and one’s world. Hence, every applicant to our Directors’ formation modules are required to go through an individually-directed retreat preferably guided by a CIS staff or senior associate.
Target Participants
This course is designed for those who desire to experience an individually-directed retreat in preparation for training and formation for the ministry of accompaniment. This will also benefit lay, religious, and clergy leaders in the ministry of accompaniment who proceed from different spiritualities and who wish to immerse themselves into the wellspring of Ignatian traditions of prayer and retreat-giving and spiritual direction. The CIS staff may recommend waiving this Module as a prerequisite to Module 2 for participants who have recently gone through an 8-day or longer individually directed Ignatian retreat and present evidence in the interview that they already possess some equivalent of the module course objectives for Module 1 as described below. As we need to ensure a common foundational experience of prayer and accompaniment, the CIS staff members reserve the right to recommend that an applicant go through Module 1 if they deem it more helpful for both the would-be participant and the class he or she will join.
Module 1a: Listening to God through Ignatian Prayer: Awakening to Life in Relationship with God
Module Course Objectives: By the end of the module, participants will be able to:
Topics to Be Covered:
Module 1b: Days of Directed Ignatian Prayer
Module Course Objectives: By the end of the module, participants will be able to:
Topics to Be Covered:
Fundamentals of Ignatian Retreat-Giving and Spiritual Direction in a Community and Institutional Context
This second module of the Formation Course formally introduces participants to the ministry of retreat-giving and spiritual direction as a ministry practised with the intent of animating individuals, communities or even whole institutions or societies. The participants are guided through conferences, case studies, real case spiritual direction demonstrations and workshops aimed at providing basic knowledge, skills and dispositions on spiritual direction and retreat-giving whether in individually-directed retreat formats or conference retreat formats. The course is also offered on a staggered basis (12 Saturdays during the regular school year) under the name, “Study Circle on Spiritual Direction and Ignatian Retreat-Giving.”
Beginning this program year (2012-2013), Module 2 will be subdivided into two live-out modules that seek to build competencies more gradually. Module 2a is a 4-day live-out program designed to form and train prayer guides. Module 2b is an 8-day live-out program designed to form and train spiritual directors and retreat guides. Module 2a is a prerequisite for Module 2b. Participants may however postpone moving to Module 2b should they choose to gain some amount of experience in guiding prayer groups before they begin guiding Ignatian retreats whether the individually-directed or conference retreat format.
Target participants:
The course is designed for those who wish to discern the call to ministries of accompaniment, including prayer guides, spiritual directors, retreat directors, campus or youth ministers, seminary, parish or religious formators and retreat house administrators and guides. The first part (Module 2A) will teach the rudiments of fostering prayer in people whether praying individually or in groups. The second part (Module 2B) builds on the first part and elaborates further the skills and dispositions of spiritual direction and retreat-giving in the Ignatian Tradition.
Module 2a: Formation for Prayer Guides (4 days, live-out)
Module Course Objectives: By the end of the Course, the participants will be able to:
Topics to be Covered:
Module 2b: Formation for Ignatian Retreat-Giving and Spiritual Direction (8 days, live-out)
Module Course Objectives: By the end of the Course, the participants will be able to:
Topics to be Covered:
Module 3
Supervised Retreat-Giving Experience 1 [IDR Format]
The Guides’ Formation courses provide for occasions for supervised retreat-giving experiences in Modules 3 and 5 respectively. Module 3 focuses on providing a practicum experience for Individually-directed retreats [IDR] format. Participants are guided through a review and deepening of the learnings of Module 2 and then initiated into directing 1-3 retreatants making a 4-5 day Individually directed retreats, while receiving one-on-one supervision with our Center staff or associates. After the practicum, participants gather together for appropriation sessions on retreat-giving. Only those who satisfactorily completed Module 2 qualify for this third module.
Module Course Objectives: By the End of the Module, Participants will be able to:
Target Participants:
This program is designed for those who have finished the CIS Module 2/Study Circle (or the 2009/2011 Jesuit Retreat House-Cebu Modules 1 and 3A). We invite all who have completed Modules 2A and 2B: Fundamentals on Ignatian Retreat-Giving and Spiritual Direction to engage in actual retreat-giving experience and be accompanied by our staff in appropriating the experience both in the context of one-on-one supervision and through mentoring.
Module 4
Recollection-Workshops on Giving the Spiritual Exercises of Ignatius of Loyola in Full or Adapted Forms
An ideal Institute on the Giving of the full Ignatian Exercises would have participants go through the full thirty-day individually-directed Ignatian retreat and its adapted form the 32-week or so Retreat in Daily Life according the Annotation 19 of the Exercises, and then help them fully appropriate religious experience by introducing theological and psychological handles which help them articulate clearer conceptual map of the spiritual journey. To more fully respond to pastoral needs of various kinds of ministers and to make the formation program more accessible to people, we have divided the Exercises into the Ignatian Weeks and designed recollection-workshops around these Weeks to help initiate people into giving different forms of Exercises.
Module 4A which focuses on the Introductory Annotations and First Week is open to all who have finished Module 3 and are ready to receive further content on the Exercises to substantiate their retreat design proposals. After finishing 4A those who train with us may immediately proceed to Module 5 which is a Supervised Retreat-Giving module for Semi-Directed and Conference Retreats.
Modules 4B and 4D explore the 2nd Week and 3rd/4th Weeks of the Exercises respectively, while 4C tackles the Dynamics of Ignatian Discernment and Election. Modules 4B and 4D require applicants to have experienced the full exercises, whether in the Thirty-day format or the 19th annotation Retreat in Daily Life format and have finished Modules 1-4A.
Module 4C which tackles Ignatian Discernment and Election is a stand alone program and is ideal for those guiding the discernment of people engaged in a serious process of decision-making or spiritual conversion or deepening—formators, vocation directors, superiors, ministry leaders, seminary rectors, and leaders in lay communities, etc.
Module 4a
“Coming Home to our Fundamentum”: Exploring the Exercises of the First Week.
Program Description
As an exercitant enters the Spiritual Exercises, St. Ignatius guides her into praying over the fact of her creaturehood, and on her creaturely existence as founded on God. This process initiates the exercitant into a foundational experience of love and brings her to come home to God who continues to offer his children healing, mercy, conversion and a call to service. This 8-day recollection-workshop is designed to help participants to gain a conceptual map of and an insight into the dynamics of the First Week of the Spiritual Exercises. The process seeks to guide participants through conferences, reflective reading, personal and common prayer, faith sharing and spiritual direction, whether one-on-one or in groups. This offering of Module 4A should help beginning directors make sense of the dynamics behind the Exercises of the First Week— creaturehood, evil and sin, and most importantly the experience of being rooted and grounded in God’s unconditional love. We invite our participants to go through the prayers of the First Week, engage each other in spiritual direction, and receive instruction in basic Scripture and psychology as they tread aspects of the the First Week journey of the Exercises alongside fellow pilgrims and guides.
Program Goals: By the end of the Module 4A, we expect our graduates to be able to:
Topics to be Covered:
Target Participants
We invite practicing retreat directors, spiritual directors, formators, campus and pastoral ministers who wish to deepen in their familiarity with the dynamics of the First Week of the Exercises. This familiarity will not only give an initial instruction for one to preach on the great themes of First Week--Creaturehood, Sin and Mercy, inordinate attachments, active indifference, and God’s call to live out the Magis or “the more,” but more importantly, this will initiate participants into accompanying people who struggle through conversion, the reordering of one’s life, and through attempts at making or renewing ones foundational commitment to God.
Module 5
Supervised Retreat-Giving 2: Conference and Semi-Directed Retreats(Adapted Ignatian Exercises)
Program Description
Since St. Ignatius began giving the Exercises in his lifetime, he already paid particular attention to dispositions, capacities and readiness of people who desire to make the full Exercises. In many cases, Ignatius brought people through what he called ejercicios leves or light exercises which were meant to focus and intensify desire for God, gain interior knowledge of foundational religious truths and prepare the directee for self-awareness and deeper contemplative prayers.
In our time, these adapted forms of the Exercises have taken the form of week-end retreats, 5-day retreats, or even 8-day retreats whose prayer matter revolved around basic catechetical themes or First Week themes that lead retreatants to explore the import of the Principle and Foundation in their life. Adapted exercises can also come in the form of theme retreats that address particular needs of retreatant groups. Centers for Spirituality worldwide have offered a rich and diverse menu of theme retreats with great flexibility and freedom, eg. “Day-off with Jesus” for day wage-earners, “Life Direction Discernment” Retreats for seniors, “Grieving with Mary” retreat for widows, “Healing Retreats” for the terminally ill or for their caregivers, “Conversations with Job” for social development workers, “Come Away to a Wayside Place” for active parish ministers, etc.
Module 5 of the Guides’ Formation series is a second Supervised Retreat-Giving experience which focuses on Designing and Giving Conference or Semi-directed Retreats. After exploring the history of adapted exercises in the Ignatian tradition and getting a sound grasp of the conversion cycle and the Ignatian pedagogical paradigm, participants will be walked through the planning, execution and evaluation of actual conference retreats for actual retreat groups.
Program Goals: By the end of Module 5, we expect our graduates to be able to:
Topics to be Covered:
Target Participants:
We invite retreat directors, formators, campus and pastoral ministers and any minister who wish to gain dispositions and skills in designing and giving conference and semi-directed retreats in the Ignatian tradition, and apply the principles of group and communal spiritual direction as well those of Sacred Space and Communal Liturgies in their proposed retreat designs. Modules 3 and 4A are pre-requisites for Module 5.
For Reservation and Inquiries
Center for Ignatian Spirituality (Phil)
Spiritual Pastorall Center, Seminary Road, Ateneo de Manila University Campus, Loyola Heights, 1108 Quezon City
Telephone: 426-4250/51 Fax: 426-4250
Email: This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it or This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it
Website: www.cisphil.org
Click here for Schedule and Application form
Loyola School of Theology
Ateneo de Manila University Campus, Loyola Heights, 1108 Quezon City
Telephone: 426-4250/51 Fax: 426-4250
Mail: P.O. Box 240, U.P. Post Office, 1144 Quezon City
Telephone: 426-6030 to 35 Fax: 426-5967
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