Ingredients of Sa-Fa vocation animation 19

Elements of personal, psychological and spiritual growth 

to cultivate in the candidates

 

In order to accompany a candidate, we must consider many aspects that we have seen in these blogs. However, there are others that we must take into account as far as the personality is concerned, when complementing his/her training and knowledge, assessing his/her emotional and psychological state and, fundamentally, seeing his/her spiritual growth. Undoubtedly, the personal, psychological and spiritual aspects of a person are closely related.

First of all, we must take into account the PERSONAL ASPECT of the candidate. We have to know and accept his life story, to help him to heal ties with his mother and father if necessary, to understand the candidate's family environment and to give guidelines for support to help him grow in his vocation.

A spiritual guide has to show him that God is everywhere, that living in His presence helps us to be emotionally detached and that daily prayer and meditation are the driving force of this new path, to achieve openness to formation and readiness for a good discernment activity.

Once the candidate is focused on the proposal, there must be a vital balance where the motivation does not come as an escape or a refuge from his previous life, because in the end the process only becomes an excuse for not facing his own life.

The greatest characteristic that must exist is that the candidate feels free to choose and live the process with the conviction of feeling loved, wanted and accompanied without conditioning. There is no spirit of freedom in his choice and if he does not consider that he should live at the service of others. It would be difficult for his vocation to grow and to discover what gifts he has received to put them at the service of others.

With regard to the PSYCHOLOGICAL ASPECT, it would be advisable at the beginning to have a personalized psychological accompaniment to analyze with serenity his emotional stability, his psychic maturity, his self-control, his will, his sensitivity, his complexes, his frustrations, his human and Christian values, his self-respect or self-esteem, his dignity, his sense of gratitude and loyalty, etc.

At the same time, self-knowledge is very important when discerning a vocation, also sincerity first of all with himself and later with the agents or animators who accompany him/her: the acceptance of limitations, the openness to others and the desire to sincerely know God's plan for his/her life, the capacity to offer his life to others, to ask himself about the meaning and value of life are very important too.

At the same time, psychological growth is related to SPIRITUAL GROWTH, a real spiritual growth contributes to a psychic maturity where human and Christian values are in balance. Spiritual growth allows a better psychological growth that helps the candidate to have more psychic maturity to face a new life project, free of tensions, anxieties, disturbances, complexes, with greater tolerance to crises. In this way, it would be more viable to take on this new life project, with all that it implies.

In relation to a candidate's spirituality, it is important that he should be accompanied by someone who helps him to awaken and respond to the call, as well as to build a life project that gives meaning and dynamism to his path and existence.  It is important for spiritual growth and maturity to have an attitude of personal honesty in relation to the living process with the people and institutions he comes in contact with, and to be open and available to what the processes shows.

Prayer, both personal and communitarian, must be cultivated in the candidate, as it is very important to help him to understand himself better, to discover the living memory of Jesus who lived, according to the so-called "evangelical counsels", the meaning of voluntary poverty, humility, dedication, continuous obedience to the Father, and thus to understand better what his mission would be and the relevance of fraternal and communitarian life.

Every candidate needs to be supported by a LIFE PROJECT that helps to guide his psychological and spiritual growth. A life project committed to the love of God, that is generous with others, that has self-sacrifice in favor of people in need, encouraging him to give his life freely, that does not seek immediate satisfaction but learns to tolerate frustration and to accept conflicts. If the life project is developed freely, without anxieties or utopias, it is more likely to germinate with greater success.

Bearing in mind that these elements are basically for candidates for consecrated life, it is necessary to emphasize that the candidate should understand that the Lord must be the light, the way, the truth and the guide in his daily work.

Understanding "the spirituality of Jesus" as a concrete style of life that leads those who follow him to live at the service of a worthier life and more open to hope in the Mystery of God.

He must make the commitment to live the life of a Brother of the Holy Family as Brother Gabriel taught. His example of life is the source and the humble way to a healthy, creative, liberating and hope-generating spirituality.

Only a life project that leads him to be an integral person, that is to say, with psychic and spiritual maturity and with true love for the vocation, can be the basis for acquiring the commitment to live the consecrated life and the following of Christ as our Nazarene Taborinian spirituality proposes to us.