Greetings, everyone, and welcome to the spiritual direction certificate, presentation.
My name is Gregory Shapiro.
I am the admissions adviser here at Divine Mercy University.
And today, I'm just gonna present for you the program details for spiritual direction.
You'll get a good sense of the ins and outs of this and to see if this is a good fit, and we'll keep this short and sweet.
So without further ado, let's get started.
So here's what we're gonna be talking about today, who we are as a university.
We'll go into what is spiritual direction, about the spiritual direction certificate program and the time frame intuition, and we'll also talk about how to reduce the tuition.
So first things first, our mission as a university.
So Divine Mercy University is an institution of higher education offering graduate degrees, continuing education, and certificate programs globally.
The university is dedicated to the renewal of the Catholic Christian intellectual tradition and the the integration of the theoretical and empirical basis of psychology, professional counseling, and related fields with a Catholic Christian view of the human person through teaching and learning, both knowledge and critical skills.
So in short, our university reaches students globally all over the world, but our mission really is the integration component of psychology with the Catholic Christian understanding of human dignity.
The university provides students with an appropriate academic and educational environment that supports the integration of science, scholarship, and a Catholic Christian understanding of the person through a rigorous, critical, and objective search for truth.
And we have multiple programs here at the university.
We have our doctoral program.
We have a, master's in psych program, master's in counseling, And the spiritual direction certificate program, which is our newest one that began back in 1999, what they all have in common is that mission driven focus of, acknowledging the human mind, but more so looking at the person as a whole that we're all made in the image and likeness of God.
And what's next, we're gonna talk about the accreditation.
So we are, institutionally accredited through the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools.
This is one of the seven major accrediting bodies, and we're also approved to operate by SHEV, and that's the State Council of Higher Education in Virginia.
And, I included the American Psychological Association accreditation here.
Now this is a programmatic accreditation.
It's only pertaining to a doctoral program, but I still include it here because we use that same APA writing style in all of the programs we offer, including the spiritual direction certificate program.
Now what is spiritual direction?
So the first thing, spiritual direction is accompaniment.
So it's assisting people on their path to the Lord.
It's the act of being there for them in service both to them and to the Lord, and it's deep listening to the directee to help them deepen in their experience of the Lord and his narrative in their lives.
So for many of you that are looking, viewing this presentation, you have probably gone through a spiritual direction and, noticed that that spiritual director has been accompanying you.
They've been there with you as you're trying to wrap your heads around your faith and trying to grow in your faith life, and they've been there in deep listening, so that they can best understand exactly where you are in your faith life.
It's a pilgrimage toward God.
It's a clear goal of growing closer to God.
It's not psych excuse me.
It's not therapy, which it might resemble it because it's one on one speaking and there's someone speaking primarily, the other one listening intently.
So in that sense, there might be some overlap, but it's not the same as therapy, but rather as it is in walking with someone in the air in their faith life closer to our lord.
And lastly, it's formation in mission.
It's the effort to, like Christ, summon, form, and send forth.
So why is spiritual direction such an important ministry?
So the first thing is that it's offering the service of deep listening to another.
This is very important for people as, faith can be a a a mystery.
And so we're we're always trying to better understand God and what he's teaching us.
And many times, he helps us understand that through human agency, so that could be through a spiritual director.
It's accompanying our sisters and our brothers in the faith to help strengthen their faith, hope, and love, so their ability to grow into theological virtues.
It's guiding another to find the lord in every situation.
So whether it's a very tragic and difficult situation that they might be in at a certain moment, or it could be a very mundane moment, but having the ability to recognize God in all of these moments is very important.
A way that others may discover their call to be a spiritual director.
So just as many of you have gone through spiritual direction and now you're at a point where you're hearing that calling to go into the ministry, you'll also have that experience where you're directing individuals and eventually Bill also.
Many of them might also hear that calling to this ministry.
And it's giving spiritual direction as a help also for the director to grow in his or her relationship with God.
So one example that I have is that spiritual directors that, or folks that are that are going through this program, their relationship with their spiritual director, is usually enriched because they better understand where the spiritual director is coming from.
So it allows them to be better directees as well as as they're going to become directors themselves.
So what to expect in the spiritual direction certificate program.
So the first thing is that these courses are done online.
They're done online, and they're done through an asynchronous format as well.
So in other words, you're not having to log in to a Zoom meeting at x hour, but instead you'll be able to log in to discussion boards and prerecorded lectures, and you'll be able to sit down and do your reading and, sitting down to do your your writing assignments at any time that works within your schedule.
There are six courses within the program, and, I say it's primarily done online because there are two face to face components.
One would be the two four day residencies, which happen here on campus in Sterling, Virginia.
And then the second would be sixty practicum hours.
And so this would mean a little bit closer toward the end, you'll be putting in and documenting, your hours acting as a spiritual director with real directees, whether it's within your apostolate or your parish or church.
You'll be able to put into practice these skills and knowledge that you've been learning throughout the program.
These are gonna be the six courses that you're taking, and they're sequential.
You'll be taking them in this order.
So the first one is ongoing conversion, deepening discipleship, and the foundations of spiritual direction.
The second course is human development for spiritual direction.
The third course will be relating skills for spiritual direction, and the first residency will fall in this place.
So you won't have your first residency about until about ten months after you've begun.
So, again, this is built into the third course.
Your fourth course will be discernment and spiritual growth theory and practice.
Your fifth course will be advanced spiritual direction skills and practicum, putting out into the deep.
And so this is actually where your second residency will fall.
That will take place in week two.
And it's also going to serve more as a launch into your practicum hours.
And then the last course that you'll be taking will be advanced prayer and situations.
So let's talk about the residencies.
We have a couple of pictures from, a few recent residencies that we've had, again, here on campus.
So, again, there are two residencies in the program.
They're each for officially, they're four days, but I like to say five just because, on a Wednesday night, that this is actually when it gets launched.
It happens in the evening where it's more of a meet and greet between you and your classmates and your instructors.
But then on Thursday, Friday, Saturday, and Sunday, that's when you'll go into the deeper parts of the of the residencies.
So your first residency will take place on week seven of your third term, and then your second residency will take place on week two of your fifth term.
And, again, the whole point of these is so that you can put into practice the skills and knowledge that you're learning.
I've mentioned that they take place here on, in Sterling, Virginia on campus.
And so students that are flying in, they're flying in through Dulles just because Dulles is only about a five to six minute drive from here.
So it's very close.
And they they're lodged, right next door to I believe it's a Hilton.
And so everything is very close by.
You're not going to have to go far out in order to, to participate in these.
So the next thing, this program is term based, and so each term is eight weeks.
You're taking only one course per eight week term.
So you're doing one at a time.
This next part, it's not set in stone, but usually students are committing somewhere between six to nine hours per week.
So that involves sitting down to do their writing assignments, to post in their discussion boards, to, listen to the lectures.
So, again, usually, I would say estimating, giving yourself about nine hours per week, within your schedule would be a a safe place to go off of.
There are breaks between each term as well.
So there's roughly nine to ten week breaks between each term.
So this allows some breathing room.
It allows some time to reflect on your information or just to take a step back so that you can, you know, if you have holidays or travel or anything important, you can take that step back to to do those those important things.
It's also a good time for students to replenish their funds.
Since students are paying course by course, this is a great time for people to save up for that next course that they're taking.
And the whole program in total would be completed in two years.
So the cost of the program, it is $778 per course.
And per residency, it's 1,000.
And that thousand, that's gonna cover the the lodging.
It's gonna cover most of your meals.
It's gonna cover your materials.
So students are only responsible for their travel and for three of their dinners, but everything else will be covered through that thousand per residency.
Now I had mentioned earlier that there is a possibility of bringing the cost down.
So we can actually reduce the cost per course by 10%.
That's if you are a consecrated religious, if you are, if you're part of a religious order, if you're a volunteer with your parish or you work with a even a nonreligious organization, that might be an ability for us to bring your cost down by 10%.
We would just need a a letter from these corresponding ministries or or locations so that we can bring that that down for you.
So that brings us to the very end, and this is my contact information.
My email and my telephone number are both listed.
You're welcome to call, email, text me.
And lastly, if you're interested in applying, this is the code, if we if you wanted to waive the $25 application fee.
Usually, there's a fee connected to it.
But if you put in the code SDCREGFREE, that's going to waive it.
It'll be in a free application for you.
So with that said, that concludes everything, and, I hope we can actually connect one on one.
If you have any questions, feel free to reach out to me.
Thank you very much, and god bless.
Bye bye.