ST. PETER CATHOLIC CHURCH
Church / Iglesia
575 W. O'Farrell St.
Parish Office & Rectory / Oficina y Casa Parroquial
338 N. Grand Ave
San Pedro, CA 90731
phone: (310) 831-5360
Fax: (310) 831-0415
SPIRITUALFORMATION
Spiritual formation in the Catholic Christian tradition is a dynamic process of growth in the understanding and practice of Christianspirituality.
The word formation generally refers to a set ofexperiences designed to prepare a person or group for a particular purpose. It is important to remember that central to our contemporary Christian understanding of formation is the respectful engagement of the experience and wisdom already within.
The word formation, in preference to a word like training,is most often used in the context of spiritual development and conjures imagesof a deep learning that involves attitudes, values, commitment to particularlife directions as well as knowledge and skills.
In this case, spiritual formation is about all these thingsin response to Jesus Christ who is seen as the Way the Truth and the Life, andthe Holy Spirit acting through the community of Christ's disciples (Church) inthe context of the mission of Catholic education and the Catholic school inparticular.
LIFELONG partnership with the Spirit
Spiritual growth is a lifelong journey. It is also basically an inner journey travelled in a partnership between God's Spirit and our spirits working in kinship (Groome, p.325). Ultimately, it is the encounters with God'sSpirit that advances spiritual growth. The aim of a spiritualformation programme therefore is to facilitate and nurture that internalencounter with God through communal support and resources provided in a rangeof ways.
CORE expectation within Catholic schooling
Spiritual formation of staff in Catholic schools isuniversally acknowledged as critical to the effective mission of Catholic schools:
The concrete living out of a vocation as rich and profoundas that of the lay Catholic in a school requires an appropriate formation, bothon the professional plane and on the religious plane. Most especially, itrequires the educator to have a mature spiritual personality, expressed in a profound Christian life. (Congregation for Catholic Education, 1982, n.60)
The effective structuring and resourcing of spiritualformation that both supports this mission and responds to the contemporary contexts of people's lives is a current and challenging issue for all Catholice ducation authorities around our country Spiritual formation is about transformation in the context of lifelong learning and has intentional outcomes relating to the inner journey. While spiritual formation is primarily the responsibility of the individual, both school leadership and Brisbane Catholic Education Centreleadership have key expectation-setting, resourcing and support roles to play.
Spiritual formation of personnel is understood to beintegrally connected to the core business of Catholic schooling andis built on the hope that
an adult community whose faith is well formed and livelywill more effectively pass that faith on to the next generation. Moreover, the witnessof adults actively continuing their own formation shows children and youththat growth in faith is lifelong and does not end upon reaching adulthood. (USBishops Statement: Our Hearts Were Burning Within Us, n. 68.)