Dear Souls and Hearts Members,

We are embarking together on a new series of weekly reflections to lay the foundation and build the framework for an authentically Catholic understanding of human formation – and then broadening that foundation and framework to include ordinary Catholic laymen and laywomen – like you.

Importance of human formation to the Catholic Church

More than three decades ago on March 25, 1992, Pope St. John Paul II released an apostolic exhortation titled ...

Dear Souls and Hearts Members,

Welcome to the fifth and final weekly reflection in our series on Catholic spiritual bypassing. To lead off this week's reflection, I'm sharing a testimony which is so relevant and important to our discussion on spiritual bypassing.

Gabriel’s story 

Gabriel Crawford is a convert to Catholicism and a mental health counselor who regularly reads these weekly reflections. He has given us all a gift: the gift of his story. He provides us such a clear...

Dear Souls and Hearts members,

This is the fourth in a series of reflections on spiritual bypassing. The previous reflections set us up for a deeper understanding of the causes and effects of spiritual bypassing:

• February 22, 2023 Spiritual Bypassing: Catholic Style
• March 1, 2023 The Whys of Catholic Spiritual Bypassing
• March 8, 2023 The 15 Symptoms of Catholic Spiritual Bypassing

Today, we will examine the article Exploring Experts’ Perspectives on Spiritual Bypass: a...

Dear Souls and Hearts Members,

Five days ago, I discovered a paper titled Exploring Experts’ Perspectives on Spiritual Bypass: a Conventional Content Analysis, by Gabriela Picciotto and Jesse Fox from the February 2018 volume of Pastoral Psychology – I have to share the findings with you as they are so relevant to our series on spiritual bypassing.

This journal article, based on ten interviews with U.S. experts on spiritual bypassing, presents the current consensus on the...

Dear Souls and Hearts Members,

Last week, in the reflection titled Spiritual Bypassing: Catholic Style I introduced and defined spiritual bypassing. We covered the “what” of spiritual bypassing, and we came up with this summary:

The three critical components of spiritual bypassing are as follows:

• Spiritual ideas, practices, or actions must be misused

• to avoid, evade, or escape 

• emotional or psychological distress,

• acknowledging deficits in one’s...

Dear Souls and Hearts Members,

In our reflection from last week, Naturalizing and Spiritualizing: Two Errors Catholics Make, we explored how devout Catholics spiritualize as a way to protect themselves. To review: What does it mean to spiritualize the natural? It means to elevate to the spiritual realm that which is properly in the natural realm, attempting to make the natural into something spiritual.

One particularly prominent form of spiritualizing is spiritual bypassing.

General...

Dear Souls and Hearts Members,

As you already know, my primary purpose is to help you discover any barriers you may have on the natural level that compromise your closeness with our Lord, your ability to love your neighbor and to love yourself in an ordered way. To that end, I discuss two primary and serious errors that we Catholics make and which encumber our lives on both the natural and the spiritual level.

These two serious errors that Catholics make are 1) to naturalize what is properly...

Dear Souls and Hearts members,

I have a treat for you. This week I’m sharing a powerful reflection written by Souls and Hearts Contributor Tom McCabe, a Catholic theologian and expert in forgiveness. Tom’s work in the field of forgiveness is a true gift to the world, and it’s an honor to participate in his creative, grounded approach to teaching and leading people to freedom. So without further ado, here is Tom McCabe:

Better Homes and Pardons -

Finding...

Dear Souls and Hearts Members,

This week, I am excited to share a reflection written by my Souls and Hearts co-founder and dear friend Dr. Gerry Crete. Offering a parts-informed approach to engaging with others constructively and positively in the culture wars, Dr. Gerry uses abortion as an example of an emotionally-charged, hot topic. His example models a way to authentically love others who hold radically different beliefs with an eye on how our own parts work will help diffuse conflict and...

Dear Souls and Hearts members,

Journeying together over the past few weeks, we have been exploring the inner psychological factors that fuel our distractions in prayer, impelling our redirection and ultimately undermining our prayer life, causing us to avoid God.

Hidden reasons of the heart

Blaise Pascal, a 17^th century French Catholic mathematician, philosopher, physicist, inventor, and lover of God wrote in his Pensées:

The heart has its reasons which reason knows nothing of... We...