Formation Consultation Services
16 Linden Street • Whitinsville • MA 01588
phone: 508-234-6540
fax: 508-234-0956
web page address:
www.fcs-bilotta.com
e-mail address: formation@fcs-bilotta.com
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Foundational Formation Program ■
We have designed our Foundational Formation program —
■ to address professional and educational requirements
■ to assist the ongoing transformation of the heart
■ to support Formators in their practical day-to-day ministry as Formators.
Professional Capacity
Developing professional capacity on the academic, practical and human skills levels is
indispensable for today’s Formators. Expanding one’s professional capacity as a Formator
enhances the overall probability of designing, implementing and coordinating a healthy,
comprehensive and integrated formation program. Accountability to their Society, Congregation
and/or Diocese increases when Formators have the necessary training and are supported in their
day-to-day formation work.
Personal Transformation
As a role model, a Formator’s quality-of-presence conveys a distinctive message about his
or her authenticity and commitment to the transformative process. This is the same identical
transformative process of the heart that Formators invite their formandi to enter into and journey
under their direction. Formators cannot offer to others what they do not have themselves.
Formators cannot accompany their formandi where they themselves have not stepped foot.
Invitation to Reflect
Throughout the program you will be invited to reflect on —
■ how you professionally and personally approach formation work and ministry
■ how your unique obstacles and facilitating qualities might hinder or enhance
your ability to be a helpful and successful Formator
■ how you model yourself as an example of healthy, integrated and peace-filled
religious and/or clerical life, i.e. from a Reflective Living perspective
■ how the various aspects of your particular piece of formation complements the
greater scheme of your Society’s, Congregation’s, Diocese’s overall formation
philosophy and specific goals.
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Who Would Benefit?
Our Foundational Formation program, either as a certificate or a non-certificate program,
is for religious and clergy —
■ whose primary ministry involves working along with — vocational candidates,
aspirants, postulants, novices, philosophers, theologians, members in transition
in ministry programs, those in special studies, diocesan seminarians, etc.
■ charged with following-up with members who have been recently ordained
and/or professed
■ full-time spiritual directors
■ superiors and directors who are missioned with the coordination, continuity,
stability, integration and accountability for the initial and ongoing formation
needs and programs of their Congregation, Society or Diocese.
Two Program Tracks
Our Foundational Formation program offers two different but complementary program
tracks. In addition, both tracks could lead to earning FCS’s — Certificate of Foundational
Formation.
■ Track one focuses on supporting the individual Formator — through professional
training, ongoing personal transformation and follow-up coaching. With our assistance, the
Formator would design a specialized program that would meet his or her unique needs. The
program includes educational, experiential, as well as follow-up coaching components.
A participant can earn our Certificate of Foundational Formation by completing all content
areas. Or if a Formator prefers, he or she can matriculate as a non-certificate participant. As a
non-certificate student, one selects and participates in only those particular content areas of most
interest and most perceived benefit. Formators can easily move from certificate or non-certificate
participant status.
■ Track two is a formal formation development program designed in collaboration with
and for a particular Society, Congregation or Diocese. Within this program several or many
members of the Society, Congregation or Diocese would be trained to become Formators. Again
there would be educational, experiential and follow-up coaching components.
This track also extends to the Society, Congregation or Diocese a long-term commitment by
FCS to partner with them as professional Formators. As partnering Formators, FCS could be
called upon to perform specific tasks for the organization that their present Formators are not
trained to execute, feel inadequate in undertaking and/or when the organization’s personnel are
not available.
Program Content Areas
The Foundational Formation Certificate program consists of 10 content areas or
dispositional competencies. The 10th includes a period of integration and follow-up coaching.
Each program content area consists of 18 hours of one-on-one process facilitation; along with
preparation and follow-up assignments consisting of selected books, articles, videos, audios,
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CDs, journal writing and presentations. All content areas are in the service of enhancing the
practical day-to-day professional skill level of the Formator along with an ongoing process of
personal transformation of the heart.
■ Content Area One — Structured Autobiography
Awareness
&
Formative Process of
Throughout life, we have been shaped and formed by formative and deformative
experiences that have left lasting imprints. These were defining moments which colored our
lives. These colors are our distinctive strengths and particular vulnerabilities.
The Formative Process of Awareness is based upon a participant first writing his or her
Structured Autobiography. There are 15 chapters to the Structured Autobiography.
The Formative Process of Awareness involves 18 hours of one-on-one facilitation. The goal
is for you to gain meaningful awareness and insight into the significant people, events and things
that have shaped and formed you throughout your life, as well as how your distinctive strengths
and particular vulnerabilities influence your day-to-day living.
Reflective self-awareness is the heart of our formative process. The Formative Process of
Awareness (FPA) is distinguished by our posture of respect and reverence. We meet you where
you are, as you are, with the necessary freedom to let down in whatever way you may need. In
order to do this, we provide a safe, accepting and confidential environment.
Participants will learn how to adapt and direct the writing of the Structured Autobiography
with their formandi. They will also learn how to process the Structured Autobiography through
the Formative Process of Awareness with their formandi. We consider writing one’s Structured
Autobiography and processing it through the Formative Process of Awareness a cornerstone for
formandi understanding who they are, from where they have come, and what pushes and pulls
them during their average everyday experiences.
■ Content Area Two — Family-of-Origin Story
All of life is formative. From the moment of birth, we are inserted into a particular family
with its unique values, attitudes, beliefs and perceptions. We become part of the unfolding story
of our families with their distinctive ethnic heritage and religious traditions. From the time we
are born, we breathe in the air that surrounds us — the life-giving air of love, support and care;
the toxic fumes of co-dependency, abuse and control.
The Family-of-Origin Story is a follow-up to the Formative Process of Awareness.
Specifically, you will explore the functional and dysfunctional dimensions of your family
system, how they impacted you and may continue to impact you today. You will address issues
in your family story such as myth, communication, vulnerability, discipline, relationships and
styles of relating to your body. You will increase your ability to reflect on who you are, based
upon from where you came.
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The triumphs and tragedies that occurred in your previous generations powerfully influence
the drama that you were born into as an infant. We are not interested in blaming anyone for what
happened to you in your family-of-origin. We are interested in inviting you to take up your
Family-of-Origin Story in a gentle and compassionate manner. It is our hope that you will be
able to grow in acceptance of this story as part of the mystery of your life and place it in the
perspective of the mystery of all human formation.
As a Formator being aware of your own particular family story along with the family
dynamics that have been both helpful and unhelpful is essential to understanding the family
background of your formandi. The Family-of-Origin Story will substantially add to your ability
to facilitate your formandi’s Structured Autobiography and Formative Process of Awareness.
■ Content Area Three — Human Sexuality Story
The challenges of living and prospering within a chaste and celibate life can be
overwhelming for the 21st century religious or clergy person. We all have a story of being a boy
and becoming a man, or of being a girl and becoming a woman. Most people experience some
type of unacknowledged sexual injury, hurt and pain during their childhood and/or teenage years.
Girlhood and boyhood experiences of humiliation, shame, embarrassment, disempowerment,
distress, confusion, powerlessness and fear can be obstacles to mature manhood, womanhood, to
mature religious life and/or priesthood. They can be obstacles to faith in everyday life.
How has your sexual injury influenced your religious or clerical life as well as your faith
development?
How has your socialization of being a male or female within your culture affected your
capacity for chastity and celibacy?
Through your sexuality story you will reflect upon how your heart, spirit and body have
been affected by your culture and by significant women and men in your everyday life growing
up. You will look at how crying, sadness, spontaneity, tenderness, compassion and humiliation
were processed in your family system. We will invite you to come in touch with the ways in
which you have armored yourself in relationship to loss, rejection, failure, and emotional and
physical abuse. We will explore how adults influenced the development of faith, hope and love
in your everyday life. We will reflect on how the culture and the men and women in your life
invited you to take up and live in your body.
Formators have a substantive responsibility to assist their formandi to understand themselves
as sexual human beings, as people who need ordinary intimacy and healthy relationships in their
everyday lives. Rarely do formandi come into religious or clerical life with a high level of
integration concerning their sexuality. Part of formation mandates addressing in an ongoing
fashion human sexuality from its multiple perspectives. The Human Sexuality Story will assist
Formators, not only to more thoroughly understand their own sexual story, but to also prepare
them to more holistically assist their formandi in exploring and integrating a healthy approach to
the multiple dimensions of their sexuality.
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■ Content Area Four — Spiritual Story
Your Spiritual Story is the story of how you have grown in an intimate relationship with
God through people, events and things in your everyday life experience. In processing your
story, you will explore your spiritual journey as a human being, Christian and Catholic, and as a
servant in ministry. You will look at the how, the how to come home to your heart, to be
grounded in the core of your being and to befriend the unique mystery of your formative process.
You will gain understanding of your particular obstacles and facilitating conditions that push you
away and draw you toward God.
For many formandi nurturing an intimate relationship with God is one of the main reasons
that they have chosen to become a religious and/or priest. Through the Spirituality Story process
Formators will learn how to assist their formandi to identify both their particular obstacles that
may hinder them from establishing an intimate relationship with God, as well as to uncover their
unique facilitating conditions that nurture a relationship with God. Exposure to various methods
of prayer and meditation will also be included in this content area.
■ Content Area Five — Art of Reflective Living
Reflective Living: the heart of ongoing formation — highlights Formation Consultations
Services fundamental approach to formation. Reflective Living is a particular way of how to go
about daily life. Reflective Living fosters an increased awakening and awareness of our everyday
experiences which results in not taking daily life for granted and consequently always being able
to place people, events and things into proper perspective, into the larger picture.
Reflective Living opens our eyes, ears and hearts to how people, events and things in our
daily lives affect us, push and pull us, and bump us off course. The ebb and flow of daily life has
a way of knocking us constantly off balance. Reflective Living is an ongoing corrective, a
rebalancing, a way of maintaining harmony and personal integrity. We reduce stress and
maintain peace of mind when we focus on living in a reflective manner.
Formators and their formandi are being asked by the Church to increasingly do more with
less. The demands and resulting stressors have never been greater on our future brothers, sisters
and priests. Through the Art of Reflective Living Formators will learn the principles of
Reflective Living. They will be prepared to pass along to their formandi a conscious reflective
way of living life. This how, this way, will assist them to maintain their balance and harmony.
They will foster an integration of body, mind and spirit. This will all result in being able to go
about their ministry with reduced stress and peace of mind.
■ Content Area Six — Ordinary Intimacy
Everyday life is filled with potential heart-filling and influential moments of ordinary
intimacy. Ordinary intimacy has the capacity to emerge not only in extraordinary and spectacular
situations, but more often and more likely they occur in usual, common everyday experiences
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with people. The need and search for intimacy is one of the fundamental dynamics of human
living. On a daily basis we seek intimacy with ourselves, others, and the Divine.
Without being filled with ordinary intimacy throughout our average days, we would tend to
feel a sense of loneliness, disconnection, isolation, insecurity, imbalance, discouragement, etc.
When these feelings overwhelm us we often offset them with a variety of unhelpful and
unhealthy compensations, like drinking to intoxication, over-eating, excessive television
watching, immoderate internet surfing, sex (alone or with another), overworking, etc. Lack of
intimacy in our lives can lead to depression, anxiety, diminished confidence, self-worth, etc.
To grow into ordinary intimacy, we need to slow down, be at home with self, to gently let
down the drawbridge to what is around us. From this relaxed, humble posture, we are no longer
self-conscious. We are able to be receptive to the depth of those who are before us. The Ordinary
Intimacy content area will help Formators to look at how their style and the style of their
formandi of being present in the world has been covered over throughout their life. Ordinary
Intimacy is a central dynamic for wholesome living of chastity and celibacy.
■ Content Area Seven — Work Story
Work occupies our time and energy. It can provide meaning, purpose, focus, fulfillment and
joy. Work can also foster discouragement, exhaustion, compassion fatigue, resentment and
disillusionment. We infuse work with many different meanings. The meaning of work varies and
is shaded by the past. Life stages also nuance work’s meaning. Work is a posture towards life,
towards society. It is a way of defining self. The choices we make imply a philosophy of life.
Much of your time has had to do with the functional — which has defined you in terms of
your skills, your competencies, your successes. Your choice of work is rooted in the reality of
everyday life as you learned it from your family-of-origin, from the historical period and
geographical setting into which you were born, from the culture, from your chosen Society,
Congregation or Diocese, and perhaps even from the dream in your heart.
Through the Work Story content area Formators will reflect back upon various meanings
and dimensions of work and ministry. How does work and ministry affect and continue to
influence day-to-day life? Formators know that their formandi are eager and inspired. They have
energy, vitality and good-will. They dream of helping, changing and healing the world. For the
sake of an integrated, balanced and reflective life, Formators need to assist their formandi to
understand and grasp the meaning and dynamics of work — because work could overwhelm,
exhaust and discourage formandi in the future.
■ Content Area Eight — Spirit Story
Our Spirit is the core, the heart, the essence of who we are as human beings. Our Spirit is the
most foundational dimension of our existence. Starting with childhood up to the present, this
process will assist you in tracing the flow of the unfolding of your human spirit.
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We begin this process with the last year of your life in terms of where you have discovered
or uncovered your human spirit. Having grounded yourself in the experience of the past year, we
go back to the beginning of your Spirit Story as a child and trace that unfolding up to the present.
We also help you to look at the explicit obstacles and the historical facilitating conditions that
have been part of your Spirit Story and how they continue to influence you today. Our goal is to
help you reconnect, nourish and dwell with the core of who you are.
This content area will not only help Formators to grow but also to understand the particular
formative and deformative dimensions of the human spirit. Guiding formandi through their own
Spirit Story might be one of the most important journeys that a Formator and formandi undertake
together.
■ Content Area Nine — Formative Communication Dispositions
Though a Formator is not expected to be a trained counselor or psychotherapist, possessing
and honing basic communication and helping skills will enhance the cultivation of trust between
Formator and formandi. Formator and formandi develop a unique relationship. Openness and
receptivity, assurance and confidence, credibility and lived example, empathy and acceptance,
support and affirmation are some of the essential traits that Formators need in order to nurture
trust in their formandi. Self-awareness and personal ongoing transformation of the heart are
cornerstones for the Formator. Unless a Formator has specific training in communication and
helping skills, we will strongly recommend this content area (and specifically require for
certificate participants)
■ Content Area Ten — Follow-Up Coaching & Integration
Follow-up coaching, usually via the telephone, is available to all Foundational Formation
students. The purpose of follow-up coaching is to nurture the new learnings absorbed through the
various content areas. It also provides practical concrete support concerning any challenges
and/or difficulties that Formators may be encountering with their particular formation program,
formandi or with personal growth. Follow-up coaching is encouraged for all participants. It is
required for a year’s duration for certificate participants.
Individualized Programming
Similar to other FCS programs, the track one Foundational Formation program is
individually based. You proceed at your own schedule and pace. You would arrange with us to
schedule your program content areas according to mutual availability.
For groups interested in the track two Foundational Formation program for a Society,
Congregation or Diocese a variety of options would be available.
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Why is FCS offering the Foundational Formation program?
With each passing year there are fewer seasoned sisters, brothers and priests available and
willing, trained and competent, invigorated and animated to assume Formator positions. FCS has
the innovative research and the in-depth experience to work along with, train, coach and support
Formators in their vital ongoing task — forming the next generation of priests, sisters and/or
brothers for your Society, Congregation or Diocese.
The formation requirements of the 21st century Church are substantially different from the
needs of present Formators when they themselves were in initial formation. Formation has
become complex, demanding, even overwhelming at times. Most Formators never envisioned
themselves or desired to be Formators. Whereas years ago, good intentions, good will, a pleasing
personality, and experience in ministry went a long way — today, this is no longer satisfactory.
In light of the significant importance of the role of Formators, FCS cannot overemphasize
the need for Formators to be engaged in their own personal transformational process and in their
own ongoing professional formation training.
Every phase of formation is serious business. People’s lives depend upon receiving life
nurturing formation. How many clergy and religious live routinely an uninspired life of quiet
desperation? The future seems to depend upon its members receiving thoughtful, helpful, stable,
coordinated, continual and integrated formation.
FCS can assist Formators to become more helpful. We can assist you with both your
formation program structure and with your personal ongoing formation and transformational
processes.
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For additional information, please contact us at:
telephone: 508-234-6540
e-mail: formation@fcs-bilotta.com
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