TO TRANSFORM OR TO DEFORM!
The Urgency of Ongoing Formation: Prospects and Perspectives
Keywords:
Ongoing Formation, Transformative process, Maturation in the life, Freedom and awarenessAbstract
In the most fundamental sense ongoing formation is a question of opening ourselves ever more completely to a transformative process brought in by the Spirit of God and of collaborating with Him, which in the end will give meaning to everything else in life. Essentially it is not acquiring more knowledge through seminars and workshops or learning to do new or more things; not even learning to manage things more efficiently. Ongoing formation should be seen as facilitating a process of maturation in the life of a religious or a priest. Such a process refers to growth in his/her interior life, apostolic life, affective life, interpersonal relationships, intimacy with God, etc. An ongoing formative program should respond to the incongruity at various dimensions of one’s life, in freedom and awareness, thereby helping the individual to discard the masks in order to discover something more basic and true of the real self.
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