Show Notes
Episode 22. The Core of Catholic Resilience
June 29, 2020
Intro: Welcome to the podcast Coronavirus Crisis: Carpe Diem, where you and I rise up and embrace the possibilities and opportunities for spiritual and psychological growth in this time of crisis, all grounded in a Catholic worldview. We are going beyond mere resilience, to rising up to the challenges of this pandemic and becoming even healthier in the natural and the spiritual realms than we were before. I’m clinical psychologist Peter Malinoski your host and guide, with Souls and Hearts at soulsandhearts.com. Thank you for being here with me. This is episode 22, and it’s called The Core of Catholic Resilience.
Today we are going to the core of Catholic resilience, we are going to discover what drives resilience in the saints. We are discussing the one central theme that is absolutely essential for the kind of resilience that transcends this natural world, that incorporates not just our natural gifts, but grace as well. The saints are the most resilient people who ever walked the face of the earth. What is the secret of the resilience of the saints? That’s the question we are focusing on today. What is the secret of the super resilience of the saints, the secret that allows them to rise up again when they fall under the weight of adversity, of persecution, of their own failings, weakness and sins? We are getting to that in just a moment.
I am a believer in spiral learning, especially for this podcast and for the online learning at Souls and Hearts. So what is spiral learning? Guess what! It’s definition time with Dr. Peter. [cue sound effect]
In a spiral learning approach, the basic facts of a subject are learned, without worrying much about the details. Just the main, plain concept. As learning progresses, more and more details are introduced. These new details are related to the basic concepts which are reemphasized many times to help enter them into long-term memory.
Repeat. That’s spiral learning. Homeschoolers might recognize that from the way Saxon math works or the way some other programs teach.
Why spiral learning. I really want you to integrate what you learn in these podcasts into the whole of your being – not just have them go in one ear and out the other, but for you to really grip on to them, really hold them, even when times are tough, even when you are in a dark place, even when emotions run high.
My self-defense instructor James Yeager, in a fighting pistol course I took several years ago taught the class that “The only things you really possess are those things you can carry with you at a dead run.” He was referring to gear, including weapons mindset – he is really big on mindset, having your head right in crisis situations, and worked with his students to integrate his teachings throughout their whole beings, to have the right responses come up habitually, automatically, reflexively. I want that for you. So in these podcasts, we’re nourishing the mind, we’re focusing on the concepts, we’re starting there. The experiential work will help with the rest of the integration into your heartset, your soulset and your bodyset.
Since we are already on a hard road together in the Christian life. I want to make the learning about Catholic resilience and growing in resilience as easy as possible for you.
So we will spiral upward, coming back to the main themes in the podcast over and over again with new details, new data points, lots of examples, and of course, stories. As a psychologist and educator, I want this to be really easy for you to take in. Another benefit of that approach is that each podcast episode can stand alone – you can just pick this up the middle of this series on resilience can get the background you need for the topic of the episode. I’m really thinking about you when I put these together.
So let’s briefly review what we’ve learned in this series on Catholic resilience.
In episode 20, two weeks ago, we discussed the 10 factors of resilience offered by the secular experts. These were the ten essential aspects of resilience as summarized by Southwick and Charney, two writer for a general audience on resilience whom I respect. In episode 21 last week we got into the three major ways that secular understandings of resilience are lacking from a Catholic perspective, three important mistakes that secular professionals make in understanding resilience, the things that they miss because of their non-Catholic worldviews. If you have the time, you can check those two episodes out if you haven’t already, they help to put today’s episode into context, but suffice it to say for today, that Catholic resilience is very different than a secular understanding of resilience.
In the last episode, I offered a definition of Catholic resilience, comparing secular understandings of resilience to a Catholic understanding of resilience. So now, just to get us all up to speed, let’s review that definition of Catholic resilience. It’s definition time with Dr. Peter
Catholic resilience “the process of accepting and embracing adversity, trauma, trials, stresses and suffering as crosses. Catholic resilience sees these crosses as gifts from our loving, attuned God, gifts to transform us, to make us holy, to help us be better able to love and to be loved than we ever were before, and to ultimately bring us into loving union with Him.
Today we are making a deep dive into the one essential requirement, the one prerequisite, the one necessary quality you have to have to be resilient as a Catholic. All the other factors of Catholic resilience flow from this core, this central principle.
Now you are asking, Dr. Peter, what is this core of resilience, this central principle of Catholic resilience? I am glad you asked. The core of Catholic resilience, the kind of holy resilience of the saint is…
Drum Role
A deep and abiding confidence in God, especially in God’s Providence.
What I am saying is that resilience is an effect – it’s a consequence of the deep, abiding confidence in God, especially in God’s Providential care and love for us. . Resilience flows from that confidence in God – confidence in God’s care and love for me, specifically. So resilience is an effect of the spiritual life.
OK. Let’s break this down, to make sure we’re on the same page. What do I mean by confidence in God?
St. Thomas Aquinas defines it as confidence in God as “a hope, fortified by solid conviction.” So confidence in God is Hope, but it is a hope fortified, not just an ordinary hope, which could be lost. It is a higher level of hope, a hope fortified by solid conviction. The difference between hope and confidence is only a matter of degree – they are the same, but confidence, because it is fortified by solid conviction, is hope supercharged, a super hope, as King David sang in Psalm 119 (118). “In verba tua supersperavi” read the Latin. Speravi is I have hoped – Supersperavi – I have hope to the highest level. Typical translation “I have hoped in thy word.”
Let’s look at solid conviction. So solid. What does that mean? Firm, grounded, immovable, consistent. Conviction -- what is that? Certainty, certitude, calm assurance, not a shadow of a doubt. So the confidence in God – a hope, fortified by solid conviction – a supercharged hope, solidified by calm assurance, without wavering, without doubting, not subject to the ups and downs of life.
What I am saying is if we have that kind of confidence in God, and especially in his providential love and care – and that’s important. It can’t just be that God exists. Deists believe that God exists, but that he is distant, remote, disengaged. A belief in a God like that is not going to help resilience. It’s not just that God exists, but that He cares for us, in big things and little things, and that we are his beloved daughters and sons. If we have that kind of confidence in God and it is deep, penetrating all of who we are. That confidence has to be integrated throughout all of us – mind, heart, soul, and body. And it has to be abiding. What does that mean, abiding? That means that our confidence in God has to persist, it has to remain in us in times of trouble. There has to be a constancy, a permanence to our confidence in God, it’s not with us one moment and gone the next.
So here is the key idea: [cue sound effect]
So if you have the deep, abiding confidence in God and His providential love for you, you specifically, you will be resilient. Repeat.
Because if you are sheltering under the wing of a God like that – who can harm you? What can separate you from Him? What else matters? What could ever take your peace away or cause you to fall and not get back up?
Now that level of confidence in God is rare, it’s a quality of sanctity, of holiness, it flows from and is a result of a deep, mutual relationship with God as He really is. And lest you believe that I am somehow speaking down to you from some lofty pinnacle of human experience, lest you believe that I somehow have risen up to a perfect, deep abiding confidence in God…. let me tell you. It isn’t so. This is a process. I lose my confidence in God sometimes (it’s not always abiding) and that confidence is not as deep as it could be – I have zones of me, parts of me that do not yet have that kind of confidence in God.
All right, so let’s review: We want to have a Catholic resilience, the capacity to accept and embrace adversity, trials, suffering, our crosses as gifts from God to transform us, to make us holy, and to ultimately bring us to heaven. We want that resilience. Where does it flow from? It flows from a deep, abiding confidence in God, especially in His providential love and care for me, particularly, me, specifically.
So you might ask, Dr. Peter, from a psychological perspective, what gets in the way of that deep, abiding confidence in God? What psychological factors keep us from having that confidence that we so need in order to be resilient Catholics? That is a great question. Now remember that question focuses on the psychological factors that prevent us, that hinder us from a deep, abiding confidence in God. There are other factors that I don’t spend as much time on in these episodes. There are spiritual factors. There are moral factors. I claim no special qualifications to discuss those matters. I’m not a priest, I’m not a confessor, I am not a moral theologian. I’m a psychologist. So I am focusing the on the psychological aspects here and how they relate to the spiritual realm.
The main psychological reason why we don’t have that deep abiding confidence in God is because we don’t know him as He truly is. We don’t understand him as He truly is. We misunderstand him, we don’t get Him. We have all kinds of assumptions about Him that are false. The false assumptions about God are generated from how we misconstrue our experiences. The ways we misunderstand God psychologically stem from misinterpretations of our experiences.
Now I need to introduce two key ideas, two new definitions. The distinction I am about to make is really foundational, really critical, but don’t worry if you don’t get this right away, we will be coming back to these two definitions over and over again.
God concept [cue sound]
What we profess about God.
is a more intellectual understanding of God
based on what one has been taught.
but also based on what one has explored through reading, studying , discerning and deciding to believe
Reflected in the Creed, expanded in the Catechism, formal teaching.
God image [cue sound] is the emotional and subjective experience of God
What we know in our bones. Who we feel God to be in the moment. May or may not correspond to who God really is.
Initially this image is shaped by the relationship that we have with our parents. This is our experiential sense how our feelings, our heart interpret God Those God images can be radically different than our God concepts. This is heavily influenced by psychological factors, and varies a lot.
Repeat the definitions
We often suppress these God images and force them into the unconcsious. Frightened of them, ashamed of them.
So many orthodox practicing Catholics in my office struggle with God images – we call have images of God that do not reflect who God really is. We might feel that God is distant, unengaged, that God is disgusted with me, wants to punish me or is even out to get me. Some may feel in their bones that God is not very powerful, not very wise, or not very good, or not aware of what is going on in the world.
All right, now we have a new little segment that may come up from time to time in these podcasts. Sharing time. Sharing time is when I get a little more personal about my experience. So I thought I would share with you one of my problematic God images, what sometimes I feel in my bones about God in this very first segment of “Sharing Time, with Dr. Peter.”
Cue Sharing time Music
When I go down the rabbit hole of internet bloggers on the Catholic Church and read about all the scandals and coverups and the general incompetence and malice and criminal behavior of Church leaders, or when I get all wrapped up in how bishops have not really pursued creative solutions to provide the sacraments – confession, the Eucharist, when I indulge in very critical thoughts about bishops, and how they can seem much more concerned about my body than my soul, or more concerned about their bodies rather than my soul, I lose my recollection, when I lose my resilience, when I lose my confidence in God, I have parts of me that want to scream at God “Why isn’t anyone minding the store, God? Why are there no consequences for the evildoers and the incompetent in the Church? Where in Hades are you, God?” Except I don’t say Hades. This is a clean, family-oriented podcast, doncha know, we’re keeping it clean. Now, I know this image of God isn’t true. I don’t endorse it, I don’t profess it, it is not what I believe about God, it’s not my God concept. But man, when I am in that place, does it feel that way. And I can also become very unfair and unjust in my thinking about Church leaders and bishops in those moments.
You know what I am talking about? How God can seem in your bones, in your dark moments, maybe a lot of the time, not to fit the loving, caring, compassionate image that we receive from the Scripture, from our Tradition. Near the end of this podcast, we’ll do a little exercise to help you get in touch with your God image.
So to spiral back, we have the God concept – that is what we know to be true about God conceptually, intellectually, it’s what we profess. For us orthodox Catholics, it’s summarized in the Nicene Creed and expanded in the Catechism. And we have the God images, which are who we feel God to be in our bones in the moment, our gut sense of God, what our intuition tells us.
One more example. Orthodox, faithful Catholic experiencing all kinds of anxiety about contracting the coronavirus. Real health concerns. How in touch is that person with God as expressed in Psalm 23.
So here’s one more key idea. As Catholics, it is our God images that contribute so much to our lack of confidence in God. We have problematic God images. These problematic God images get activated, and they affect us heavily and they undermine our deep and abiding confidence in God. Our negative God images compromise our capacity for childlike trust in God, we either lose it or we can’t grow in trust. And when we are compromised in our deep and abiding confidence in God, we lose our resilience. See the causal chain here? Bad God images lead to lack of confidence in God, which leads to a loss of resilience. Boom. There it is. where I wanted us to reach today. Now let’s solidify this. Let’s drive it home. How can we make these concepts stick with us. Hmmm. [Ding] Ah ha, an idea! Let’s have a story, an old one, and a not very good one. It’s Story time, with Dr. Peter: [cue music]
Now the serpent was more subtle than any other wild creature that the Lord God had made. He said to the woman, “Did God say, ‘You shall not eat of any tree of the garden’?” 2 And the woman said to the serpent, “We may eat of the fruit of the trees of the garden; 3 but God said, ‘You shall not eat of the fruit of the tree which is in the midst of the garden, neither shall you touch it, lest you die.’” 4 But the serpent said to the woman, “You will not die. 5 For God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.” 6 So when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was a delight to the eyes, and that the tree was to be desired to make one wise, she took of its fruit and ate; and she also gave some to her husband, and he ate. 7 Then the eyes of both were opened, and they knew that they were naked; and they sewed fig leaves together and made themselves aprons.
Satan here – Focused on the God image of Adam and Eve. He wants to corrupt the God image, change their feelings about God, set their hearts against God.
Fifth of the five attachment related tasks from last episode, Episode 21:
Knowing at a deep level that God wills what is best for you.
We know that grace perfects nature – St. Thomas Aquinas, grace perfects nature, it doesn’t destroy it. Satan wants to corrupt our nature – he works on a human, natural level. He wants to sow seeds of doubt about God’s benevolence, about how God wills what is best for us. He wants us to doubt that, and he’s going to use things in the natural world, he’s going to try to capitalize on our psychological deficiencies, our wounds, our imperfections. He wants to capitalize on our problematic God images, exacerbate them, get us to endorse them, succumb to them so that we will lose our deep and abiding confidence in God which leads to our resilience collapsing. And if he can get us far enough down that road, we will be lost.
I’m going to talk much more about the 5 attachment related tasks and how they connect to God images in future episodes, don’t worry. And I am going to dive deeper into the relationship between temptation, our human imperfections, and resilience as well. We’re going to talk about how to heal our God images. There is so much in store for you in upcoming episodes in this sequence on reliance.
Dark place exercise.
Write it down. If you join the Resilient Catholics Carpe Diem community, put it up on the discussion board there – that’s private only for the community members. You can also email it to me at
crisis@soulsandhearts.com or leave me a voicemail at 317.567.9594 – if you call, be warned that sometimes I pick up the phone and answer, just saying…
Discern about making this podcast a regular part of your week. Not all called to it, but this is designed as a program. Can you commit to the 30 minutes per week to listen and the five minutes per day to do the exercises to work on your human formation. Super excited about next week – major story time next week, I will be in rare form for a long, long story in which we are going to pull together the conceptual work we’ve been doing in the this episode and the last episode. It will be great, I am really excited.
Also we just had our first organization meeting for the RCCD community on June 27, last Saturday and it was “invigorating.” We are coming together in the community. The video from that with the ideas and sharing from that meeting will be up in the RCCD Exclusive Content area, along with the videos from the Grief Workshop and the Stress Management Workshop until July 8.
And here’s the next big thing. Friday, July 10, 7:30 PM to 8:45 PM Eastern time, I am hosting a Zoom meeting for RCCD community members to hang out and discuss together this podcast episode and the next one, Episodes 22 and 23. So put that on your calendars, register in the Zoom meeting section of the RCCD community discussion boards. It’s going to be great. Friday, July 10, 7:30 PM to 8:45 PM Eastern time. And pray for me, I’m praying for you.
Patronness and Patron