Franciscan Spirituality Center
920 Market Street
La Crosse, WI 54601

https://www.fscenter.org/

Welcome to the Franciscan Spirituality Center in La Crosse, Wisconsin’s “What is Spirituality?” podcast. Your host, Steve Spilde, is the associate director at the Center. His guests talk about their evolving understanding of God , prayer, healing, and wholeness.
Steve: Did people use the term “spirituality” when you were that age.
Mary Kathryn
If someone had asked you, did that word mean anything? What were some of the meanings that word might've held then?

At that time if somebody had said “spirituality”, probably it would've been prayer. That might have been it. Prayer, devotions – that sort of thing. That would've probably been it.
There wasn't much of a distinction between spirituality and religion was there?
No. No. Religion was considered religion. Or nobody talked about it. And what we learned, even in the classes about becoming a woman religious, even that was a lot about rules and regulations, the doctines and dogmas. We didn’t learn lot about prayer. Our prayer was pretty much rote - out of the book.
As you think about how your understanding of spirituality has changed throughout your life, what were some early moments – some important moments when that started to change and evolve?
Probably in my mid-30s. It was retreats. I went on my first directed retreat. That was definitely a changing point for me. Now my experience of Christ and God was personal. It was a personal relationship.
For someone who has not been on retreat, when you use the term “directed retreat”, what does that look like?
I would not use that. We would have to talk about what is a retreat? What do they understand about it?
What did your first directed retreat look like? What were the boundaries?
It was amazing. I had a Jesuit priest that was giving the retreat. Because we were making the retreat, but then he was also teaching us. Because of course that was also part of it.
We would have a class each day on the Ignatian exercises so there were some things that I was really good at. Some things I couldn't figure out. You know just in the whole thing, even in my own prayer time. But there was so much grace and so much gift in the whole thing. Again, it just was my cup of tea. I didn't have to talk to people.
So “Directed Retreat”, the standard understanding is that you go away for silence, and then once a day, you meet with a spiritual director. Correct?
That's right. That's what I would say. And then you have prayer times, like guided prayer times by the director.
So for you that was a fish to water.
Oh my! I loved it. It was good.
But it sounds like in those periods of silence you had a more direct experience of God. Yes, yes. For sure. I learned about prayer. Like I hadn’t learned a lot about prayer, but I really began to learn about various ways of prayer that was helpful to me.
You went through a program to learn how to be a spiritual director for other people and then there was the invitation to create the Franciscan Spirituality Center so you could first train the sisters to do that, right? And eventually open the doors to people.
To other people? Yes, yes. So it grew out of the Vatican II, the whole thing grew out of Vatican II and how do we respond to what are the needs now.
The group that was there with me, maybe three of us actually continued on and started doing spiritual direction. I don't think the others did.
You described that it was really natural for you to be a listener. What were some of the skills you had to refine though, to become better as a spiritual director.
Probably learn ways of inviting people to share more in their feelings. And maybe for people that are very verbal, having to slow them down. Learn how to slow them down. Invite them to reflection. And always I had to keep coming back to this, “This is the work between God and that soul. This is not my job.” Always having to remind myself that it's not my job to change them or to save them. To let God directly work with them.
From the early days of the spirituality center until now, would you say your understanding of spirituality has evolved?
Definitely, but you know, like when I came here, by the time I came to the spirituality center in 1988 I had pretty well figured out religion and spirituality and the difference there. So when I came here a lot of the programs we had were just really geared to spirituality. The sister who was the director before really worked with parishes and so it was more like what today we would call an RCIA type of thing. So it was much more connected to religion. I had pretty much come to an understanding what I thought spirituality was. And it was not religion. It was much broader than that.
What are the elements of spirituality in your mind?
It is larger than a church and encompassed much more creation and body and Spirit. Community some, but it wasn’t instruction as much as getting in touch with the Spirit, I suppose you could say. And God is present in all of it. It is much more life-giving I think. For the people that came here also, it responded to their desires and needs.
If you have any questions about any of the programs that they offer at the Franciscan Spirituality Center in La Crosse, Wisconsin, we invite you to call us at 608-791-5295. You can also visit our website at www.fscenter.org. Thank you for listening.