6 A Call To Arms: Rise Up, Red-Blooded Catholics

Coronavirus Crisis: Carpe Diem

A Call To Arms: Rise Up, Red-Blooded Catholics

Episode 6:  April 6, 2020

Look, I’m going to get right down to it.  We are in a real crisis with this virus.  You’ve seen the news – New York City’s hospitals are overwhelmed and infections and deaths are accelerating exponentially.  We’re facing shortages of some basic items and supply chains are breaking down.  We’ve never experienced anything like this.  And I believe we are in it for the long haul.  

The bottom line is this:  The Catholic Church now, more than ever needs heroes to rise up.  The Church needs you to be an unsung hero in your vocation, in your duties of state.  Other souls need you to be clearheaded, calm, effective, thoughtful, patient, generous, and resilient.  They don’t just need you to be a holy man or woman.  They need you to be well-formed on a human level, well integrated, soul, heart, body and mind.  Other souls are looking to you for safety, security, guidance, direction.  Are you up for that yet?  Are you equipped to handle whatever may come?

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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. This is Episode 6 and its April 6, 2020, entitled A Call To Arms: Rise Up, Red-Blooded Catholics. I’m clinical psychologist Peter Malinoski with Souls and Hearts at soulsandhearts.com.  Thank you for being here with me.  

The stakes are high.  Yes, there is life and death on the line.  But there is more than just life and death.  There is salvation and damnation for souls on the line.  Our parishes are shuttered, we’ve lost the Mass and many of us have lost access to confession unless we are in danger of death. We’ve lost access to the Eucharist.   Now is the time – now is the time for red-blooded Catholic men and women, drinking deeply of God’s grace, to rise to the challenges of these wild times.  There has never been a better time for you to rise up and seize the day.

If you are willing to take on this mission, this mission of rising up and shining like a beacon for others, I am here to guide you, step by step and this podcast is for you. I’m here to be with you and walk you through an entire program of human psychological formation to help you triumph in the challenges you are facing, the stresses that confront you.  I am looking for probably less than 1% of Catholics, those that really get that grace builds on nature, the supernatural builds on the natural, and that know they have to work not just on their spiritual life, but also their psychological life.  I’m looking for just a few Catholics, maybe 100 committed souls, maybe more, who want to join me in our online community where we can mutually support each other in becoming unsung heroes in our daily lives.  

I’m looking for red-blooded Catholics who want to feast on the nourishing Word of the Gospel as it is, and live it out to the max.  I am looking for Catholics who are tired of the limp-wristed, narrow, timid, lukewarm, worldly approach to our Faith we see all around us.  

I am looking for Catholics who are tired of spineless, risk-averse approaches to the faith, masquerading as prudence.  I want Catholics to join me who are ready to be creative, think way outside the box, to find real solutions to real problems, who are willing to make great and small sacrifices, but who just need some guidance, who are looking for some guidance grounded in the perennial teachings of our beloved Church.   And not because we’re great – we’re not great -- but because we want our Lord to live and act through us.  

If you engage seriously with what I offer you, my bet is that many of you will grow much more resilient and much better equipped to carry out your mission to answer God’s call for you. 

So you might ask:

Who are you, Dr. Peter, to volunteer to lead us and why should we follow?

My whole career has been focused on bringing people closer to God and Mary through shoring up the natural foundation.  I almost left the field in grad school because I was struggling with how to ground the practice of psychology in an authentic Catholic worldview.  I have decades of experience working with clients, helping them through crises of various kinds.  And I have a wealth of information to share with you.  My spirituality is essentially Carmelite and I’m focused on removing psychological barriers to contemplative union with God.  You can look up my bio on Soulsandhearts.com but this is not really about me.  It’s about you.  If you really engage with what I have to offer you, you’ll know by the fruits you see if this is helpful or not.  

So if I commit, how does this work – how are you going to guide us?

So we have this podcast, which is twice per week, Mondays and Fridays.  Every week.  You know, a lot of Catholic websites have shut down or reduced the frequency of their offerings.  We’re ramping up and adding resources four or five days per week at Soulsandhearts.com.

In each episode, I’ll share some inside information, the same kinds of information that has been helpful to me in and helpful to my clients and friends.  We don’t do psychotherapy.in this podcast or in any of our offerings at Souls and Hearts, but we do share much of the same information.  So there is a teaching element.

Often in the podcasts, there will be an experiential part – where I guide you through a process to understand yourself better.  We did one in the last episode, Episode 5 on discovering more about your mindset when you were in your dark place.  The experiential exercises in this podcast are where we learn by doing. 

So we have the educational information, we have the experiential exercises – what else?  We will discuss specific challenges that many people face in resiliency in crisis, in seizing the day.  And I will give you specific guidance on how to overcome those challenges.  You see that at the end of this podcast.  

If you register for this podcast on the Coronavirus Crisis Carpe Diem page at Souls and Hearts.com you will get a bonus email on Wednesday with some insider tips, sneak peeks at what’s coming up and other resources.  It’s really worth getting that email.  

Once we get enough people registered, I will be offering webinars for the registered listeners in our community, in which we have time to go into much more depth into a particular area.  

I will make recommendations for reading from time to time – nothing lengthy or academic – no, usually short passages.  We keep it really clear and to the point.  

I’m also working on a self-assessment instrument for you to help you identify your relative strengths and weakness is facing crises, and I’m planning to be able to give tailored recommendations as your guide (again it’s not psychotherapy) for how best to change and grow.  

We are also working on community resources on our webpages – getting the discussion boards up so we can communicate and connect with each other. &nb...