Wonder how to use my videos and book? Here’s your instant guide!

First step:  pray for inspiration from the Holy Spirit to have an open heart, to hear with your heart, what Jesus might be saying to you personally.

The goal for you, brother or sister in Christ is to:

1. Learn about Jesus.

This leads to building a relationship with Him, alive in your life.

2. Love Him more as you learn about Him. 

This leads to developing a heart of gratitude, complete trust, and happy conformity to Him.

3. Follow Him more closely.

This involves learning how to apply His Life Lessons to your own life.

4. Witness to His presence and activity in my life to others.

This involves a certain enthusiastic energy that comes from being committed to Him as a person, viewing His ways as making life significantly better, seeing this relationship as the most important thing in my life, that my life shifts to reorganize correspondingly.  It also involves being so attached to Him, with loving confidence, that I overcome any shyness or social rejection fears, and just seek to please Him.  In so doing I become more effective, creative, positive and influential with others important to me, and even to new people I meet.  I also learn to create opportunities, so others will also know, love and follow Him.  This does not happen by me only being a “good person”, it happens by transparently living for a specific person they identify to be Jesus.

So, now that you know the goal, let’s implement it. 

Day 1 and thereafter, listen first to the video session, in order.  Make a few notes of what speaks to you and why.  Then, read that section in the Love Letters From Your Father, Gospel of John.  It follows right along with the same verses as in your New Testament.  What is written will amplify the Gospel verses with the history, background, biblical exegesis, teachings of the Fathers of the Church, and interpretation of the Catholic Magisterium (meaning 2,000 plus years’ certain understandings that go straight back to the apostles’ teachings, and their disciples.)  My “Lectio Divina” inspiration adds some details to tie it together in a format for you that reads more like a novel, and will help you follow along.

Read, get set, go!

Pray!

Listen!

Read!

Then take a notebook, date it, write the chapter and verses you listened to and read with today’s date on it, and summarize what it means to you in your life.  How does it speak to you about who Jesus is to you?  And what He calls you toward?  Perhaps what you need to shift.

And ideas?

Write!

Then the rest of the day, think about it from time to time.  At the end of the day, re-read what you wrote.  Any new ideas?

Perhaps consider sharing it with someone you love and trust.  Ready? 

Go share!

Next day—due the same.  Do not worry if some days it does not speak to you as much.  That’s part of the test of you being faithful.  It’s not always milk and honey.  The faithful part is, you believe Jesus’ words to you when He is speaking about prayer requests that conform to His will.  “Ask and you shall receive, seek and you shall find, knock and the door shall be opened to you.” Matthew 7:7

 You are asking, seeking and knocking.  That’s what it’s all about.  Just continue faithfully doing it, and you will reap the benefit of the secrets of the saints.  It is not more complicated than that.  You don’t need to be a scholar.  That’s why I wrote, at the request of Archbishop Tomas Clavel, Panamanian hero bishop who had a heart for simple people.  Not that you have to be simple either, but we do have to be open, “open like a child”, as Jesus said.

You also don’t need to have a tremendous amount of faith, even just a little bit, and God Almighty will intervene in your life and do the rest.  You will see.

This is what happens all the time in the office of my wife, a psychologist, Dr. Chiara Simeone-DiFrancesco.  There are times with Christian clients when something beyond herself, her psych tools and beyond what the client has as resources, is needed.  She will invite the client to open to a Scripture in a serendipitous way of faith, meaning not a directed reading, and time after time, it amplifies exactly what was being dealt with in the session, and adds an experience of the nearness, caring and intervening Love of God, of Jesus and the Holy Spirit, ever present and oh so close!  It is astounding, and astounding on a regular basis.

Do you want that for yourself?  You can “get it”, by “getting God”.  Give what I suggest a try, and see for yourself.

God bless you and I will personally pray for everyone who subscribes to a daily reading of “Bible, Love Letters From Your Father, Books of John, Gospel, (Lectio Divina).

If you need further help, you may also contact me for pastoral guidance and spiritual direction via our contact page[WU1] .  This is not about mental health issues, but about spiritual connection with Jesus  and His perspective on issues in your life.

P.S.  I have a number of assorted free resources on this website as well.  Some are short videos of only a couple of minutes, in fact 38 of them entitled: This is God Speaking.  It’s an engaging dramatization about some hot topics.  Perhaps one of them will “hit you” with what you need. 

God bless,

And please feel free to email me with your comments and feedback or sign up for our newsletter with helpful “Life Lessons”.

Having been a foreign mission catechist in 24 countries and experiencing many different types of people, taken hostage, rescued by loving Buddhists, and embraced by families in a heavenly leper Thai village, I would say I’ve experienced many different things, including helping mistresses of mafia leaders get free and change their lives, reconcile families with runaways, and reaching out for fascinating interchanges that have influenced and changed diehard atheists.  Mind you, not by me, but only and always by the grace of my Lord, Jesus the Christ.

Never fear, He is with you!!

Romy (Romuald B. Simeone)

The Spirit is a moving…!

WCAT Radio & Jesus-Centered Institute, LLC –Dialog International Press, LLC

Collaboration!

“WCAT not-for-profit Catholic Radio” (together with Jesus-Centered Institute, LLC’s and its publishing division, Dialog International Press, LLC)  is in a joint venture to assist training priests who are licensed mental health therapists. Their collaboration will provide a Fellowship Certification Training Program in Marital/Couples Psychotherapy  called Jesus-Centered Schema Therapy®  (Basic & Advanced, Individual & Marital).

PLEASE HELP FUND 6 PRIESTS

Post-Licensure Fellowship Training Program in Marital Psychotherapy Presents:

JESUS-CENTERED SCHEMA THERAPY® Post-licensure Certification-Track Training Program[1]

Have you been wanting to help marriages as a “ministry”, but not know where to begin?  We have an opportunity for you to be involved in critically needed preparatory studies for 6 ordained and licensed clergy to become experts in a Christian application of Schema Therapy and to train new therapists.

Our clergy therapists need, like other dedicated therapists, topnotch psychotherapy interventions to be able to minister effectively to the marriages that come to them with struggle. Often in graduate school training the student needs to cover and absorb a broad overview of theories, research, and skills to provide a solid foundation.  It often takes years of clinical practice to pull these pieces together effectively.

Most clinicians sign up for specialized continuing education after their degree.  In fact, post- licensing fellowships are common.  Ongoing continuing education is a necessary part of maintaining a license.

The problem is that the specialized therapies that require a few years of committed study, experiential exercises with colleagues, and individualized educational consultation with cases on the model, are quite expensive. Whether it is a Gottman method Couples Therapy, Emotionally-Focused Therapy (EFT), EMDR (Eye Movement Desensitization & Reprocessing), Trauma Specialist Certificate Program, Imago Therapy, Somatic Experiencing (SE), or others, pursuit of these is at significant cost.

WCAT Radio is endeavoring to provide training free of cost (outside of room and board) for on-site training to a limited number of clergy.  The first group enrolled will not exceed 6 students.  We have contracted licensed psychologist, Dr. Chiara Simeone-DiFrancesco and her Jesus-Centered Schema Therapy® International Training Institute to be the trainer & director of the program.

The program will train in Schema Therapy, and will specifically be geared to the full course of Basic, Advanced and Trainer status.  The courses will encompass and extend beyond all of the components of the secular certification programs that are found through the International Society of Schema Therapy’s basic requirements for certification at these levels.

Additional components refine this evidenced-based psychotherapy for a Christian /Catholic / Ecumenical target population.  This includes basing all teaching on the foundation of Christ, being built and rooted in Him.  (Col. 2:7).  It is  also known as a “Christian anthropology” in popular terms.

For those who complete the program and pass the exams with the required score (both written and video-tape submissions) our affiliate, Jesus-Centered Institute, LLC will provide certification of Jesus-Centered Schema Therapy for Individuals and Marriage.

WCAT nonprofit has  chosen Schema Therapy as our modality to heal and strengthen marriages for a particular reason.  Our Clinical Director, Dr. Simeone-DiFrancesco, has achieved international Advanced and Trainer certifications in the discipline of Schema Therapy, and has had practiced psychology for thirty years.  She believes it to be one of the finest therapies out there that  incorporates state of the art and proven  evidenced-based tools.

She comes to this position after significant training and continuing education in many psychotherapy interventions and systems. (Gottman Level 2 training completion; Externship in Emotion-Focused Therapy; certification in Medical Analytical Hypnotherapy; Gottman Couples Therapy Trauma & Affairs training; EMDR training; Cognitive-Behavioral training; psychodynamic course work.  This all—as well as 30 years of assorted continuing education training on a yearly basis).

While no therapy can guarantee results, in Schema Therapy there is by design a collaborative relationship. Under guidance of the therapist, treatment steps are orchestrated and aimed to fill in past gaps and create new and healing experiences and shifts in the manner of coping.  Schema Therapy takes elements of supported evidenced based therapies and integrates them into a robust conceptualization and set of strategic interventions, which are  individually tailored to each couple. Schema Therapy is not a mere eclectic hodgepodge.  It has a unique conceptual base that identifies the specific clash components and cycles (modes, schemas and clinical symptoms) that the individuals and the marriage are trapped in.  It then  elucidates their origins and what is needed to heal them.

Practitioners who learn Schema Therapy are generally more seasoned.  They are able to perceive its benefits and contributions from experiences in their efforts with individuals and couples having complex issues. In Dr. Simeone-DiFrancesco’s expert opinion, it is a robust therapy designed to work effectively even with difficult couples have personality disordered rough edges.  It is a cutting-edge therapy that incorporates some of the best tools of Gottman, Emotion-Focused, and Positive Psychology/Virtue-based therapies available under a consistent case conceptualization. It  recognizes understandings  taken from brain science on how we learn, react, heal from traumas, calm ourselves and each other, and very importantly, attach.

Jesus-Centered Schema Therapy is not a newly invented therapy.  It is classic Schema Therapy that is uniquely grounded and rooted in a Christian anthropology of human nature. It is virtue-commitment centered  and prioritizes solid Christ-modeling. (Rather than inconsistent humanist self-centered objectives.)   It promotes the seeking of truth, respect and the fulfillment of Needs of all equally, and as such, is a true minority inclusive psychotherapy.  Clients  are invited to learn to incorporate a Gospel-guided road map that extends and connects them to Christ Jesus Himself, to continue long after the intensive phase of therapy-by-necessity ends.

This is what we want: healthy and independently functioning marriages of their own that in turn can subsequently mentor new marriages and minister in the parish or church communities.  Healthy models of marriage sadly are a rare commodity!

That is why with  Jesus-Centered Schema Therapy we are endeavoring to do something using the talent base of  already-formed Christian clergy therapists, who are committed to healing marriages full time.  This allows them to focus on these skills and develop them, to engage in further research studies, and to train the next set of Jesus-Centered Schema Therapists®.

For more information, please read available materials on the Jesus-Centered Schema Therapy® International Training Center.

When funds/donations have been received that allow for the full development of materials and staffing, we will issue a brochure and application packet.  Application will be competitive.  Preference will be given for those clergy who have demonstrated prior interest or experience in Schema Therapy and wish to serve full-time in teaching, researching or implementing Schema Therapy for marriage.  All applicants must be independently licensed to practice mental health.

More information about WCAT Radio: We are a St. Louis-based, 501(c)(3) Not-for-Profit Internet radio station (EIN: 83-4447144) developed as an en-air branch of En Route Books & Media for the purpose of promoting the Catholic spiritual journey through quality Catholic programming.

1. Do you need personal mentoring, spiritual direction & pastoral guidance?  Get it direct from the source: limited pastoral counseling available through Romuald Simeone. Contact via email
2. Need more free resources to pass on to your friends & family members who are not “in love” with Jesus, who don’t know what they are missing, or who are turned off by the “human church”: Check out the brief topics in our list of 38:  this is God speaking, as well as our other resources.
3. Looking for more sermon material, teaching content for seminary formators, or material for days of recollection, retreats, or Bible college courses on Scripture? Check out our books on Bible, Love Letters From Your Father, Books of John, (Lectio Divina) with accompanying videos, or purchase the set of both.  To order the set of all three volumes plus a dvd of all of the videos, order here.

For donors to the formation of the 6 therapist priests in the ministry of helping marriage, with your donation of $500 or more, you will receive all three volumes and the set of accompanying videos on Vimeo to own.