Catholic Cardinals and Pope Benedict XVI Commend Dr. Dan Montgomery's GOD AND YOUR PERSONALITY Book

The Cardinal's response caught me by surprise. A number of years ago, the Pauline Sisters of Boston (Pauline Books & Media) invited me to write a book that became published worldwide, titled GOD AND YOUR PERSONALITY. 

Dr. Dan Montgomery

I sent a copy to a Vatican Cardinal, with little expectation of a response, due to his impacted schedule. But a few weeks later, there came in the mail these comments:

“Dr. Dan Montgomery’s Christian personality theory 

demonstrates a good understanding of the human person's 

proper resting place in the embrace of a transcendent God. 

This is no New Age influenced waffle 

clouded in a mystique of blurb, 

but a useful tool for all those 

who seek to address personality issues 

and quench their innate spiritual thirst 

with the living water which truly satisfies. 

Well done!” 

Paul Cardinal Poupard

President Emeritus Vatican Council for Culture 

Paul Cardinal Poupard

How did I come to write this book in the first place? 

One afternoon I received a phone call from Sister Mary Mark, the  Pauline Books & Media Editor at that time. Since they enjoy an excellent worldwide reputation, I was pleased to hear from her. 

Sister Mary Mark said she had read some of my books and articles and felt guided to ask me this question: 

"As a Psychologist and Theologian, could you please write a book that we can publish that integrates spirituality with psychology, and that includes the Holy Spirit?" 

"I would be thrilled to do just that," I replied, remembering to breathe, "for I consider such a topic my life calling."

With my wife Kate's abundant assistance, and the anointing of the Holy Spirit, I wrote God and Your Personality in three weeks.  

I felt honored to receive this commendation from Vatican Archbishop Robert Sarah, Secretary of the Vatican Council for the Evangelization of Peoples:

“This book is easy to understand and yet contains a profound understanding of the underlying elements of the human personality. It will surely be of much help to anyone who wishes to deepen their knowledge of the relationship between psychological and spiritual wholeness.”

 

Archbishop Robert Sarah

That year, other Cardinals also commended God and Your Personality: 
 

• Ricardo Cardinal Vidal, Manila:

“God & Your Personality is a noble accomplishment and a gift to individuals who seek wholeness and holiness.”

Ricardo Cardinal Vidal

• Erdo Cardinal Peter, Budapest: 

“God & Your Personality is a fine achievement and wonderful contribution to the healing ministry.”

Erdo Cardinal Peter

• Stephen Cardinal Kim, Seoul:

“I am now reading God & Your Personality and find it very enlightening.”

Stephen Cardinal Kim

Kate and I were privileged to be invited to spend a weekend with the Sisters in Boston soon after the book's publication, where we met Sister Mary Mark, who offered to hire Kate as an editor! We participated in Evensong Mass, sharing the Eucharist together. We were deeply moved in hearing the Pauline Sisters Chorale, and in feeling a holy thickening of the atmosphere under the power of the Holy Spirit.

This story is even more extraordinary: While I am an Evangelical, Ecumenical, and Spirit-filled Christian—affirming the Apostle's Creed, the Divine Inspiration of Scripture, the Communion of Saints, and revere Mary, the Mother of Jesus, I am not a Roman Catholic. I was converted to Jesus Christ at 17. By the time I entered college, the Holy Spirit instructed me to become as well read in all things Catholic as I was in all things Protestant. 

During college, by the interior teaching of the Holy Spirit I understood that toward the end of life, the books God had chosen me to write would be sought by Catholic and Protestant Christians around the world, a living testimony to St. Paul's words: "There is one body and one Spirit, just as you were called to the one hope that belongs to your call, one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of us all, who is above all and through all and in all” (Eph 4:4-6 RSVCE)."

So beyond John Calvin, Martin Luther, and John Wesley, the Spirit guided me to read the works of St. Augustine, St. Anselm, St. Bonaventure, St. Thomas Aquinas, St. Theresa of Avila, St. John of the Cross, Trappist priest Thomas Merton, Catholic Philosopher Gabriel Marcel, Karl Rahner, Jesuit Philosopher of History, Frederick Copleston, and to attend many Catholic masses and Monastery retreats. 

I can therefore say with all my heart that I treasure all Catholics as my brothers and sisters in Christ. And I am humbly grateful for the fact that there is a copy of God and Your Personality in The Vatican Library, and (according to his personal theologian) a copy of this book in Pope Benedict XVI's personal library. 

Pope Benedict XVI

Using the Catechism of the Catholic Church, Second Edition as one of my sources, I recently wrote a revised and expanded version of the original book now available in both print and Kindle form on Amazon:

God and Your Personality

WHY YOU WANT TO READ THE BIBLE

 

Dr. Dan Montgomery

As a Clinical Psychologist for 40 years, as well as an ordained Christian minister and theologian, I offer up my lifetime assessment of Homo Sapiens historically and today: 

That apart from God’s grace and guidance, 

we human beings are vain, fickle, and recalcitrant. 

I share this view with world famous existential psychologist Rollo May, who coined this phrase and personally shared it with me 40 years ago.
 

I still commend these classic Rollo May books: The Art of Counseling; Psychology and the Human Dilemma; Love and Will; Power and Innocence; Courage to Create); and The Discovery of Being. 

Are Dr. May and I alone in this assessment? Are we overly pessimistic? 

Or are we reflecting the view of humankind revealed in the Bible, the Old and New Testaments, from Genesis through Revelation? 

Read the Bible cover to cover this month, 

without rationalist, humanist, or liberal-progressive agendas, 

and find out for yourself. 

The New International Version (NIV), New Living Testament (NLT), and The Message (MSG) are solid and current translations. BibleGateway offers excellent online resources. 

The Bible portrays the universal human condition as sin-filled and estranged from the holiness and purposes of God: individuals who do what’s right in their own eyes:

 "Woe to those who are wise in their own eyes 

and clever in their own sight"  
(Isaiah 5:21 NIV)

They follow a pathway that seems rational or ethical or religious to them, but lacks a holy relationship to the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit: A personal relationship, one that replaces rote lip service to a static image of the Trinity for the vibrant Triune God who created this Cosmos, yes, but who longs for each person of every culture or belief or DNA or sex, to know Him personally and trust him in all life choices.

The Father, Son, and Holy Spirit: Three Persons in One God, invite us to live a Spirit-led daily life in conversation with Him about the most intimate goings on in our lives. 

“Lord, I pray to you for help in my relationship with my daughter. We’re picking at each other too much. Please reveal a path for us that I can understand.” 

The Trinitarian God invites us, beseeches us, to engage Him twenty fours hours a day, 365 days a year, decade after decade—until in death we each meet Him face to face. 

At that point, we are either excluded from His eternal presence as a consequence of impenitent lifelong sin (Hell), or we are included in the glorious company of the redeemed, born again individuals who know, trust, and obey the Lord God Almighty (Heaven).
 
My suggestion to all seven billion or so persons who currently inhabit Planet Earth? 

Seek the Lord while He may be found, 

for today is the day of salvation.

 

SEEKING JESUS

If you haven’t received His blood atonement for your sins, pray for this free gift of new life in the Spirit and grace-filled reconciliation to God. 

This gift comes if you confess in your mind and believe in your heart that Jesus Christ gave his Life and Blood on the Cross as a once-and-for-all atonement for your sins so that you can: 

• have life in Him, and have it more abundantly.
• know the truth that sets you free
• follow the resurrected and spiritually ascended Jesus

 You make Jesus the Lord of your life by doing the Father’s will in loving God with your whole human nature, and loving your neighbor (the Family of Humanity) as you love yourself” (Luke 10:27).

God himself put it this way:

“I’ll live in them, move into them;
    I’ll be their God and they’ll be my people.
So leave the corruption and compromise;
    leave it for good,” says God. 
“Don’t link up with those who will pollute you.
    I want you all for myself.
I’ll be a Father to you;
    you’ll be sons and daughters to me.”
The Word of the Master, God. 

2 Corinthians: 6:16-18 (MSG)

WHAT CHILDREN KNOW AND ADULTS CAN LEARN ABOUT RELATING TO GOD

“Daddy,” asks four-year-old Ben, “How old is God?”

Daddy, who has been through this before, answers, “God doesn’t have an age, Ben. He just always was and always will be.”

“Oh,”says Ben, taking that in. He looks down. “I’m sad, Daddy, because then God doesn’t get to have birthday parties.”  

Daddy, who is learning fast, says, “Well, Ben, you don’t have to be sad, because Jesus does have a birthday. We celebrate it every year at Christmas.”

Ben’s face lights up. “Hurrayyy!” Then his brows furrow. “But why don’t we give Jesus gifts? All we do is get gifts.”

Daddy tears up a little, if the truth be told. And rolls with it: “Very true, son. What do you think Jesus would like for a birthday present?”

Ben looks up, brown eyes pondering, finger on his bottom lip. 

“Ummm. I know! I’m going to draw him a picture of me and Mommy and you and Sissie.” He beams, running off to his room to do just that. "Then Jesus will know what we look like!" Ben calls out joyfully from the top of the stairs.

Children are gifted with an intuitive sense 

for relating to God. They are:

Open, not judgmental

Curious, not fearful 

Accepting, not resistant 

to, the nature of God

During their Preschool years, young children ask "why" questions like, “Does God wear clothes?," "Can God come for dinner tonight?," or “Where does God live?” They are busy assimilating information from their parents, yet displaying an intuitive openness and acceptance of the idea of God.

Still innocently accepting—not skeptically resisting—School age children are often moved on by the Holy Spirit to accept Christ as their Savior without understanding the theology behind it, but surrendering nonetheless with little fuss about it, differentiating the “before” and “after” experience within their spirit, integrating the essential belief that Jesus belongs to God and they belong to Jesus, a concept they see as very natural.

Adolescents develop increased self-consciousness and are more wary of the idea of God, perhaps because in the maturation process they have had to reject worldly myths, such as Santa Claus, the Easter Bunny, or the Tooth Fairy; but they still are drawn to the Ideal of Someone who is supremely authentic, Someone worthy of radical trust. Their idealism can find differentiation within church settings that offer youth fellowship, appealing to their social needs and to their beginning theoretical integration of Jesus’ life and personality with their own.

Indeed, Christian Personality Theory asserts that it is God’s presence in humankind, and in the particular lives of the child or adolescent, that quickens their sense of right or wrong, and woos them toward a personality integration that counters anxiety, apathy, or alienation that often haunt the human condition.

From young adulthood through middle age and beyond, persons find themselves facing issues like how to integrate the sudden death of someone dearly loved; how to handle a bad accident or tragic illness, wondering where God is and why there is no sense of his presence; or how to maintain faith even though the effects of aging heighten the awareness of mortality.

“Truly I tell you," Jesus said, "anyone who will not receive the kingdom of God like a little child will never enter it” Mark 9:37).

CHRISTIAN PERSONALITY THEORY

 

"Jesus Christ:" This World's Ultimate Swearword

A few years ago I posted a blog titled: "Jesus Christ" is America's Favorite Curse Word, where I addressed what was happening then in our culture. 

Now, the year of 2019, the post-Christian era reigns in full bloom:

So that the name of Jesus Christ erupts automatically, 

without thought or conscious awareness, 

as the "go to" comment 

to express extreme negative emotions:

"Jesus Christ" now means:

"Oh, that's too bad." 

"Man, that's terrible!"
"You've got to be kidding." 
"That's disgusting." 
"How horrible!" 
"I can't believe it!" 

"That's the worst thing I've ever heard!"

In casual conversations at home, at work, 

at parties; with family, friends. 

On TV. In books, movies, 

sports events, and restaurants. 

Everywhere and in all places.

What does Jesus Christ, the Son of God and Son of Man, have to say about this state of affairs? 

“The Son of Man came to seek and save those who are lost” (Lk 19:10).

 

JESUS CHRIST

 
 

Staying in Love: Three Tips

It’s the bugaboo of a couple’s life—how to respect each other’s free will, while growing more intimate as a couple. It’s the kind of topic that sounds fancy in a lecture, but gets messier in real life. Like how to influence each other without committing the famous fouls of:

• guilt-tripping
• rolling the eyes
• walking out on a conversation
• talking down to your partner

Kate and I celebrated our thirty year anniversary this month (See YouTube Episode #11: DR DAN AND KATE MONTGOMERY HIP HOP MARTIAL ARTS AND LOVE for part of the celebration!) But we, like all couples, still need to work on healthy communication.

Dr. Dan and Kate Montgomery

Three Little Tips

1. Warm-up your partner up to the communication you wish to have. "Is this a good time for you to talk?" Realize that we each live inside our own skin. At any given moment, we are experiencing things that our partners have no way of knowing about, unless we tell them.  
 

It is a huge mistake to believe 

that if a person really loves you, 

he or she will be able to read your mind. 

No way. Your partner is as locked inside their skin as you are. The only tools available for communication and communion are words and body language. So whatever you want to say, especially if it has a strong emotional valence to it, break it to them gently.

2. Avoid verbal arguments and misunderstandings by willingly repeating whatever you’re trying to say in fresh new words. It is only natural for couples to mishear a communication, or to take something very personally and react defensively, instead of continuing the communication. With practice you can learn to let your partner finish whatever they are trying to say without interrupting them, or short-circuiting the communication with an emotional reaction. Taking the time to clarify any misunderstanding builds mutual goodwill.  

The more grace you extend to your partner, 

the more grace they become willing 

and able to extend to you.

3. Just as in car maintenance, 

keep your intimacy well oiled and lubricated 

by a generous supply of basic kindness:  

 “Thank you.” 

“You’re welcome.” 

“Please may I?” 

“Excuse me.” 

“Good morning.” 

“Sleep well.” 

“How are you?” 

 “I need you.” 

“I’m sorry.” 

“I love you!”

As you can tell, I feel passionately about couple’s growth. 

If one of my dreams could come true, it would be that 

every couple on earth might come to know 

the warmth, emotional security, and adventure 

of couple’s intimacy that really works. 

STAYING IN LOVE