Pope Francis, The Light of Faith, and the Transforming Power of Jesus Christ

The Catholic Church has declared October 11, 2012 to November 24, 2013 as The Year of Faith. As a committed Christian and theologian-psychologist I applaud this emphasis.

I believe The Year of Faith expresses the heartfelt cry of Christians worldwide to draw close to the Lord Jesus Christ in our modern day. As Paul says, “There is one body and one Spirit, just as you were called to one hope when you were called; one Lord, one faith, one baptism; one God and Father of all, who is over all and through all and in all” (Ephesians 4:4-6).

I want to share with you some of Pope Francis' first apostolic letter “Lumen Fidei” (“The Light of Faith”). I do this with admiration for his spirit of pastoral care, and with the conviction that he is speaking on behalf of the Body of Christ, Catholics and Protestants alike:

Pope Francis

The light of faith is unique, since it is capable of illuminating every aspect of human existence. A light this powerful cannot come from ourselves but from a more primordial source: in a word, it must come from God.

Faith heralds the transforming power of belief in Jesus. Faith does not merely gaze at Jesus, but sees things as Jesus himself sees them, with his own eyes: it is a participation in his way of seeing.

We trust the architect who builds our home, the pharmacist who gives us medicine for healing, the lawyer who defends us in court. We also need somebody trustworthy and knowledgeable where God is concerned. Jesus, the Son of God, is the one who makes God known to us.

Faith makes us aware of a magnificent calling, the vocation of love. It assures us that this love is trustworthy and worth embracing, for it is based on God's faithfulness which is stronger than our every weakness.

To receive the transforming power of Jesus requires a personal transformation, a journey never completely finished in this life. But we can benefit from psychological and spiritual tools that help us move forward. One of these is the Self Compass. The Self Compass helps us renew our personal conversion to Jesus and cooperate with the Holy Spirit in guiding our daily lives.

This Vatican endorsed model for personality transformation is based on Christ's personality and lets the radical new reality of his resurrection shape our personalities. By applying the Self Compass growth tool, your life can be purified and transformed during this Year of Faith.

The Self Compass

LOVE & ASSERTION

Faith is deeply connected to personality health. Faith helps to counter the corrosive effects of anxiety, depression, and anger. The Self Compass promotes personality health and thereby increases a person's faith. 

Love and Assertion are two complementary compass points within every person's Self Compass. What is the connection between faith and Love? In order to love God or another person, we must reach out to them. We must open our hearts. We must risk caring for them. This requires faith! I have counseled hundreds of people who suddenly received this insight and gasped: "Oh no, now I realize I've lived my whole life to be safely self-contained. I've been too afraid to ever really love anyone." 

To grow in Love requires the courage of Assertion. Mary risked trusting the Angel Gabriel's message to her. Though she no doubt felt some fear, and though she certainly didn't know how she could become the Mother of our Lord, she ended the conversation assertively: "May everything you have said about me come true" (Luke 1:38). Mary dared to assertively express faith in the God whom she loved and trusted. We can become more like Mary.

WEAKNESS AND STRENGTH

Spend a few concentrated moments today or tonight hungering and thirsting for Christ’s presence in your life. Don’t be afraid of any Weakness. Integrate your vulnerability and even self-doubts into your faith in God’s Strength. The Catechism says, “Only faith can embrace the mysterious ways of God’s almighty power. This faith glories in its weaknesses in order to draw to itself Christ’s power” (273). Out of Weakness we are made strong. This humble Strength is what God loves to foster in us. A rhythm between Weakness and Strength never makes us arrogant.  

The Self Compass helps you cooperate with grace, so that you may be transformed in Christ. To help your journey of faith this year, I'm including a link to God and Your Personality: Revised & Expanded Catholic Edition. You can imagine my humble gratitude when I was notified that this book has been added to the Vatican Library. 

Paul Cardinal Poupard of The Vatican has this to say: “God & Your Personality 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.”

God and Your Personality

Are You A Top Dog or Underdog?

Most of us manipulate others in one of two ways: either as top dogs who use the Strength and Assertion compass points to control people, or as underdogs who use the Love and Weakness compass points to make others take responsibility for us. Uncertain that we are acceptable the way we are, we don the mask of the manipulator.

Top Dog Self Compass

In Christian culture, men tend to adopt top dog patterns of manipulation—being competitive, arrogant and dictatorial. In a radio interview, a man called in to attack me for stating that men need to develop their capacity for tenderness, humility and affection.

“You just want to turn us into a bunch of sissies,” he said.  “Men are supposed to be strong so they can take care of their women!”

“I am suggesting that we men will be better lovers and fathers if we take the chip off our shoulders,” I replied. “We can learn to say ‘I’m sorry’ when we’re wrong, ‘I love you’ to our spouse and children.”

The caller hung up on me.

On the other hand, the underdog patterns of being co-dependent, naive and needing constant reassurance traps many women. When I appeared on a Christian women’s television program, the hostess asked me if there was a detrimental personality style for women. I replied that the worst thing a woman could do was to be overly submissive, dependent and unaware of her own capabilities. The hostess’ mouth dropped open and her hand went to her lips. “Dr. Montgomery,” she exclaimed, “you just described 90% of the women who watch this program!”

Underdog Self Compass

Unfortunately, little boys are still socialized into top dog styles when they are discouraged from expressing tender or vulnerable feelings. Adults still train little girls to be overly submissive and sweet. 

As a parent, you may spot tendencies in your child to get stuck in just one compass point, becoming aggressive, submissive, withdrawn or bossy. You can encourage creative growth stretches into the other compass points until balance is gradually achieved.

In relationships between men and women, men generally need to develop more humility, vulnerability, affection and nurturance. Women usually need to work on more objectivity, assertion, confidence and identity. When both sexes are developing more whole and rhythmic personalities, this dramatically enhances communication.

This is not to say women can’t be bossy and men can’t be submissive. But the idea is to outgrow cultural or religious stereotypes in favor of a fully operative Self Compass, no matter what particular combination of trends you are prone to exhibit.

TOP DOG DAN

At the beginning of my teaching career, I taught a college course in Ethics. I gave a lecture on spiritual love. The students took notes voraciously and one young woman told me the lecture moved her deeply. Yet I came away from the class knowing my own behavior was far from Christlike. I was discovering that problems in my personality were distorting my ability to give and receive love.

When I craved attention, I found a way to show off. When I wanted people to like me, I tried to impress them with my accomplishments. When I felt hurt, I hid my pain under a mask of sullen detachment. When I felt resentful, I put on a frozen smile to hide my anger, yet still harbored a grudge. These manipulative behaviors blocked my ability to interact honestly with people.

I felt powerless to change my manipulative ways. That night I begged the Lord for help. I prayed, “Father, help me quit living in my mind and start feeling with my heart. Help me stop puffing myself up, withdrawing when I don’t get my way and holding anger inside. Please help me love others and myself like you do.”

Before long, the still, small voice of the Lord spoke within me:

Dan, you have done well in loving and serving me, but you’re still afraid of people. You’re afraid they won’t respect you if you don’t show strength. You’re afraid they will reject you if you reveal weaknesses. You’re afraid they will hurt you if you open your heart to love. You’re afraid they’ll disapprove if you express your feelings. But I love people, even though some of them reject, hurt and hate me. Are you willing to be more of your real self and take the risks of love?

Wasn’t that the crux of the matter? God was showing me that my intellectual pride and emotional defensiveness had made me a top dog. I wanted love without the vulnerability. I was trying to be strong without being weak, to be in control without risking my heart. This inner revelation gave me new hope. Without realizing it, I was being tutored in the LAWS of personality and relationships. That night I invited the Holy Spirit to give me the courage to love.

Each of us is partly manipulative and partly capable of Christlike love. Though boxed in by our fears, pride and defensiveness, we can risk being more of our real selves and learn to love beyond manipulation. The good news is that we can reverse manipulation by using our Self Compass and trusting the Holy Spirit in our spiritual core.

For more, read:  

GOD AND YOUR PERSONALITY

God and Your Personality

At Easter, Here Is What To Know About Jesus

Jesus’ behavior in the Gospels provides a living demonstration of the dynamics involved in balanced human behavior. Even approaching his crucifixion, the fully human and fully divine Jesus expresses himself on each compass point of the Self Compass, without getting stranded on any of them. 

Jesus' Last Supper

LOVE

As Jesus nears his passion week, his expression of the Love compass point intensifies. “Jesus knew that the time had come to leave this world and go to the Father. Having loved his own who were in the world, he now showed them the full extent of his love” (Jn 13:1). John, the beloved disciple, devotes five chapters of his Gospel to record all the words Jesus uttered at the Last Supper (Jn 13-17). This profoundly intimate conversation is shared with the disciples, but extends beyond them to all who call upon the name of Christ. 

From these words, all of us can learn that: 

1. Jesus’ washing of the disciples’ feet shows what love looks like in action.
2. Anyone who truly loves Jesus will carry out his teachings, opening their interior lives to receive the Father’s love for them.
3. The Father, Son, and Holy Spirit will make their home within those who love Jesus and follow his commandments, bringing an inner peace the world cannot take away.
4. His command is this: “Love each other as I have loved you” (Jn 15:12).
5. Jesus is the vine and his followers are the branches who bear the fruit of faithful love as they abide in Christ.
6. Jesus prays to the Father on behalf of humanity, “that the love you have for me may be in them and that I myself may be in them” (Jn 17:26).

For good reason Jesus calls himself the Good Shepherd, a name that reflects the Love compass point. “I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep” (Jn 10:11). From the cross he forgives even those who crucify him, flinging open the door to salvation for anyone who walks through it. “For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life” (Jn 3:16).

Christ's Self Compass

ASSERTION

Understanding Christ requires not only perceiving the depth of his love, but also respecting the power of his assertion. Christ expresses the Assertion compass point when he disperses the Galilean crowd who are so impressed by his feeding of the five thousand they try to declare him king, rebukes the disciples who want to call down fire upon a Samaritan village for rejecting Jesus, and challenges the Sanhedrin during his trumped-up trial.

In other words, Jesus has no trouble saying what he thinks, acting in congruence with his identity, and standing up for the Son of God’s evaluation of people’s true motives. In this spirit, the book of Revelation describes Christ as the Lion of Judah, a name that provides an operational description of his Assertion compass point.

WEAKNESS

From the Weakness compass point, approaching his passion week, Jesus weeps over Jerusalem, for the people neither honor his teaching nor recognize the presence of the Messiah in their midst.

If there is any doubt as to Jesus’ humanity, or his willingness to suffer, he falls to the ground in the Garden of Gethsemane, saying, “My soul is exceedingly sorrowful, even unto death” (Mk 14:34). Once he passes through this turmoil and self-doubt, Jesus surrenders to the Father’s will that requires his humiliation and crucifixion. 

On the cross in the hour of his fully human death, he cries out, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” (Mt 27:46), perhaps aligning himself with every human being who has ever felt broken and forsaken. Christ’s name from the Weakness compass point is the Lamb of God.

STRENGTH

The Old Testament prophet Isaiah employs these strength-oriented titles to describe Jesus Christ, the Messiah: Prince of Peace, Mighty Counselor, Savior, and Lord of Lords. 

Jesus himself declares in strength: 

• “I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will never walk in darkness, but will have the light of life” (John 8:12). 
• “I am the gate; whoever enters through me will be saved” (John 10:9). 
• “I am the resurrection and the life. He who believes in me will live, even though he dies” (John 11:25). 
• “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me” (John 14:6).

When his last Passover arrives, though Jesus knows that heading to Jerusalem means he will die as a criminal, he sets his face like flint, determined to carry out the Father’s will. 

And what is the Father's will? That his Son, Jesus Christ, this God-person, who died for our sins, is resurrected  by the power of the Holy Spirit to sit at the right hand of God the Father. 

Resurrected Jesus

In Christ Jesus, then, lies the Trinity Easter gift to humanity; a gift waiting at the door of every individual’s heart: the gift of a whole personality, intimately connected to God. The gift of interpersonal selfhood through Jesus Christ the Lord. 

How To Grow A Christlike Personality

Jesus Christ doesn’t need to change, because he is sinless and lived his life on Earth without sin. So Jesus is the exception. The only exception! Everyone else, you and me included, does need to change if we want to grow more like Christ.

Why? Because over time, we form personality patterns as a way of coping with fear. Someone who blames and attacks, arguing to handle problems, fears trusting others, fearing they will take advantage of him. 

Regardless of why we formed these patterns, however, each of us is responsible for our own behavior. We each need to acknowledge that one or more patterns  hamper our relationships with others and our own growth as a human being. 

Self Compass Personality Patterns Chart

 

The Personality Patterns Chart above shows how manipulative strategies keep each personality pattern intact, unless you surrender to the path of growth offered by transforming your personality in Christ. 

• The Dependent Pleaser and Histrionic Storyteller are stuck with too much Love on the Self Compass. 
• The Paranoid Arguer and Antisocial Rule-breaker are stuck with too much Assertion. 
• The Avoidant Worrier and Schizoid Loner are stuck with too much Weakness.
• The Narcissistic Boaster and Compulsive Controller are stuck with too much Strength.

If you’re interested in finding out which patterns you overly rely on, try out the informal personality inventory in The Self Compass:Charting Your Personality in Christ.

Your score levels may indicate you have some personal and interpersonal difficulties that can be traced to this pattern. Taking the growth stretches sprinkled throughout the book or considering counseling will assist your growth.

As you monitor your progress over several months, eventually these action steps will lead to the healthy integration of this compass point into your life and personality. You will appreciate the freedom for creative living that arises from personality wholeness.

It’s common to have a mixture of personality patterns, even ones that seem to contradict each other, like the Pleaser pattern in certain situations and the Arguer pattern in others. As you read about each pattern, you proceed by targeting the highest score for concentrated prayer and growth stretches. When you begin to make discernible progress, shift your attention to the next pattern and work on it. 

Eventually, your Self Compass will break free from the patterns that imprison you. The outcome of this change, sometimes dramatic and other times subtle, is increasing serenity, improved relationships, and deepening trust in yourself and God.

Deepening Trust In God

You will also gain a kind of x-ray vision into the true motives of other people’s behavior. With this comes the ability to resist manipulation that would otherwise cause you harm, for as Jesus counsels, we all need to grow “wise as serpents and innocent as doves” (Mt 10:16).

The principles you learn will enrich and heal your relationships in single or married life. If you are raising children, the Self Compass is a trustworthy guide to helping them form healthy and balanced personalities. This is called the actualizing process—the shift from living through manipulative patterns toward Christ-like personality wholeness. 

How Christians Can Confront A Problem Relationship

Danny Charles’ mother stood a mere five feet tall, yet to him she seemed a Goliath. Ever since he could remember, she was pushing him forward into the world of people, regardless of how shy and introverted he felt.

He recalled a scene from childhood.

Mother dragged me by the wrist downtown to the shoe store. I was about ten-years-old. “Mr. Hoffman,” she told the owner of the store in a high-pitched voice, “Get five pairs of shoes out here right this minute. Danny needs a new pair for his birthday party. Do you have any colors other than black?  Black is so dull!”

Mr. Hoffman hopped back and forth like a rabbit, opening so many shoeboxes it looked like Christmas. Wrapping paper and empty boxes were everywhere.

Other people came into the store, but they had to wait. “There’s the perfect pair,’ she exclaimed, pointing to a red pair of tie-up shoes. I cringed. I’d be the laughingstock of my school. My stomach swirled. “Don’t you just love them?” she asked without waiting for my reply. “Wrap them up in nice paper, Mr. Hoffman. Danny loves them!”

 

This forty-year-old man vividly remembered many such episodes. And he shared more:

It wasn’t just the shoe store. I felt invaded daily, my dignity tromped upon and my feelings disparaged. My chest often felt numb with tension and my stomach cramped with unexpressed anger. Anger was not allowed in our home, unless it was Mother’s anger.  She didn’t get angry just at home. The older I got, the more I noticed that Mom was loud, aggressive and outspoken everywhere, except when she wanted to make a good impression. Then she’d instantly change, becoming all smiles, sweetness and charm. Yet no one dared mention her anxiety and driving need to control everyone, especially me.

Danny Charles’ mother handled his adult life with the same antagonism and smothering nosiness. She opposed his vocation, took a strong stand against his marriage and contradicted whatever he believed in. In his thirties, he thought, I don’t know who I am.  My mother dominates my thoughts, feelings and actions. God help me!

Danny Charles learned in psychotherapy about the Self Compass and applied it vigorously to heal his personality. He took growth stretches into Assertion and Strength to find the courage to cut the psychological umbilical cord to his mother. He wanted Jesus Christ to be the center of his life.

He flourished in his new growth, and developed his career interests with passion. Danny Charles finally made his declaration of independence from his mother. He got her moodiness and negativity out of his core. For the first time, he lived life with freedom and joy, trusting the divine Spirit of Christ to guide him daily.

Then the strangest thing happened. He felt God calling him to return to his mother and help her. “No way!” he said to the still, small voice. “I can’t stand to have anything to do with Mom ever again!” But over months the gentle voice prevailed. “Danny,” the voice explained, “I’ve set you free to be your real self. You’ve learned how to stand on your own feet, handle vulnerability, assert yourself and love others. Now it’s time to love your mother.”

Reluctantly, Danny Charles made arrangements to spend several months living with his mother. She was now eighty-years-old, and her contrary ways had put off her other children and grandchildren. Her husband had died. She lived alone.

Their first months together were stormy. His mother wasn’t about to hear from her son what she had avoided hearing for a lifetime. He’d try to delicately bring into her awareness how her constant criticisms drove people away. She’d explode into tirades.

The fourth month Danny Charles had a reckoning with God. “Dear Lord, you sent me here to help Mom, but she’s only getting worse. I’m going crazy. I’ll stay one more week and then I’m leaving until she dies.”

Inner Voice of the Lord

A few days later Danny Charles and his mother took a trip together to a town sixty miles away. In the middle of the drive, the inner voice of the Lord prompted Danny Charles to go for broke. He took a breath and started speaking softly, but firmly. 

“Mom, I’ve got to say a few things and I’d appreciate it if you’d just listen.” He saw her set her jaw, stiffen her neck and glare straight ahead. “You were raised as a child piano prodigy and had your own radio show by the age of twelve. They called you ‘Queen of the Air.’

“By thirteen you played for two civic clubs in town. You were the most colorful and talented of your ten brothers and sisters. Everybody thought you were the center of the universe, including you. All your childhood confidence turned you into a sassy know-it-all. As an adult and a parent you believed that the world was at your command.

“At home, to get your way you threw temper tantrums and harangued for hours. And to the townspeople you put on smiles one minute and snap at them the next. I’ve been trying to have a two-way conversation with you my whole life, but it’s been impossible. You butt in, jump to conclusions, and get defensive to keep from hearing the truth about your own behavior.

“I just want to say there’s a better way. For whatever years you have left, you can choose to become a positive and caring woman who uses humor and affection instead of aggression and contrariness. I love you, but I know that if you don’t change soon, you’ll die without ever having had a single decent conversation with your own son.”

His mother sat in silence for the next ten minutes. Her face looked pale, her arms folded over her chest and her neck slightly bowed. Then she spoke in a quiet voice. “Danny Charles, every word you’ve said is true. I’ve never understood my life until just now. God has spoken to me through you.”

Over the next two weeks, Anna changed so noticeably that all the family members could talk of little else. She showed some humility now, shared the limelight with others and listened while others spoke. Her old arrogance shifted into quiet confidence. Her aggression all but disappeared. Instead, she demonstrated good cheer and a wonderful ability to build people up. Whether through phone calls in person at family get-togethers, Anna could be counted on to say a hearty, “I love you and may the Lord bless you!”

The Self Compass

The story of Danny Charles and his mother Anna shows how anyone can change, even in fundamental ways, as long as they live.  

By accepting God’s grace and applying the principles of the Self Compass, you can find your way home to personality wholeness and balanced relationships with others and with God, who cares about your personality.

I know.  I’m Danny Charles.

Dan Montgomery

Christ's Compass for Couples

Jesus commands us to love others as we love ourselves (Mark 12:31). 

This is a tall order. How do you do that, especially when it comes to the daily complications of a couples relationship?

But Jesus doesn’t leave you hanging. He gives you clues by the way He lives his life as described in the Gospels. Clues to a healthy personality that help you relate to one another in Christlike ways, yet unique to you as a couple.

How can couples do this in the 21st century? Enter the Self Compass. Based both on Jesus’ personality and modern psychological research, the Self Compass steers couples toward man/woman intimacy. 

The Self Compass

The Self Compass helps reveal what Jesus' personality is like. In the Gospel accounts of his life on Earth, Jesus showed us the model of a perfect personality. Unlike the rest of us, Jesus was perfectly loving—a good friend to Peter and John. But he wasn’t loving all the time. Jesus balanced his Love with Assertion—by standing up against the Pharisees when he saw injustice and unfairness, for example. 

Jesus also revealed healthy Weakness—he was humble of heart, a servant who washed his disciples’ feet. He sweat blood, contemplating his crucifixion. Yet this vulnerability was balanced by Strength—to act according to his Father’s will and a confidence in his identity as the Son of man.

Love in balance with Assertion; Weakness in balance with Strength. Together they form Christ’s Self Compass. A Self Compass: a compass that contains Christ’s LAWS to act as your guide to a healthy and whole marriage.

What does Christ's Self Compass look like? 

Christ's Self Compass

Christ’s various names indicate the balance drawn from his own Self Compass. On the Love compass point, he is known as the Good Shepherd—tender, kind, and nurturing. On the Assertion compass point, he is the Lion of Judah found in the book of Revelation; Christ stands against injustice of every kind, and will judge the quick and dead based on their pursuit of righteousness or lack thereof. On the Weakness compass point, Jesus is the Lamb of God, who willingly laid down his life to redeem all who call upon him. And on the Strength compass point he is the Prince of Peace who died in weakness and was raised from the dead in strength and glory.

The Compass LAWS of a Christ-centered Marriage

Love and Assertion; Weakness and Strength. These are compass points that show the contrasting polarities in your personality. Love isn’t better than assertion, and strength isn’t better than weakness. Healthy people express both tender care and diplomatic assertion. They are competent and strong, yet humbly aware of their weakness. In a well-balanced marriage, couples maintain free and rhythmic access to all four compass points of their Self Compass.

Love is kindness. Thoughtfulness. Forgiveness. Tenderness. Compassion. Fondness. Faithfulness. Friendship. Sacrifice. In the development of healthy personality and relationships, Christ gave priority to loving one’s self, others, and God.

But no one remains loving all the time, nor is it healthy to do so. While love lets you stand with-and-for your partner, Assertion is required so as not to lose yourself.

 

Assertion gives you the courage to express your point of view or challenge what you perceive as unfair in your relationship. Diplomatic assertion preserves your individual differences as a couple and helps you develop the skill of negotiating for your reasonable rights. All couples experience bouts of anger or discontent, when your interests rub against the wishes of your spouse. But when you combine assertion in rhythm with caring, the diplomacy that results will help you reach successful conflict resolution.

Weakness reflects the human experience of uncertainty, vulnerability, and soul-searching. The weakness compass point helps a couple develop humility and empathy for one another. It allows the expression of disappointment, anxiety, depression, or helplessness.

Strength reflects the human need for competence and adequacy. Each partner needs to feel appreciated by the other; to be seen as worthy, capable; to be treated with dignity.

When a couple rhythmically modulates the compass points of Love with Assertion, and Weakness with Strength, their relationship develops the balancing grace of compass virtues: 

• Love brings forth charity. 
• Assertion yields courage. 
• Weakness fosters humility. 
• Strength develops esteem.

Jesus Christ

With the help of the Self Compass, you develop a whole and healthy marriage when you center your marriage in Jesus Christ and on His personality.