Spiritual Formation
Your personal development as an energized, love-filled member of the Body of Christ is a Prerequisite for effective ministry. Our M.Div. program calls you into a process of spiritual growth, on both the deeply personal and profoundly communal levels, that will sustain you in ministry.
Lay Ministry Formation Program
In our Lay Ministry Formation Program, your human and spiritual development are understood as essential toward promoting the personal qualities needed for ministry. Opportunities abound to work together, pray together, eat together, reflect together, and share faith.
“Opportunities to worship in such a setting and to have prayer with a community are really wonderful. The formation aspect is a hallmark [of the Notre Dame program].”
--JENNY WISWELL
“Helping my spiritual life helps me become a minister. Three years of spiritual direction is extremely helpful.”
--STEPHANIE WHALEY
“I think the strongest aspect of Notre Dame’s M.Div. program is the community formation and support provided through prayer, common worship, conversation, scholarly endeavors, and ministry placements that challenges people to grow up and grow deeper as students and ministers. This is a safe place where people take care of each other allow perspectives and opinions to be jostled in a number of ways where you cannot compartmentalize work apart from faith.”
--ELIZABETH MORIARITY
Ordained Ministry Formation
For M.Div. students preparing for the ordained priesthood in the Congregation of Holy Cross, their religious order shapes and supervises their spiritual formation, although many experiences in the M.Div. program are shared by the entire student community, in keeping with the collaborative model of church leadership that embraces both ordained ministry and lay ecclesial ministry.
The Master of Divinity program has helped to form me as a professed religious and as a minister. I deeply value the chance to study and work with our lay colleagues in ministry. This presents a more realistic and holistic model of ministry for all of our futures. We are a church of ordained ministers and lay ministers, so it only makes sense that we study and work together from the beginning. It has enriched both programs (lay and seminary formation) to study and minister side by side.
-- NATE FARLEY, C.S.C.
