The role of a seminary formator is to accompany the seminarian in the external forum and to discern with him, the seminary community, and larger Church community, whether he has a vocation to the Catholic priesthood. To accomplish this task effectively, the formator needs a vast array of skills that will enable him or her to listen to, understand, encourage, challenge, and adequately assess the seminarian in an open and honest way. The book The Art of Accompaniment by Sister Marysia Weber, RSM, offers many invaluable insights and practical tools that seminary formators can employ in their work and may be found here:

https://enroutebooksandmedia.com/artofaccompaniment/ along with a couple of important templates.

https://enroutebooksandmedia.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/08/Markers-of-Human-Maturation-Weber.pdf (template on webpage)

https://enroutebooksandmedia.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/08/Narrative-Assessment-Weber.pdf (template on webpage)

This material by Sr. Marysia is also available in Spiritual Husbands, Spiritual Fathers, edited by Bishops Cozzens and Estevez and published by En Route Books and Media in the spring of 2020. https://enroutebooksandmedia.com/spiritualhusbands/

Sr. Marysia is a board-certified physician, specializing in psychiatry with a fellowship in consulting-liaison psychiatry; she completed her residency and training at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, MN. Sister earned a Master’s Degree in Theology from Notre Dame. Sr. Marysia Weber practiced psychiatry at her religious institute’s multidisciplinary clinic- Sacred Heart Mercy Health Care Center, in Alma, MI from 1988-2014. In 2014, Sr. Marysia accepted the role of Director of the Office of Consecrated Life for the Archdiocese of St. Louis, where she is also a facilitator for Project Rachel, the Chair of the Board of Directors for MyCatholic Doctor, and an executive board member of the St. Louis Guild of the Catholic Medical Association, and an executive board member for the Institute for Theological Encounter with Science and Technology. Sister also serves as an Adjunct Clinical Instructor in the Dept of Psychiatry at Washington University School of Medicine, in St. Louis. Additionally, Sr. Marysia has published numerous articles in peer reviewed journals and has authored a number of books and chapters. She is a highly sought-after speaker and expert, and has presented to the Curia, at the Vatican in 2002 regarding the Sexual Abuse by Clergy in North America.