Rose Mary Dougherty, SSND
Rose Mary Dougherty, SSND, Shalm's Senior Fellow for Spiritual Guidance, has ministered in the area of spirituality for over 30 years and is well known to many as spiritual teacher, author, end-of-life companion and spiritual guide.
For 25 years, she worked on Shalem's core staff, shepherding Shalem's Spiritual Guidance Program and creating and directing Shalem's Personal Spiritual Deepening and Facilitating Group Spiritual Direction Programs. In the late 1980s, she introduced a process of group spiritual direction, which became the subject of two books and a DVD. Although she retired from the Shalem staff in 2003, she continues to lead Shalem workshops and retreats as well as selected seminars in Shalem's long-term programs.
A Zen student for a number of years, Rose Mary was called forth as a dharma holder in the lineage of the White Plum Asanga in 2004, becoming a dharma heir in 2006. As a sensei, she teaches Zen meditation in various settings and assists people in integrating contemplative presence and just action in their lives.
In 2006 she completed the Alaya Institute End-of-Life Counselor Program, an outgrowth of the Zen Hospice Project in San Francisco, and she is currently co-director of Companioning the Dying: Opening Fully to Living, an experiential learning program for compassionate companioning. She volunteers regularly at Joseph's House, a hospice for formerly homeless men who have AIDS, and offers retreats and workshops for hospice care givers.
Rose Mary was born in 1939 in Cumberland, Maryland. She made her final profession as a Roman Catholic Sister of the School Sisters of Notre Dame in 1965, in Baltimore, Maryland. She has a B.A. in Education from Notre Dame of Maryland College, an M.A. in Spiritual Theology from St. Louis University, and a Certificate from the Shalem-Washington Theological Union's Graduate Program in Spiritual Guidance.
Prior to her work with Shalem, she established and directed a retreat center in Baltimore, Maryland, and was on the staff of Bon Secours Spiritual Center in Marriottsville, Maryland. She also taught at the secondary level in Baltimore schools for fifteen years. During this time, she received training in retreat ministry through a Jesuit training program and worked part-time in retreat and parish renewal programs.
In 1995, her first book, Group Spiritual Direction: Community for Discernment, was published by Paulist Press, and a video of the same name was produced in 1996. She is also the editor of a collection of essays, The Lived Experience of Group Spiritual Direction, and has written numerous articles for Shalem News. Her newest book, Discernment: A Path to Spiritual Awakening, is a wonderful distillation of her years of writing and teaching and provides a wealth of practical and inspirational wisdom.