Spiritual Direction is NOT wandering around…

Wandering around is the opposite of a deliberate journey in a distinct direction. Spiritual direction that is directionless is a contradiction. Some modern conceptions of spiritual direction have reduced the director-to-directee relationship to one of a companion in spiritual meandering. This is not a picture of healthy spiritual direction. Spiritual direction that lacks direction is not direction at all. It may make the both parties feel good about one another, but if the desired end is not Christ and a specific path does not emerge for the directee to follow in order to better know and love Christ and others, then the relationship cannot rightly be called spiritual direction.

This is an excerpt from Dan Burke’s 2012 book Navigating the Interior Life – Spiritual Direction and the Journey to God. To learn more, click here.

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Art for this post on spiritual direction is not wandering around: Christ and Saint Mina [or Menas], iconographer unknown, 6th-century icon from Bawit, Egypt, PD-US author’s life plus 70 years or less, Wikimedia Commons. Feature Image Art: from the cover of Dan Burke’s 2012 book “Navigating the Interior Life — Spiritual Direction and the Journey to God”, used with permision of Dan Burke, all rights reserved.

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Dan Burke

Dan Burke is the past President and C.O.O. of EWTN's worldwide news
network. He is presently the founder and President of the Avila Institute for Spiritual Formation, which offers graduate and personal enrichment studies in spiritual theology to priests, deacons, religious, and laity in 90 countries and prepares men for seminary in over 40 dioceses.

Dan is the author and editor of numerous books on authentic Catholic spirituality and hosts the Divine Intimacy Radio show with his wife, Stephanie, which is broadcast weekly on EWTN Radio. Past episodes can be found, along with thousands of articles on the interior life, at SpiritualDirection.com.

In his deep commitment to the advancement of faithful Catholic spirituality, he is also the founder of Apostoli Viae, a world-wide, private association of the faithful dedicated to living and advancing the authentic spiritual patrimony of the Church.

Most importantly, Dan is a blessed husband, father of four, grandfather of one—and grateful to be Catholic.