(This is the final in a three-part series. The first article can be found here: Part 1: The nature and purpose of spiritual direction and article 2 is found at: Part 2: What should I look for in a spiritual director?)
Every heart, including yours, was created for Divine Intimacy with our loving Father. Since the earliest time of the Church, He has provided spiritual abbas and ammas to guide people in this relationship with Him. Spiritual direction is a relationship, a dynamic of three persons: the directee, the director, and the Holy Spirit. And like any relationship, the extent to which the Holy Spirit is permitted the primary role determines the relationship’s health and strength. After a few more considerations about this dynamic, you can begin your search for your director and take that first leap into your Father’s arms.
Jesus answered him, “If a man loves me, he will keep my word, and my Father will love him, and we will come to him and make our home with him.
-John 14:23
Because direction occurs in a relational dynamic, it is important to take time to find a good ‘fit. Typically, it is good to have a ‘discovery’ meeting, one in which the director explains the nature of direction and their own approach. The directee, often with the director’s help, can articulate their spiritual journey and the desires God has placed in their heart. If both feel comfortable, they can enter a provisional period of meeting regularly to see if God is calling them together.
Once established with a spiritual director, there are points in our journey in which we may need to change directors. This most often happens when our director becomes unavailable, such as when a priest or religious is given a new assignment. However, sometimes the direction is no longer helping the directee. Fr. Aumann gives two specific reasons for changing directors: if the guidance has become useless or harmful. The directee may have good intentions to grow in holiness, but “does not feel toward the director the respect, confidence, and frankness that are indispensable for the efficacy of the spiritual direction” (p. 280). There can be many reasons for this. It might be that God has given the director a specific charism to guide people of a certain age group or circumstances (such as working with college students, prisoners, law enforcement, or military servicemembers) and the directee’s circumstances and needs are no longer a ‘fit’ to the director’s gifts. It can also be that a directee is working with a lesser-experienced director who themselves have stagnated in their relationship with our Lord; this directee has outgrown their director. In these situations, the director himself may not know the signs of spiritual growth or may not have confidence in God to give him the speech to address barriers the directee has erected between themselves and God. Fr. Aumann states bluntly:
“It would also be a futile effort if one perceives that the director never makes corrections of one’s defects, does not encourage progress in virtue, does not solve problems, and shows no special interest in the sanctification of the individual.” (p. 280)
The director must embrace and live this themselves in order to guide another person along the path to holiness.
This, then, leads to direction that is harmful. The director must maintain a holy indifference to their directee, desiring to satisfy Jesus rather than the directee. Spiritual direction meetings can sometimes be tense or uncomfortable due to that which the Holy Spirit is uncovering and asking of the directee. In proper direction, being held in the Spirit, there is no animosity. Rather, the director and directee’s eyes are opened. While it is in spiritual direction that a directee feels safe and free to express things never before spoken, it remains the role of the director to guide them towards God as their confidante, rather than the director taking on that role.
This is the way we may know that we are in union with him: whoever claims to abide in him ought to live just as he lived.
–1 John 2:5-6
Now Fr. Aumann describes the opposite of this. Directors do harm to “feed the(ir directee’s) vanity and complacency”, fail to address “faults and imperfections”, or rely too much on one’s own knowledge of mental and physical health when assessing the directee. In these ways, the director is too ‘soft’ on the individual. In contrast, it can also be harmful to demand too much of the directee, not considering spiritual, mental, and physical health. Finally, the advisements given by the director should be compatible with one’s vocation, for God has chosen this particular vocation for them as the means and state in life by which He will sanctify them.
It is important for a directee to not leave a director simply because meetings are not consoling or because you have a difference of opinion from theirs on some worldly matter. Similarly, you shouldn’t stay with a director due to emotional attachment or simply because the arrangement is comfortable. Both director and directee should assess their relationship based on its fruits: increased capacity to love our Lord and through Him to love those whom He has put into their life. This increased capacity for love comes from our own ascetical and prayer practices by which we cooperate with grace. The practices of denying sensory pleasures, identifying and eliminating self-protection behaviors, and conscious efforts to grow in specific virtues create room in the heart for love. This is the pursuit of holiness. It is the living out of the wisdom of the saints as taught in the spiritual theology of the Church. For the director to guide the directee in this pursuit, he/she must be pursuing it themselves.
Taking that first step…
At this point, you hopefully have decided to accept God’s invitation to a grace-filled life and are ready to find a spiritual director. You want a director who is faithful to the teachings of the Catholic church. Spiritual directors are guiding people to grace and themselves must know and understand grace to do so! Some resources for you:
Seek-Direction.App https://seekdirection.app/ Seek-Direction.app have vetted the directors in their listing to ensure they have knowledge of Church teachings. They are endorsed by Dan Burke of our Avila Institute and this SpiritualDirection.com blog.
Divine Mercy Univ. Alumni Directory: All of Divine Mercy University’s programs are based in their ground-breaking Catholic Meta-Model of the Human Person, a holistic model of human flourishing. Graduates of DMU’s program who have agreed to be publicly listed can be found on DMU’s website at https://divinemercy.edu/?taxonomy=degree-conferred&term=spiritual-direction-certificate
Other spiritual direction programs
While not all of these programs have alumni lists on their websites, if you have difficulty finding a spiritual director you can contact them and see if they have a method of connecting requests to their alumni:
- Heart of Christ, our partner in the Avila Institute’s Spiritual Direction Training program https://heartofchristspiritualdirection.com/
- The Institute for Ministry Formation at Saint Vincent Seminary https://imf.saintvincentseminary.edu/
- The Lanteri Center for Ignatian Spirituality, a ministry of the Oblates of the Virgin Mary https://www.omvusa.org/lanteri-center/about-us/spiritual-direction/find-trained-graduate/
- Franciscan University’s School of Spiritual Direction, email ssd@franciscan.edu
- Archdiocese of New Orleans https://nolacatholic.org/seeking-spiritual-direction
- Mary and Elizabeth House of Prayer and Formation (for women only) https://maryandelizabeth.com/network-directors-page/
Many spiritual directors will work with you via online videoconferencing (such as Zoom or Google Meet) and so you are not limited to finding one in your local community.
Final thoughts
The secret to blessedness is to guard within your heart the interior peace that comes from being God’s child. All motives for actions and choices will be found in this interior calm of His presence. This does require commitment and effort on your part to grow in virtue, but God already has in store all the grace you need to persevere. Don’t forget: this has always been His providential plan for you. Virtue is difficult in the beginning because you struggle with your own fallen nature. But the virtuous life quickly becomes more gratifying with each action because He increases His grace in you. Stay the course and struggle for the higher good—Him.
But the righteous live forever, and in the Lord is their recompense, and the thought of them is with the Most High.
–Wisdom 5:15
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(All references to the writings of Fr. Jordan Aumann are taken from Spiritual Theology, published by Continuum 1980-2006 https://www.bloomsbury.com/us/spiritual-theology-9781472975393/ )
Image: Depositphotos
