Roman Catholic Spiritual Direction

Spiritual Direction is NOT Confession

Posted Friday, April 8th, 2011 at 7:28 am under Perspective & Expectations, Spiritual Direction
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Spiritual direction is not synonymous with confession. The challenge with distinguishing spiritual direction from confession usually comes when the modern inquirer reads the saints who talk about their spiritual director or confessor as if they are one and the same thing. The reason for this is that there was a time when it was very common for confession and spiritual direction to take place together. The challenge of the modern decline in priest-per-parishioner percentage has likely been the unfortunate cause of the separation of the two activities. But spiritual direction has never been the exclusive territory of priests or even religious. As an example, most would be surprised to know that Pope John Paul II, in his youth, had a lay spiritual director. Regardless, at present, confession and spiritual direction are more likely to occur in two separate events.

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