Category: The ProcessHow should I prepare for a meeting with my spiritual director?Q: Dear Father John, How should I prepare for a meeting with my spiritual director?
1. Remote preparation. Preparing for your next spiritual direction starts during the last moment of your previous spiritual direction. By making a note of the key insights that you received during direction, and by identifying some concrete actions you will work on, you create your own spiritual map for the coming month. You can capture the insights in meaningful phrases, like “discouragement never comes from God” or “I am impatient because I am arrogant.” You can capture concrete actions in motivational phrases, like “I spend the first three minutes of my commute thanking God for today’s blessings” or “When I come home, I give the first ten minutes entirely to my wife” or “When my friends start to gossip, I change the topic.” Put these phrases in your planner, your journal, your home page – wherever you will be sure to see them regularly. Don’t leave spiritual direction without this map. (By the way, it is not necessary to invent new points in every spiritual direction, but sometimes changing a word or two on a previous phrase can refresh it for you, or sharpen it. Also, your insights and concrete actions should be connected to your “program” or “rule” of life; you should perceive the connection clearly.) 2. Proximate preparation. The day before your spiritual direction, take some time to sit down and look over the map you made after the last spiritual direction. Asking the Holy Spirit for light, analyze the following areas, making notes where relevant (e.g. I really made progress on this point; I made no progress here, and I am not sure why; this crisis came up and it totally derailed me…). Remember, always include the question “Why?” as part of your analysis. The analysis will leave you with things to report and questions to ask. This will be the agenda for your spiritual direction. (Your spiritual director may suggest alterations to the following list; it is meant to be a reference point.) A) The general state of your soul since last spiritual direction B) Difficulties or failures in your moral life since last spiritual direction C) The effectiveness of your motivational phrases from last spiritual direction D) Progress on and results of the concrete actions chosen after your last spiritual direction E) The main points of your program of life, if they were not covered in C and D. F) Challenges and progress in your prayer life, if they were not covered in C and D. G) The quality of the key relationships and responsibilities of your state in life, if they were not covered in C and D. You will not necessary have a lot to say to your spiritual director during each spiritual direction regarding every single one of these points. But as you go through them you will identify those points that you really do need or want to address. This proximate preparation, the calm and prayerful analysis of these areas, is like cleaning out the garage: it refreshes your soul and motivates you to look with enthusiasm towards the coming month of spiritual work. 3. Immediate preparation. A few minutes before your spiritual direction, make a visit to our Lord in the Blessed Sacrament to put everything in his hands. If the Eucharist is not nearby, say a prayer to the Holy Spirit to guide you and your director. Make sure you have the notes from your proximate preparation. Finally, call to mind the real goal of all spiritual direction: to discover more clearly God’s action in your life, and to equip you to respond generously to what he is asking of you. PS: Dan has a new book out on Spiritual Direction that you can find more about at www.NavigatingtheInteriorLife.com. It is scheduled to release later this year. In it, you will find more helpful information on this topic and spiritual direction in general. The Pope’s latest encouragement to mercy and spiritual direction
Top ten reading list for spiritual directors
A: Dear friend, here’s my top ten list in order of importance. I have also provided links to the best editions where meaningful. With respect to books one through four, these are in-depth and thorough treatments of ascetical and mystical theology (seminary level). Book number one could be used for a seminary course but it is also very accessible and reasonably brief for the topics covered. In my opinion, if the would-be director is not familiar with the content in the first three books they should pause their spiritual direction practice and dig in. Beyond these books, the rest are great resources in the areas of prayer, discernment, holiness, and spiritual direction. As well, anyone seeking to better know, love, and serve God would be blessed by all of these works, particularly items two through ten.
Regarding common modern issues with misdirection in prayer, Cardinal Ratzinger (now Pope Benedict XVI) wrote this “Letter to the Bishops of the Catholic Church on Some Aspects of Christian Meditation.” It might be interesting to get reactions, recommendations, and feedback from our spiritual director readers. Seek Him – Find Him – Follow Him Dan PS: Please remember to purchase through these links (other than Amazon) if you can – it helps to off-set our costs of our regular book reviews. What if I disagree with my spiritual director about my root sin?
A: The good news is that it sounds like you have an honest and open relationship with your director. This is a great starting point for the answer to your question. The first step is to ensure that you actually do disagree. To do this, it would be important to make sure that you both agree on the definitions of the root sins in question along with the corresponding manifestations. Once you agree on definitions, then you can talk through your self-reflections and pattern of confession in order to find common ground on a proper diagnosis. What if after all that work you still disagree? Well, this is where the idea of docility and obedience comes in with spiritual direction. Docility is an area of great importance in the spiritual direction relationship and can easily be misunderstood. This is especially true of modern seekers who often recoil at the slightest idea of submission or subjection of one’s will to the guidance of another. With modern western Catholic writers on the topic of spiritual direction, you may find strongly stated cautions regarding this issue. Often this is because of sincere sensitivity to abuse and a legitimate concern to ensure that the directee remains totally free to follow or discard any of the guidance received in direction. In Eastern Church traditions (e.g., Greek or Russian Orthodox), you are more likely to find equally strong statements on the other end of the spectrum. In the East, any directee would be cautioned to avoid spiritual direction if they are not ready and willing to completely open and submit their soul to obedience to another. In the East, the sincere concern is that the directee overcome any delusion or self-deception. In reality, both of the extreme forms of these concerns can result in unintended problems. Simply put, if you are docile to misdirection, you will be misdirected to your own detriment and by your own choice. If you are stubborn toward sound direction, you will misdirect yourself, likely to great spiritual detriment. Because of the abuses on the overly submissive side of the spectrum, there is often an equal and opposite overreaction. As is common with opposite extremes, wisdom resides closer to the middle. The key is that you should always maintain your freedom to act according to your own will in your submission to God, and you should maintain an equal readiness to humbly accept the insight and direction of any director who is worthy of your trust. Here’s a little more insight into the ideas of docility and obedience. Docility: True docility is an essential ingredient in any successful spiritual direction relationship. What is docility? Docility is a humble readiness to follow God’s will for our lives. This is sometimes expressed in the willingness to listen to and follow imperfect counsel from an imperfect person, even when we disagree or don’t completely understand. It is critical to remember that we are in spiritual direction because we recognize that the human condition requires outside counsel to grow. The fact that we are finite fallen creatures requires that someone help us to see the areas of our souls that we cannot see without help. Even if our director is wrong on a particular matter (assuming the direction is not something sinful), we will most assuredly benefit from heading down paths that we would not have chosen on our own. This simple exercise of taking unfamiliar paths will reveal things to us that we would have never been able to see without having been prompted to do so. Obedience: Some writers on the topic of spiritual direction make a distinction between what they call docility and obedience. Typically, they will point out that obedience is something that occurs only in a slave-to-master relationship when the slave has no will of their own. This approach is often a well-intended overstatement to make the point. It is true that no directee should act in such a way as to substitute the will and desires of the director for their own. It is also true that no directee is, by definition, sinning if they choose to disobey their spiritual director (unless of course their counsel echoes the commands of God himself or falls within the context of religious life). Yet it can be a profound act of holiness to obey our spiritual director, particularly when what they are suggesting is something that is very difficult but may nonetheless lead us to a deeper relationship with Christ. The key here is to remember that God never usurps our free will; neither should a spiritual director. It is important to reiterate that a spiritual director is not able to influence our lives without our consent. If what we are directed to do is in keeping with God’s law as reflected in Church teaching, and we are choosing to obey by our own choice, we are on solid spiritual ground and will likely find great blessings through our obedience. All that said, you are in a very good place: 1) you are in spiritual direction; 2) you are working diligently in the area of self-knowledge; and 3) you are taking the entire process very seriously. I have no doubt that, whatever course of action you take in this situation, you will find yourself moving into a deeper relationship with Christ! Happy New Year! Seek Him – Find Him – Follow Him Dan How much should I reveal to my spiritual director on my first visit?
A: Great questions! I will address the easy one first. What does your spiritual director want you to reveal in your first visit? The answer to this will likely be very simple. Good directors know that the first and most important task is to make a personal connection with you. They know that trust and openness only develops in an atmosphere of personal relationship. So, the simple answer is to ask them what they would like you to come prepared to discuss. With respect to the specifics of your question, I very much doubt that they will have any interest in sins of your distant past. Their task is to identify where you are today in your spiritual journey and to work with you to discern the path that God is calling you to today. On to the more difficult question. What do you want to reveal, or what should you reveal, in your first visit? In my upcoming handbook on spiritual direction, I discuss this in detail. Before you continue on to the exercises I suggest below, it would be good if you could print this out and take it with you, along with a notebook and pen, into adoration. Spend some time in quiet before the Lord and ask for the help of the Holy Spirit to reveal to you the things that are most important on your journey to him. Basically, so that you are well prepared, you should review the spiritual history of your life in stages or periods (preteen, teen, young adult, etc.). Note the highlights and lowlights of your relationship with God. Take care to be clear about your current drive to seek spiritual direction. What triggered this impulse? Is there a significant life event that has you thinking more about eternal matters? For instance, often the death or severe illness of a loved one can draw us to the well of suffering and exploration of our spiritual lives. Next, outline your present spiritual status. How is your prayer life? Are you struggling with any particular aspect of prayer? How often do you participate in the sacraments of the Church? How often do you go to confession, adoration, Mass, etc.? What is your perception of God? What motivates you in your spiritual life? Is your motivation based on fear? Is it based on duty? Is it based on love? Finally, outline your goals for spiritual direction. What is it that you hope to gain from your work in spiritual direction? Well, I could say a lot more (and do so in the book), but this should be a good start. I would be grateful to hear how it goes (both the preparation and the meeting). Be assured you are in my prayers. Seek Him – Find Him – Follow Him, Dan PS: Don’t forget to review our collection of posts on the topic of spiritual direction. There is a great deal more that you would likely find helpful there. |
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A: Preparation for spiritual direction can be divided into three parts.
