You may already have a good relationship with your priest and feel comfortable asking him to be your spiritual director, but even if you don't, it's appropriate to ask him.
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Because many parish priests are overburdened with responsibilities, it may be more effective to ask, “Is there someone you can recommend to give me spiritual direction if you are unable?”
Not only does this relieve your parish priest of stress, but it also prevents you from being disappointed if he is unable to serve as your spiritual directorand it allows him to consider making a recommendation for you.
When a good friend asked her parish priest to be her spiritual director, he was unable to do so, but he offered her the names of two other priests in her diocese who were available for spiritual direction! She was quite appreciative.
Our pastor or another priest, our confessor (the priest from whom we receive the Sacrament of Reconciliation on a regular basis), a religious (monk, friar, or nun), or an experienced and well-formed lay person could all serve as spiritual directors.
The Catholic Church's Catechism says this about seeking and finding a spiritual director:
For the sake of the common good, which is prayer, the Holy Spirit bestows the gifts of wisdom, faith, and insight on a select group of believers (spiritual direction). Men and women with such gifts are worthy servants of prayer's living tradition.
According to St. John of the Cross, anyone seeking perfection should “take care into whose hands they entrust themselves,” because “as the master is, so will the disciple be, and as the parent is, so will the son.” ‘A spiritual director should be experienced in addition to being learned and discreet… If the spiritual director has no experience of the spiritual life, he will be unable of leading the souls whom God is calling to it into it, and he will not even understand them.'
What makes a good spiritual director?
When we think about spiritual directors, we could picture a person or people who have accomplished a great deal. We can imagine a fearless commander directing us through dangerous terrain or a warrior slaying our foes in front of our eyes. A superb analyzer and teacher of the spirit or a drill sergeant of the soul come to mind.
Spiritual directors, on the other hand, are just like you in terms of being human and susceptible. They are humble, prayerful people who accompany us on our journey to improving our spiritual lives and become even more committed followers of Jesus. They are there to accompany us on our path, offering their presence, a listening ear, and practical insight to aid in our spiritual development.
These are all excellent attributes to look for in a spiritual director, but you probably didn't think about the fact that the spiritual director you connect with should also be following your lead in terms of spiritual guidance.
A good spiritual director has their own spiritual director.
A good spiritual director must have his own guide in order to help someone along the spiritual path. The purpose of seeking spiritual guidance is to give oneself with a neutral viewpoint.
A good spiritual director will be known by his pastor.
You may have assumed that your parish priest would be the finest spiritual director candidate based solely on his vocation. While most priests and even religious have some spiritual counseling training, being a well-trained spiritual director may require additional preparation.
Before a spiritual director begins mentoring others, it is recommended practice for him to have permission from his pastor. This allows the pastor to attest to the spiritual director's qualifications while also providing the church with a resource for parishioners seeking spiritual guidance.
A good spiritual director is not there to make decisions for you.
A competent spiritual director isn't the person who makes all of your decisions for you. Look for someone who can advise you rather than impose so you can make an informed decision. The purpose of the spiritual director is not to tell you what to do, but to assist you in discerning the Holy Spirit's promptings and hearing God's voice. In the end, the relationship is between you and God.
A good spiritual director has suffered.
Finding someone who is familiar with suffering is extremely beneficial and virtually necessary, as pain is unavoidable in the life of a Christian who wishes to follow in Christ's footsteps. Someone who has been converted into Christ's image through suffering is a wonderful spiritual director.
Someone who has been shaped by the pain God has allowed in life is qualified to be a competent spiritual director. A person who has come to understand that suffering is not a sign of God's rejection of them, but rather a grace and a demonstration of Christ's faith in them.
A good spiritual director is a person of prayer
Finally, ensure that your spiritual director is a prayerful person with a strong spiritual life. Nobody can share something they don't have.
What does a deep spiritual life entail? Visiting Jesus in devotion and regularly attending mass (perhaps even daily). A good spiritual director makes time for personal prayer or meditation every day. They have studied spiritual masters such as Therese of Lisieux, Teresa of Avila, and John of the Cross. They may also have a close relationship with the Blessed Mother, who is our most powerful intercessor, and may pray the rosary or other Marian devotions frequently. Feel free to inquire about a potential spiritual director's spirituality.
How does one find a spiritual director?
Inquire whether you can do spiritual direction over the phone or if they have any members in the area. Members of Opus Dei can be found all throughout the world. The center will be able to provide you with useful information.
Opus Dei will not try to persuade you to join; rather, like any other organization, it will ask you to make a financial donation in exchange for the services they provide.
I've been involved with Opus Dei for numerous years but have yet to become a member.
How much do you pay a spiritual director?
What is the expense of spiritual direction? An hour of spiritual direction costs roughly 50-70 dollars on average. If the expense is onerous, many spiritual directors may make exceptions.
What should I ask a spiritual director?
People frequently find it easy to answer the first few questions. They do not make people nervous or perplexed. These questions provide a foundation for the spiritual director to learn about the person and his or her spirituality. Leading questions aren't the same as starting questions. When someone wants a certain answer, they ask leading questions. On the other hand, there are no correct solutions to these questions. A person can reply in any way they want without fear of being judged.
What does a spiritual director do?
Spiritual direction has its origins in the early Christian church. According to the gospels, Jesus acted as a mentor to his disciples. In addition, Ananias is described in Acts of the Apostles Chapter 9 as assisting Paul of Tarsus in growing in his newfound faith. Similarly, Paul is described as mentoring Timothy and Titus, among others, in various Pauline epistles. Polycarp, the 2nd-century bishop of Smyrna, is said to have been instructed by John the Evangelist.
John Cassian, a fourth-century theologian, wrote some of the first known principles on the Christian practice of spiritual direction.
In the monasteries, he established mentoring. Each novice was assigned to an elder monk for supervision. Cassian's precepts were incorporated into what is now known as the Rule of Saint Benedict by Benedict of Nursia.
Spiritual direction is common in the Catholic tradition: a wise and spiritually discerned person, generally but not always a priest or a consecrated person in general, counsels a person who aspires to embark on a journey of faith and discover God's will in his life. The spiritual guide's goal is to identify and grasp what the Holy Spirit is telling the person accompanied via life events, spiritual insights gained through prayer, reading, and meditation on the Bible. The spiritual father or spiritual director may give advise, give life and prayer hints, and resolve doubts in areas of faith and morals without taking the place of the accompanying person's choices and judgments.
Why do people become spiritual directors?
Consider hiring a spiritual director if you wish to progress in your faith and spiritual life. Spiritual directors assist people examine issues of the soul, faith, and God by leading them on their spiritual journeys. Spiritual guidance is a practice that can be found in a variety of religious systems.
Who can be a spiritual advisor?
A spiritual counselor is someone who is firmly rooted and connected to God, the Universe, Spirit, and other spiritual entities, and who can assist people on their spiritual journeys. Your spiritual advisor assists you in establishing a connection with God and with yourself. They do not make decisions for you, but they do serve as your guide on your trip.
Spiritual advisors can help you with a variety of issues, including spirituality, life direction, and career. Their guidance is spiritual in nature and guides you back to your center. A spiritual counselor can be a friend, a trusted confidant, a clergy member, or someone you have hired with confidence. Finding and keeping someone who can help you grow spiritually in the way you need is the key. A psychic vs. a spiritual advisor
A spiritual adviser can be a psychic, and a psychic can be a spiritual advisor, but they aren't always the same thing, and they aren't always the same thing.
A psychic is a person with spiritual abilities who uses extrasensory perception (ESP) to gain access to information that is not visible to the naked eye. Various clair-abilities, telepathy, and even mediumship are commonly used.
During a psychic session, highly precise questions are frequently asked and answered. Spiritual growth and relationship to the divine may or may not be emphasized. Many psychic hotlines demonstrate this in action. Psychics are believed to use their extrasensory perception (ESP) abilities to receive responses.
Psychic powers aren't required of spiritual advisors. They use their life experiences, studies, and relationship to the Divine to provide answers or steer their advisees in the proper route. Some spiritual gurus can help you with both. They employ their psychic powers to assist them in providing spiritual guidance to their clients. Many people consider psychics to be the best of both worlds when it comes to spiritual guidance.
This combination can be achieved by also enlisting the help of a highly intuitive or prophetic spiritual guide.
Can deacons be spiritual directors?
In response to a desire from both laity and consecrated members of the Catholic Church, Franciscan University of Steubenville piloted a new School of Spiritual Direction a little over three years ago. This demand conveyed a desire to be guided further into the Faith through means other than weekly adoration and Mass attendance. It was a longing to be led into the inner workings of the heart, the depths of the soul, and the complexities of the Holy Spirit's action. In a nutshell, it was a desire to have one's spiritual life guided.
What Is Spiritual Direction?
In their book “The Practice of Spiritual Direction” (HarperOne, $16.99), William A. Barry and William J. Connolly define spiritual direction as “a help given by one believer to another that enables the latter to pay attention to God's personal communication to him or her, to respond to this personally communicating God, to grow in intimacy with this God, and to live out the consequences of the relationship.”
Anyone attempting to live out their Catholic faith knows that distinguishing the voice of the Lord from the cacophony of the outside world, much alone the noise within our own thoughts, may be a near-impossible undertaking at times. How can we be sure it's the Lord's voice? Is there a specific symptom to look for? Is this something else, or am I actually developing in connection with God?
Doubt and uncertainty might come in when one is aggressively attempting to sail the straight and narrow on their own. Temptations to second-guess oneself may keep you stuck in one place for longer than necessary. Our minds are magnificent and wonderful things, but without adequate guidance and training, they can be a minefield of deception.
A spiritual director, who acts as a guide on your road to intimacy and relationship with God, can help you with this. A qualified spiritual director, like a counselor, works with clients to offer them advice, new views, and alternative thinking patterns on the road to recovery.
Who Can Be a Spiritual Director?
The School of Spiritual Direction at Franciscan University gives lay people, priests, deacons, religious, formators, and catechists from all walks of life the chance to become spiritual directors. Each person a spiritual director meets has their own set of tales, experiences, joys, and sorrows. As a result, with sufficient training, devout Catholics of any vocation or background can become spiritual directors.
While many people can contribute something special to the function of spiritual director, I'd want to focus on how deacons in particular qualify as good candidates.
Role of the Deacon
The deacon's ministry is not to be taken lightly. They serve as ministers of the Word (by proclaiming the Gospel) and ministers of the Sacrament (by administering the sacrament) (witnessing marriages, baptizing and conducting funeral services). In addition, they are charitable ministers. Deacons are “leaders in identifying the needs of others, then marshaling the Church's resources to address those needs” as “servants in a servant-Church” (USCCB). Identifying and satisfying the needs of the faithful is a difficult mission, especially in a time when instability and upheaval dominate the narrative of modern society.
Keep in mind that deacons, like other consecrated members of the Church, are persons. They still have to fight the world's temptations with their spirits and brains. As a result, it's just as crucial, if not more so, to provide them with encouragement and resources to help them resist and overcome the flesh's temptations. After all, it is to them that the lay faithful turn for guidance. But how can we expect them to assist us if they are lost or conflicted themselves?
A Cohesive Whole
Deacons get rigorous seminary preparation, which is not disregarded; rather, it is supplemented with spiritual direction training. Seminary time is spent focusing on the spiritual, human, intellectual, and pastoral (SHIP) aspects of a deacon's ministry. Acting as a spiritual director not only touches on each of these themes, but spiritual direction training allows deacons to expand their personal grasp of each concept and put this spiritual, human, intellectual, and pastoral ministry into practice.
Furthermore, the tripartite role of a deacon (minister of word, sacrament, and charity) is taken into account. Spiritual direction helps them to delve deeper into the sacred liturgy and sacraments for their own spiritual growth as well as to witness their directee's spiritual growth. Furthermore, giving up their time to spiritually guide one or more persons relates to their vocation as a charitable minister.
Knowing how many spiritual directors come from a consecrated life vocation, we don't want to reinvent the wheel. Rather, the curriculum honors the wisdom learned in seminary and aims to not only deepen this training but also to provide a pathway for these vocations to achieve their goals.
If a doctor is suffering from a fever, he will be less successful in caring for his patients. Similarly, if a deacon's own needs aren't being fulfilled, he won't be able to adequately serve the needs of the Church's members. This is where a school of spiritual direction's program design comes into play. The effectiveness of a spiritual director is limited by his or her own relationship with God. How will that person be able to firmly accompany someone on their spiritual journey if that relationship is in trouble?
Our program's participants will be able to care for the spiritual needs of their future directees by attending to their spiritual needs. Our deacons, in particular, will be able to not only serve the Church's need for spiritual directors, thereby serving the needs of the people, but they will also get guidance for their own lives through Ignatian spirituality and their reliance on a deep and personal relationship with God.
Do you pay spiritual directors?
Spiritual direction fees are usually on a sliding basis, ranging from $50 to $150 each 50-minute appointment. For those who cannot afford to pay, some directors provide pro gratis services.