“Every single experience in life, indeed every moment, is filled with some way to learn about ourselves … how we act or react to the world around us. One of the ways we truly come to understand who we are and all that we are – from the darkness of our struggles to the fullness of our gifts – is through sharing our inner self with another person whose personal calling in life is to serve in the trusted position of a Spiritual Director.”
(Caroline Myss: Jan 2017)
“Spiritual direction starts with a deep respect for each one’s personality, encouraging and facilitating true freedom of spirit, which leads one to commit oneself to the struggle for holiness. This help for the soul, seconds the action of grace … helps one to fall more and more deeply in love with God, in Christ and through the Holy Spirt.“
(Jose Luis Gutierrez : Jan 2011)
A spiritual director helps
- each person on a one by one relationship
- foster freedom and personal responsibility – helping each person to understand correctly what it means to want to want to, without confusing “I don’t feel like it” with “I don’t want to.”
- each person build on the good qualities he or she has, and suggests points of struggle that contribute to growth in the virtues.
Each person needs a personalized assessment carried with supernatural outlook.
(Jose Luis Gutierrez)
The relationship between a spiritual director and a directee is one of partnership, sincerity, trust. There is no imposition of a planned or set programme on the directee: direction is adjusted to fit the person’s personality, life, history and spiritual experience. With time and experience, one identifies inner movements, reflecting more deeply on them and understanding even more where they come from and where one is being led.
(Brian O’Leary, SJ : The Way Jan/April 2008)