The Focus of Spiritual Direction

When I first started Spiritual direction My director asked me what my conception of a Spiritual Director was. This was well before I began this program and my main example for spiritual direction was Father Zosama in Dostoevsky's “Brothers Karamazov.” I thought of some contemplative who I could submit in obedience, who would stretch me in the practices of devotion and discipline - like a good doctor or gardener will diagnose and treat ailments.

Instead he gently listened to what God was doing in me. He didn’t hold me accountable, though my disciplined life did become stronger.

Still Barry and Conolly’s description of one whose sole purpose is to help me see God’s involvement in my every day life, clarified for me what my director had been doing (Spiritual Direction in Practice 5).

It is that focus, I believe, that distinguishes spiritual direction from the other helping ministries. There is indeed much overlap as the authors note, but singleness of focus on the presence of God in all things provides boundaries for the way the director will respond to any given situation (Spiritual Direction in Practice 142.)

I am reading Barry and Connoly’s Spiritual Direction in Practice here at St. Gregory’s Abby. The compounding of the Divine Office and daily Eucharist in this beautiful setting has me all warm with consolations. So I receive it easily and joyfully that the spiritual director should have “surplus warmth.” In a world which sometimes grants more desolation than consolation it is easily apparent why a warm environment works for spiritual direction. The director his/herself is the representation of Divine consolation. In their presence we are warmed by God, through the gifts he has given them. No wonder Bakke calls directions sessions “a pure gift.”