Too Busy To Discern?

/ Sr. Marie Paul Curley / Leave a comment

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1. Busyness and/or overwork is sometimes a simple reality. American culture emphasizes doing over being. Between home life, demands at work, needs of extended family, and everything else, we can become too busy practically all the time, doing things that we consider important.

The needs and sufferings of our brothers and sisters in the world are so great that it’s easy to see that every baptized person is called to “busy” themselves about the Lord’s work. Whether it’s praying and offering for others, reaching out with small gestures of love at home, responding to a neighbor’s crisis, or engaging in full-time apostolate, living the corporal and spiritual works of mercy keep us all busy! For those of us involved in full-time apostolate, juggling family and work, or part of the “sandwich generation”—raising our kids and taking care of elderly parents or relatives—there is simply not enough time in the day to do all that we want to do, to express our love in all the ways that we want to. And there are certainly seasons of our lives when the Lord invites us to that special self-offering of giving at “full stretch”—whether to our children and family at home, to fulfill our responsibilities at work, to reach out to those in need, or in fulfilling the Church’s mission.

But we cannot run at full stretch all the time. We also need time to replenish ourselves so that we can continue to give of ourselves fully and freely. If we find ourselves often grumpy, stressed, or exhausted; if our life starts to feel unbearable; if we have crafted or allowed our lifestyle to develop in such a way that we don’t have time for daily prayer and a weekly chunk of time to nurture ourselves; if we find ourselves taking refuge in work or busyness, then we need to re-examine our lives, giving some time to these questions:

  • What is most important to us?
  • What do we want to give priority to in our lives?
  • Are we giving priority to what is merely superficially urgent (e.g., work has many deadlines), or to the truly crucial (e.g., our spiritual state, the direction of our lives, our important relationships?)
  • Are we deceiving ourselves with the illusion that being super-busy or overworked gives us more importance, control, or power?

Allowing ourselves to be deceived by the illusion of importance, power, and control is not spiritually healthy. It can distract us from what is truly important in our lives, and deceive us about our true, deepest call. The world is in God’s hands and will not fall apart if we take a break, make time for a half hour of daily prayer, or schedule in the necessary time to take care of ourselves. Always being “too busy,” or always saying “yes” to additional responsibilities can become a way of avoiding ourselves. This can be a deception of the ego or of the devil; either way, I am sure that the devil uses this self-deception to prevent us from listening to God and to prevent our growth in humility.

When we choose or allow ourselves to become frantically busy all the time, we can start to think we are more important than we are. Our priorities become mixed up. There is a difference between feeling needed and feeling indispensable. The first may be true much of the time; the second is rarely true, and if it is, a back up plan is needed! Being overly busy isn’t just difficult for us; it also affects the quality of our relationships and can prevent us from taking time with the loved ones who really need us. When we fall into a cycle of being over-busy all the time, we may even be using being busy as an escape from prayer, spending quiet time, or difficult aspects of our relationships.

Above all—for the purposes of our discernment—being super-busy, stressed, or overworked prevents us from taking time to become quiet enough to deeply listen to God.

The One Word That Best Describes Discernment

/ Sr. Marie Paul Curley / Leave a comment

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Discernment can be described in many ways, but the best single word to describe it is listening. How can we hone our listening skills, and what are the obstacles to listening to God?

We have all watched movies where a character is alone in the dark, hears a noise and, despite the danger and fear, decides to go investigate. As the character walks into danger, we may even shout at the screen, “Stop! Don’t go in! Don’t you know that something bad is going to happen?” Either the movie has a poorly written cliché, or something else in the story prevents that character from listening to their intuition.

We may be wise enough not to investigate a dark alley at night by ourselves, but we all have moments when we don’t listen to the experienced voice of wisdom within us. Whether it’s lack of time or the noisiness of our life, consistently listening for God within is often the hardest part of discerning for us. Listening to how God is speaking within us includes:

  • listening for God in our prayer and desires
  • recognizing God’s presence in the circumstances and events of our lives.

Listening to God means living reflectively.

I try to check the pulse of my life daily to ensure that I’m making enough time for silence and prayer. Doing this daily is important because I find it so easy to be distracted by the “noise” of daily life, allowing it to overwhelm the much-needed interior silence that I need to live in mindful awareness of God’s daily invitations.

In addition to simple distractions, three obstacles that I regularly face in listening attentively to God within (in my prayer, desires, and reflection on my daily life) are:

  1. Busyness and/or overwork
  2. Restlessness or discomfort with silence or deeper reflection
  3. Giving others’ situations, needs, problems, or conflicts undue attention in my thoughts, so that I’m focusing on external situations that are often beyond my control, rather than my own

For me, these choices, behaviors, or attitudes are often rooted in ambition or overdeveloped ego.

What are the biggest obstacles that prevent you from listening attentively to God?

Mary: the Freest Woman Who Ever Lived

/ Sr. Marie Paul Curley / Leave a comment

06P pixabay 2As we continue our discernment journey, striving for the freedom to see, understand, and live God’s Story for us, we find both helps and obstacles along the way. Many of the helps which can guide us we have already looked at: praying—especially with the Word of God, self-knowledge, the examen, our friends, a spiritual director, other mentors, the community, the Church, the circumstances of our daily life. The obstacles may be unexpected, especially because if we seek God’s will, God should clear the path for us, right? Unfortunately, doing God’s will has nothing to do with how easy or hard something is, nor how many obstacles we face.

Because of original sin, our own tendency towards sin, and our personal history of sin, none of us live the full potential of God’s Story for us. Original sin has “messed up” not just us individually but God’s creation. Yet, original sin has not changed God’s desires or ultimate plan for us, not has it taken away our freedom.

The consequences of sin in our lives make it harder for us not only to see God’s viewpoint, but also to live our stories in all their fullness and beauty. But they don’t change our call, nor our potential. Getting to know the obstacles in our discernment—obstacles to listening, to freedom, to responding generously to God’s call—is helpful for facing them, especially when they are unexpected.

virgin-335500_1280One guide to freedom is Mary, the Mother of Jesus. The saints remind us frequently that devotion to Mary is the surest and quickest way to grow in our following of Christ, in seeking and doing God’s will. Perhaps this is because Mary, whom we as Catholics believe was preserved free from all sin, is the freest human being who ever lived! She was free enough to receive the angel Gabriel’s impossible announcement and then to give an impossible yes—a yes which she must have known would lead her not just to tremendous joy, but also to great suffering as the Mother of the Suffering Servant.

Mary was not stifled by selfishness, pride, or any other of sin’s enslavements. She who listened to and lived the Word of God most freely and attentively in her life is eager to help us to draw closer in freedom to her Son.

To Pray With

Pray a decade of the Rosary, asking Mary for the grace to be free enough to listen to and respond to Jesus’ invitations in all the events of your daily life. (If you aren’t familiar with praying the Rosary, you can find an easy “how to” here: http://www.usccb.org/prayer-and-worship/prayers-and-devotions/rosaries/how-to-pray-the-rosary.cfm) I highly encourage you to consider praying the Rosary—which is a wonderful way of praying with Scripture and the mysteries of the lives of Jesus and Mary— and making it a frequent part of your prayer routine.

The Mission Entrusted To You by God

/ Sr. Marie Paul Curley / 1 Comment

This beautiful reflection by Blessed John Henry Newman can inspire us and offer direction to us both as we discern our mission, or as we struggle to respond to the challenges of taking the next step forward in our mission:

06N PixabayGod has created me to do Him some definite service;
He has committed some work to me which He has not committed to another. I have my mission—I never may know it in this life, but I shall be told it in the next. Somehow I am necessary for His purposes, as necessary in my place as an Archangel in his—if, indeed, I fail, He can raise another, as He could make the stones children of Abraham. Yet I have a part in this great work; I am a link in a chain, a bond of connexion between persons. He has not created me for naught. I shall do good, I shall do His work; I shall be an angel of peace, a preacher of truth in my own place, while not intending it, if I do but keep His commandments and serve Him in my calling.

Therefore I will trust Him. Whatever, wherever I am, I can never be thrown away. If I am in sickness, my sickness may serve Him; in perplexity, my perplexity may serve Him; if I am in sorrow, my sorrow may serve Him. My sickness, or perplexity, or sorrow may be necessary causes of some great end, which is quite beyond us. He does nothing in vain; He may prolong my life, He may shorten it; He knows what He is about. He may take away my friends, He may throw me among strangers, He may make me feel desolate, make my spirits sink, hide the future from me—still He knows what He is about.

O Adonai, O Ruler of Israel, Thou that guidest Joseph like a flock, O Emmanuel, O Sapientia, I give myself to Thee. I trust Thee wholly. Thou art wiser than I—more loving to me than I myself. Deign to fulfil Thy high purposes in me whatever they be—work in and through me. I am born to serve Thee, to be Thine, to be Thy instrument. Let me be Thy blind instrument. I ask not to see—I ask not to know—I ask simply to be used.

– From Blessed John Henry Newman. The complete meditation can be found online here: http://www.newmanreader.org/works/meditations/meditations9.html

Discerning Our Call To Serve

/ Sr. Marie Paul Curley / Leave a comment

06L my crazy ideaA hugely important part of any good discernment is to listen to God’s invitations as expressed in the needs of the world—the needs of those around us: Where is God sending us to serve?

We live in a busy world, with so many needs. Any person of good will alive today can easily become overwhelmed by the number of requests for help, whether from family, friends, neighbors, parish, or work. Sometimes it may seem to be a call from God; at other times, we may become casually involved in helping out our family, our community, or a ministry simply as a favor, and the favor turns into a bigger commitment that we didn’t pray about or plan for. Especially when the invitation is casual, or we never envisioned ourselves serving in this particular way, we may not recognize God’s call.

When we feel pulled in many directions, or find ourselves juggling too much, this is the perfect time to enter into a spirit of discernment, to sort through the different demands on our time and discern which requests or needs are invitations from God. Sometimes, we can easily sort through them. At other times, it may take time to gradually clarify how God is inviting us. But as we go forward in our lives, we will develop more of a sense of our personal mission, of how God is calling us to be and to love in the world.

For example when I visit a hospital, I am drawn to help the people I encounter there—not just the person I am visiting, but also the people I meet casually. While I’m at the hospital, I seek to respond as best I can to the requests that I receive. I believe that God wants to work through me to touch the lives of the people that I encounter on that particular visit. (And often I am deeply touched by the people who are so courageously undergoing such suffering.)

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However in my vocation as a Daughter of Saint Paul, I am also aware that I am not called to be a nurse. Instead, my vocation as a Pauline communicator is to focus on the spiritual poverty and suffering of the people whom I encounter, whether they are wealthy or poor. This can be a less obvious call, because physical poverty and suffering are often more noticeable.

What criteria can we use to sort through the many demands that we experience? For me, the wonderfully profound Presbyterian minister and writer Frederick Buechner sums it up best when he wrote, “The place God calls you to is the place where your deep gladness and the world’s deep hunger meet” (Frederick Buechner, from his book Wishful Thinking: A Theological ABC). Looking for that resonance between the outward call we receive/perceive, and the inner movements of our heart may take time, prayer, and discernment, but the God who lovingly calls us will clarify his will for us in his time.   

Mary, Model Discerner

/ Sr. Marie Paul Curley / Leave a comment

As mentioned earlier, when we discern we pay special attention to where we are at the present moment. We don’t begin our discernment from where we’d like to be, or from unrealistic expectations, but from where we are right now.

Because who we are and where we are has been shaped by the past, we also prayed with our past—with significant moments in our lives that have shaped us as persons, and with significant moments of grace in our lives. We may need to continue to pray about significant moments in our lives, but as we go forward in our discernment, it is time to bring all of who we are, here and now—the present—to prayer. In the past two months, we been reflecting on cultivating a listening attitude in our daily life, listening intently intently to God speaking to us through:

  • our prayer
  • our deep desires
  • our relationships
  • our conversations with others
  • our current situation
  • the Church
  • the needs of the world.

But we face any number of obstacles in this deeper listening. In the next few posts, we’ll look at some of those obstacles that can “stump” us or detour us on our discernment journey, and how we can respond to or overcome these obstacles.

The Annunciation by Henry Ossawa Tanner, 1898.

The Annunciation by Henry Ossawa Tanner, 1898.

Our first response in facing any obstacle on our discernment journey (or our spiritual journey) is to entrust our spiritual lives and any special intentions to Mary, the Mother of Jesus. This is especially true for our discernment. Mary is the disciple who most faithfully listened to and responded to God’s invitations in her life, and she wants to accompany us as we seek to do the same.  The Founder of the Daughters of Saint Paul, Blessed James Alberione, used to say, “Mary is the way to go to Jesus, the easiest way.” Mary wants to draw us closer to her Son, so we can ask her in a very particular way to accompany us throughout the rest of our discernment, and ultimately, the rest of our lives as we seek to live God’s call in fidelity as she did.

Suggestion for Prayer

The Angelus is a beautiful and rich prayer that is so helpful for discerners, as it helps us to recall the moment when Mary received and responded with her generous “yes” to God’s call. Traditionally, the Angelus is prayed three times a day—morning, noon, and evening. Make time today to pray the Angelus at least once today. (If you aren’t familiar with this beautiful prayer, you can pray it with this lovely music version:

You can also find the Angelus in almost any Catholic prayer book. Once you have been praying the Angelus for a while, you may enjoy meditating on a beautiful work of art depicting the Annunciation while you are praying: http://calltoprayer.blogspot.com/

Book Review: Rediscover Jesus is a great foundation for your discernment

/ Sr. Marie Paul Curley / Leave a comment

I’m re-posting here a shortened version of my original book review of Rediscover Jesus: An Invitation  because I think it is a wonderful way to begin deepening our relationship with Christ as we begin to discern more deeply.

Rediscover Jesus: An Invitation is truly an appealing invite to readers to encounter Jesus deeply. RJ-book-flatThis book answers an urgent need that I have found in Catholics all over North America: people of good will, rooted and raised in the Catholic Faith, who are Catholic mostly just for Sunday Mass and special occasions, who desperately need a personal relationship with Jesus. As a vocation director, I have often been concerned for young people who begin discerning their vocations without having a personal relationship with Jesus–indeed, without knowing that they needed one. They wanted to do God’s will, but how could they hear God’s call if they didn’t know how to have a conversation with Jesus? Helping young people develop a personal relationship with Christ became the starting-point of my work in nurturing vocations.

Rediscover Jesus: An Invitation wonderfully addresses this need, inviting readers in to their own personal relationship with Jesus through:

  • Conversational style and short, easily digestible portions. Broken down into 40 short chapters, this book covers the basics of what it means to live a Christian life–one nugget at a time. For the most part, this book was simply a joy to read.
  • Four concrete interactive invitations at the end of every chapter, each of which appeal to a different part of our personhood.  To Ponder engages the mind, Verse to Live (taken from the Gospels) can engage almost any part of us, depending on how we read it; Question to Consider engages our memories and life experience, and Prayer engages our hearts. Almost every reader will find at least one of those four points striking. These interactive invites allow us as readers to reflect on the message of the chapter in a way that is deeply personal.
  • Life-changing introduction to how to live a truly Christian life
  • Relational approach–not just because of the conversational style, but because of how Matthew Kelly is definitely trying to encourage us to develop our own personal relationship with Jesus–the one relationship that we all thirst for, whether we know it or not.

The topics of the chapters rotate, but I found three main themes running through the book. The first nine or so chapters seem to focus more on who God is and who Jesus is–especially as we can come to know him through the Gospels and through prayer. These first chapters are shorter, extremely inviting and appealing, and motivating. They’re great not just for people who need a personal relationship with Jesus, but also for those who seek to deepen their relationship with Christ. I’ve bookmarked several points to pray with later. My favorite chapters of the book were these first chapters and the last few chapters because they focus so well on the personal. What does Jesus truly want for us? How does Jesus think of us? How do we think of Jesus? How can we give Jesus our all?

Chapters 11 through 20 (or so) seem to focus on the heart of Jesus’ Gospel teaching, especially how we are called as followers of Christ to imitate him.

From the middle of the book to the end, the chapters primarily focus on transformation: how Christ wants to and will transform our lives if we allow him–so that we can be truly, deeply happy, so that we can be our best selves. In a particular way, the last ten or so chapters discuss holiness–in a way that is accessible to everyone.

My favorite chapters:

Chapter 10: Learning a true love of self

Chapter 22: Matthew’s act of surrender–in line with the great St. Ignatius of Loyola’s Suscipe and Blessed Charles de Foucald’s Act of Abandonment–is put in such contemporary terms, but so elegantly, that I will be adding it to my favorite prayers

Chapters 23, 25 & 28: How tos and examples of how to pray with the Word of God, especially the Gospels

Chapter 26: How a Christian can begin daily personal prayer

Previously, author Matthew Kelly has revealed himself to be a wonderful communicator through his books and www.DynamicCatholic.com, but he is especially effective in Rediscover Jesus because he:

  • knows his readers and their interests, issues, and concerns
  • addresses his audience effectively, invitationally
  • communicates interactively
  • creates an invitational space for the reader to encounter Christ

What I enjoyed most about Rediscover Jesus: An Invitation is its circular communication inviting the reader in: from Matthew Kelly to reader to Christ (whom we assume inspired Matthew Kelly to write this invitation in the first place). It’s not one-way communication from author to reader but circular, Trinitarian. Rediscover Jesus has the potential to be life-giving, life-changing.

Although I read the book in just three short sittings, I would recommend instead reading a chapter a day. This will give the reader the opportunity to take time with each chapter’s invitation, and facilitate a 40-day journey for the reader to either begin or actively grow in one’s relationship with Jesus.

Who would especially benefit from this book?

  • The average Catholic in the pew
  • Anyone interested in beginning or renewing their spiritual life
  • RCIA–people learning to live the Christian life as personal relationship with Christ
  • Teens or young adults starting to make their faith their own.  This doesn’t look like a book for those receiving Confirmation, but it would be awesome if every confirmandee read it!
  • Anyone with a personal relationship with Christ will enjoy deepening that relationship with some of the creative, refreshing and contemporary “takes” that can enrich our prayer.
  • Those who want to learn how to communicate Christ: fresh, original and contemporary language; creative suggestions for praying with the Gospels; a contemporary invitation to tradition/faith that is accessible to a “newbie”

 

The World Needs You!

/ Sr. Marie Paul Curley / Leave a comment

06I RGBstock choice 2“The world you are inheriting is a world which desperately needs…to be touched and healed by the beauty and richness of God’s love. It needs witnesses to that love. The world needs salt. It needs you – to be the salt of the earth and the light of the world” (St. John Paul II, Homily for 17th World Youth Day at Downsview Park, Toronto, on July 28, 2002).

The world is deeply hungry: for love, for justice, for peace, for Christ. Many of posts in this blog have been about searching interiory to hear God’s call. But a critical part of discernment is to reflect on how God calls us through the needs of others, through the needs of the world.

The world is a big place, and each of us is just one person. How can we respond to the needs of the entire world?

By responding to the needs of those around us and the people that we interact with, we are responding to the needs of the world. If each of us truly did our part to bring love, healing, and justice to our “little worlds,” the entire world would be transformed. In addition, we never know how our actions—however small—can touch or shape another person. As members of the Church, the Mystical Body of Christ, everything we are and do affects the rest of the Body. So every time we choose to act out of Christ’s love, our love has the potential to change the world for the better.

God calls us not just through our being, but also through the needs of those around us. All of us want to make a difference in the world. So how can we come to know the needs of the world? And how do we discern which need(s) of the world we are called to serve?

We can come to know the needs of the world in many ways. Here a few:

  • The world around us carves us and sculpts us. Whether we are aware of it or not, we are people of our time, and we are each uniquely aware of certain needs. Our personal experiences, the communities in which we live and work, the people we know, the personal challenges we face, and the challenges faced by those we know and love, are already deeply embedded in us. What about our experiences move our hearts? Who are the people in our lives whom God might be inviting us to reach out to or respond to?
  • Find a way to stay in tune with current events, if we don’t already do so. We don’t necessarily need to watch TV news broadcasts or read the daily newspaper, but we do need to find a way to engage with the larger world. Unless we are called to living like a hermit, as Christians we are called to be informed and engaged with the world. Going through a daily news app, reading the latest novels that touch on social issues, watching documentary films—all of these are ways to stay in touch with what’s happening in the world. We are particularly blessed today with a wide diversity of media that can help us to know about what’s happening—both in our own backyard and all around the globe. Each of us can choose a couple ways to be in touch with the larger community of the world, paying attention to those stories or situations that touch us deeply. Whether it’s orphaned children, the plight of a village that doesn’t have access to drinkable water, the suicide rate of teenagers in the USA, or the efforts of a particular community or group to bring about reconciliation between hostile groups—we will find out about situations of others that we feel deeply about. Bring these situations to prayer. When we feel strongly about them, we can take time to reflect on them and how God might be calling us to take action.
  • Listen to the invitations of our Pope and bishops. Very often, the Pope and the bishops have their fingers on the “pulse” of the most urgent needs or the most neglected people of our society. Prophetically, they often point out disturbing trends that if not addressed, could spiral downwards into crisis. Their words are based on research, reflection, and prayer—and can be a fruitful source for our prayer and discernment. Often, the Pope can orient us in how to respond to a particular need. (If we don’t have the time or energy to keep up with the documents of the Pope or bishops, we can read the “news briefs” from the Catholic News Agency, other Catholic news services, or the Vatican’s news service. One easy way to keep up with the Pope is to read the text of his general audience on Wednesdays.)

As we listen to the needs of the world, we may feel drawn in many directions. But we don’t need to feel overwhelmed. The world—and all its people—are in God’s hands. Jesus Christ is the Savior of the world, and Jesus invites us to participate in his saving mission. The needs of others that we are called to serve will deeply resonate with us. The gift of discernment is that we discover how the Lord is inviting us, through the situations in which we live and in the situations that we come to know about, to share in Christ’s mission of further bringing God’s love to the world.

How To Make the Most of Spiritual Direction

/ Sr. Marie Paul Curley / Leave a comment

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Prepare

Pray for the grace to listen to and respond to God’s invitations. Seek to bring an attitude of openness to spiritual direction, so that Jesus can “shape” you and draw you more deeply into his love

Approach spiritual direction with reverence. Your relationship with God is sacred; this time that you are taking for your relationship with God is also sacred.

Prepare by noting/journaling about your recent prayer experiences.

  • If you are praying Lectio Divina or another meditative or contemplative prayer, you will find it helpful to reflect on your feelings, inspirations, and the fruit of your prayer immediately after praying. Review these reflections before you go for spiritual direction.
  • If you pray the examen prayer, you will probably find your first meeting for spiritual direction easier, as the examen prayer includes reflection as part of the prayer.

Also, note any questions you wish to ask regarding your spiritual life.

Spiritual Direction Session

When you arrive, the spiritual director may begin with a prayer, then will most likely invite you to talk about your spiritual journey and what has brought you to direction. In your conversation, you will want to focus above all on your spiritual life—that is, your prayer, your relationship with God, and how you live your relationship with God in your day to day life. Because your whole life is the context of your relationship with God, you will want to tell your spiritual director briefly about the important things that are happening in your life and how they are affecting you.

Spiritual direction is different than a counseling session or a conversation between friends. Your time is limited, so you will want to keep the focus on your spiritual life. Sometimes it’s hard to know how to do that, but the spiritual director will help to focus the conversation around your relationship with God. He or she may ask you questions so that they understand the context of what you are saying. Feel free to answer, but also feel free not to answer, saying something like, “I have to think about that.”

Also feel free to acknowledge that you don’t know exactly what to talk about or how to speak about something. The spiritual director can then help guide the conversation.

Don’t be afraid of the silence that may arise—the silence may give both you and the spiritual director an opportunity to reflect and listen together to God’s invitation to you.

At first, you may feel a bit uncomfortable or uneasy speaking about your prayer and your relationship with Jesus. This is natural because you don’t know your spiritual director and also  because it’s not something that you usually do. Speaking about your prayer life takes practice. Finding the words to describe a spiritual experience can be challenging, which is why it is helpful to reflect on it ahead of time, and bring those notes to your spiritual direction session.

During the session, the spiritual director’s role is to:

  • Listen attentively (to the point that you feel understood)
  • Help to focus the conversation around your relationship with God
  • Offer insight into what you shared so that you can reflect more deeply on your relationship with God
  • Direct you back to your relationship with God
  • Occasionally, offer advice on spiritual matters or on how to pray
  • Address any questions you have

If a director offers advice on spiritual matters, this is important to listen to and receive thoughtfully.

If you feel that the spiritual direction session was helpful or went fairly well, you can arrange for another appointment. Typically, someone in spiritual direction would see their director about once a month, although it can certainly be more or less frequent.

Don’t expect too much from any one session of spiritual direction. The spiritual director is not there to “fix” your problems, but to help you recognize God’s action in your life. Sometimes spiritual matters take time to unfold. As the spiritual director gets to know you, their insights and advice will become more specific to you and your situation.

Follow Up

Immediately or as soon as you are able to, take some time to pray about what came up during spiritual direction. Journaling or noting down what the spiritual director said may also be helpful. If the spiritual director offered advice that seems helpful to you, give it a try. If you’re not sure that it would be helpful, pray about the advice that was offered, as the spiritual director is speaking from the wisdom of prayer and experience. If you decide not to take the spiritual director’s advice, is there something else that you can do that will address the area that the spiritual director’s advice was directed towards?

Follow up your spiritual direction appointment with prayer: this is the best way to help it bear fruit in your life.

Spiritual Direction 101

/ Sr. Marie Paul Curley / Leave a comment

Before getting to the practical tips, I thought it might be helpful to share some general notes about spiritual direction.

06A second foto stochPerhaps we are discerning our vocation or another big life choice, and we decided to go for some spiritual direction. [Here are some suggestions how to find a spiritual director.] After we have found a director and set up an appointment, what should we expect?

First of all, we remember that our true Spiritual Director is Jesus himself. The person we are seeing for spiritual direction is helping us recognize Christ’s direction and invitations in our life. A spiritual director is trained to listen, to accompany us on our spiritual journey, and to help us recognize God’s invitations in our prayer and in our life.

Secondly, in our first meeting, we want to look for a certain affinity between our spiritual director and ourselves. When we meet for spiritual direction for the first time, we want to notice how we feel, especially if we feel fairly comfortable talking honestly with the director. (It’s natural when speaking with a spiritual director for the first couple times, to feel a bit uncomfortable simply because we don’t know the director yet.) After the session, we can consider if we felt understood and validated in presenting our experience. The spiritual director should understand where we are on our spiritual journey and we should feel that we are able to trust him or her. If we find ourselves holding back from what we wanted to talk about out of fear, or feel misunderstood, or something feels “off,” we can still have a helpful session, but we may wish to try another spiritual director in the future. Sometimes it takes two or three meetings for us to recognize whether or not a spiritual director is a “good fit” for us. This is normal, and the spiritual director will expect us to evaluate our experience with them.

Thirdly, spiritual directors usually support themselves and their families (or their communities if they are religious) with their spiritual direction. When we set up the appointment, it is helpful to ask the spiritual director what their stipend is. If we forget to ask about a stipend before we meet, we will want to make sure we do so at our first meeting.

Next, I’ll post some tips on how to make the most of spiritual direction.