This week at the Center, our 5th group of participants in the Bon Secours Spiritual Direction Institute is working through the last of three week-long sessions within their certification program. These individuals have felt a calling to serve as a spiritual director to those in need or to deepen their own spirituality in new ways and we pray that they are inspired by the training that they are receiving. Just as the need for professional counseling has increased in recent years, the need for spiritual guidance from trained directors has also risen. We are blessed to be able to facilitate this training program, led by gifted leaders and guest lecturers. Please keep this special group of individuals in your prayers this week as they gather and look forward to celebrating together at their graduation ceremony on Friday.
“Spiritual direction is a continuous process of formation and guidance, in which a Christian is led and encouraged in his special vocation, so that by faithful correspondence to the graces of the Holy Spirit he may attain to the particular end of his vocation and to union with God.” ~ Thomas Merton
“A spiritual life doesn’t necessarily lead to tranquility, to peace, or to a beautiful feeling about ourselves or about how nice it is to be together with others. The chipping-away process can hurt. It might mean being lonely in a place where you never wanted to go. It might lead you to a vocation you never sought. It might ask you to do uncomfortable things. Or it might ask you to obediently and routinely do comfortable things that are not very dramatic when you prefer adventure. The spiritual truth is that God is at work in each of us and in our communities and families. Often, the companionship of trusted friends allows us to see how God is at work. We can’t always see God’s activity by ourselves.” ~ Henri Nouwen
“The director is one who knows and sympathizes, who makes allowances, who understands circumstances, who is not in a hurry, who is patiently and humbly waiting for indications of God’s action in the soul. He is concerned not just with this or that urgent problem, this or that sin, but with the whole life of the soul. He is not interested merely in our actions. He is much more interested in the basic attitudes of our soul, our inmost aspirations, our way of meeting difficulties, our mode of responding to good and evil. In a word, the director is interested in our very self, in all its uniqueness, its pitiable misery and its breathtaking greatness. A true director can never get over the awe he feels in the presence of a person, an immortal soul, loved by Christ, washed in His most Precious Blood, and nourished by the sacrament of His Love.” ~ Thomas Merton
“My job is not to solve people’s problems or make them happy, but to help them see the grace operating in their lives.” ~ Eugene Peterson