Introduction:
"I lift up my eyes to the hills - where does my help come from? My help comes from the Lord, the Maker of heaven and earth...the Lord will watch over your coming and going both now and forevermore." (Psalm 121:1,8)
Prayer is the beginning, the home and end of Spiritual Direction. When I do Spiritual Direction to someone, I always start with a simple and sincere prayer invoking the help and guidance of God. Then, during the course of the Spiritual Direction, I maintain a prayerful listening of my mind and heart to what my directee is sharing. At the end of a Spiritual Direction session, I always ask my directee to say a closing prayer out of his or her creative expression. In between, the Spiritual Direction session, in my own personal personal prayer, I think and pray about the person of my directee. I thought of what transpired during the session. What were the highlights of it and possible strategies and direction needed to be done.
1. One of the best qualities of a good Spiritual Director is that he/she is a person deeply rooted in prayer as part of the daily discipline. In my own personal practice of prayer, I spend one hour of Zen meditat6ion each day, another hour of Lectio Divina and another hour of Adoration of the Blessed Sacrament. Spiritual Direction is a holy conversation seeking the will of God for the life of the directee. A lot of inner listening is involved. I can only be a good Spiritual Director if I am living a life of prayer. In the movie, "Dancing with the wolves", there is a part which depicts the image of the Spiritual Director as interpreter of the language between God and the directee, when Stands with Fist bridged the gap between the Indian Chief and the American soldier. In Spiritual Direction, how can I best interpret the language of the heart between the directee and God, if my personal life is not steeped in prayer?
2. The Art of Prayer in the Art of Spiritual Direction
According to C.S. Lewis, "The greatest of all arts is the direction of souls." The soul of each person is a great treasure to uncover like a pearl deeply imbedded in the oriental waters of Sulu. The beauty of Spiritual Direction is in the adventure of a lifetime of leading forth a soul to the light of a new day, according to the design for living God has intended or planned. If Prayer is an art of listening for example, Spiritual Direction is also an art of listening. In Prayer, one listens to God. In Spiritual Direction, one listens to the directee, and in the process of listening, one tries to discern the stirrings of God's Spirit, will and purpose being revealed in the story being told by the directee. Prayer is the subtle art of being still and quiet, so is Spiritual Direction. In an atmosphere of silence, the Spiritual Director creates the hospitality of the heart of God in the room - welcoming the directee with all love, acceptance, understanding, comfort and friendship. Prayer is the holy corner of "Divine Milieu" to paraphrase Teilhard di Chardin, S.J. where the divine light revolves. Spiritual Direction is also a space of light where every darkness, shadow, doubt, fear anxiety in the deepest nook and corner of the heart of the directee is despelled in the regular face to face meeting of searching and fearless inquiry into making the unknown known, of letting the truth come alive, of letting God be God.
3. Praying for the directee outside of Spiritual Direction
In my experience and practice as a Spiritual Director, I bring to my own personal prayer, every soul that God brought into my life to direct. In my prayer time, I try to recall the session I have with my directee. I asked the Holy Spirit to enlighten my mind what to say next time I meet the person. I try to put myself in every person of the directee before God, begging for some guidance and comfort in the humble atttitude that what my directee is carrying right now I also carry as a burden in my heart, mind and soul. This is what I call compassionate Spiritual Direction in the context of prayer, my own prayer time as a Spiritual Director. The grandeur and beauty of Spiritual Direction is that I journey with the soul spiritually even at a distance and the time and space spent outside of a Spiritual Direction session is as much as important as the session spent together.
4. Growth in Prayer Life as a goal in Spiritual Direction
Another experience I have as a Spiritual Director is to see to it that my directee develops a disciplined lifestyle of prayer. One of the questions I usually ask in Spiritual Direction is - How is your life of prayer? Here, I conceive prayer as an intimacy with God whom we know loves us, to allude to what St. Teresa of Avila said about prayer. One of the common issues brought about in Spiritual Direction is dryness in prayer. As a Spiritual Director I have to give reminder that this dryness in prayer is normal in such stage of life. At times, the directee cannot even able to pray due to some experience of grief or loss. As a Spiritual Director I have to be ready to teach a simple one liner prayer like, "Lord, I surrender", "Thy will, not mine be done!" In some cases a directee maybe be angry with God and blames God for a painful experience in life. Here, as a Spiritual Director I will gently encourage my directee to even express this feeling of anger in talking with God, to simply be honest before God and say and angry prayerful expression like, "Why me Lord?" or "Lord, I'm mad at you!" and then take a deep breath and be silent to hear, feel and know that no matter what, nothing is lost in the economy of God's love, that everything works out for good in the end and that more will be revealed in the realm of God's comforting love.
5. Asking the directee to pray over me
In my experience as a Spiritual Director, it is a fact that I receive more from my directee more than I have given in the course of our sessions. One of the things that Mother Teresa and her Missionaries of Charity sisters discovered in giving charity to the poorest of the poor like those who are sick and elderly is that they received more than what they have given. The same is true with Spiritual Direction. I discovered that after I have helped a poor soul for a while and allowed the true beauty and splendor of hi/her soul to shine through, this very soul has a lot of gifts and blessings to share for the enrichment and grown of my own spiritual journey. So, I always asked my directee to pray over me before we end our session. I humbly kneel or bow my head and let my directee pray over me in ways and inspiration of the the Spirit of God in the heart of my directee. There were times, depending on need that I hear praying words of healing, or encouragement in my faith journey, or even prophesy of what may come. This brings me to a conclusion that part of the relationship between a Spiritual Director and a directee is a relationship of mutual support in the spiritual journey. I may not be able to explicitly express to my directee my own spiritual woes or struggle at the moment, but I can experience that somehow my directee has the eyes and ears of the heart to comprehend what I am going through. I am often amazed how my directee will pray exactly for what I need spritually at the time.
6. Building a Fellowship of Prayer
Out of the exchange of prayers in Spiritual Direction, what is formed is a Fellowship of Prayer among those I direct with myself and among them. A spiritual community among us is born. We may not be seeing each other again, but we stay united in prayer wherever we are in the world. The fruit of good Spiritual Direction is creating a family of God among souls. I become a father or mother to my many spiritual sons and daughters, or a brother among spiritual brothers and sisters, or simply a friend among friends. With the internet technology we can continue to keep in touch and create a spiritual network among us.
Conclusion:
Spiritual Direction is my own skillful, artistic, creative, unique and responsible way of parenting a soul to grow and mature according to God's beautiful plan, dream or purpose. It is a full time responsibility in the matrix of prayer and direction and a co-responsibility partner in spiritual living. A listening prayerful heart is a must in Spiritual Direction. Care and love go with it too. As a Spiritual Director, parenting a soul by being a friend I walk with day by day is being in tune with the dictum, "Don't walk ahead of me, I will not follow. Don't walk behind me, I will not lead. But just walk by my side and be my friend."
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