Is Spiritual Direction Necessary?

IS SPIRITUAL DIRECTION NECESSARY?

“‘The first thing that we could say about a spiritual director is that everybody needs one,’ Johnson said.

“It’s a point on which not everyone in the world of spiritual direction and formation completely agrees.”

See: https://www.catholicnewsagency.com/news/spiritual-direction-what-is-it-who-needs-it-and-why-16351?fbclid=IwAR10ByVzhtuNFI1rMJHEGFi-eJjAFOCDhMLbRCYIyzePeroWlm2jZ0xFzi4

 

—Mary Farrow, “Spiritual direction: What is it, who needs it, and why?” Catholic News Agency, January 1, 2019 

 

I strongly disagree with Johnson, and as the article itself notes, some would agree with my view.

The Ethiopian eunuch certainly benefited spiritually from the counsel of the apostle Philip. At this point I would ask—is every priest or spiritual counselor the apostle Philip?

Bad, I would even say, very bad spiritual directors abound.

Here is what I believe is necessary for every pilgrim in the spiritual life:

- Live according to the law of God

- Love God and grow in the love of God

To the extent that spiritual direction fosters growth in this direction, it is well advised. But a personal spiritual director isn’t necessary. You can live according to God’s law and love God fervently without a personal spiritual director.

However, you cannot live this way without the guidance and teaching of the Roman Catholic Church, which is available through means other than a personal spiritual director.

The lives of many saints show that spiritual direction is not necessary to attain holiness pleasing to God.

Spiritual direction, like any exercise of religious and spiritual authority, can be and is abused. A priest, even a priest trained in spiritual direction, is not necessarily the best source of assistance for the pilgrim in the spiritual life.

Spiritual direction, generally speaking, is to some extent incompetent to deal with psychological and psychiatric problems, because although the latter intersect with spiritual problems, they are separable. Psychological and psychiatric problems require appropriate professional help. Sometimes, the spiritual director is incapable of providing that help.

We should not act contrary to our conscience. To do so is always morally wrong, even if in any one particular case our conscience might be wrong. Saved by our conscience, we are also damned by our conscience. If a spiritual director compels you to act against your conscience, he or she is simply wrong, according to this principle.

We should give the counsel of a spiritual director its due. Only after doing so should we act, but always according to the judgment of our conscience.

We should understand the role spiritual direction plays in the spiritual life and apply the appropriate criteria when engaging it.

The path of the spiritual life is a rocky road, not easily navigated. The best advice I would give in traveling this dangerous way is to depend on God over and above everything else.

Don’t depend on a spiritual director.

SPIRITUAL DIRECTION IN OPUS DEI

A spiritual director today is not going to get by on traditional Roman Catholic spirituality alone. A psychology background sufficient to recognize problems and refer someone properly is necessary.

“People who seek a spiritual guide or companion expect psychological insight or at least a lived awareness of human dynamics. The need for fundamental knowledge of human psychology is based on Christian incarnation, which assumes that God works in and through the ordinary processes of human growth and development. …the director should be able to recognize some of the typical symptoms of psychological or emotional disorder, disability, or disease. There should be some minimal recognition of the distinctly different developmental processes and psychological dynamics between men and women. Finally, it is of the utmost importance…for the director to have the humility and knowledge to recommend that emotionally troubled directees seek professional clinical intervention rather than using pop psychology to handle their problems.”—Frank J. Houdek, S.J., Guided by the Spirit: A Jesuit Perspective on Spiritual Direction (1996), page 137

Opus Dei directors have zero background in clinical psychology, as a rule. They rely on medieval Thomistic psychology—unscientific, in some important respects simplistic—which ignores the major advances in scientific clinical psychology and is besides primitive and inadequate to vital clinical applications today.

Supervision, experience, and maturity—the latter comes with age—of the spiritual director is also necessary for them to be effective. Much harm—lifelong damage even—can be done by youthful, immature spiritual directors who depend on their theoretical understanding, sometimes inadequate—due to obstacles imposed against accessing relevant scientific or theological knowledge, or for whatever reason—without any or sufficient grounding in practical applications, which is to say, reality.

“Some spiritual fathers are likely to be a hindrance and harm rather than a help to…souls…. Such directors have neither understanding nor experience of these ways. They are like the builders of the Tower of Babel [Gen. 11:1-9]. When these builders were supposed to provide the proper materials for the project, they brought entirely different supplies because they failed to understand the language. And thus nothing was accomplished.”—Saint John of the Cross, The Ascent of Mount Carmel, Prologue, 4

The above problems can be significantly avoided by appropriate supervision, which over some years should lead an inexperienced spiritual director to acquire adequate, if imperfect, competence.

Although relevant theological knowledge is necessary in spiritual direction, interestingly, in the opinion of Saint Teresa of Avila, it is not absolutely so.

“It is very important that the master [spiritual director] have prudence—I mean that he have good judgment—and experience; if besides these he has learning, so much the better. But if one cannot find there three qualifications together, the first two are more important since men with a background in studies can be sought out and consulted when there is need. I say that if these learned men do not practice prayer their learning is of little help….”—Saint Teresa of Avila, The Book of Her Life, Chapter 13, 16

I would underscore that if a director lacks relevant theological knowledge—human beings are limited, after all, in their capacity for knowledge—then it should be sought out by the directee from the proper sources.

Often enough Opus Dei is obstructed in the task of spiritual direction because its primary agenda is not to help people spiritually but to propagate itself. The organization relies on a self-serving distillation of historical Roman Catholic spirituality—something that suits the objective of propagating the organization but that clearly does not address the spiritual needs of many because it is narrow in scope and deficient in understanding.