The spiritual life is an arduous task. God cloths himself in mystery and so the process of discerning his will and knowing what he’s asking of us can be daunting. We all need help and such help begins with a formation of our own wayward hearts.

The formation of our hearts is not a task we accomplish by ourselves. We pray within a body of believers. We pray within a tradition of prayer. We pray within the graces of the sacred liturgy.

Since our prayer is bound to others and to tradition, we can learn from our forebears. There are some among us who are called to be spiritual directors. They have studied the writings and wisdom of our forebears and God has given them the special gift of knowing his ways.

While spiritual direction is often associated with those who are ordained or in religious life, the gift of spiritual direction is distributed among all the vocations of the Church. There are many members of the baptized, married, single, widows or widowers, who have been given the wisdom and talents of spiritual direction.

The Catechism of the Catholic Church teaches: “The Holy Spirit gives to certain of the faithful the gifts of wisdom, faith and discernment for the sake of this common good which is prayer (spiritual direction).”

The spiritual master, Saint Frances de Sales, compared the spiritual director to Ananias, the believer who was shaken and called by the Lord Jesus to go and minister to the broken Paul as he arrived in Damascus bruised, broken, and blind. Ananias went and announced good news to Paul. He ministered to him and showed him Jesus Christ.

Ananias did not get in the way. He did not make it about himself. He pointed the way to the Lord and helped Paul encounter him. As with Ananias, so with every spiritual director. They must not get in the way. They are tasked with directing souls to the Lord.

The Church rightly emphasizes that the gift of spiritual direction is not given for the individual alone. There are no bragging rights when it comes to spiritual direction. The gift is given for the common good of the whole Church. The baptized member who is called to be a spiritual director is blessed with “wisdom, faith, and discernment” for the sake of the entire body of believers. The gifts are given in service to the members and mission of the Church.

It is critical that those who are called to give spiritual direction surround themselves in prayer and seek to be true and authentic servants to the living tradition of the Church. Spiritual directors do not pave their own paths in the spiritual life. They humble themselves and learn from the Holy Spirit and from our forebears in the faith. Spiritual directors serve the spiritual treasury of the Church. They seek to lead others to encounter God by the proven and trustworthy ways contained in the Church’s tradition of prayer.

The Catechism gives the exhortation: “Men and women so endowed [with a call to spiritual direction] are true servants of the living tradition of prayer.”

The spiritual director must show a constant docility and willingness to learn. They cannot teach the spiritual life without constantly learning it themselves. The spiritual life demands humility from both those who are given spiritual direction and those who give spiritual direction. No one is a completed project. We are all works in progress, especially spiritual directors.

The Catechism quotes the spiritual master, Saint John of the Cross: “According to St. John of the Cross, the person wishing to advance toward perfection should ‘take care into whose hands he entrusts himself, for as the master is, so will the disciple be, and as the father is so will be the son,’ and further, ‘In addition to being learned and discreet a director should be experienced…. If the spiritual director has no experience of the spiritual life, he will be incapable of leading into it the souls whom God is calling to it, and he will not even understand them.’”

The words of the great spiritual master should haunt every spiritual director. It is a powerful thing to have souls trust you and ask you to lead them to God. Spiritual directors are to understand the sacredness of the confidence that is being given to them. Such an awareness should compel them to grow in holiness, actively participate in the sacred liturgy, study the Word of God, dive into the writings and wisdom of the spiritual masters, and know about the various prayer forms, pious practices, and devotions within the Church’s spiritual treasury.

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