Q. Should all Catholics who are serious about their spiritual growth have a spiritual director? Should it be a priest? What about friends or a spouse who help one grow spiritually?
A. Like many questions, the answer is, “it depends.” First off, it would be helpful to define spiritual direction.
Spiritual direction, according to The Practice of Spiritual Direction by William Barry and William Connolly, is a “help given by one believer to another that enables the latter to pay attention to God’s personal communication to him or her, to respond to this personally communicating God, to grow in intimacy with this God, and to live out the consequences of the relationship.” Now obviously, every Christian is called to have a personal relationship with God and divine intimacy with Him. However, does that mean everyone who is serious about his or her spiritual growth has to have a spiritual director in order to do this?
The short answer is no. It is not a requirement or necessary to have a spiritual director to grow in holiness; that would be placing quite the restraint upon God and what He is able to do. There are many saints who never had regular spiritual direction and yet were holy. One of my favorites is St. Benedict Joseph Labre, an 18th-century hobo in Rome who was dismissed from 11 different Trappist monasteries and yet, ironically, is the only canonized saint of the Trappist order! While he may have received some spiritual direction throughout the course of his monastic wanderings, most of his adult life he just lived on the streets, prayed a lot, and gave away his food to other homeless beggars. No spiritual direction, but a lot of grace!
Furthermore, there are many ordinary ways to receive spiritual direction: reading spiritual books, listening to a good Catholic podcast or Catholic radio, the Sunday homily at your local Church, and through the direction of your spouse, if you are in a Christian marriage, just to name a few. Yet, some people would be greatly assisted by having a spiritual director: those in the priesthood or religious life, those discerning such, those who work in leadership positions of the Church, missionaries, and those who have extraordinary spiritual experiences.
What everyone does need, however, is a regular priest to go to confession to and someone to spiritually mentor them. It is often the case that lay faithful, as they are beginning the spiritual life, seek out a spiritual director when in reality, they simply need someone to mentor or disciple them, teaching them how to pray and to discern the various movements of their heart.
Now, this is not to stop people from seeking out a spiritual director for a specific time or season in their life. While a good spiritual director who is available to meet regularly may be difficult to find, many of those same individuals can make room for people in need. For priests, this is the practice of pastoral counseling, and it is much broader than simply talking about prayer.
Do spiritual directors have to be priests? Very simply, no. Not every priest is able or has the gift of spiritual direction, and there are just not enough priests available if only priests were allowed to spiritually direct. There are many lay faithful who have the training, aptitude, and gifts to do spiritual direction. Some of those lay faithful even direct priests! So, no, spiritual directors do not have to be priests.
Lastly, what about having a friend or a spouse to help you grow spiritually? Technically, this kind of relationship would not be called spiritual direction (a spiritual director cannot be your spouse or close friend). However, every single one of us needs either a spouse and/or close friends who can help us grow spiritually. My best friend from college — now a priest — helped me grow so much spiritually. Even today, he regularly helps me in my relationship with God.
God designed us to be reliant upon others – not only for our physical well-being, but also our spiritual well-being. Author and spiritual director Dan Burke summarized this principle best: we go “alone to hell, [but] together to heaven.”
This question was answered by Father Stephen Graeve, pastor of St. Peter and St. Joseph parishes in Bellwood. Write to Ask the Register using our online form, or write to 3700 Sheridan Blvd., Suite 10, Lincoln NE 68506-6100. All questions are subject to editing. Editors decide which questions to publish. Personal questions cannot be answered. People with such questions are urged to take them to their nearest Catholic priest.
