Light for My Path: Spiritual Accompaniment

by Bernardo Olivera, Augustine Roberts (Translator), Santiago Fidel Ordóñez Fernández (Contributor)

Both a reflection and a practical guidebook on spiritual accompaniment, or direction, Light for My Path does not sidestep such delicate issues as: the relationship between authority and spiritual direction, how to discern the vocation of a person with a homosexual orientation, and the presence of delusions along the spiritual journey. Dom Bernardo Olivera also makes a distinction between spiritual direction and sacramental confession, and explores the relationship between authority and therapy, while showing the complementarities for each. Through repeated and balanced references to tradition, the teaching of the magisterium, and psychology, readers will realize how grace meets people in their humanity.

Dom Bernardo Olivera was born in Argentina in 1943. He entered the Trappist Abbey of Azul after his university studies and completed his theological studies at the Catholic University of Argentina and in Rome. Olivera had been master of novices and abbot of his community before being elected Abbot General of the Order of Cistercians of the Strict Observance (Trappists) in 1990, a position he held until his resignation in 2008.

160 pages, Paperback

Published May 1, 2009

Reviews

[Brian Hohmeier · Rating 2 out of 5]

While Olivera provides a fine outline for an overview of spiritual direction, his attempt to fill it out into an original book is largely uninsightful and cursory. Most of its sections read hurried and stream-of-conscious to me, and I can't help but wonder whether it was an assignment accepted under duress—a book he never really wanted to write—or at least certainly a book he didn't really have time to write in actual fact. The time he spends dwelling on the genderedness of spiritual parenthood is perhaps the most original contribution I can discern to the massive body of spiritual direction introductions, although the amount of time he dedicates to somewhat developing this line of thought peculiar to me. One additional peculiarity: while Olivera purports on some level to be offering a Cistercian account of spiritual direction, perhaps the most developed section is that on discernment, yet the reader shouldn't look here for a distinctly Cistercian perspective on a director's discernment of one's formation apart from Ignatius' rules on the discernment of spirits. In the end, while the book is in many respects fine, I find nothing in Olivera's text that I can recommend in light of other resources.