The Practice of Spiritual Direction Quotes

“Spiritual direction, therefore, explicitly acknowledges what is often only implicit in other forms of pastoral care: that the directees' desire for more life, more integration, more union with God is grounded in the indwelling Spirit and that God is an active Other in the relationship. The working alliance is thus grounded in mystery and explicitly acknowledges that the way, too, is mystery.”
― William A. Barry, The Practice of Spiritual Direction

“When I ask myself what most frequently prevents me from doing good, I may find that it is not impulses to evil, but a fear that I will be thought of as different by my friends and colleagues. Or it may be a question that cannot be answered like: “How do I know that spending energy being kind to people around me is really worthwhile?” Often the same question that now prevents me from making creative Christian decisions also immobilized me ten years earlier. Inner arguments that persistently succeed in preventing us from responding to God are exceptionally hardy. The same question, if it is effective at all, can continue to be effective for decades. Such questions and inner arguments can be recognized for what they are by the fact that they seldom lead to answers and consistently stop movement toward God.”
― William A. Barry, The Practice of Spiritual Direction

“It will only be when people begin to like and enjoy some of the gifts in their life, and notice that they do, that prayer can become an appreciative dialogue with a Giver who loves them.”
― William A. Barry, The Practice of Spiritual Direction

“The Mystery we call God is just that - mystery; not mystery in the sense of an unknown, but eventually knowable, stranger, but mystery in the sense that God is too rich, too deep, and too loving to be knowable and is, therefore, God. Spiritual directors can be only helping companions to those who travel the way of such a God.”
― William A. Barry, The Practice of Spiritual Direction

“Some knowledge of the diversity of Christian religious experience and a sympathetic awareness of of non-Christian religious experience can help directors transcend their personal absolutes and open them to a greater sense of wonder toward the manifold experience of people with God.”
― William A. Barry, The Practice of Spiritual Direction

“How does this "surplus of warmth," this love for people as they are, show itself in spiritual direction? It appears in three attitudes: commitment, effort to understand, and spontaneity. Commitment is the willingness of spiritual directors to help directees grow in union with God and to commit their time, their resources, and themselves to that end. Effort to understand means that spiritual directors try to maintain a contemplative attitude toward directees, try to perceive how the directees are experiencing God and life. Spontaneity means that spiritual directors are themselves, not controlled and inhibited by their role as spiritual directors, but able to express their own feelings, thoughts, and hopes when expressing them will be helpful to directees. Without spontaneity, "commitment and effort to understand will appear cold, impersonal, and stereotyped.”
― William A. Barry, The Practice of Spiritual Direction

“It needs to be emphasized that directees are real people, and as such they are just as varied, just as ambivalent, just as attractive and unattractive as are, for example, directors themselves. Real people can be scintillating, and they can be boring, often within the same hour. They can be banal, and they can be inspired. They can be concerned about momentous and serious issues and about trivia. They can be sunny, and they can be gloomy. In their prayer life they will show all these dispositions and more. Spiritual directors who want to foster a relationship between such people and their God need to have a "surplus of warmth".”
― William A. Barry, The Practice of Spiritual Direction

“The kinds of men and women most likely to engender trust in others are those described in the same study as developed persons. They are not perfect, but they are relatively mature. They show signs of having engaged in life and with people. They are optimistic, but not naive, good-humored, but not glad-handers. They have suffered, but not been overcome by suffering. They have loved and been loved and know the struggle of trying to be a friend to another. They have friends for whom they care deeply. They have experienced failure and sinfulness - their own and others' - but seem at ease with themselves in a way that indicates an experience of being saved and freed by a power greater than the power of failure and sin. They are relatively unafraid of life with all its light and darkness, all its mystery.”
― William A. Barry, The Practice of Spiritual Direction

“The more conscious directors are of the life of the Christian community and the more knowledgeable they are about the experienced relationships of that community with God and with all reality, the more helpful they are likely to be to directees. But their authority arises basically from the fact that they share in the faith-life of the Christian community as it experiences its dialogue with God. This makes the director first of all a brother or a sister of the directee and provides the basic ingredient for the informal, nonhierarchic - "just two people talking" - but creative atmosphere that seems to characterize helpful direction today.”
― William A. Barry, The Practice of Spiritual Direction

“Some of the most outstanding spiritual directors in Christian history - like Catherine of Siena and Ignatius of Loyola - either never had an office or orders, or did much of their work of direction before they held such an office. Generally speaking, effective spiritual directors are discovered by the Christian community; they do not put themselves forward without first having others seek their help. Because priests and ministers stand out publicly in the churches as spiritual leaders, most often it is they who have been sought out as spiritual directors. But ordination is not necessary (nor, as we shall see, sufficient) for effective spiritual direction.”
― William A. Barry, The Practice of Spiritual Direction

“Both of these attitudes -- unrelenting listlessness and dogged good cheer -- have to yield to the realities of prayer and life if the relationship with God is to grow and spiritual direction be helpful. Pointing repeatedly to discordant notes that sound in prayer will usually be the most valuable assistance directors can give. But sometimes people's defenses will be so entrenched that only a forthright confrontation will capture their attention. Such a confrontation would have to be focused clearly on the main issue: Are they willing to notice what is happening in prayer and in life, or are they screening out material that conflicts with a mood they feel they must maintain?" (Ch.5, p. 75)”
― William A. Barry, The Practice of Spiritual Direction

“The stereotype of the pale, emaciated ascetic who has developed total control of all his reactions and responses does not fit our description of the responsive hearer of the word. That controlled a person would be a poor candidate for the kind of spiritual direction that makes relationship a central focus. The best candidates are those who have lived life and not been afraid of its joys and pains. They have been able to develop close relationships with other people. And they have strong desires for something more in their relationship with God. " (p. 37)”
― William A. Barry, The Practice of Spiritual Direction

“The gospels indicate a development in the apostles' attitude toward Jesus. They first see him as a person of power and only later come to accept him as the Messiah. They are depicted as reacting with horror to his initial descriptions of how his Messiahship would be lived out. Only after the resurrection do they come to recognize his betrayal and death as the way God was willing to have salvation achieved. Thus the disciples are described as people in the process of experiencing and of developing conviction on the basis of that experience. Christianity rests on that bedrock." (p. 23)”
― William A. Barry, The Practice of Spiritual Direction

“It is frequently quite easy for people to recognize that they can move from a dull dialogue to a much more varied and colorful one by expressing feelings that they are aware of. Sometimes, however, we are not aware of the feelings that are there to be expressed. A director can then be helpful by asking: “Do you remember the last time that prayer was exciting or interesting for you? What were you talking about?” And then: “What happened to that topic?” Often after pondering such questions, we recognize that prayer went dull when a difficult topic came up between God and us, and we chose not to pursue it. The prayer will remain dull until we come back to that topic. When we do, the change from dullness to new interest is often dramatic. This characteristic of the dialogue with God in prayer can keep prayer firmly linked to the dialogue with God in life outside prayer. If a man is troubled by the way his wife and he are interacting, for example, and yet does not permit himself even to advert to the trouble in prayer, he may well find that his prayer is boring. The prayer, in other words, lets him know that he is not being himself with God. Attention to the quality of the dialogue with God helps us discern where we may be blinding ourselves to the light in our lives. Thus, one of the major criteria for the authenticity of our prayer and our lives is: “Is the dialogue working?” In other words, “Do I have something to say to God that means something to me? Is God somehow communicating to me something that seems to mean something to God?” If these questions cannot be answered affirmatively, the person would do well to ask God what has gone wrong. “Is there something you want to say to me that I don’t want to hear? Or is there something I don’t want to tell you?” By paying attention to the quality of the dialogue the person can learn to become more and more deeply transparent with God. The procedure could not be simpler. When we are expressing attitudes that are real and deep within us and relevant to our lives, prayer will be alive and engaging. When we are not, prayer will go dead. The director who has become accustomed to the fact that very often difficulties in prayer are due to the suppression of important attitudes and feelings does not quickly encourage directees to accept at face value statements like: “I had no time for prayer,” or “I prayed only on the run.” The director tends to ask what was happening the last time the prayer was alive.   M”
― William A. Barry, The Practice of Spiritual Direction