Sermon quotes on spiritual direction
William A. Barry
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.
The Practice of Spiritual Direction
Richard Foster
Spiritual direction is an interpersonal relationship in which we learn how to grow, live, and love in the spiritual life.
Thomas Merton
The whole purpose of spiritual direction is to penetrate beneath the surface of a man’s life, to get behind the façade of conventional gestures and attitudes which he presents to the world, and to bring out his inner spiritual freedom, his inmost truth, which is what we call the likeness of Christ in his soul.
Henri Nouwen
To receive spiritual direction is to recognize that God does not solve our problems or answer all our questions, but leads us closer to the mystery of our existence where all questions cease.
Henri Nouwen, with Michael J. Christensen and Rebecca J. Laird
Spiritual Direction is a relationship initiated by a spiritual seeker who finds a mature person of faith willing to pray and respond with wisdom and understanding to his or her questions about how to live spiritually in a world of ambiguity and distraction.
Spiritual Direction
Henri Nouwen, with Michael J. Christensen and Rebecca J. Laird
Spiritual guidance affirms the basic quest for meaning. It calls for the creation of space in which the validity of the questions does not depend on the availability of answers but on the questions’ capacity to open us to new perspectives and horizons. We must allow all the daily experiences of life — joy, loneliness, fear, anxiety, insecurity, doubt, ignorance, the need for affection, support, understanding, and the long cry for love — to be recognized as an essential part of the spiritual quest.
The quest for meaning can be extremely frustrating and at times even excruciating, precisely because it does not lead to ready answers but to new questions. When we realize that the pain of the human search is a necessary growing pain, we can accept as good the forces of human spiritual development and be grateful for the journey on the long walk of faith.
Spiritual Direction
Eugene Peterson
It is easier to find guides, someone to tell you what to do, than someone to be with you in a discerning, prayerful companionship as you work it out yourself. This is what spiritual direction is.
Pierre Teilhard de Chardin
We are not human beings having a spiritual experience; we are spiritual beings having a human experience.
Eugene Peterson
My job is not to solve people’s problems or make them happy, but to help them see the grace operating in their lives.