"Abandon yourself totally to Jesus,
and He will lead you where you want to go."
Bl. Clélia Merloni
With this phrase, I begin my account of how I went about looking for my spiritual guide, testifying that when I left my life in the hands of God, He worked wonders in my heart.
When I was 21 years old, after about 3 years of intense spiritual restlessness, I returned to my family after having an experience in a religious community and realized (thanks also to a discernment group I was involved with on social media) that I needed a spiritual guide.
According to my logic, my spiritual guide should have been the priest of my parish, but because of my work schedule he was unable to accompany me. Next, I sought out a friend of mine who was a parish priest in the neighboring city; he accepted my request, but because of the logistics of having to travel for every meeting and of the pandemic, I also decided against this option.
Still very restless and with an agitated heart, not knowing who my guide should be, I thought of my old formator (from the convent where I had been before), since she knew me and it would be easier for me to share with her. I asked her if she could be my giude; at the time, she said she would pray about it, and she later accepted.
Having spiritual direction with this sister helped me a little, but the restlessness in my heart continued. To help me through this restlessness, she gave me advice based on Hawaiian philosophy and some prayers, but this was obviously not the solution. I continued to feel agitated and was unable to say my prayers. The spiritual direction was also not very frequent: sometimes I didn’t speak with her for more than a month at a time.
Meanwhile, I continued to participate in the online discernment group (which I am still a part of) called "Discernment with Mary," guided by the Little Nuns of Jesus and Mary. In this group, Sr. Clara leads us through various prayers and meditations on the Scripture; from the first time I saw this sister, her happiness and serenity caught my attention and aroused in me the desire to have that same happiness – a desire which remained in my heart.
Through this group and this sister, I learned things that are fundamental to my spiritual life, such as the importance of having a spiritual guide who is chosen by God! As the Catechism says (cf. CCC 2690), we must be careful into whose hands we entrust ourselves – because, while the right guide can lead us to perfection, the wrong guide can make us lose direction.
Even though I was still being spiritually accompanied by my ex-formator, I started to share some things with the sister leading the group, and my heart burned every time she answered me. At that time, I felt the desire in my heart for her to be my guide, but I was too timid to talk to her about it.
At one point, though, a hurricane was predicted to pass over the city where the sister lives, and I said a prayer that even now I can’t believe I said: if the hurricane didn’t hit the city by 12 noon, I would send a message to her about spiritual direction. In the end, the hurricane didn’t even hit!
After a while, I got up my courage to talk with the sister. I talked about my entire journey of searching for a guide. Soon after, she sent me an article called “How do I recognize the right Spiritual Guide?" based on a meditation of Friar Volantino, founder of the community. In it, there are 3 steps of discernment that helped me a lot. It was when I was reading them that I realized that it was this sister who should be my spiritual guide.
Guided by this article, I realized that this sister lived the Word of God more consistently than anyone I had ever known up till now. He words were always linked to the Gospel and what the Church asks of us. I had never met anyone like this before! Also, in my reflection and prayer, I realized that after I joined this group and shared some things her, I felt my heart burning within me, thirsting to become more holy, to be more godly, and to look for ways to reach those goals!
I conclude by saying that it was a long journey to find my spiritual guide...but, as St. Edith Stein said, “Whatever is worth having, is worth waiting for!”
--A Vocation