The importance of having a Spiritual Director chosen by God and not me is something that I understood only after experience the sweetness and the corrections of my spiritual journey. Along the way, I encountered people that guided me and advised me; however, it was complicated because the advice of some people contradicted each other, which led me to having even more doubts than I had before. All this to say that I didn’t understand the importance of spiritual direction.
Before meeting the PFSGM (the Little Friars and Little Nuns of Jesus and Mary), I did not find it very important to have a spiritual director, but a nun of the community explained why I need one. I prayed and I tried to understand who would be the spiritual director that the Lord was indicating to me. Finally, a priest from my parish became my spiritual director for a few months.
I understood the importance and the need, but I still did not know how to obey my director. When, totally afraid of the passing time and with some signs that I had already received on the PFSGM community, I referred everything to my spiritual director, he said that I should pray and ask for the courage needed to undertake the project to which God was calling me. But my fears blocked me off to the point of stopping spiritual direction altogether for a few months!
Then, another religious community came onto my radar. It wasn’t so demanding, and because I was afraid of the passing time and not “settling down” vocationally, I went to have an experience with them for a few days. However, I soon began to rejoice, not in the community or the charism, but in the idea of a quick process and a “free” life. I spoke with my spiritual director who told me to not rush things and to not go. So, I began to justify my going and interpreting the signs according to my own desires – and we know that this doesn’t work out in the end.
I spoke again with my spiritual director, and he told me that now was not the moment – that I had to take it easy, pray, etc. I ignored this advice and went anyway. Some months later, frustrated and repentant, I returned to search for the nun of the community that helped me before, and she advised me to return to spiritual and vocational direction. I thought that didn’t make any sense, because I was already in a community and dressed with the novitiate habit. But, I accepted, obeyed, and began to pray. TO my surprise, God pointed me to a person through three identical dreams three nights in a row. I was scared. I ignored it and thought, “Well, the nun won’t even remember about this. We’ll just forget about the matter.”
That same day, at night, that nun sent me a message: “Did God give you any signs about a spiritual director? How is it going?” I was shocked and ashamed. It took me a while, but I answered and recounted the dreams about her. I did not know what to say or how to say it, but God had guided the whole situation… I remember a powerful phrase that she told me in the first days: “I’m not here just for decoration, but to help you.”
In fact, the spiritual director is a person designated by God to help us and often to save us from ourselves. My spiritual director is always there, with hand outstretched, both to welcome me in moments of “corruption” and to give me a good “correction,” both to joke around a little and to be serious, to put the train back on the tracks, to rejoice and get up, because with the spiritual guide walking next to you, there will be no "eternal" moments where you’re on the ground suffering and crying. She "wipes the tears,” and then shows you the best way out! I learned that if we walk together, that if we use all our sincerity without fear or shame, the feeling of spiritual direction becomes a more efficient path towards heaven.
RITA, psgm aspirant