Spiritual Direction

Back a bit ago I decided that I needed to seek a Spiritual Director.  I was going to get on it the following week, although let a week or two pass before picking up the phone.

So, how does one find a Spiritual Director?

Step 1, I heard of a website/blog Roman Catholic Spiritual Direction, I went there and browsed around.  I can't remember if I read it on there or heard it on the Catholic radio station I listen to, although they said the first step was to call your parish and ask if they could refer you to a religious community that provided spiritual direction.

That was probably my block.  I get jitters whenever I have to call my parish.  I never know who to ask for and for some reason I am always worried about bothering someone.  Well today I finally got over myself and picked up the phone.

Step 2, call your local parish.  In my instance I don't think a real person ever picks up the phone.  I listened to the whole message and hung up.  I really had no idea who any of the people in the directory were.  For some reason I had kind of decided to leave a message for a Deacon, I don't know why.  Well they didn't list an extension for a Deacon thus the reason I hung up.  I thought for a minute and then decided to just pick one of the Priest.  So I call back and pick the Priest listed after the Monsignor.  Thankfully he didn't answer his phone so I left a message with what I was looking for.  Honestly, why do I feel this is so hard?

Step 3, Priest calls you back with appropriate information :-).  Guess what we have a local Spiritual Direction office in Denver, he provides me all the information.

Step 4, without delay call the local Spiritual Direction office.  I think I was hoping to leave another message.  Well, they had a LIVE person that answered their phone and when I spilled out my request for a spiritual director I was transferred to another live person.  Apparently these people don't understand that I get the jitters when talking to "church" people.  By the Grace of God, I made it through the conversation and I have a Non-Committal appointment for next week!  How this goes is I meet with the priest for this Non-Committal appointment.  After the appointment I go away to think and pray about what we discuss and then I contact him a week later if I wish to proceed.  Or something like that.

So stay tuned for the rest of the process.

So where does one start?

I want to boost my "grade", where to start?  I hear a lot of people saying they have spiritual advisor, I have no idea how to find a spiritual advisor.  I would say I definitely am in need of one!  I would also be very cautious of whom I choose.  I have come across some very faithful catholics that appear to be A+ only to find out they have some misinterpretations of our faith also.  I am not speaking ill of anyone, there is a lot to learn and know about our faith, it is the oldest Christian religion. 

So, I found this blog, http://rcspiritualdirection.com/blog/ .  I have to admit I heard about them a week or so ago on Catholic Radio, I believe it was The Catholic's Next Door show.  So apparently, I need to call my Diocese (Archdiocese) and ask around about how I find a spiritual director.  On the top of my TO DO list for next week!!

There is an interesting pool on the http://rcspiritualdirection.com/blog/ blog.  It asks:

What best describes your spiritual direction situation?

Results so far (counting mine :-) )

I have a regular spiritual director. 29.4%

I don't have a spiritual director but I wish I did. 69.09%

 

I don't have a spiritual director and don't need one. 1.52%

 

Now I took statistics in college, actually did pretty good in them A if I remember correctly :-).  Of course I see a lot of flaws in their poll, although I believe it is still interesting.