A Spiritual Director
A soul without a director is like a kindled coal, which, left by itself, cools instead of burning.
He who insists on being left to himself, with out a director to guide him, is like an unowned tree by the wayside ; however fruitful it may be, the travellers pick its fruit, and none of it ripens.
The tree that is cultivated and kept carefully by its owner produces fruit in due season, and the owner is not disappointed.
1 80. He who falls alone remains alone in his fall ; he makes little account of his soul, because he trusts in himself alone.
He who is carrying a burden when he falls, rises with difficulty under his burden.
He who falls, being blind, cannot rise, being blind and alone ; and if he should rise by himself, he will walk in a direction that is not good for him.
If you are not afraid to fall by yourself, how can you venture to raise yourself alone ? Remember that two are better than one.
Our Lord did not say in His gospel, where one is by himself there am I, but where there are at the least two : this is to show that no one should believe of himself, or confirm himself in, the things which he thinks are those of God, without the counsel and direction of the Church and her ministers.
'185 . Woe to him that is alone, saith the Holy Ghost ; and therefore the soul has need of a director, for both will resist the devil more easily, being both together to learn and practise the truth.
It is the will of God that the government of one man should be in the hands, of another, and that we should not give perfect credit to those matters which He communicates supernaturally Himself, until they shall have passed through the human channel of another man's mouth.
When God makes a particular revelation to a soul, he also inclines that soul to make it known to the minister of His Church, who stands in His place.
It is not every one who is fitted for the direction of souls ; it being a matter of the last importance to give right or wrong advice in so serious a matter as that.
Let the soul that would advance, and not go back, take care into whose hands it commits itself ; for, as the master, so the scholar, and as the father, so the child.
The inclinations and tastes of the director are easily impressed upon the penitent.
The chief solicitude of spiritual directors should be to mortify every desire of their penitents : to make - them deny themselves in all they desire, so as to deliver them from so great misery.
However high the doctrine, adorned the eloquence, sublime the style, the fruits of the sermon will be, in general, no better than the spirit of the preacher.
A good style and action, high doctrines and correct expression, have a greater effect when accom panied by true spirituality ; but without that the will is scarcely or but little inflamed, though the senses may be charmed and the understanding delighted.
God is angry with those who teach His law and keep it not ; and who preach spirituality to others without being spiritual themselves.
For the highest parts, and even for the ordinary parts, of the way of perfection, you will scarcely find one capable guide throughout, such as men have need of : such an one must be wise, discreet, and experienced.
For though the foundations of direction be knowledge and discretion, yet if directors be without experience, they will never be able to guide the soul in the way in which God is leading it ; they will make it go backwards, ordering it after low methods which they pick up in books.
He who shall presumptuously err in the direction of souls, being under obligation to give good counsel — as every one is in the office he undertakes — shall not escape punishment according to the evil he has done ; for the work of God — and such is the direction of souls — demands great caution and counsel.
Who can be like St. Paul, who was all things to all, that he might save all ? knowing all the ways by which God leads souls, which are so different one from another, that you can scarcely find one which in half its ways agrees with the ways of another.
Chapter 13 of 30