Mr. Peter Folan, SJ

As I prepared to meet my first spiritual director more than ten years ago, I was hoping that there was truth in advertising. I wanted direction. Specifically, I wanted this Jesuit to divine whether God was asking me to become a Jesuit or to continue teaching high school religion as a layperson. Once he found the answer, I expected him to hold up his end of the bargain, that is, to direct me in what I should do.

He let me down. When I asked questions about how novitiate experiments worked, he urged me instead to speak about my relationship with God. If I countered by talking about how I thought I would struggle to stay silent for thirty consecutive days on the long retreat, he tried to engage my deep desires and leave behind surface worries.  In fact, any time our conversation began to wander away from my conversation with God, my director would bring it back. I had to grant that this was direction of some sort, though surely not the kind I had thought I would receive.

The surprises have continued. As I begin my ninth year in the Society, I think of the five spiritual directors I have had throughout formation, and I see the conspiracy they hatched! Whenever I wanted them to direct me – to tell me what they thought I should do, what decision I should make, what path I should choose – they allowed God to direct me. They were more than silent partners in this exercise, consistently bringing me back to my relationship with God, helping me to keep that relationship at the center of my life, and engendering in me the courage to live out the implications of that relationship with confidence. These Jesuits, as well as the men and women who directed me in my annual eight day retreats, embodied that most fundamental characteristic of a good spiritual director: through my conversations with them, they have helped me see how God is and wants to continue to be in immediate contact with me.

I have always been grateful for these directors, but these last few months have helped me recognize just how enormous is the debt of gratitude that I owe them. This past summer, I had the opportunity to get under the hood, so to speak, of spiritual direction through a practicum offered in Berkeley, California through the Jesuit School of Theology at Santa Clara University. By means of readings, prayer exercises, small group work, large group role-plays, and individual supervision meetings with the program’s directors, Jane Ferdon, O.P. and George Murphy, S.J., my classmates and I spent a month immersed in the theory and practice of spiritual direction. As rewarding as these class sessions were, richer still was the opportunity to direct six people during the weeks that the practicum was held.  We met twice each week to have just the sort of conversations my directors had with me, the kinds that look for, pursue, and help cultivate the experience of God in a directee’s life.

Now that the practicum has ended and I have returned to Boston to begin my second year of theological studies here, I can identify three fruits of my summer work in spiritual direction. First, learning about and giving spiritual direction has helped me become a better discerner, largely in my own life, but also in the lives of others. The work of spiritual direction places enormous emphasis on listening for the presence of God, which can sometimes be plain, and at other times, quite subtle. Having sharpened my hearing a bit over the summer, I find that I approach my own prayer differently, paying attention to things I would have previously ignored and passing over other things that might have once sidetracked me. At times, I have been fortunate enough to be able to help others do the same in their prayer as well.

Second, receiving some training as a spiritual director has helped me become more available to others.  It is not infrequent to find Jesuits in my community asking others to serve as spiritual directors on campus ministry retreats, for young adult groups at parishes, and in nursing homes and hospitals.  Prior to taking this course, I would have shied away from being a spiritual director, preferring instead to be involved in spiritual conversation with others.  My work in Berkeley has given me the confidence and skill set to meet with would-be directees, and perhaps more importantly, to know relatively quickly when a directee would be better served by a more seasoned director.

Finally, these initial steps I have taken as a spiritual director have brought me closer to the heart of the Society of Jesus. More than once I have reflected on the words of the Formula of the Institute, which lists “ministry of the word” and the giving of “spiritual exercises” among the fundamental reasons for which the Society came into existence. While I do not envision the work of spiritual direction being the primary apostolate in which I will be engaged in the future, I sincerely hope it will always be a part of my life. For some time now, I knew it would always be there because I would always be a directee.  After this summer, however, and thanks to the inspiration of my own directors, I see that I can also do some good as a director.