Ch. 1: Introduction: Bi-sociation and Via Media

• Liturgy and homiletics (the assembled community) are the focus of serious study, but little is done on personal development. This means that going to church becomes and end in itself. This book focus on the personal development of the faithful.
• “Bi-sociation” (from Koestler, The Act of Creation) is the idea that when two apparently different disciplines interact the result is general creative. This what happened with the Anglican via media, which is not a compromise between Catholicism and Protestantism, but a bi-sociation between them. Anglicanism is not red + white = pink, but rather 2H + O = water.
• Anglicanism has traditionally incorporated people in their diversity of spiritual gifts, and as a result has traditionally been strong in spiritual direction.
• Ascetics and sociology has produced another bi-sociation: useful insight on spiritual direction (rather to my surprise).
• Before the Victorian Era, gentlemen picked the career area based on what they felt like, and as long as you could convince people you were good at it, that was enough. The Victorian Era began the process of professionalization, which Anthony Russell describes as:
1. “Professional practice was founded on the basis of theoretical, esoteric knowledge.
2. This was inculcated through professional educational and social institutions: hence the rise of residential theological colleges.
3. The inner ring of the profession exercised control over recruitment, training, dress, and behavior.
4. Each profession created and promulgated its own ethical system” (4)
• Professions such as medicine and law had obvious ways of applying this to the service of people, but clergy did not—until spiritual redirection was rediscovered [“by the Tractarian priest”, not sure what this is, and had spiritual direction been going on before then by this segment?]
• Unfortunately, the Tractarians did spiritual direction by passing on “undigested snippets from the Counter-Reformation” and ignoring the “supreme examples of the art” from the 1600s.
• Sociological work demonstrated that, in the public opinion [this book was written in 1984], clergy were not useful because they did no work. They did no work, because they worked from home, and it is not possible to do work at home. It has been my argument that, although Anglican clergy want to act like the quaint corner store, the laity want a professional who can give them clinical diagnosis and direction, and that this is, indeed, what spiritual direction should do. The via media produces a further bi-sociation, in that each person is unique and must be dealt with as an individual.
• Competent spiritual direction requires a final bi-sociation, a synthesis of the substantive (e.g. Benedictine) and the existential (which is the modern tendency). Patristic, scholastic, Benedictine thought are a little ambiguous for the modern mind, but yet their categories are useful. Existential thought is correct, but benefits from the categories.

Ch. 2: The Ambulance Syndrome

• “Religion is concerned with the living relation between man and God, God and the world ... Theology is the clarification and codification of this relational experience, which rebounds as a guide to its deepening development.” (9)
• “Pastoral care” generally means patching up some one’s problem, like the death of a family member. This is not what pastoral care (spiritual direction) is about. Spiritual direction is concerned with the journey to heaven, not to hospital. Religion has a lot more than just comforting the afflicted.
• The clergy exhort people to prayer [a term of art encompassing our communications with God], but nothing is said about how to do it. Some people will be able, through trial and error to learn, but the majority will not, and all would be immensely helped with guidance from someone with a theoretical understanding of prayer and charismata in all their forms.
• “Spiritual direction is concerned with religion, and intrinsically with nothing else. Religion is expressed in prayer, which is the ongoing relationship between men and women with God in Christ, inviolably given in baptism.” (13) This prayer must take form in the world, and may reflect cultural traits, but following trends is not helpful. Also, prayer is not doing, it precedes doing. “The practical out-going Christian is not someone who, vaguely inspired by Jesus, sets about solving the world’s problems and trying to love his neighbor off his own bat—albeit autographed by Jesus. Rather he is one who, ontologically incorporated into the sacred humanity of Christ, becomes his redemptive instrument.” (13-14)
• Therefore, spiritual direction is not egoistical self-development. The individual is part of the body; one hundred flutes are not an orchestra, and one hundred flutes playing the same notes are not a symphony. Yet, spiritual development is individual, because the flute is a different instrument than the cello, and it plays different notes.
• “Spiritual direction is the application of ascetical and moral theology to individual cases, enlightened by the tradition of the Church which includes contemporary insights.” (14) It is objective and clinical, but also loves the client as a brother.
• Spiritual direction is not concerned with ambulance syndrome (fixing up the negative problem), but positively concerned with making the successful journey into the Kingdom of Heaven.

Ch. 3: The Guidance Game

• Ascesis comes from the Greek word meaning athletic training, so I use “game” here as a serious term, that is nonetheless enjoyed by its participants. The spiritual director is like a athletic coach; both player and coach see the coaching as something positive and beneficial.
• I view “ministerial skills” (e.g. the equivalent of how to hold a baby at baptism) as decidedly secondary to knowing theory. In the initial consultation the director is going to mostly listen to the client’s history, family background, gifts, graces, accomplishments, spiritual progress, and current difficulties, perhaps asking a few questions. But unless the director has theory to lead to diagnosis and guidance, it is just a cozy fireside chat. A doctor that is warm, friendly, good bedside matter is not very useful if he is medically incompetent [that is, theory, in this case anatomy, knowledge of disease, etc.]
• Classical tradition lists desired traits of a director in various combinations and orders of “love, prudence, understanding, human concern and psychological insight, experience, and discernment”, but “learning” is always the primary trait.
• An experienced priest known for holiness may possibly not make a very good spiritual director; he might have the ascetical skill, but without the ascetical theory, he will only be able to attempt make people into copies of himself, which will not work very well.
• (Resources for via negativa types, which is not me: Mystical Theology (Pseudo-Dionysius), Imitatio Christi, William Law)
• Despite me not being of this persuasion at all, I need to be familiar with them and understand how they think, so that I can effectively guide those who are of that persuasion.
• Spiritual direction has never been the preserve of clerics. Many of the classic books were clergy or monastics, but that is because they were the ones with the skill to write and the time to do it.
• The Benedictine Rule requires some modification for use by modern people. Stability [vowing to stay in one place] is clearly not feasible for an airline pilot, for instance. Some complain about reducing fasting, but we are “an abstemious age” [this is the UK in 1980s; it’s hard to say that about 2020s USA]: the Benedictine diet is two cooked meals per day, 1 lb of bread, and a pint of wine, which is more than many modern people can eat. [But, medieval grains probably had less calories and more roughage than modern grains.] The modern age has many non-food  things the Benedictines did not need to worry about: consumerism, tobacco, pornography, holidays, speedy transportation[, and in contemporary times, cell phones].
• “[T]heology itself changes in form if not in content. The best of contemporary theology does not seek to alter the core of the eternal revelation, it seeks rather to reinterpret revealed truth so that it becomes more intelligible to the prevailing outlook.” (20)
• John Macquarrie expresses Christian doctrine in existential form (instead of, the traditional Plato or Aristotelian from), since most moderns have an existential worldview even if they do not realize it.
• Ascetical theology is a synthesis between the new form of communication and the old categories.
• The client need not be a student of theology, but the director needs to have a broad range of tools, so should study Plato, Aristotle, but also Heidegger and Macquarrie. Likewise De Trinitate, assisted by Origen, Tertullian, Athanasius, and Aquinas.
• “Director” has an unfortunate paternal or boss-like connotation, but is better than “guide”. Both suggest that you need to go NNE and here are possible paths, but “guide” has unfortunate connotations of tourism, even though some guides historically are route-finders. (The ancient Celtic-Christian “soul-friend” and the Anglo-Saxon “ghostly-father” is good, but not readily understandable by most people).

Ch. 4: The Relationship

• There are similar problems describing the receiver, and I have chosen “client”. It’s a little clinical, but the other options are worse, and in any case, clinical analysis is part of the relationship, and also “client” suggests that the client is the one initiating and driving the relationship.
• Spiritual direction has been hard for the church to define, and it has three metaphors, each of which illustrate important aspects of the relationship.
1. Medical: this component emphasizes the excising of the disease—sin. It also highlights the association Jesus made with forgiving sin and healing. The spiritual director is more of a generalist doctor than a specialist. This is more of a paternal relationship (as is proper).
2. Athletic training; this component exercises training and discipline, and the director is more like a coach, where the relationship is not paternal but a mutual relationship to help the client win/succeed. Sometimes this involves teaching (“the body works like so, and so the way to get the most power from the swing is like this”). There is also the aspect of preparing for battle.
3. Marriage: this emphasizes the marriage of Christ with his Church, and specifically for the client, the familiar relationship of father and son.
• The spiritual direction relationship is like a general practice doctor who is also a family friend, or a coach that has been with the team so long that there is an element of family to the relationship.

Ch. 5: Love on the Slab

• Current thought is concerned with treating people as the “whole person” [my phrasing; not a quote]. This is good, but spiritual direction also needs analysis. So while our client does not cease to be “dear old Thomas”, nonetheless we must put him on the analytical slab to figure out what his spiritual family and genus is. (Giving emotional piety to a Dominican will not go over well, just like putting nitrogen fertilizer on peas is not useful, since they have nitrogen fixing bacteria on their roots. Giving lots of rules to a scrupulous conscience may harm him, while a little mortification may stir someone lax to life.)
• It is well to bring the client around to looking at it like a game. In rugby you might rudely tackle your best friend, and he takes it well, since it is part of the game. With this mindset, he is even likely to enjoy the analytical process.
• We need to determine what attrait (spiritual proclivities) our client has, so that we can give them proper direction.
• Speculative / Affective (intellectual vs emotional; formal vs spontaneous; duty vs self-giving love)
• Speculative: intellectual (according to capacity), wants to know the reason for things and benefits from it, theology will play a role (risk: may mistake acceptance of theories about God with faith in God), does not accept paternalism (good or bad), suspicious of “enthusiasm” and superstition, dutiful and maybe even moralistic, “with conscience tightly bridled my moral philosophy, sound or otherwise” (33), God is transcendent, Holy Spirit is a fact the church teaches and experience is suspect. “[T]he daily office [is] acceptable, the Eucharist more of a fact than a feeling. Atonement is a divine fiat, wrought by the Cross of Christ, penitenence is genuine, but do not expect many tears.” (33)
• This type is in every age, includes St. Paul and Thomas Aquinas, and many Anglican divines.
• Affective: basically the opposite. Is emotional (and if Angle-Saxon likely feels guilty about it), is generally happy to follow guidance without needing to know the reason for it. “His attrait is likely to be towards the sacred humanity of Jesus, who is above all the suffering and loving Redeemer. The indwelling Spirit, especially in his role as comforter, inspirer, sanctifier, will also play a major part in affective prayer, while the transcendent element could be under-played. Formal, run-of-the-mill prayer directed in praise of the Father—the divine office—could be something of a necessary burden; let that be fully and frankly admitted.” (34)
• St. Bernard, St. Francis, George Herbert.
• Both risk imbalance.
• Some traditions see affective prayer as higher, but it is also a trait, and some bypass it for higher prayer altogether.
• Don’t forget that it is still dear old Thomas on the slab.
• World-affirming (kataphatic) / world-renouncing (apophatic): the “spiritual response to creation”
• “World affirmation means not so much that the world is respected and enjoyed but that prayer is linked to the senses and focused on material objects, which may become vehicles for religious experience and intuition.” (35) Mary Magdalene represents this, as she expressed her mystical insight through physical things, like perfume. hair, and tears. This tends towards the sacramental, love of creation (not because of aesthetics but because it is where the world is the scene of God’s interactions), They may have Chestertonian love of life, or be austere like St. Francis. Prayer is opening one’s eyes wide, instead of closing them. There is a risk of sins of sensuality
• World-renunciation “gropes for the mystical”. It is the via negativa (Pseudo-Dionysius). “The movement is easily understood, especially when presented in negative terms: the cloud of unknowing, the dark night, rich nought, dazzling darkness, and so on.” (36)
• This presents a cultural problem. Our modern age is fully world-affirming (although it goes too far into sin), but the tradition tends toward renunciation, so the affirmer feels out of place with the tradition. Modernity focuses too much on immanence and not on transcendence. But renunciation can lead into sin, too. There is a tendency towards angelism—God does not eat, so I will be more like God if I do not eat—which is heresy. In fact, it is the original sin, the desire to be other than what one is (non-physical spirit instead of body and spirit).
• The metaphor of determining botanical genus-species (by binary search of attraits) is limited, because while peas are always the same, people are entirely unique, and will not fit into the categories perfectly. Julian of Norwich, for example is intellectual but also emotional and intuitive.
• We need to respect peoples’ attraits, but we are aiming for a balance of solid theology and true piety. The 14th English “school” comes the closest, I think; witness Julian of Norwich. Russian orthodoxy also balances via negativa mysticism and creation theology. We respect attrait, but it does sometimes need to be pruned.

Ch. 6: The Categories: Ancient and Modern

• Although I looked through the books for modern-relevant categories, I was forced on my own experience, risky though that is.
• Amateur / professional
• Professional (clergy, monastics): professional Christians will love the details of liturgy, icons, the Office, etc. They likely have a contemplative perspective on the things of church. They may be drawn to medievalism by attrait, and will freely talk about their spiritual life, and express it with the technical vocabulary (which is very convenient for the director).
• Amateur Christians are not any less pious, but they probably support the priest in the Sunday Eucharist but prefer Monday Low Mass. They tend to see praying on the couch just as good as at an oratory, since God is part of life and that is part of their life. Habitual recollection is a strength, but it looks more ordinary. The amateur does not want to join monastic tertiaries [quasi-monks], societies, and especially prayer groups. [Not sure if “prayer groups” means something formal, rather than an aversion to parish prayer groups]
• There are both types in the tradition: “the ecclesiastical St Peter of Cluny, with everything correctly magnificent, and St Francis in his rags, wandering about everywhere. St Teresa of Avila, Mother-Superior par excellence, and Margery Kempe, who could never have joined any sort of society, let alone be the head of it.” (41)
• Currently we over-emphasize groups: conferences, etc., which gives individualists struggle. Direction ought to be ideal for introverts, but the directors (especially when they are professionals) can try to fit the individualists into a group mould. Historically, the Cistercians accepted both enclosed monks and ones who preached in open fields. The Franciscans rebelled against excessive liturgy.
• Grim / gaiety
• Historically there have been both ascetics [in the renunciation sort] and “troubadors of God”. The Shepherd of Hermas says that cheerfulness is required of a Christian, but much later work treats the Christian life as serious. Venantius Fortunatus [hymn writer] saw the Cross as the greatest victory; Victorians saw it as the greatest tragedy. Anglicans produced John Cosin and William Law, as well as John Donne and Thomas Traherne; Catholics have Cardinal Ottaviani and John Henry Newman as well as G. K. Chesterton and Ronald Knox.
• Both are valid, but Anglican spiritual direction has tended to emphasize the grim.
• Clients of different attrait need to be handled differently. In a painful situation, people of the gaiety attrait may be benefited by noting the number of people who note that God is awkward, with St. Teresa observing how rough God treats his friends, but this would be shocking for someone of a grim persuasion. Some might open up with a cup of tea, for others, the offer of a glass of scotch may not be amiss.
• The grim attrait is a minority, but they are entitled to it.
• Class distinction
• We [British] do not like to talk about it, but one’s class greatly affects the way people understand the world and God. and therefore how effective spiritual direction is done. St. Louis IX [the king] or leisured gentry need very different different direction than a French peasant or a factory worker. It is even more difficult in modern society, which has more of a range of social classes.
• “While recognizing personal attrait the classical tradition has much to offer Sardinian peasant women (affective-world renouncing—they have not much choice) or Italian nobility (speculative-world-affirming, because their culture proses theology as the in-thing and it is difficult to run a large estate on the principle that God;s creation is of no importance). But although fundamental ascetical principles remain valid, this traditional teaching  is of little immediate relevance to bright young executives, graduate housewives, and air hostesses.” (46)
• Modern pastoral guidance and missions focuses on the poor, but the assumption is that the wealthy stockbroker can take care of himself; this is neglecting them. Also, sometimes well-to-do Christians feel guilty over their wealth, so that it hampers their prayers, rather than learning how to use it for the kingdom.
• There are cultural pressures against the well-off taking prayer seriously. There is also the feeling that St. Francis is the real saint, but St. Louis IX is somewhat phony. “No one doubts the sanctity of  the Little Flower of Lisieux, but was not Madame de Chantai something of a religious dilettante?” (47)
• This are important distinctions in modern direction, but little addressed in the textbooks.

Ch. 7: The Ascetical Syllabus

• There is a four-part ascetical syllabus that guides our Christian practice. It’s source is at (A), and works its way down to the expression at (D):
1. The Bible, plus its summary and interpretation in the creeds
2. Ascetical theology: “This concerns the quest for perfection involving the sacraments, the development of the cardinal and theological virtues, the gifts of the spirit, the discernment of spirits or the interpretation of religious experience; the divisions, types, methods, and regula of prayer, spiritual progress and so on. It will treat of the fight against sin, especially with regard to those physical and mental disciplines which are both weapons for this combat and supportive training for prayer: ‘asceticism’ in its narrow, popular, and inaccurate sense.” (49)
3. Moral theology: “This will consist in the divisions of grace and human response to its action; sin, also in terms of its types and divisions, the varieties of conscience [e.g. scrupulous, lax] with its training and development; casuistry or the art of moral decision-making; the doctrine of man, his purpose and his end, with analyses of human development, attrait, psychological make-up and the impingement of cultural factors upon it.” (49)
4. The schools of prayer: “[T]hat vast of teaching which issues out of the experience, experiment, and organization of the saints and doctors of the Church throughout the ages; the inexhaustible range of monastic order, the multifarious schools of prayer, the personal nuance pf the great directors” (49-50)
• St. Benedict observed that the Blessed Trinity could be expressed as a three-fold Rule of Mass, Orders, and private prayer. St. Bernard focused on sharing humanity with Jesus, hence Cistercians. St. Francis saw God in birds and flowers, which expression precluded private ownership (his call to poverty has been very misunderstood). St. François de Sales thought that kings and nobles could true disciples, not just monks, hence the Salesians.
• Theological understanding is essential. Many people read devotional literature and think they can be spiritual directors, but it is the people well-versed in theology that are closer to spiritual direction; all they need is a course or two on application, while the former need five years of biblical, patristic, and scholastic studies.
• Good coaches tend to come out of trying and failing a lot.
• Spiritual directors (but not clients) will gain a lot by studying schools of prayer that do not fit their proclivities, since they can give it to their clients for whom it would be helpful.
• Classical systems still underpin the the Book of Common Prayer, but there is an argument to be made that theology has been presented in a way that moderns can understand, while prayer is still stuck in the middle ages. There is certainly not much to go on in contemporary ascetic practice, and what there is can be traced back to some saint.
• The difference is that classical (patristic, scholastic) theology concerns itself with the aspects of God (what adjectives would one use in describing him), which contemporary theology asks about God’s function (how does he act and how do we experience him). In making a personal introduction, one would first tell the other about the qualities of the person to be introduced, and then bring them together to experience each other.
• So now we can describe Thomas as “affective, world-affirming, immanentalist, with a conscience inclined to laxity, Cistercian attrait, Nestorian leanings, and a slight Trinitarian balance toward the Third Person” (53), but this is also Thomas the middle-aged, reasonably intelligent solicitor.

Ch. 8: The Bible

• The Bible can be useful for ascetical theology, but there are only two useful modern [as of the 1980s] texts: The Prayers of the New Testament (Archbishop Coggan) and The Prayers of Jesus (Jeremias). There is essentially nothing on the Old Testament, which is commonly and erroneously considered to be of no devotional value.
• But why the need for ascetical theology when we have the “simple gospel” and one response to God in prayer? 1) The Gospel is not simple, 2) every person is different, and ascetical theology illuminates how to handle those differences, and 3) the saints may have had simple prayer, but sin gets in the way of the rest of us.
• The client might not need ascetical theology, but the director certainly does.
• The tripartite Benedictine system has been the foundation of Christian prayer for 1400 years (and criticized for that long). We can argue that it comes from the Bible: the Lord’s Prayer is the original office, Matt 6:6 clearly shows private prayer, and Jesus obviously instituted the Eucharist.
• Jeremias’ The Prayers of Jesus demonstrates that the monastic system grew out of the Jewish system: the synagogue used the Psalms, the Eucharist in place of the sacrifices, and private prayer was obviously done. Thus, Rule is actually a biblical, not just monastic system.
• The classical progression is purgation from sin, to illumination, to union with God. This is somewhat vague and much misunderstood, and sadly, easy to misapply, but it is biblical:
• Purgation is equivalent to the covenant stage: “prayer is in essence relationship between man and God” (56), and covenant gives a framework of how we can relate to him. Both are strongly ethical, and in both God is remote (either because of our sin, or because of his transcendent nature). In this regime, God is an ambulance god, helping us in our trouble. There is also an similarity between how the patriarchs acted and how we can expect Christian beginners to act.
• The incarnation is equivalent to illumination: prayer is more intimate, question and answer and therefore guidance is more personal than a set of generally-applicable rules. “Grace replaces law; inspiration, illumination, personal discipleship, loyalty, all play a bigger part. So the prayer common to this stage is vocal and intellectual on the speculative side; and meditative, with strong stress upon affective imagination on the affective side.” (57)
• Paul’s “in-Christ” is the union with God: “By baptism the Christian is ‘in-Christ', incorporated into the sacred humanity, sharing the resurrected and ascended life in Christ. And this, literally, is union, with some form of contemplative absorption as the norm of prayer.” (57)
• Moral theology (for instance, the minute distinctions of grace that Aquinas makes) is seems artificial and useless, unless we grasp it’s purpose—a precise surgical tool for spiritual direction. Regarding mortal and venial sins, “‘From the point of view of God, so to say, it is unreal; from the point of view of the sinner himself, it is dangerous. There is, however, the third point of view: that of the priest whose business it is to try to repair the damages caused by sin to human souls. And from this point of view the distinction between moral an venial sin is both real and valuable.’ (Some Principles of Moral Theology, p. 247)” (58)
• The mortal/venial sins come from 1 John 5:16-17, and the Decalogue is the “more sophisticate” list of the mortal sins. “The moral progression follows the pattern of the spiritual progression just discussed—covenant, encounter, incorporation, underpinning three ways—since the cardinal virtues are very much of an Old Testament flavour. These are then supplemented by the theological virtues of 1 Corinthians 13, and consummated by the gifts of the Spirit in both testaments: Isaiah 11:2-3, Galatians 5:22-3; and finally as a spiritual progression in 2 Peter 1:5-7.” (58)
• Old Testament prayer never fully disappears from the Christian life, and some are stuck there “through lack of competent guidance”.
• Old Testament prayers:
• “[A]n enormous amount is lost by sliding over, or even blatantly omitting, the bloodier, cursing bits of great [OT] prayers, especially in the Psalter. The fierce, angry, terrifying, even vindictive God, is a necessary step in the spiritual pilgrimage towards the Christian conception. Undirected and unfought for, for the impenitent beginner, the God of Love can be a misleading idea.” (59)
• The Psalms cover the range of prayer and the range of the different aspects of God. Therefore, the psalms are the foundation of the Office, and cannot be replaced with hymns or religious poems. (To do so would be to replace ascetical theology, and therefore spiritual progress)
• The Book of Job shows suffering, progress, God’s unfairness, and also the marriage analogy.
• Song of Song clearly shows the marriage analogy, and mature Christians should pray it.
• Moses prayers are great examples of colloquy: Ex 32:11-14 a discussion of God’s honor and current need. Ex 33:12-23 has insight, pastoral concern, and “the hidden God” and via negativa. Num 11:11-25 is an argument with God, from someone sanctified and receptive. Deut 9:18-21 and 25-29 are superb examples of penitential prayer.
• Abraham’s intercession for Sodom (Gen 18:23-32) “sounds curious, even funny, yet it suggests a stage-by-stage spiritual exercise that St Ignatius Loyola might have constructed, while its pastoral implications, interpreted ascetically, are such as might make many a modern parish priest think very hard indeed about his pastoral strategy.” (60)
• This is hardly exhaustive, and would be a fruitful area of Ph.D. research.
• Biblical typology:
• St. Paul did this, and “[it] was allowed somewhat to run riot by the school of Alexandria”. It has been underexamined and under-utilized for tools in spiritual direction.
• Dr. E. L. Mascall has practical thoughts on rest as “contemplative consummation of activity (God and Grace).” (60) God rest is his most creative act as he contemplates in love what he created. This has parallels in the Sabbath rest talked of in Hebrews.
• I did a typological analysis of desert/wilderness (Prayer: A New Encounter, pp. 168-70), from 1 Kings 19:4-18, with “contemplative silence begins with turmoil, danger, fear, discomfort, which gradually turns into peace, security, and calm; from psychological alienation ('concupiscence') to psychological integration ('contemplation') with the possible end-product of prophetic inspiritation.” (60-61)
• Similar examples for cloud (“God’s hidden immanence”), garden (analogy for spiritual life: fenced by God, the Church, against the devil and sin, along with agricultural cycles), water, banquet, light, darkness, mountain, plain, pit, etc.
• New Testament prayers:
• “But if prayer is encounter, than any relation between Christ and people, depicted in the Gospel narrative, is consonant with ascetical, as well as ethical or doctrinal, interpretation.” (61)
• The interactions of Jesus and the disciples, Jesus and Zacchaeus, and of Mary Magdalene anointing Jesus with oil are all prayers.
• The Samaritan woman (John 4:7-26) parallels Moses in Num 11:11-25.
• The Syro-Phonecian woman is “devoutly impertinent”, and both women illustrate “that honest, devout, but heart-to-heart argument with God is the secret of petition.” (62)
• Zacchaeus illustrates that we encounter God “by getting in the right place and waiting, getting into the right mood and watching.” (62)
• Paul’s “in Christ” is the foundation of world-affirming prayer that uses physical objects, and Chesterton’s statement that mystical experiences are like the taste of an apple.
• Needless to say, there is much more that can be mined.

Ch. 9: Creed and Doctrine

• So far we have managed to narrow Thomas down to 25% of species of plants, but there are still a few other axes to narrow him down to one specific species.
• Creation
• St. Augustine saw man as an integrated whole, a “trinity-in-one”, in the image of God, and sin (“concupiscence”) is dis-integration.
• Later pastoral/moral theology saw God as have created man like a statue, and put a soul in it. This suggests that virtue is stamped into the soul-stuff, so that virtue is an indelible feature.
• This is no longer the view. Macquarrie: “‘Existence fulfils [sic] itself in selfhood. An authentic self is a unitary, stable, and relatively abiding structure in which polarities of existence are held in balance and its potentialities are brought to fulfilment [sic]’” (Principles of Christian Theology, p. 64)
• The virtues, graces, gifts, affective, speculative, etc. are potentialities, which can be nurtured. This nurturing is of paramount importance to direction.
• Our view of creation influences how the other attraits behave.
• Affirmative types like Creation as a symbol, but need to be guarded against laxity and indulgence, while renunciation has to guard against angelology (God does not eat or sleep, so I will become like God if I do not eat or sleep).
• View of providence: creation is not “divine fiat” but a continual process of love, so we interpret events spiritually. (J. B. Bossuet, via Jean de Caussade, is the best-known writer on this topic)
• Aquinas’ hierarchy of being: we are not lord of creation (there are angels above us); we are lord of the third tier of creation. If we get this wrong then we will not properly see God’s transcendence and will be too immanent in our prayers.
• Holy Trinity
• The Trinitarian view is essential spiritual health and progress.
• “The substantive, that is the patristic and scholastic, formula, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, is activated into attention to the divine transcendence, mediation through incarnation, and immanence; and from thence into the discernment of providential activity, redemptive love, and intuitive inspiration.” (67) “The Christian ideal is a synthetic balance between these practical triads: transcendent prayer, adoration, praise and thanksgiving” (67). Transcendence frees us from anxiety, because the world is insignificant compared to God’s transcendence, but at the same time Christ makes everything important, and the Holy Spirit, immanent through creation, makes every person important. “The ideal of Christian life comes from a synthetic balance between these triads; transcendence precludes anxiety, immanence involves action on both natural and supernatural planes, and the mediation of the Son points to a joyful, loving care for all things.” (68)
• The ascetical implications are worked out in the basic textbooks. “But for completeness, the bare bones are clear enough: overstress on transcendence leads to formalism, legalism—getting stuck in the covenant stage of prayer—and ultimately deism, which is the pitfall of the speculative type. Overstress on immanence produces subjectivism, quasi-mysticism that exaggerates the importance of religious experience, the wrong sort of worldliness and then pantheism.” (68)
• “The paradoxical balance is reproduced in the relation between manhood and Godhead in the incarnate Son: the Redeemer to be adored and the redeemer to be embraced; the compassionate healer and the sacrificial Lamb. Care must be taken over the adjective ‘christo-centric’ which has both valid and invalid connotations. If Christ is central to the Trinity, the fulcrum and focus between Father and Spirit, then all is well, but when the emphasis is on Jesus to the exclusion, or diminution of Father and Spirit then all is decidedly not well.” (68)
• No one gets the balance right, so spiritual direction is about deciding where the client’s attrait leads, and whether they need to be encouraged to broaden into another aspect or whether they need to be curbed in overemphasis.
• Benedict’s Rule is the traditional way to keep the balance: Eucharist, daily office, and private prayer.
• The constant complaints are that it is to formal, regimented, monastic, and not free enough. However, no one has proposed a better replacement.
• You cannot worship a doctrinal formula (e.g. the Trinity), but without a map you will probably get lost.
• Christology
• From the perspective of spiritual direction, it is helpful to learn the heresies that Chalcedon was formulated to combat.
• Almost all Christians are likely to reject the heresies intellectually, but how do they actually behave in prayer, in contemplating the crucifix, etc.? “Is Jesus lovingly and comfortably human? Is he remotely, mysteriously, frighteningly divine? Or does he alternate between the two: God in the Eucharist and man in the street? Or is he a muddled mixture of both? Above all is Jesus Christ ever isolated from Father and Spirit; or is he in some curious way roughly the same as one or the other or both?” (70)
• Current trends theologically are towards Arianism (Christ’s humanity only), especially the emphasis on the Church’s social mission. More dangerous in prayer, however, is Apollonarianism (Christ’s divinity only), since without Christ’s humanity we cannot proceed to the third stage, union with Christ.
• Imaginative meditation may restore balance. “Otherwise ascetic disciplines come to our aid. Rejection of the Apollinarian heresy incites the affirmative client to sanctify the senses and interpret creation in the sense of St Irenaeus’ recapitulation theology: all material things have their place in the redemptive process; the world is lifted up into God. The bodily functions, food, drink, sex, become sanctified, sacramental, and worthy of profound respect. The renunciative client may properly follow the sacrificial and penitential emphases of his state, a sharing of the sufferings of the sacred humanity, but he is guarded against angelism and its corollaries by taking Chalcedon seriously.” (71)
• Nestorianism: Christ is divine in the Eucharist but human in the street “leads to the sort of sanctuary-centered devotion which those suspicious of spiritual guidance rightly fear. It fails in service and mission, ... because it stops short at regular communion without its leading into eucharistic life.” (71-72) (the sacred/secular divide)
• From this, we can discover that dear old Thomas is “speculative-trascendental-Christo-centric, with Apollinarian leanings and Benedictine attrait.” (72) It may not be helpful to him to tell him that, but as spiritual directors, we need to know, just like a medical doctor needs to know what to do with a sprained ankle. We may read up on what people like Scarimelli thought about aridity, just like a doctor reads up on the current thinking of how to treat various illnesses, but it is in the service of figuring out how to treat the illness.
• The Atonement
• The first view is the objective view, “the Cross as divine fiat of redemption”, the victorious Christ. The excess here is, well, why not sin so that grace may abound?
• Speculative-objective types need to return to the Gospels, and if they lack imagination, pictures and films help.
• The speculative symbol is Christus Rex.
• The second view is the subjective view, the horrible crime of the Cross as something to bring us to repentance (penitence). The excess here is scrupulosity, worrying that there is never enough repentance, and even taking communion might not be a good idea.
• Affective-subjective types can be helped by Confession (preferably not too often, as private confession can actually be more difficult), the the Ireneaus-Anselm school of thought.
• The affective symbol is the suffering Christ on the Cross.
• We need both covenant-prayer and encounter-prayer.
• Julian of Norwich’s Revelations are a good speculative-affective synthesis.
• “To be in-Christ must involve creative suffering and an element of subjective penitence; yet the speculative is also right, Christ reigns, despite appearances, through resurrection and ascension, and we are ascended and risen in him.” (75)
• Church
• 1 Cor 12 is the spiritual director’s mandate.
• There is no such thing as “private” prayer; we are part of the body. It is easy to focus too much on the individual, and then spiritual direction can become merely self-help.
• There is also a distinction between the gregarious and solitary (coenobite and recluse). “It is not always understood that any strategy, however evangelistic, outgoing and healthily objective, gains incalculably from the supportive prayer of the solitary.” (76) A parishioner might just be anti-social, self-centered, etc. needing correction, but he might also have a genuine attrait (or a combination of both).
• Eucharistic frequency
• The objective/lax person is likely to take communion frequently, because forgiveness is objectively granted and Jesus said to do it frequently. The subjective/scrupulous person is likely to take communion much less frequently and only after substantive preparation. Is the Eucharist daily bread or some special food? It is, in fact, both.
• Communion of the Saints
• The Church militant points to the Church triumphant, and this doctrine’s ascetic purpose is protection against too much immanence (but softening transcendence).
• It is the saints who made the theology manifest; it is actual people who created the schools of prayer.
• The saints are also our contemporaries—members of the living body—so they are not just people who wrote edifying books a long time ago, but we can truly say “this morning Gregory Palamas said to me...” It allows our prayers to transcend the immanent Church militant.
• Now that we have identified Thomas’ genus-species, we can point him to the saints and school of his type. (Without all this framework to identify the genus-species, pairing clients with appropriate schools would be rather hit or miss.)

Ch. 10: Moral Theology

• Christian ethics is a subset of moral philosophy; it attempts to be its own unique category. Moral theology is a subset of theology, and concerned with the telos (end purpose) of Man.
• Christian ethics gives general rules of guidance, but every actual situation is specific. Saying that “love” is the ultimate arbiter is no help; a misbehaving child arguably could be love by caresses or punishment, but it is the specific situation that determines which is love for this actual child right now.
• Moral theology is concerned with the end purpose of Man, namely “Man is for the beatific vision which is his ultimate target, and there can be no other consideration. Man’s last end, not the well-being of society or the initiation of universal justice, or even love between neighbors is the one criterion for moral judgement. The Christian good is not that which promotes happiness or reduces suffering or initiates justice, but directs men towards God.” (82) This is where affirmative and via negativa meet: both are seeking the beatific vision (one through seeing God through material things, the other renouncing them to focus on God).
• Christian ethics might help tell us what to do about abortion, but it has no relevance to the contemplative hermit.
• The divide between the two is more noticeable at later stages of the Christian life. Ethics (even secular) is compatible with the cardinal virtues (justice, temperance, fortitude, prudence), and some may even be able to handle the theological virtues (faith, hope, love). But ethics has no place for fasting, mortification, joy-giving penance, and spiritual gifts, since they are concerned with getting us to the beatific vision.
• “The crux comes with a more fundamental Christian paradox. Christian ethics is concerned with the bases of moral philosophy, with the good, beautiful, and true, with right and wrong, is and ought. It comes up with reasoned conclusions about current moral issues: sexual ethics, nationalism, race relations, finance, work, nuclear power, and all the rest. Moral theology makes the same attempt at solving the same problems, and frequently arrives at the same answers. But having ascertained what, in a particular situation, the right course of action is, moral theology immediately insists that fallen man is incapable of pursuing that right course. Ethics says this is what you ought to do: full stop. Moral theology says this is what you ought to do: but you cannot.” (83)
• This is where grace, prayer, and sacraments come in. “Prayer and morality become inseparable.” (83)
• There is no inherent virtue in, for instance, fasting, nor discipline by Rule, so it has no place in ethics. But it is indispensable in progressing towards the beatific vision.
• Christian ethics is useful in the public square, but it cannot help us determine how to love our naughty child.
• Christian ethics is also helpful for identifying emotivism and condemning it: “It is well to have it pointed out that ‘I am sure God wishes me to do this’ and ‘my conscience says I must do that’ are statements on the level with ‘Guinness [beer] is good for you'. Such assurances may be true or false, but they cannot carry much authority.” (85)
• “[T]he spiritual director has to have, in the back of his head, to be applied not taught, distinctions and classifications of sin, and these are so complicated that the charges of artificiality appear to be more than reasonable. But the ultimate question remains: what is it all for? To guide prayer, to deepen the relationship between man and God in Christ, to assist progress towards man’s last end. At first sight, contour lines on a map do not seem to bear much relation to the scenery, or to be of much help in choosing the route towards one’s destination. Properly interpreted they have much to do with both.” (85)
• “So moral theology has to be underpinned by wider theological concepts: grace, atonement, redemption, penitence, prayer, incarnational existence.” (86)

Ch. 11: The Schools

• Now that we know what genus and species our client is—keeping in mind that everyone is unique and will have elements that go against what we expect—we can guide them into an appropriate school of prayer. Directing them into an unsuitable school can cause a lot of harm, so the director must be conversant with all the schools.
• Begin with a book that surveys them all, to get a high-level understanding. Then immerse yourself in the one that fits you best. After that, become familiar with all the major schools. First, read the books of the school theologically, and second, read them as spiritual reading, to absorb their ethos, and thirdly, experiment with them experientially. This last can be laborious, but it is essential so that you can understand what will work for people with different attraits than yourself.
• St. Benedict takes his Rule from Augustine’s trinitarian theology; the Cistercians emphasize sacred humanity from St. Iraneaus; the Pseudo-Dionysian via negativa from the Alexandrian school, particularly Origen.
• There are sub-schools, too, just like sub-schools in painting. The Rhineland Dominicans are very different from the main branch of Dominicans. Each nationality tends to have its own characteristics, so Spanish Carmelites, French Oratorians, etc.
• I have a book entitled English Spirituality.
• A good order for an Anglican is Benedictines/Augustine (the root of the Western tradition), and then its two strains, Cluniacs and Cistercians. After that, Pseudo-Dionysius for something very different. Then St. Anselm, whose synthesis is the basis for Anglican via media. Then the Dominican and Franciscan friars, followed by the English school. After that the Caroline divines, Protestants, and the Spanish Carmelites.
• Cultural factors are important. Interest in Eastern Orthodoxy is growing [this in 1984], but it is hard to see them being incorporated into Western spirituality. Similarly, the Xhosa tribe [of Africa?], which tends towards the mystical, was evangelized by Anglicans, but when their version of the BCP is done to Victorian hymns, it is “the ultimate in ghastly dreariness”, while it is done in the Xhosa language with native tunes, it is as beautiful and impressive as any Orthodox liturgy.
• At such point as an African school arises, “it’s twin emphases should be the doctrine of creation and the communion of the saints.” (92)

Ch. 12: Progression

• There are two principles to progression: “The first is that the only valid test is moral theology: progress, whatever its exact nature, means committing less sin and growing more joyfully penitent. Secondly, the task of spiritual direction is the create and maintain spiritual health, on the assurance that growth will follow and that such growth will be according to the will of God for that person.” (94) Our goal is simply better prayer; it is God who gives the growth and brings people to new levels.
• The classical progression (Three Ways) are purgative, illuminative, and unitive (or beginners, proficients, and perfect). But: the words do not mean what they commonly mean!
• First off, the classical progression implies a Pygmalion statue, where the purgative way scrubs off the dirt, and then upon which the next characteristics are immutably infused and retained, or an animal that transforms into Illuminated upon completion of purgation. Rather, as we have seen, all the attraits are proclivities and habits of perspective.
• Beginners are also not necessary great sinners, and they are certainly not without gifts and graces; “he is a flux of potentiality, and the most obvious thing about him is that his spiritual potential is unresolved by order and choice: he is in a muddle.” (96) He needs Rule (which, it should be remembered, is not a set of little rules; he is probably already doing that and that is what is causing the muddle). A correctly formulated Rule is a “responsible choice between possibilities”. Thus “purgation” is not vomiting up sin, or having sin scrubbed off (although, of course, we fight against sin all our lives). What the tradition calls “self-knowledge” is “movement from spiritual chaos to integration”.
• Of course, direction for beginners will be definitely concerned with sin, but it “must also seek to unearth potential gifts and virtues” (which is in the tradition but usually overlooked).
• “Purgation”, then is primarily self-knowledge and self-acceptance. It could also be said “people-in-a-muddle” or “unresolved spiritual potential”.
• “The hallmark of proficiency—the illumative way is here an even more misleading phrase—is stability, or maturity which has learned to ride lightly upon experience and consolation, not that experience is necessarily lacking but that it is accepted calmly and put into perspective.” (97) The proficient is not necessarily far along the road, but he has choice a general direction and integrated Rule into his life.
• “Arid-loyalty” is a better name for this stage; the marriage with God has moved from the bubbly enthusiasm-panic to deep loyalty. This arid is natural and is a sign of progress; any endeavor experiences the grind (scholars, athletes, writers, etc)
• Directors should pay attention to aridity. It might be due to sudden increase in sin, but it also might be the sign of crisis periods leading to progress. If the latter, how to deal with it? There are no rules, but initial guidelines are:
• The speculative can safely continue plodding, while the affective likely needs a rest. The renunciator is also a plodder by nature, while the affirmative might need to relax the Rule. The scrupulous must relax (and may not like it), while the lax probably needs some modified plodding.
• Few clients are likely to be mystics, so the perfect way is less important to the director, and is more for a specialist. However, “perfect” definitely does not mean what it looks like, but rather “unitive”. “God’s absolute perfection” is not repeating oneself, and one can be imperfectly perfect, since “perfect” is a way, not a state or quality. “In its ascetical and mystical context the term really means complete conformity to the will of God” (98) (including for those whom God wills to remain beginners—the perfect beginner)
• The boundaries between the ways are fuzzy, and can take a while. So, few clients will become mystics, but many may progress beyond proficiency. This stage I call “ligature”, in its medical sense of cutting off circulation by strangulation. It is the night of the senses, where it becomes impossible to pray and think at the same time, or a “cessation of discoursive thought”. Given our modern affirmation of creation, this tends to cause frustration.
• Even in my lifetime, the cultural mood has changed. In 1963, direction gave 1-2-3, a-b-c, and clients loved it and benefited from it. Now in 1984, most people are terribly bored with it. (The cultural causes have already been widely discussed.) Current clients take much better to contemplation, given the contemporary emphasis on the whole person. So although the three ways are still valid, they are substantially modified by the cultural climate, which the director must stay aware of.
• Unfortunately, the old terminologies cannot be changed, due to the amount of material using them, but even Teresa of Avila said she was unsure what “illumination” meant, and did not like that terminology. Fortunately, directors need to know it in order to evaluate the stage of the client, but it is not necessary to use classical terminology when discussing with our client.
• The proficient stage is the center of direction [because that is where our clients will spend most of their time]. “Truly, at this stage, illumination, or better, intuition, may play a part, while we look, primarily, not for these characteristics but for stability; for maturity, for ability to cope, for habitual recollection, and for unfussy moral growth.” (102)
• We can get more clarity from the Biblical analysis in Ch. 8:
    Purgative → illumination → unitive
    Beginners → proficient → perfect
    Covenant → encounter → incorporation
• The ways are progression, but more clearly, they are emphases. “Covenant implies obedience to divine law enacted by a transcendent God, and this relation ever pertains to all Christians, be they beginners or saints. On the other hand the Christian is always ‘in Christ', incorporated into the sacred humanity by baptism, and therefore in a real sense in union with God. Prayer always includes the element of encounter: the nuptial analogy again, wherein the twain are one flesh while remaining two individuals. All three stages are summed up in the eucharistic prayer: ‘This is my blood of the new covenant ... do this ...’ For here is covenant, demanding obedience, encounter, the sacramental presence, and incorporation or communion.” (102-103)
• The first stage, “the new covenant sees Jesus primarily as teacher, mediator, and intercessor. The New Testament ethic has to be absorbed and understood, either by biblical studies or by discursive meditation of some kind.” (103) Analysis of the Lord’s Prayer is important here.
• The second stage naturally comes from the first, “because encounter with the living and glorified Lord implies some kind of discursive meditation on the Gospel narrative. Jesus is seen first as covenant authority, secondly as living presence. We are at the discursive, intellectual stage, far from the ligature” (103). Contemporary Christians may pass this stage relatively quickly.
• The third stage can be naturally understood, pastorally, from Paul writings about unity with Christ, so it is certainly nothing unexpected. We have the common experience of Baptism and Communion uniting us with God, regardless of our level of sin. “To be one with Christ, wedded to Christ, whereby the whole person, sense, appetites, emotions, intellect and the rest, partake of all aspects of the sacred humanity, is nothing extraordinary but the Christian status.

Ch. 13: Progression: Ancient and Modern

• [That chapter is an attempt at contemporizing the progression, as suggested at the end of the previous chapter]
• We should approach our first meeting with a client with a blank slate.
• The classical approach to progression was written with monastics as the audience, and only secondarily to serious laymen. So “beginner in the purgative way” is not “someone who has no experience resisting temptation” like it would sound like! Similarly, most of a director’s clients are likely to have spent some time already, except haphazardly.
• The Three Ways is modeled after the Eucharist, but that is hard to see. It is easier to see looking at it from the progression of covenant, encounter, incorporation. We take the Eucharist because Jesus said to (covenant), it is obviously an encounter if there is Real Presence (regardless of interpretation), and it is obviously incorporation.
• (The Anglican liturgy is often criticized for being too penitential and subjective [with respect to the Cross, see above])
• “At this stage of encounter-proficiency what may properly be called a contemplative, or non-discursive approach will sometimes lead into genuine experience of the present Lord, of succour, accpetance, forgiveness and grace: that could be called illumination but the term is still misleading.” (107)
• We could simplify the progression as morality-liturgy-prayer, or even evangelism-ecclesiasticism-prayer. “The Christian ethic, involving purgation of sin as its prerequisite, is often the beginner’s main interest and inspiration. It is expressed either in practical service to others or in evangelistic witness, often with Pelagian overtones. It is the enthusiasm of the beginner in any context: to share one’s new-found enthusiasm; to get involved in the institutional ethos of that enthusiasm, be it church, committee, or golf club; and only finally to get down to the solid business of what the enthusiasm is all about. ¶ Moral progress in terms of practical service to others is an admirable ideal, until it is realized that without grace it becomes both unbearable and impossible; hence the later preoccupation with liturgy, or with ecclesiastical bureaucracy as a busy second-best. Then you start playing the real game: prayer.” (107)
• A further simplification is people-ecclesiasticism-God. If you ask candidates for ordination why they desire ordination, they say to serve others; very few say that they want to serve God. “At a recent conference for potential ordinands there was lively and knowledgeable discussion on various ‘counselling’ problems: marital, emotional, financial, medical, and moral. When I asked what was the pastoral approach to the faithful, who had not got any hang-ups, there was blank surprise and stony silence: the epitome of the ambulance syndrome.” (108)
• Serving others is not a specifically Christian thing, and not even religious, neither are liturgy and bureaucracy. They are legitimate steps on the way, but they can also be a disease.
• I propose another version of the progression, which is not found in any text, but which I think is consonant with them: God-the-Provider, God-the-Lover, God-the-Disturber. “Initially God is seen as loving and helpful, present in human life, solving problems, a very present help in trouble: the ambulance syndrome.” (108) After some progression, we begin to be penitent, because we see that we deserve our troubles, but God provides forgiveness. Eventually “love supplants usefulness” and we move to loyalty, despite desolation. “And this, too, has obvious connections with the notion of Christ-encounter. It is predominantly through Jesus that the love of God is expressed to men, and it is through him that illumination comes into experience.” (109) “Somewhere in the proficient stage God appears as awkward, as demanding, as the disturber of ordinary aspirations and values: the all-holy transcendence. Finally God is God.” (109) Thus we have petition → penitence → adoration.
• It is similar to De Diligendo Deo of Bernard of Clairvaux, except with idioms understandable by contemporary people.
• All progressions are Trinitarian.
• The Charismatic renewal is another progression. “[I]t starts with experience of the Holy Spirit, the subjective comforter, the helper and inspirer. The so-called baptism of the Spirit, the twice-born experience, is typical of the beginner; oscillating experience, uncontrolled fervour, and artless enthusiasm. Encounter, relation with the living Lord, so enters, but it is still subjective, this-worldly but without any necessary affirmation of creation. None of this is adversely critical, for it is a valid starting point, but proficiency only enters with the transcendent dimension of the majestic Father in glory: adoration is the ultimate end.” (109)
• None of these pastoral progressions that I have outlined have any authority except where they can be reduced to what is in the classical tradition.
• We must be personally acquainted with the masters: St. Augustine, St. Anselm, St. Bernard, St. Teresa, the Dominicans and Franciscans, Bousset and Scaramelli, Jeremy Taylor and Robert Sanderson.

Ch. 14: Socieo-Theology: A Curious Courtship

• Religious psychology books can sometimes restate orthodoxy in a helpful new perspective, as does The Dynamics of Religion (Bruce Reed, 1978).
• Reed’s thesis is that Christians oscillate between two poles of thought/outlook:
• Religious (the church service) and secular (the rest of the week).
• Extra-dependence (depending on something outside oneself) and intra-dependence (depending on yourself)
• “‘S-activity’ means ... Symbolism (S) which implies intuition, artistic creation, creative bi-sociation (to use Arthur Koestler’s term), and ultimately, the cultus, ritual, emotion, and contemplative prayer. ‘W-activity’ means everyday rationalism (W equals work). So W-activity means the ordinary practical application to everyday reality.” (112)
• These polarities are not “right” and “wrong”, but we oscillate between them, and health means being comfortable with the oscillations and being in balance.
• Is this just new-fangled science? No: the Church Fathers talk about this, beginning with Tertullian and Origen. They call it “periodicity”, and in the classic tradition, “consolation” and “desolation”, or “aridity” and “illumination”. The OT has a similar sort of movement: prayer on the mountain and prayer in the (worldly) plain.
• Reed adds one thing, though: he explains why it happens.
• This is the same dynamic as with spiritual direction: the client comes to the director for guidance and encouragement (extra-dependence) but the purpose of direction is so that the client can stand on his own two feet (intra-dependence).
• “The extra-dependent mode means a reliance upon symbol and cultus, a quest for support from something or someone outside oneself. Regression to an intra-dependence implies a self-reliance which can get on without such symbolic support.” (113) This is similar to my distinction between a “professional” Christian, with lots of liturgy, icons, crucifixes, etc., and “amateur”, for whom a cabbage is a good as a crucifix. In this model, the amateur is in a much better starting place (although he would be helped with something more purposeful than a cabbage): if the amateurs and professionals were stranded on desert islands, the amateurs would be much better off! (In the case of direction, the “professional” is someone who has lots of icons, “haunts the church building”, etc., not a monk or ordained minister.)
• An implication of Reed’s work is that the amateur is better off, because he is always making the oscillation, but the professional is in danger of never leaving the extra-dependence mode.
• This is description is similar to the dynamics of world-affirming and world-renouncing. The affirmer will occasionally need mortification, while the via negativa renouncer can mortify so much that they cease to be incarnational. Healthy spirituality is a balance between both.
• Reed observed these oscillations in two year old children in the Boston Public Gardens: the mothers were sitting and chatting, and the kids would go off explore for a while, and then come back and cling to their mothers to recharge for a moment, and then go off again.
• Benedictine spirituality has this same sort of oscillation. The opus Dei (work of God: the liturgy and office) is the S-activity, and the work + community are the W-activity.
• “To be extra-dependent on God is humility; intra-dependence is its proper outcome, but only when absolute dependence is internalized and held subconsciously. In ascetical terms, actual recollection leads into habitual recollection: conscious attention upon God in prayer and cult leads to subconscious reliance on God in humility.” (115-116)
• The ideal oscillation is not between religious and secular life, but between conscious focus on God and unconscious reliance on God.
• Reed further observes that there are two functions of the church: its manifest function (what it does) and its latent function (it’s effect on the environment). Bees would say that are collecting nectar to make honey (manifest function); a gardener would say they are pollinating his flowers (latent function).
• We can observe from this that the church’s manifest function is prayer, worship, liturgy, preaching, etc., and its latent function is evangelizing society (that is, redeeming, discipling society and creation)
• We can also observe that “[f]unctional religion, the creative kind, is that which both operates with and yet challenges the wider cultural environment.” (117) Dysfunction religion (the sterile, dull kind) is concerned only with keeping itself going—give me my honey, forget the flowers.
• The efficacy of the move from manifest to latent function (that is, liturgy), is dependent on the health of the members, hence the importance of direction.
• The pastoral need is not a more modern liturgy, but enabling the faithful to “comprehend the language of Christian symbolism; that is, to be under direction”. (Here he quotes Reed’s diatribe that simplifying church services for “instant worship” gets rid the the struggle to see God face to face.) Likewise, preaching should teach the symbolism and theology, not social/political issues.
• “‘A happy welcome to this nice simple service’ is not supported by religious sociology; ‘Take up thy cross and follow me’ is.” (118, emphasis in original)
• Reed identifies four essential Christian ministries: priest, pastor, evangelist, prophet:
• The role of the priest is create activities which “regress” people to extra-dependence, worship God, and “regress” to intra-dependence. This is essentially spiritual direction,
• The pastor prepares people for prayer and worship through counselling, teaching, etc.
• The evangelist “make[s] available the symbolic language of the Christian movement as an interpretation of the oscillation process” (120) “Simply put, evangelism without prayer is sterile.” (120)
• The prophet judges the church based on it’s primary task; the yardstick here is the state of the society it is in.
• Reed never mentions spiritual direction, but this seems to be exactly what he wants to advocate.
• Function religion depends on the oscillation. In my phrasing, creative religion uses Rule, “which is a system whereby a series of conscious acts of prayer leads to habitual recollection, the basis of which is spiritual direction involving the application of ascetical theology.” (121)
• Reed focuses on the key “worshipping group”, which sounds a lot like my Remnant theory.
• We both identify Prayer is centeral, but in my view, “Prayer” includes momentary recollection all the way up to fancy liturgy.
• Dependence is unpopular in the West, and it may be that the prelude to telling people about sin is to bring them to a realization that we all depend on other people.

Ch. 15: Some Practical Guidelines

• I have tried to be factual and objective so, but have provided here some of my personal views on things that might prove helpful.
• Psychiatrists and counsellors warn about clients becoming emotionally attached (extra-dependent), but that is because they probably should be using the word “patient” instead of “client”. Since spiritual directing naturally progresses to father-son and even to brother-brother in a “mutual quest”, I think it is fine. I believe St. Teresa, St. François de Sales, St. Aelred, St. John, and maybe St. Paul are on my side.
• The setting is important. Although I abhorred the American clerical office complex, I have come to see it as the best. The priest’s home is too unprofessional; the bishop’s church is more respectable for female clients but not much better. The office complex will have other people about, yet you can put out two armchairs, your set of working books, some icons, etc. for the “professional” and some non-religious art for the “amateur” and keep a desk for work in another part of the office.
• I recommend keeping confession separate from directing (which is necessary for the lay directors), and that confession should be one-to-one, short, factual, objective, rather than group oriented, since direction is one-to-one.
• Baptism as the source of prayer, and the marriage analogy are frequent useful analogies. If prayer is seen as a continual relationship with God in Christ, then lots of little problems go away. “My dear, we had a lovely evening, but my mind wandered sometimes”; “My dear, this has been wonderful, but I feel like I am making little progress” are sort of nonsensical.
• There are seven capital sins, and despite attempts, no one has been able to come up with a new one. Breaking Rule and praying badly are not sins. Sometimes even a pro athlete has a slump, or plays perfectly well but loses anyway. “Cheating, dishonesty, the deliberate foul; these are sins. Playing badly is not.” (130)
• The spiritual life is a marriage, not courtship; it is a daily activity, but “progress” is the sort of thing that happens over years. Metaphors of ladders and journeys are apt to get misinterpreted as implying short-term, discrete progress, instead of a committed relationship.
• Individualism is a constant temptation; “It is still difficult to convince a congregation that they are a team and not an audience.” (130) The efficacy of Rule [which affects the performance of the team] is independent of how satisfied you feel right now. A police officer has duties that he enjoys and those he is bored by, but the needs of the citizenry are met by both.
• Grace perfects nature (Thomas Aquinas), not destroys it. Clients are always apologizing for what they aren’t, but this is really envy disguised as humility. Usually I do nothing about this, because direction is about developing gifts, and he is probably influenced by bad ideas from books or a retreat speaker. Using the slab, I have been able to properly identify him.
• The church usually supplies like-minded people for fellowship, but true koinonia is a deep fellowship. English sensibilities prevent us talking about our prayers, since we cannot be seen to be “better” than the median. But it is okay for golfers to be wax eloquent about their sport, and any one else about their secular interests. As directors, we should encourage sharing our Prayer life with people.