The greatest saints have proclaimed the benefit of having a spiritual director for progress in holiness. Learn more from Saint Alphonsus Liguori why it is so beneficial to the soul to submit themselves in obedience to a spiritual director.
A Means to Make Progress in Perfection
Obedience to our spiritual director is of the greatest importance if we desire to please God and make progress in perfection. “It is true,” says St. Gregory, “that some saints have been guided directly by God”; “but,” he continues, “such examples are rather to be admired than imitated, for, thinking ourselves above the guidance of men, we might easily be led into error.” Virtue is found in the golden mean; as idleness in the spiritual life is a fault, so too is intemperate zeal. It is the duty of the spiritual director to war against the former and to moderate the latter. Almighty God could direct us very well without the aid of another, but to keep us humble He desires us to submit to the authority and guidance of His servants.
Our Lord has indeed bestowed a great benefit on us in giving us spiritual guides to prevent us from going astray. Many people think that sanctity consists in performing works of penance. But if a person of weak constitution were to perform works of penance, and thereby seriously endanger his life, would he be laboring at his sanctification? Assuredly not; he would rather be guilty of sin. Others imagine that sanctity consists in much praying. But if the father of a family neglected the care of his children in order to go into solitude and pray, he would be guilty of sin. Still others imagine that sanctity consists in the frequent reception of Holy Communion. But suppose that the mother of a family would neglect her household duties and inconvenience her husband and her children for the sake of going to Holy Communion every day—she would have to give an account of her conduct to God.
Obeying God Through a Spiritual Director
In what, then, does sanctity consist? It consists in the perfect fulfillment of God’s Will. But how shall we know what God desires of us? Thank God that He has given us a means of knowing. He tells us that by obeying our spiritual director we are obeying Him: “He that heareth you, heareth me.” St. Teresa says: “We must make our confessor our judge and then be at rest with regard to the affairs of our soul, placing all our confidence in the words of Our Lord: ‘He that heareth you, heareth me.’” This is the surest way, she says, of fulfilling the Will of God. The Saint tells us that she herself, by obedience to her confessor, learned to know and love God.
Speaking on this subject, St. Francis de Sales said: “We find the most important of all admonitions in the words of the devout Avila: ‘You may seek where you will, nowhere will you so surely find the Will of God as on the road of this humble obedience which all the Saints have recommended and practiced.’”
An Act Very Pleasing to God
Obedience to our spiritual director is very pleasing to God, whether it is exercised in praying, in receiving Holy Communion, in mortifying ourselves or in omitting these holy exercises. We are always gaining merit, whether we eat or drink or recreate ourselves; for while we are obeying our confessor we are doing the Will of God. Holy Scripture says that obedience is more pleasing to God than all the other sacrifices we could make. Obey your spiritual Father, says St. Paul (Heb. 13:17), and be without fear regarding what you do out of obedience, for it is not you but he that will have to render an account of your actions. St. Philip Neri says: Those who desire to make progress in the way to perfection must choose a well-informed confessor and obey him as they would God Himself. Whoever does this is sure to have no account to give before God of what he has done or left undone. If, therefore, on judgment day Jesus Christ were to ask you: Why have you chosen this state of life? Why have you omitted this or that act of mortification? You can, provided you have practiced obedience, reply in these words: Lord, my confessor ordered me to do so—and then the Divine Judge must needs sanction what you have done.
On the other hand, if we refuse to obey the voice of our spiritual director we run the risk of being eternally lost. “He that heareth you, heareth me; and he that despiseth you, despiseth me.” (Luke 10:16). God said the same thing to Samuel when he complained that the people whom the Lord had entrusted to his care, had despised him: “They have not rejected thee, but me.” (1 Kings 8:7). As a ship that is abandoned by its pilot, or a patient that is forsaken by his physician, so is the soul that is deprived of the guidance of a spiritual director.
We must be convinced, however, that no spiritual director can lead us to sanctity unless we are determined to renounce our own will. And as for peace of heart, remember well it is to be looked for not from the confessor, but from God Himself.
ooo
This article is taken from a chapter in The School of Christian Perfection by Saint Alphonsus Liguori which is available from TAN Books.
