Sunday, February 17, 2008

Just call me Pedro...

Subtitled: why I need spiritual direction.

So, I have felt pulled towards finding a spiritual director for a number of years now, and this week's Women of Grace chapter challenged us to seek a spiritual director. It would be so much easier if God would just drop one in my lap so that I don't have to ask someone...but I digress!

Since I am a little bit of a type A personality, I harassed hubby all the way home after a "date night" about how to pray for a spiritual director. I was contemplating a novena, and I wondered about whether there is a particular Saint who might be of assistance in finding a spiritual director...maybe St. Teresa of Avila (after she came up in Women of Grace, Bret brought her up, and she turned up in Father's homily today, she's seeming very likely!), maybe St. John Vianney, etc. I'm wondering if my desire to do a novena is just to put off the inevitable need to just ASK someone to be a spiritual director...particularly since I was wondering if a 54-day novena would be better...

So, Father's homily today was all about how Peter was a man who just would not shut up and listen. That Peter was a man of great ideas, and wanted to do great things for God...but Jesus had to tell him to "get behind me, Satan" because Peter did not look at things through the eyes of God, but through the eyes of men.

I'm really not doing Father's homily justice (I did have a squirming baby, who shortly after the homily threw the biggest temper tantrum that the church has ever seen in the un-insulated cry room)...but as he spoke, I really felt that I am very much like Peter! I have all these great ideas that I want to do for God...but I am not very good at checking with God to see if what I want to do is God's will for me (I'm guessing that a lot of the time, it is not!)

So, I guess that maybe God is trying to tell me to stop procrastinating the spiritual director thing...I'm definitely going to pray about it...but I think I'll try to pray about it in a way that I can't control!

So, do you have a spiritual director? How did you find that person? Any advice for me? (I know, I know...let the Holy Spirit take care of it!)

1 comment:

Christine said...

Hi again - I was just wondering how close you live to Denver. Some one I know is studying to be a priest there, and he was my spiritual director for 2 years in college. He's awesome - we can chat via e-mail if you'd like, and I can give you all of his details - my e-mail's in my profile.

He travels all over the country to give Ignatian (sp?) retreats.