Spiritual companionship through the ages : the development of a pastoral strategy for growth in spiritual life

Abstract

Last year - my second year as a Carmelite priest - especially during the celebration of the sacrament of confession, I continued to discover that deep in every heart there is a great desire to relate with God. Frightened and deeply confused, people are searching for love and meaning. Increasingly their search is turning to the possibility of a God whose faithful love is promised and revealed in Jesus. Since the Second Vatican Council, significant movements and developments in the Church have encouraged community, such as marriage encounters, parish renewal programs, and the rise in interest m retreats. Another development has been the restoration of the role of the spiritual director, especially in the lives of lay persons. As new vistas open in the spiritual journey, people have come to recognize the necessity of journeying with one another, of breaking through the aloneness of the journey and walking hand in hand In this respect, I came to realise that I could not yet fulfil the role of providing spiritual direction as I lacked the necessary skills, while bearing in mind that spiritual direction could not be given during confession. Another thing I noticed was that very often people fail Lo distinguish between confession, counselling and direction. This discovery led me to ask myself "what can I do as a priest in the few moments I have with people, to really facilitate and stimulate their relationship with God?" This question continued to be an energy source for the studies I am doing in Spiritual Companionship. During the course, I became much more aware of the pastoral value of "Spiritual Companion" in the life of the Church, which I felt gave a name fo1 what I was looking for, because God's Mysteries already dwell in the human heart and my purpose is to be a Companion on in the journey with the person with himself/herself, with God, and with others, and that this journey does not depend on me but on Jesus, 'the sole mediator between God and man'. From this I realised that even this companionship is not mine, but if I want to walk I need to do this through Jesus 'for there is one God; there is also one mediator between God and humankind, Christ Jesus'. (1 Tim 2, 5)