The St. Benedict Center for Spiritual Formation (https://stbenedict-csf.org/), for which I serve as instructor and cell group leader, began a new course of training for spiritual directors this week — a two year program (Conversatio) offering an orthodox, classical approach to spiritual formation and spiritual direction. In one session, Fr. Jack King, director of the center, read a description of a modern spiritual director, Father John Eudes Bamberger, the late abbot of the Abbey of the Genesee, as described by Henri Nouwen in his book “The Genesee Diary:”

John Eudes listened to me with care and interest, but also with a deep conviction and a clear vision; he gave me much time and attention but did not allow me to waste a minute; he left me fully free to express my feelings and thoughts but did not hesitate to present his own; he offered me space to deliberate about choices and to make decisions but did not withhold his opinion that some choices and decisions were better than others; he let me find my own way but did not hide the map that showed the right direction. In our conversation, John Eudes emerged not only as a listener but also as a guide, not only as a counselor but also as a director (Henri Nouwen, The Genesee Diary, Image (2013, kindle), Introduction).

There is much more — much more — that must be said about spiritual direction and the spiritual director, even at an introductory level, but that is a good place to start: someone who will listen with care and interest and with a deep conviction (of the centrality of Christ) and a clear vision (of the way to Christlikeness); someone who freely gives time and attention (not least in prayer); someone who offers space and freedom for the directee to find his/her own way, provided that way leads to the Triune God as revealed in Scripture, in the Creeds, in the faith and practice of the Church, and ultimately in Jesus Christ, God incarnate, fully God and fully man; someone who has the map and has himself/herself walked a good bit of the territory.

I first read “The Genesee Diary” many years ago now, and it remains one of my favorite of Henri Houwen’s books. I have picked it up again now.

In another reflective moment, Nouwen writes in it:

I remember vividly how the Jesuits in high school made me write above almost every page, A.M.D.G. (Ad Majorem Dei Gloriam — To the Greater Glory of God), but I am overwhelmed by the realization of how little of that has become true during the twenty-four years since high school (ibid, p. 29).

That passage took me aback: twenty-four years since high school for Nouwen as he wrote. It is now fifty years since high school for me as I read. And yet, what he writes, reads true. Would that the entirety of that fifty years had been lived to the greater glory of God. But, there is today in which to do so, and, perhaps by the grace of God, tomorrow. May it, in his mercy, be so.