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What is Spiritual Direction?

Also called spiritual companioning, spiritual direction is an on-going relationship in which one person accompanies another in the process of growing in intimacy with God. 

 

The primary focus is the directee’s developing relationship with God as it is reflected and challenged by all aspects of a person’s life situation.

 

Problem solving is not the primary focus of spiritual direction.  Rather, the concern is finding and responding to God in the midst of one’s life.

 

Regular meetings with a spiritual director help one to pay attention and to become aware of God in self, others, events, indeed, all of life!

 

 

Can Spiritual Direction be a help to you?

   Spiritual direction can be a help to

   you if you:

          relationship with God;

 

          pray or if prayer has become

          difficult;  

          help in prayerfully discerning a

          call of God for you.

 


What happens during Spiritual Direction?

A spiritual director will ask reflective questions and listen.  

Since we believe that God communicates through prayer and ordinary human experience, 

    you will be encouraged to pay attention to your experience 

    so as to notice God’s nudges, invitations, challenges and confirmations.  

Spiritual direction is a time for reverencing and savoring 

    your experiences of God in your everyday life 

    as well as an opportunity to wonder about God’s seeming absence in your life.

                                          

Spiritual Direction is a ministry of
St. Mary’s Parish and is available for those seeking growth in their spiritual life.

 

Sister Patricia Tippen, IHM, has experience and training in spiritual direction and retreat work, and is available for these ministries.  You can call her to discuss your interest in spiritual direction, and/or to help you find a spiritual director. 
  (631) 581-4266, ext. 134 

Prayer of St. Francis

  Lord, make me an instrument of your peace,

  Where there is hatred, let me sow love.

  Where there is injury, pardon.

  Where there is doubt, faith.

  Where there is despair, hope.

  And where there is sadness, joy.

 

  O Divine Master, grant that I may not so much seek

  To be consoled as to console,

  To be understood as to understand,

  To be loved as to love.

  For it is in giving that we receive.

  It is in pardoning that we are pardoned.

  And it is in dying that we are born to eternal life.

 

Nothing is more

practical

than finding God,

and falling in love

in a quite absolute

final way.

 

What you are

   in love with,

   what seizes your

imagination,

will affect everything.

 

Fall in love,

stay in love,

and it will decide

everything!

                            Pedro Arrupe, S.J.


SPIRITUAL DIRECTION  

CENTERED IN THE WORD OF GOD
AND THE GIFT OF EUCHARIST,
THE MISSION OF
 ST. MARY’S PARISH FAMILY
 IS TO BE A COMMUNITY
WHICH PROCLAIMS
THROUGH WORD AND ACTION
THE DIGNITY OF EVERY PERSON.

ST. MARY’S PARISH

MAIN STREET

EAST ISLIP, NY

(631) 581-4266

www.stmaryseastislip.org

  

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