Spiritual Direction and Meditation.

The Sacrament of Penance seems to me to be a most appropriate place to discuss matters of conscience.
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Spiritual Direction and Meditation is the title of a Thomas Merton classic, which at one time was required reading for a mystical theology class at the University of St. Thomas in St. Paul.  The class was taught by a very holy priest.  (For those concerned about orthodoxy, the manuscript received an Imprimatur in 1959.)
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I referenced Merton's little book yesterday, and realized it had been the source for my claim that most people obtain sufficient spiritual direction from homilies and regular confession, an idea other readers disagreed with me on in another post.  I still maintain that opinion however, especially as it concerns ordinary souls.  Lately there has been discussion on other blogs implying the sacrament of penance is not the place for spiritual direction.  That strikes me as very odd since the priest may be asked for advice on how to overcome this or that sin, or indeed ask if this or that is really a sin - within the context of confessing one's sin.  Therefore a minimum of advice or direction doesn't seem too much to ask for in the confessional. 
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That said, it seems to me the average daily Mass-goer, who is privy to daily homilies and regular confession receives spiritual direction in and through these ordinary means.  Of course members of secular orders and institutes are in the perfect position to receive additional spiritual direction from the fraternity's spiritual director as well as their community.
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Is spiritual direction always necessary?
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"Strictly speaking spiritual direction is not necessary for the ordinary Christian.  But wherever there is a special mission or vocation a certain minimum of direction is implied by the very nature of the vocation itself.
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First, let us briefly consider the place of direction in the life of the ordinary layman.  Strictly speaking, the ordinary contacts of the faithful with their pastor and confessor are sufficient to take care of their needs.  This implies they are known to their pastor and have a regular confessor.  The reason for this is that confession itself implies a certain minimum of spiritual direction.  The confessor is bound to instruct and direct the penitent at least to the extent it is necessary for a fruitful reception of the sacrament of penance.  Where one is sinning gravely, advice and special instruction are certainly necessary if the penitent is to take effective steps to avoid sin." - Thomas Merton, Spiritual Direction And Meditation

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(Disclaimer:  I'm not talking about all the mystics who read me - I'm keenly aware that you people really do need extended, prolonged spiritual direction, on how to get your locutions published, how to get in to see the Pope, and stuff like that.)

Practical advice regarding the perfect monastery.

"Narcissistic and micro-targeted society."

I have really grown to admire Br. Steven, a Cistercian monk from Our Lady of Spring Bank, who writes Sub Tuum blog.  I'm impressed with his maturity and understanding of monastic life in so short a time - he has been in the monastery for only two years and is just now home from studies.  In his post, Maureen Dowd, Vocations Director?  Steven applies Dowd's commentary on the latest trend of college students to shop online for a roommate that suits their personality as opposed to taking their chances with a random selection who may not be to their liking.  Dowd is quoted: "Choosing roommates who are mirror images may fit with our narcissistic and micro-targeted society, but it retards creativity and social growth."
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Br. Steven then launches into what I consider very good advice for anyone searching for just the right monastery, just the right rule, just the right habit, and just the right observance...
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"I’ve written before about the parallels that remain between the cloister and its child the university. I think that the idea of community is another of those places where the two still share something. Obviously, those who are thinking about religious life share a bit more than random freshmen entering a college, but even the most traditional religious are less alike than those with stars in their eyes usually guess.

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It is two years today since I arrived at Spring Bank. I find myself sharing the Abbey with a group of men who are all very different than one another. Certainly, we dress alike and do almost everything together, but we come from different life experiences, have different interests, and often see the world and our vocations differently. These can all be sources of tension, but they are also things that call us out of ourselves and keep us from creating monasticism, the Church, and God in our own image.  [...]  The tension across our difference is the sand that produces the pearl and grist for the mill that smooths our personalities over time. More than once I have heard it said, “Don’t ask for extra trials and penances, God has given you your brothers who will arrange them for you.”

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For me, this is the gem of Br. Steven's piece:
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I worry when those looking at the religious life look for a community that matches all of their thoughts, whether it is about theology, worship, or the world. The most traditional habit, the most detailed horarium, and the most conservative reading of the magisterium, still leave the day full of differing thoughts and opinions and require more walking by faith than by sight. The history of the church is littered with stillborn communities that were a collection of a would-be founder’s pet peeves and projects that left no room for others or even for the Holy Spirit. The rise of the great heresies and the proliferation of sects have their root in the same defensive narcissism. Likewise, many of those who leave the religious life after only a short while do so because they find that they still have to share their lives with other people, who turn out not to be perfectly like them after all. And, more terrifyingly, after a few weeks the postulant discovers that many hours are left between the community exercises of the horarium when he must confront all of the the unfinished business and ugliness within himself. - Br. Steven, O. Cist.
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Read Br. Steven's entire post, especially if you are considering entering religious life, or thinking about leaving - and for that matter, even thinking about leaving a less than ideal job - in the middle of the depression.  Perhaps what Br. Steven failed to note is that many times, the gyrovague who goes from convent to convent, job to job, always looking for the perfect fit finds out that he keeps running into the same difficulties, the same problems - until he realizes that he was the problem all along.
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In conclusion...
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In the end, living the religious life is to join a motley band of pilgrims setting out together to find our true home. We must accept that we travel with others who have their own thoughts on the route and, in the same way, accept the presence of a God whom we cannot contain in any road map or rule of life, but whom instead we must allow to engulf and lead us if the journey is to be fruitful.  - Br. Steven, O. Cist.
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I think a true monk is a realist - not a romantic.  Br. Steven is beginning well.  Prayers and best wishes for his perseverance.

Practical spiritual advice regarding 'discernment'.

De-mystified.
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From A Minor Friar:
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Sometimes the concepts of 'discernment' and 'processing' can be a smokescreen or a mystification of what's really going on within us. It's a spiritual pitfall I've noticed in myself and others over the years. It can very tempting to engage in an apparently diligent discernment in such a way as to "discern" red herrings, all the while living in denial about what our hearts and our prayer are really telling us.

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I once lived with a funny friar who gave this response to anyone who asked him for help in making a decision:

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"Brother, do what you want. You know why? Because you will anyway."
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It sounds cynical, but my confrere didn't mean it that way. He was only trying to help us cut through a lot of spiritualizing and take an honest look at what our hearts where trying to say. When we use spiritual language to remain in denial, we risk making decisions that are not discerned at all.

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The other day I heard a funny and pertinent example of just this sort of thing. A young priest was having a vocation crisis. He had met a woman. They had formed a friendship and he was tempted to run away with her. He asked a brother priest for help with his "discernment," explaining that he was going to take some retreat time during the summer to pray over the situation.

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"Where are you going for retreat?" asked the friend.
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"I'm going to her farm; I promised to paint the barn," responded our hapless discerner.
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"Brother, once you agree to paint the barn, the discernment is over."  - Painting the Barn, Br. Charles

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Photo:  Capuchin crypt.
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That's all folks!

I really like this guy.

Fr. James Martin S.J.
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He has a good post on Everyday Mysticism - his writing resonates with me and accords with another spiritual writer's book I treasure entitled Common Mystic Prayer.  A Capuchin, Fr. Gabriel Diefenbach wrote it many years ago.  Fr. Gabriel was the priest who heard my first confession when I returned to the Church - he was a very practical man.  He is dead now, but I imagine he has been among those who have  influenced me the most in the way of practical spirituality.
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I've always liked Jesuits.
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(Fr. Martin reminds me of Stanley Tucci.)  

A week of Sundays

This is what Easter week is.
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Today is my regular day of recollection so I'll be at adoration... like the disciples at Emmaus - my heart is already burning within me...
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Consider this if you will, how Jesus gently reminded the two disciples on the way to Emmaus of what the prophets said in his regard.  The disciples were obviously scandalized by Christ's passion and death, and Jesus, still unrecognized by them, said to them, "Oh how foolish you are!  How slow of heart to believe all that the prophets spoke!  Was it not necessary that the Christ should suffer these things and enter into his glory?" - Luke 24: 13-35
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"Do not be surprised that a trial by fire is occurring in your midst.  It is a test for you, but it should not catch you off guard.  Rejoice instead, in the measure that you share Christ's sufferings." - 1 Peter 4:12-13
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Call to arms... Call to prayer.
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Art: Velasquez: The Supper at Emmaus - c. 1620; Oil on canvas; The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York
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Praying for all of you. :)

The most necessary 'call to arms' of all...

The spiritual combat.
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"For we are not contending against flesh and blood, but against the principalities, against the powers, against the world rulers of this present darkness, against the spiritual hosts of wickedness in the heavenly places." - Ephesians 6:12  (So do not grow slack in your Easter celebration and relaxation.  The devil prowls like a roaring lion.)
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I don't know about you, but it seems to me the real spiritual battle only now begins.  I'm so grateful to my friend who returned my book yesterday.  The title?  Cassian's, Monastic Institutes.  All I can think of is that he reads my blog and realizes how badly I need this instruction.  I opened to the chapter on vainglory, noting in particular the following counsels...
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Of the Spirit of Conceit (or vainglory)
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Chapter 9 - How conceit is more perilous when mingled with virtue.
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Other disorders when they are opposed by their opposite virtues, are engaged in the open like battle in the light of day, and can easily be overcome or avoided: this alone when it is entwined with virtues is far more dangerously deceptive to the unwary warrior, as if battle were joined in confusion, fighting in the thick of night.
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Chapter 14 - How conceit suggests they might rise in the hierarchy.
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Often it instills an ambition for Holy Orders and the priesthood or diaconate.  If a monk has been chosen for ordination, it makes him imagine himself ministering with such piety and correctness that he can give an example of holiness to other priests, and winning many souls not only by his manner of life but also in his teaching and preaching.  Even one dwelling in the desert or in a cell is made to imagine himself travelling round different houses and monasteries, and converting many by the eloquence of his fantasy discourses.
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Chapter 18 - How a monk should avoid women and bishops.
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The consistent and still current teaching of the old Fathers (which I am embarrassed to repeat, I who failed to escape from my girl cousin, or elude the hands of the bishop) is that in all ways a monk should flee women and bishops.  Neither would allow him, once entangled in their company, either to apply himself to peaceful work in his cell, or to cleave to divine contemplation, in the consideration of holy things with undistracted eye. - The Monastic Institutes, John Cassian
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Art: The Holy Communion of Mary of Egypt from the hands of the monk Zosimus.  St. Mary of Egypt's feast is observed on different dates at the beginning of April - I always observe it April 2.

When the going gets rough, stay where you are... redux.

"Each of us has our cell and that cell can teach us what we need to know."
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My Bruderhoff brother sent me a wonderful article written by a priest I had never heard of before.  Fr. Rohlheiser wrote a reflection on the monastic counsel, "Go to your cell and your cell will teach you everything you need to know."  It seems to me Father's offering makes an excellent meditation about staying - in a vocation, a job - whatever.  It is the old proverb, bloom where you are planted, and echoes traditional monastic teaching.  I was pleased with what I read. 
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Sadly, other readers informed me that the priest's writings may not be entirely 'orthodox' and may contain elements of New Age phiolosophy.  I elected to take it down despite the fact other readers informed me his columns appear in diocesean newspapers across the country.   
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Nevertheless, I think my initial inspiration may be a helpful consideration for those constantly struggling with the idea of vocation - many times even after final vows - people spin there wheels thinking they are meant to be elsewhere or doing more.  Recently I heard about a monk I know who is taking a leave of absence from his community to discern his vocation.  Married couples sometimes go through that too... separating and ultimately divorcing.   
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Sometimes leaving may not always be the right answer to one's problem.  Looking back on my life, I realize there were times  when I left a job or situation I was unhappy with, I was doing so in order to avoid the trials of the former position, only to find the same issues pop up in the new circumstance.  The Imitation says, "Everywhere we meet the Cross!"  That is true - but everywhere we meet ourselves as well - and we're often the carriers of what ails us and quite possibly we affect those around us, thus increasing the discontent - unless we stay long enough, or rather endure the cure in situ. 
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Instead of basing this post on the article by the priest others objected to, I will first of all quote from 'approved' monastic writers, using the passages my friend Michael submitted in the comment box:
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Lessons from the monastic cell.
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"Go, sit in your cell, and you cell will teach you everything." I love the way certain of my favorite monk-writers address it as metaphor, and not just as physical space, just as Rohlheiser does. "The monk must build an interior mansion or cell in his heart, to which he ceaselessly returns in order to find the hidden presence of God. And having found it he remains there in loving contemplation. The Cistercian monk tries to live in deep peace even amid the distractions of the common life." (Andre Louf)
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"The monastic cell will be the scene of many stuggles, defeats and triumphs, many joys and many tears. The cell is like a womb from which I emerge again and again, reborn as a more mature, experienced self, ready once again to meet the challenges of the day. .....Steadfastness in the cell is the counterpart of stability in the abbey until death." (Charles Cummings O.C.S.O.)
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Obviously Rohlheiser's observations do indeed agree with traditional monastic understanding, especially as it can be applied to ourselves and our particular state in life.  Therefore he is not mistaken when he defines the cell as a metaphor and the importance of stability in the ordinary Christian's life:
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"Cell, as referred to here, is a metaphor, an image, a place inside of life, rather than someone's private bedroom. Cell refers to duty, vocation, and commitment.
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Go to your cell and your cell will teach you everything you need to know: Stay inside of your vocation, inside of your commitments, inside your legitimate conscriptive duties, inside of your church, inside of your family, and they will teach you where life is found and what love means. Be faithful to your commitments and what you are ultimately looking for will be found there." - Father Rolheiser 
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Thanks for the initial article DJ!  Thanks Michael R. for the good comments.
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Art: "Heretics Roasting By An Open Fire"   I made the title up.  The painting is by Canadian artist André Durand.