How do you find a Spiritual Director?

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BeeSweet

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Title pretty much sums it up!

Someone laughed at me for asking if it costs anything. I’m asking anyway. It’s not like they’re giving me absolution, so they could probably charge money for their services if they wanted to.
 
BeeSweet said:
Title pretty much sums it up!

Someone laughed at me for asking if it costs anything. I’m asking anyway. It’s not like they’re giving me absolution, so they could probably charge money for their services if they wanted to.
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Some charge. Some don’t. I don’t. Mine doesn’t.

To find one, you start asking around: in your parish, among your friends. When you go to confession, if you have a good experience, you ask if that priest would be willing to be your regular confessor – that’s a good first step into spiritual direction . . . . PRAY that you will find one . . .
 
I write a check to my SD periodically to show my gratitude.
Even he did not expect it, I like to do it anyway.
 
I emailed my diocesan office and asked if they could recommend someone in my area. Within a day, they emailed me back with the names and numbers of 2 priests who had training as SD’s. Mine does not charge me, even though I offered payment.
 
About how much money would be appropriate, if the SD does not have a set fee?
 
BeeSweet said:
Title pretty much sums it up!

Someone laughed at me for asking if it costs anything. I’m asking anyway. It’s not like they’re giving me absolution, so they could probably charge money for their services if they wanted to.
Click to expand...
a spiritual director is not necessarily the priest one confesses to, although if he is a priest he will hear your confession. SD does not even have to be a priest. SD may charge if that ministry is is main or only means of support. Call your diocese or the various religious orders who have monasteries or convents, or retreat centers, in your diocese and inquire.
 
BeeSweet said:
About how much money would be appropriate, if the SD does not have a set fee?
Click to expand...
Prices vary. One director I know has the guide of ‘whatever an hour of your own time is worth’ - which means that, when I was a student, I would have paid about £5 (around $10), but my friend in a scientific research post would have paid £40!

Most retreat centres that offer ongoing direction ask for a set donation, which pays to upkeep of the centre - not to the individual director.

If you have a Jesuit or Benedictine centre anywhere close to you, I’d suggest contacting them, since they both have strong traditions of direction. Good direction isn’t advice giving or telling you want to think or believe. It’s helping you to deepen and mature in your relationship with God.
 
spiritual direction is also NOT psychological therapy or marriage counselling. Go to other professionals if you have problems in those realms. Spiritual direction is precisely that, direction for your spiritual journey toward union with God. Look for someone formed in the classic traditions of Catholic spiritual direction, and run screaming in the other direction from any director or retreat center that advertises or espouses new age spiritualities or practices. The classic book for lay people is Introduction to the Devout Life by St. Francis de Sales. Great books for modern beginners are Spiritual Passages and Journey to God by Fr. Groeschel
 
I can recommend a good book “Seeking Spiritual Direction” by Fr. Thomas Dubay. I heard him on CA Live and I was impressed so I bought the book.

I have just started with a priest who used to be at our parish, as my SD. A friend told me he pays his SD $25 a visit. I asked mine what he wanted to do, he said he didn’t want any money just pray for him. So I said I would put the money into the poor box that I would have paid him, and he thought that was a good idea.
 
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