St. Teresa of Avila, Chapter 5, Way of Perfection:
Give great praise to God, Daughters, for this liberty that you have, for, though there are not a great many priests whom you can consult, there are a few, other than your ordinary confessors, who can give you light upon everything. I beg every superior, for the love of the Lord, to allow a holy liberty here: let the Bishop or Provincial be approached for leave for the sisters to go from time to time beyond their ordinary confessors and talk about their souls with persons of learning, especially if the confessors, though good men, have no learning; for learning is a great help in giving light upon everything. It should be possible to find a number of people who combine both learning and spirituality, and the more favors the Lord grants you in prayer, the more needful is it that your good works and your prayers should have a sure foundation.
You already know that the first stone of this foundation must be a good conscience and that you must make every effort to free yourselves from even venial sins and follow the greatest possible perfection. You might suppose that any confessor would know this, but you would be wrong: it happened that I had to go about matters of consciences to a man who had taken a complete course in theology; and he did me a great deal of mischief by telling me that certain things were of no importance. I know that he had no intention of deceiving me, or any reason for doing so: it was simply that he knew no better. And in addition to this instance I have met with two or three similar ones.
Everything depends on our having true light to keep the law of God perfectly. This is a firm basis for prayer; but without this strong foundation the whole building will go awry. In making their confessions, then, the nuns must be free to discuss spiritual matters with such persons as I have described. I will even go farther and say that they should sometimes do as I have said even if their confessor has all these good qualities, for he may quite easily make mistakes and it is a pity that he should be the cause of their going astray.
St. Teresa made reference to the importance of learning and spirituality elsewhere in her writings, as well, but I am not able at this time to put my finger on it. Trust her wisdom and experience, good friends, for she suffered a great deal from inept advice from those who had no knowledge of God’s ways in prayer.
I myself tried three times to obtain direction from a local parish priest, and they admitted to me finally, that they had no understanding of advancing progress in prayer that would enable them to give proper direction. I would suggest that earnest prayer be put before God to bring a person of wisdom into your life, and if none is available, to trust Him to teach you, for His ways of instructing the soul are infinite indeed!
