I just want to offer a couple of quick points, not a total answer by any means. First, a spiritual advisor is hard to come by, as many saints have observed. However, while I am critical of modernists, I was once, I admit it, helped by a modernist priest, or a priest who seems modernist. I was having a difficulty, and his answer got me through. It was, I think, an unnecessary digression and I would have got through anyway. But from that experience I would say, shop around a bit, and talk to different priests as you are exposed to them. Ask questions in the confessional as well. Second, be sure to read good books. Check
Tan Books for Tanquerey’s The Spiritual Life, which is a wonderful compendium. A book is by no means a substitute for a spiritual advisor, but there is much that is known about spiritual growth, and this knowledge has been written down and is very accessible. As you accumulate that knowledge, and apply it, you will find it easier to assimilate (or reject) things that advisors and would-be advisors tell you. Fr. Thomas Dubay, in his book about spiritual guidance, points out that reading is very helpful, and that one who reads books is not
really going it alone. Third, here are two quick facts you may have found already. (a) One of the objectives in spiritual guidance is to identify and work on the
predominant fault. It is pretty hard, from what I understand, to identify one’s own predominant fault. (b) Spiritual progress is comprised of the *purgative, *the
illuminative, and the
unitive ways. Spiritual books often organize themselves around ideas related to these phases.
