Intecessors of the Lamb

To be a directee, we need desire to grow in relationship with the Lord. We need to be willing to put forth the effort. If you are a spiritual director and somebody is coming to you who does not have that desire for relationship with the Lord, or who does not want to make the time needed for that commitment, then they are probably not ready for spiritual direction. There really isn’t anything to direct, is there?

Spiritual direction is direction concerning the movement of the Spirit within. The Holy Spirit acts within a person, within their human spirit. It takes discernment to understand His movements. It takes a lot of discernment. The most difficult discernment is to distinguish between the movement and the action of the Holy Spirit and the action of the human spirit. As a directee starts to grow he or she will begin to see more and more the difference between their own spirit and the Holy Spirit.

A famous theologian once said, “Spiritual direction is a continual process of formation and guidance in which a Christian is led and encouraged in his special vocation, whether it is to the single life, married life or religious life, that by faithful correspondence to the graces of the Holy Spirit, he may attain to the particular end of his vocation and to union with God.” That is what we want to do. We want to always help a person live out that particular state of life to which he or she has been called by God, leading them to union with God. Father Rossage, who directed me on my thirty day discernment retreat says, “It is a process in which one person (that is the directee) meets with another competent person (the director) in order to seek guidance, reassurance, discernment and affirmation in developing a deeper relationship with the Lord.” Being competent does not mean that you have to know a lot intellectually. You must, however, know basic teachings of the Church. It also helps to know how the saints were led. But I think, for us, competent means especially and maybe first of all, does that person pray? Do I have a spiritual director who prays, who can even pick up the Holy Spirit? In other words, do you know the Holy Spirit? This is what we are always are after.

There are three parties in spiritual direction. Each one is listening and learning from the conversation with the other. There is the director, the directee, and the third party is the Holy Spirit. He is the most important person of all. Spiritual direction is an ongoing conversation - a personal encounter - between the director, the directee and the Holy Spirit.

Spiritual direction is initiated by the directee. Spiritual directors do not call them up and say, “Hey, I haven’t seen you in a month.” We leave them free. If they come and they want an appointment, fine. But it must be initiated by the directee for the purpose of growing in a life of faith. The director enters into this invitation of the directee only to facilitate the growth and the development of that directee. If the directee is not initiating the contact, it means that he or she is not ready or is taking it casually or perhaps that the timing is wrong. Often times it means that the person is not praying so there is nothing to direct. It can be many things. But the point is, the directee must initiate the direction.

The growth and the development of the directee is the highest priority. This, too, is determined by the directee themselves in prayer, in reflection and in relationship with God. In other words, if they want to pray, if they are journaling, if they have something to direct, you know their heart is in the right place and that there is some kind of growth going on. But the growth will be in proportion to their disciplines and how much they really want to be directed.

Spiritual Direction is not psychological counseling. It is not psychotherapy. I mention that because we live in a culture today where therapy seems to be the trend. When I came home from the cloister and started spiritual direction, it was reported right away to the Chancery, “Oh, she is doing spiritual direction and she does not have a degree in counseling.” Isn’t it interesting how people associate spiritual direction with therapy? I asked the Archbishop, “Do you want me to go to Creighton and get a degree in counseling or in anything psychological?” And he said, “No.” That was Archbishop Daniel Sheen. He said, “I’ll never stop anyone from praying and you pray.” He let me continue. So be careful that you are not becoming a psychologist or strictly a counselor. Spiritual directors get to know a lot about temperaments, we get to know a lot about different things, but we are not counselors with degrees.

Spiritual direction is not friends getting together to share the Lord. That is a wonderful thing. We are not saying that you should not get together with friends to share the Lord. But that is not spiritual direction. Spiritual direction is not for those seeking information, just to help them in their spiritual growth. This is the mind taking precedence over the heart. And curiosity is not a virtue really. Spiritual direction is not shared insights even in small groups. Although you want these insights, you want to see what other people are hearing from the Lord because it will help us in our discernment. But this is not a spiritual direction session.

Also, direction, for most of us, is not the time for the Sacrament of Reconciliation. Now, you might have a spiritual director who is a priest and who will combine that. Many times in the Church spiritual direction took place in the confessional because the confessor was an excellent spiritual director. It may have been the only time he had. I am not saying that it cannot be combined, but it is not the same. The Sacrament of Reconciliation is different than spiritual direction. The Sacrament of Reconciliation takes in our sins and faults. Spiritual direction should go beyond that. It will take in not only the sin area in our life, and our faults, but it will try to get to the root of these things and what we are going to do about them. It will challenge us to change so that we can grow. You can run in and out of confession, say your sins, and go right back the next week. Nothing has changed. With spiritual direction something should change.

Excerpt from Mother Nadine’s, “Spiritual Direction,” Omaha, 2005

09-29-08 The Need for Spiritual Direction

September 29, 2008

The Need for Spiritual Direction

There is a real hunger and thirst in people. We are seeing a tremendous change here as we travel lately - a change in the things that we hear and in the letters that we receive. There is a deep, deep hunger for God. So this is a very fruitful time. In other words, the harvest is very, very ripe. And God is placing within the hearts of His people, and in our own hearts as well, a deep hunger and thirst for Him, a deep desire to know Him in a very intimate way - not just to obey laws and precepts. That is not what He is after. He wants a personal relationship, a personal relationship with each one of us! To have that, we need a guide. Scripture says, “He who guides himself (or directs himself) is a fool” (Prov 28:26)! We take that very seriously. We need a guide. Father Dubay says that we need someone to speak to us of God, someone who already knows God and who has God overflowing in their hearts. We need someone who has the light and love of the Holy Spirit. We need a co-discerner. We are far too close to ourselves to discern anything very well. A spiritual director will help us to detect the movement of the Holy Spirit in our lives. If we are spiritual directors, the Holy Spirit will help us detect the movement of the Spirit in other’s lives. When left to ourselves, we cannot be not totally objective. We may think that we are. We may think we are detached from a situation until somebody does not give us back our favorite pen. It could be the tiniest thing. We think we are detached until we find somebody is sitting in our place in Church, “That’s my place you know!” The Holy Spirit has all sorts of ways of letting us know where our attachments are. We are just not totally objective in discerning our own life situations. Ignatius, in his rules for discernment, says, “For good discernment, we must be disinterested.” It is very difficult to be disinterested in one self. We do need someone else. We need somebody who is impartial. That is why, as we discern so many of the requests which come into Bellwether, it is not too difficult for us since we have no personal knowledge or interest in the situations for which we pray. We do not even know most of the people who ask us for prayers. We are disinterested. But when you do know your directee, it takes discipline to be disinterested. By disinterested we do not mean that you are not interested in the person, himself. Rather it means that you are more interested in the movement of the Spirit within them because we want to keep them on the safe path. A spiritual director helps us to be more objective, more outside of ourselves and helps us to get to Jesus and not by our own way but by His way, not my way but His way. A spiritual director will also help us to reassess our life situations – how we are dealing with our jobs or with the culture in which we live. Spiritual direction is different than confession. Some priests who are confessors are also spiritual directors. But we are seeing that less and less now. Other people are directing.A spiritual director takes in the whole person. Are you rested? Are you eating right? What are your feelings? What are your activities? Who are you associating with? All these things are important. You want to bring everything to spiritual direction.

There is something in our nature that wants to share. We want to share our times of joy with someone who can understand the movement of the Spirit within. We want to share our trauma and our pain. That is how God made us. He did not make us to walk the walk alone or to take the journey alone.

Excerpt from Mother Nadine’s, “Spiritual Direction,” Omaha, 2005

09-22-08 Only Two Paths

September 22, 2008

Only Two Paths

What is Spiritual direction? Though not everyone is called to be a spiritual director hopefully, we are all directees so we have an idea of what a spiritual director expects of a person under spiritual direction. .

Spiritual direction, in general, is really an invitation to grow. It is not a command. We are free to accept that invitation or to reject it. God is still going to love us if we refuse. He will still love us. He IS love. Yet, there are only two paths, and it is our choice, one or the other. One leads toward heaven and the other toward hell. That is a tremendous reality.

I hadn’t thought a lot about hell in my lifetime. I knew it to be a reality. I knew it was in Scripture and is mentioned a few times in the Gospels. But it wasn’t really until I was doing some deliverance ministry one day when the Lord gave me a deeper insight into the reality of hell when He made me aware of the Judas spirit. I think that, deep in my heart, I never really thought Judas was in hell. The Church doesn’t really teach it. Jesus just said, “It would be better had he not been born” (Matt 26:24). In this particular ministry the Lord wanted to remove this spirit and the spirit of damnation. That is when the deliverance was done - big time. I began to realize that Judas has a lot to do with this spirit of damnation. I am not here to say with certainty that Judas is in hell. That is up to the Church to say for sure where he is. But I tell you, the reality of hell really came to me at that time. You will find this to be true particularly when you are doing in deliverance ministry. You will find people who are having a terrible experience of what hell is like; they are almost going through it within themselves. So when our theologians and people who are experts in spiritual direction tell us, “There are only two paths,” we must remember that Jesus said it too.

There are only the two kingdoms, you are with Him or you are not. You will find that people will be on one path or the other. It is like the narrow gate. In Matthew 7:13-14, Jesus said, “Enter through the narrow gate, for the gate is wide and the road broad that leads to destruction and those who enter through it are many.” I do not think I ever heard Jesus’ words as clearly as I have in this context. He said, “How narrow the gate and constricted the road that leads to life and those who find it are few.” That is quite sobering isn’t it? Those who find it are few. These are the words of Jesus.

Our time here on earth is short. There is a great need for spiritual direction, so that the people of God are not left wandering around for ever and ever in rebellion and disobedience. We all know that when the Israelites were called out of Egypt, it took them forty years to get into the Promised Land. The Promised Land for us is that union with God. It took the Israelites forty years to make it. Yet, we know that they could have made it in three days. It was only a three day journey. Isn’t that sad? How badly we do need spiritual direction and spiritual directors in our lives!

Excerpt from Mother Nadine’s, “Spiritual Direction,” Omaha, 2005

09-15-08 An Exercise in Inner Healing

September 15, 2008

An Exercise in Inner Healing

I would like to take you through a little exercise. So get settled. Afterwards, spend some time writing (journaling) whatever God brings to your mind. The passage I have selected is the Gospel scene when Jesus was kneeling at the feet of Peter washing his feet. Peter did not really know how to receive that. Jesus said, “But I am in the midst of you as One who serves. Let me minister to you Peter.” So we are going to allow Jesus to come to each one of us and to kneel before us. Now, that might seem a little strange to some of you because we are raised to kneel to Jesus, aren’t we? We genuflect when we come into His presence; we kneel. But now Jesus is saying, “I am in your midst as one who serves. Let Me minister to you.”

We are actually in His presence. The room is filled with the Holy Spirit. Just try to relax and breathe in the Holy Spirit. And when you breathe out, just breathe out the Holy Spirit, the perfect love of the Spirit, to everybody. In your imagination (if you cannot see it in your imaginative heart, then just think it with your thoughts) allow Jesus to come to you right where you are, right where you are sitting. He comes and kneels down right before you. Just relax and allow Jesus, in His love for you, to kneel there before you. Jesus is there kneeling at your feet. Let Him say those words to you, “I have come to serve you. I want to serve you because then, in turn, I am going to send you out to serve others. Let Me kneel before you and let Me give you all that you need.”

As He kneels there before you, He looks into your eyes and you look into His eyes. As He looks into your eyes, He sees deep, deep, inside of you. He sees every moment of your life that you have ever lived. He sees all the heartache you have ever had, He sees all the joy. He sees back over the years. He sees all the times that you have been happy, that you have been loving, generous and He also sees those times when you have been despondent, when you felt a failure. He sees all the blessings that you have had and He sees all the tears that you have shed. As He looks deeper and deeper He sees all of the loving things you have done, all the things that no one knows about except you - beautiful things in your life that you have always kept hidden.

He knows that you really are a beautiful person within. But He sees those blocks; He sees those negative aspects of your life that keep you from knowing what a beautiful person you really are. He sees the things that keep you from knowing that you are a loving person. Know that as He looks into your eyes, He loves you so much, that He cannot stand for these blocks to be there.

As He begins to pour His love into you, He is going to be just like a magnet. His love is so pure, is so radiant, that the light that begins to come forth from Him, starts to draw from you all the darkness that is within you. As He sees that darkness within you, there are little specs of guilt, little specs of rejection, there are little dark spots of unforgiveness and broken relationships. He sees those dark specs of inferiority. He knows when you have been put down, criticized, judged, and condemned.

As He kneels there before you that darkness begins to be drawn from you and maybe in your mind’s eye, you can even sense that there is a stream of darkness pouring from you out through your heart. As it begins to come out into the light of Jesus, it is consumed in His light. Remember the Scripture that says, “Perfect love casts out fear.” It means that this perfect love diminishes this fear and consumes it. His perfect love consumes all guilt. Perfect love consumes all feelings of rejection, all self hate and all hostility. And as He continues to kneel there, all of the little shadows of darkness begin to come out until it is no longer black streams that come forth but maybe but lighter shades of grey. All the guilt begins to break loose. All the unforgiveness breaks loose, all the unloving action begins to break loose and all of it flows from you, from the center of your being, that deep heart level, that deep unconscious level, it flows out from you, consumed in His perfect love.

Now, you begin to feel lighter, more empty, more free - no darkness, no pain, no guilt, no hurt. Jesus says to you, “This is why I came - to set you free. I came to make you a free person, that you can have joy overflowing, love overflowing all the time.” As He draws this out, and you become empty, His love begins to move into you. That light from Jesus begins to fill every part of your being. There is that rushing of His love, that rushing of His light going into every empty place, into every void within your life, for long has He waited for your coming home to Him. He is filling you. He is filling you. He is filling you to overflowing; every cell in your whole being is being immersed in His love, every thought, not only in your conscious mind, but in your deep mind. Every unconscious thought is being consumed and filled with perfect love. Jesus is making you whole. He is healing you now in every way. And He says to you, “Now that you have given yourself to Me, now that you have surrendered your life to Me, I want to be in you and I want you to be in Me as I am in the Father and the Father is in Me. I want to be flesh of your flesh, bone of your bone, one with you from now throughout all eternity, forever and ever.

And now as He finishes and you are being filled with His love we give thanks to Him. “We thank You Jesus that you have brought each of us to this place of total surrender and that nothing - nothing - can ever separate us from this love that we are experiencing in this moment. Nothing in Heaven, nothing on earth, nothing in the past, nothing in the future can ever separate us from this love that we have from the Father through You, Jesus. And to You Jesus, the Lord and Savior of our life, we give all the glory. Amen!”

Excerpt from Mother Nadine’s, “The Healing Power of Surrender,” Omaha, 2006

09-08-08 Diamonds in the Rough

September 8, 2008

Diamonds in the Rough

Inner healing is a process. We must take one layer after another. There may be tears; it can be a watery process. It can be painful at times. God is calling us into an emotional involvement with Himself, heart to Heart. And it can be threatening to us because He is asking for a commitment. Not commitment to this movement or to that movement. He is asking from all us, commitment to Himself, an emotional commitment, in which we allow Him to fill us with His love and we allow Him to share His emotions with us. We allow Him to live His life within us for the greater glory and honor of the Father. We will find that, in this commitment and in this surrender, we have some ugly emotions that do not look quite like the Lord’s. We do not quite love like He does. People may think that we are nice and loving but maybe they do not know the thought we just had. But God knows and we begin to see, “Lord, there isn’t enough of You. I do not have Your full mind. I do not have Your full heart. I do not even have the fullness of Your Spirit yet.” I have these ugly emotions which must be given to God. We surrender them to God. Then, these fearful ghosts, these phantoms of the mind, become harmless. We find them to be as harmless as the tree blowing outside of our window when we were children. We realize that these things are not going to hurt us. We are giving them away. We are giving them to Jesus.

Behind a negative goal, there will always be a positive one. That is very hopeful. We see this constantly in the Gospel. Take Mary Magdalene for example. She, a prostitute, was anointing His feet. She loved Jesus and had the same desire now to be loved by God. She had taken that same negative drive, that need for love, and made a Passover to the need for God’s love alone. Jesus Himself says, “Do not lay up for yourselves treasure on earth.” That is a negative goal. We see this all the time in our culture today. Jesus says, “Do not do that. Do not lay up for yourselves treasures here on earth. But lay up for yourselves treasure in Heaven.” He is showing us the positive goal. St. Paul says, “Do not get drunk with wine.” That is a negative goal. But he says, “But be filled with the Spirit,” - the positive goal. All through the Gospel you will see the negative being transformed by God into the positive. So do not try to destroy the dark side of yourself. Do not try to destroy it. It is part of who we. Surrender it to God. Do not judge yourself, or condemn yourself. Do not hate yourself; surrender yourself to God. Surrender the dark side. Most of all, do not ever try to deny that you have a dark side. There is a book out called, “Make Friends with Your Shadow.” Make friends with your shadow and those parts of yourself that you do not like. Those are, really, beautiful, beautiful parts to surrender to God. God loves to transform! Give Him the material so that He can do it. Let God embrace that prodigal within each of us. That is the beautiful part of the Sacrament of Reconciliation. We have to bring something to the Sacrament for Him to change and He transforms us! Let us take our dark side to God who is light because in God there isn’t any darkness. It all becomes light. And, in this light, we can see what He is going to do with these passions, these feelings, these negatives. Watch what He does as He takes and transforms them. We see this all the time in the lives of the saints. This is why it makes such intriguing reading. You see all their dark sides and you see what God did. They didn’t hide it did they? They brought it out into the light. They brought it to God.

The Little Flower, as well as many others, said that these dark parts of themselves actually became the very stepping stones to sanctity. This is how it works: We use these dark little stones by bringing them into the light so they can become like diamonds - like really beautiful jewels. Every vice is really a virtue, which it has lost its way. That is very hopeful. Every vice is a virtue, which has lost its way. The virtue is there. It is the flip side. For example, the person that does not tell the truth is really a person that really wants acceptance and affirmation.

Then, there are people who gossip and criticize others but it is usually because they are bored with their own existence, or they really want to be who they are not. That can be good, because they probably do not like who they are. That is okay because we want to be more and more like Jesus and like Mary. People who gossip really need to see the significance of their own lives. And sometimes they only way they know to do that is to degrade somebody else in order to exalt themselves. So God can take that and exalt them.

There can be a person with a very violent, uncontrollable temper for example. And, actually, when he lashes out he is really lashing out at that part of himself which he does not like. Many times our anger, which is aimed in another direction – towards this or that, or even toward another person, is really being caused by something within me that I haven’t handled – something that I have not brought into surrender, brought into the light for Jesus to transform and to do something about.

Look at the anger that drove Paul to torture and to kill good people - Christians. Look what God did with that energy. He did not kill Paul; He kind of knocked him off his high horse. Look at what God did to make Paul surrender. Poor, blind Paul could do nothing. God knew how to put Paul in a corner. When Paul surrendered, that same energy which drove him to do harm now drove him to sainthood. It was the same energy, but it was now being used for God’s greater honor and glory.

Excerpt from Mother Nadine’s, “The Healing Power of Surrender,” Omaha, 2006

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