Preparatory Phases

The Disposition Days
 
 

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        The first six chapters of this manual represent one way of preparing people for the Exercises journey according to notation [19].(1) If a prayer guide were to follow closely the instructions in these chapters, this preparatory phase should be completed within one and a half months. However, as you will discover, these pages illustrate a flexible approach rather than a rigid formula. The material suggested could represent a year's preparation rather than that of a month and a half. They are intended to be like the bellows of an accordion which can be expanded or contracted according to the feel and need of the music being played. More of the theory behind these six chapters will be found in the Chapters 21, 30, 31: "To You ... From Ignatius," "Different Perspectives In Understanding And Using The Exercises," "The Early Stages In Ongoing Spiritual Direction." 
 

Chapter One

The First Interview
Introducing Prayer Unit 1

       During this and the next few interviews, one of your major tasks is to establish rapport with your directee. This may take even longer than the first two or three interviews, but the process will be facilitated by non-judgemental listening and respect. In this first interview, be careful not to overwhelm your directee with too many instructions. Remember how you felt at the beginning of your own Exercises journey -- your fears, anxieties, apprehensions, hopes, and misunderstandings. In addition to a warm, unhurried atmosphere, you want to establish a context of faith. You are a person of faith; the person you are directing is a person of faith. The essential work is the work of Jesus' Spirit who is present with you during this interview and is working through you. Hence at some point during this interview, you may want to pray with your directee for the Spirit's gift of wisdom.

        Start the interview by introducing yourself and then ask your directee for his name. Share some interesting aspect of your life, and then ask you directee a few questions about his life -- simple questions, such as: "Oh, you come from Hamilton. What part do you come from? ... How old is your son?" Don't forget to exchange names and phone numbers in writing. The atmosphere is one of two equals or two friends "just talking."

       After these initial attempts to establish a working relationship, allow enough time for your directee to express his fears and hopes. You might introduce this with such questions as: "Why did you decide to make the Spiritual Exercises? ... What do you hope for? ... When I went through the Spiritual Exercises, I found the beginnings very fearful. I was apprehensive for quite a while. How do you feel about beginning this journey?" As the conversation continues, listen actively; that is, listen by feeding back and checking out what you hear. Feed back not only the words that you hear but also the feelings that are being expressed. Through such active listening, you allow your directee to express himself more adequately. For example:
 

Directee: I don't really know why I'm here (a bit fidgety and looking away from you). I had the idea of signing up a long time ago ... but ... ah ... I don't know.... At least I didn't know.... There's so much to do.... Everything seems to be coming at me... (pause).
Prayer Guide: Everything seemed to be tugging at you ... clamouring for your involvement?
Directee: Uha.... Yes, every time I seemed to turn around in the past few months, people were asking me to do something.... I didn't know whether I could do it.
Prayer Guide: You put off your commitment to come for a long time because you experienced so many confusing demands.... You seemed to have a sense of fear that perhaps you would be taking on too much?
        Then begin to investigate how your directee uses scripture in prayer -- whether he has had much experience in praying with scripture, and what that experience has been: "Have you had much experience in praying with scripture? ... What have you found helpful? ... What struggles or difficulties did you have in praying with scripture?" Simply listen with those listening skills that you have developed; don't teach at this point. Rather, as you listen, highlight the positive aspects in what you notice. Do not comment or try to change the negative aspects. Sometimes at this initial stage, it may be helpful to share some of your own struggles with scriptural prayer but only if this helps to achieve rapport.

        Your interviews are not sharing sessions despite the sharing quality of the first few interviews when you are establishing rapport. As prayer guide, be ready to disclose anything about yourself that will help your directee to understand himself better, but do so only when, and if, it will help rather than distract, and then, only in a manner that keeps the focus on the directee's experience. Sharing may confuse what is being expressed. The danger in sharing is that you will hear and interpret your directee's comments according to your own experience rather than his. Too much sharing leads to the projection of your own issues upon your directee rather than allowing your directee to arrive at some understanding of his own unique experience that may sound similar to yours, but may, in fact, signify something totally different.

        After exploring your directee's familiarity with scriptural prayer to help you decide about an appropriate approach for now, discuss the structure of the time commitment during the Exercises: "When you heard about the Exercises journey, you probably heard that an hour of prayer exercises each day is a required minimum. How did that sound to you?" Again let your directee express any apprehensions. Discuss the best time of day that could be chosen for each spiritual exercise. Suggest that some experimentation might have to be done with respect to:

a) Place of prayer,
b) Time of prayer,
c) Length of prayer,
d) What items might have to be sacrificed for the duration of the Exercises
    journey; for example, a favourite television series, etc.
        For the directee who is overly apprehensive about the time commitment, you could suggest, at this stage, at least a half hour each day with the encouragement to increase the time as he goes along.

        Ideally, throughout the Exercises according to the notation-[19] method in this manual, a directee is to do an hour and a half of spiritual exercises each day except on the day of the interview. The structure of the day should look like this:

5   minutes preparation for prayer,
60 minutes prayer exercise,
10 minutes written Review of the experience of the prayer period,
15 minutes Awareness Examen at the end of the day.
However, there will be some directees who could commit themselves to an hour but not to an hour and a half. For these, the breakdown would look like this:
5   minutes preparation for the prayer exercise,
40 minutes prayer exercise,
7   minutes written Review immediately after the prayer exercise,
8   minutes Awareness Examen at the end of the day.
In an exceptional situation where a directee cannot really commit himself to an hour, he could gain some profit from this seven-month prayer experience with a structure that looks like this:
30 minutes preparation and prayer exercise,
5   minutes written Review,
5   minutes Awareness Examen at the end of the day.
In each of these situations, the time commitment is one of the essentials. Some agreement on this should be reached together. If you do not think that such an agreement can be reached in this first interview, then make sure that it is reached by the third or fourth interview.

        Let me make a few remarks on the importance of structure. First of all, the Exercises journey is a structured prayer experience, and that is part of its essence and effectiveness. This does not necessarily mean that one needs such a definite structure of prayer in the ongoing situation of life. Theoretically, a person could pray for twenty minutes one day, five minutes another day, an hour on another day, and still be given significant guidance in his prayer experience. Such a person could receive the graces of the Exercises with such a non-structured approach. In practice, however, a non-structured approach is very difficult to direct because a prayer guide has nothing against which to measure or ascertain what is going on in a directee's prayer. The key reason for the insistence on certain structures in guiding a directee through the Exercises is that structure gives you an important way to judge what is going on in the subjective experience of your directee. The outside structure gives a touchstone for discerning. It evaluates subjectivity. If a prayer guide knows what is being prayed upon, what the time commitment is, and what Grace is being sought, then she has a way of judging what is happening in the directee's subjective experience.

        Structure is also important for the directee. Ignatius is very clear on this point in the Exercises text: "The director of the Exercises has to warn him carefully to make sure that his soul remains content in the consciousness of having been a full hour in the exercise, and rather more than less. For the enemy is not a little used to try and make one cut short the hour of such contemplation, meditation or prayer" [12]. Often, time is the only thing we have to share with God; time is the sign of our cooperation with God. If we seem to be going through a drier period and "nothing" seems to be happening, our faithfulness to a definite prayer time is a sign of our faithfulness to God.

        On a more practical level, time for prayer is like other rhythms in human living. We live in units of timed activity -- time for work, play, eating, sleeping, etc. In a life that is occupied by many different activities, the time for spiritual exercises can often get lost if there is not a commitment. When there is a firm commitment to prayer, we discover how prayer seeps into all the other activities of the day.

        After discussing the prayer structure of the day with your directee, give him the prayer material for Prayer Unit 1. Explain how the Prayer Texts a) - f) are for the prayer exercise each day. The Additional Readings are simply there if he wishes added material for extra spiritual reading beyond the structure to which he has committed himself. They are a help to create an atmosphere or ambience for the day. For you the prayer guide, these extra readings could give you some alternatives in guiding: a) to extend the theme beyond a week if necessary; b) to replace the suggested prayer text if you deem it more fitting for the directee.(2)

        Explain the theme and the Grace that is being sought. Suggest that your directee keep asking for that particular Grace throughout each spiritual exercise. This explanation can be rather short and more suggestive:

"You might really ask God to show you how much God cares for you.... Allow yourself to notice how close God is to you.... Let yourself experience God's closeness.... If you don't experience this, or if you are frustrated, then tell God. Express how you really feel about it all."
At this point, you can begin to make a few suggestions on how to listen in prayer. Your suggestions will be made according to the needs that you have discovered in the earlier part of this interview. For example, if your directee struck you as being work-oriented, then you might say something like this:
"And when you pray, let yourself relax. Let God be for you. Let God show you rather than you trying to dig it out for yourself."
Or if he struck you as being confused or not focused, you might suggest this:
"And when you pray, simply dwell on one line. Let it stay with you -- something like sucking on a candy rather than gobbling it up, or like soaking in a bath rather than jumping in and out of a shower."
At the end of the interview, you might make a short summary of what went on during the interview. Then indicate the time and place for the next one. You could end with:
"Next time, we'll be spending time discovering how God has been present in your own experiences of prayer. Don't worry too much about it. It may take a while before we feel at ease with each other and before you find it easy to express what is happening. Perhaps you could jot down a few notes after you pray to highlight or notice what went on. But do it after and not during the prayer time. This may help us in our next interview."
Summary
Specifically:

Chapter Two

Goal Of The Disposition Days
Listening To The Experience Of Prayer Unit 1

Introducing Prayer Unit 2

        Your context of listening is the Disposition Days which are a preparation for the Exercises journey. As you listen to and converse with your directee, you should be constantly aware of this question: "What help does my directee need to prepare for the Exercises journey?"

        To understand this general question more practically, let us look for a moment at the first day of the First Week of the Exercises text. On the supposition that Ignatius envisages that the month-long Exercises of notation [20] begin with the five exercises of the First Week on the very first day, we can make a case for the following theoretical assertions concerning a hypothetical directee who is "ready" or properly disposed for them. This person should have these abilities and characteristics:

        This is a tall order. About this very point, a spiritual guide and colleague once commented: "Such a person wouldn't have to make the Exercises journey!" She was implying that sometimes we give the Exercises in order to help a directee develop these very dispositions.

        Ideally, the qualities mentioned above would be encouraged through the prayer of the Disposition Days which could last anywhere from five weeks to a couple of years! What you hope to accomplish through the Disposition Days is that your directee will develop sufficient openness in prayer to benefit from the Exercises journey from the First Exercise of the First Week. Don't be overly discouraged if your directee does not have all the dispositions about which we theorize.

        As prayer guide, if you judge that your directee is not quite ready and you wish to extend these weeks, then do so.(3) However, here is checklist of items to help you think about this preparatory stage. The items are listed according to priority, the first being more desirable than the second, etc.(4) My suggestion is that you content yourself with the first five or six items if you perceive that your directee has a long way to go to be properly disposed:

1)   Ability to pray using scripture for 45-60 minutes;
2)   Certain ability to relax in prayer;
3)   Some appreciation that God takes the initiative and that this is God's work;
4)   Ability to make the Review with sufficient detail to remember some
      of the things that have happened in his prayer;
5)   Experience of being a creature, both dependent and loved;
6)   Growing desire to be open to God's communication;
7)   Some understanding of what it means to be spiritually free,
      at least an intellectual grasp of this, and a desire for this;
8)   Ability to ask for a Grace and the knowledge that this is important;
9)   Ability to make the Awareness Examen;
10) Use of different prayer postures;
11) Sense of God's holiness;
12) Open attitude towards life -- life as mystery rather than problem;
13) Realistic acceptance of his gifts and weaknesses;
14) Awareness of the existence of hidden motives and urgings in his heart.
        This list is only partial, but it will serve as a kind of checklist for you to see how you can help your directee. Some items, such as 9), need to be explained; other items, such as 12), need to be encouraged so that your directee's interior processes move in that direction. Most items need both. As you probably remember from your own Exercises journey, some concepts could be grasped only after they were experienced even though they needed an explanation ahead of time. The Review, for example, only makes sense and is understood after the directee has had good experiences of its practice.

        Hopefully, by the end of these Disposition Days, your directee will have developed or deepened the Contemplative Attitude. This is an openness -- a listening heart, an ability to let go and let God, an ability to allow himself to react to God's influences rather than to control his prayer. A person has developed the Contemplative Attitude when one allows oneself to be surprised in prayer; that is, when God's word can reveal the secret emotions of one's heart. A person has the Contemplative Attitude when the mystery of God is allowed to touch one's own mystery, when one's real life is affected by God's word.

        There is always a need for balance! Here are some of the stereotypical ways that directees show that they do not have the Contemplative Attitude. First, there is the intellectualizer who finds lessons during his prayer. He controls what he prays over by turning his prayer into a kind of bible study. Often he is interested in concepts, ideals, the right thing, external law, right order, duty.

        Second, there is the person who cannot concentrate and focus. He seems to be forever circling the issue. Sometimes this is due to an unwillingness to face certain personal issues in his life, a refusal to notice his real feelings. Often he seems to misunderstand what you are saying and gets excited about the wrong things. He seems incapable of grasping the essence of things.

        Third, there is the "fantasizer" who exaggerates issues. The material he surfaces can often be highly emotional and even symbolic. At times he is so melodramatic in his expression of his prayer experiences that he seems to be out of touch with reality.

        With directees who manifest some of these characteristics, your approach ought to encourage balance. The intellectualizer needs to learn gradually how to pay attention to feelings. The person who cannot concentrate must gradually learn to pay attention to one thing rather than twenty-five different things. The fantasizer needs to attend more and more to the cognitive component of the material over which he is praying.

        No doubt, because the Exercises journey is a structured experience, one of your roles in this dispositional phase is to do some teaching -- Review, posture, Awareness Examen, etc. Nevertheless, encouraging your directee to notice his interior experiences is your key role(5) in preparing him for the Exercises journey. Noticing what is going on in his interior experience during prayer is the single most effective way of developing the Contemplative Attitude. How do you do this? By assisting your directee to articulate his personal interior experiences. This assistance is done both directly and indirectly.

        In the more direct approach, begin by asking non-threatening, somewhat external, questions. Then, gradually move to questions which call for more interior, somewhat feeling, responses. At first, questions such as these would be suitable:

        If your directee remains on a more superficial level, ask clarifying questions, but be content with the superficial character of his responses. Later, when he seems to be more at home with you and with what is happening in his prayer, facilitate his articulation of the deeper significance of his prayer experiences: "Let's talk more about your experience of that psalm. What struck you most? ... How did it make you feel?" In time you might even suggest some alternative feeling words to choose from: "Did it make you feel good? ... happy? ... sad? ... apathetic? ... hopeful? ... discouraged?"

        Seldom should a prayer guide ask, "Why?" Think back to any of your own experiences of trying to express something and of your listener asking you, "Why did you feel that way? ... Why did that strike you?" ... and other questions probing for reasons. What was your reaction when you were asked such questions? If your experiences are like most people's, you probably became detracted from what you were trying to express. Why-type questions are threatening. Human relations theory based on sound practice indicates that such probing questions are usually not helpful. They hinder rather than foster rapport and communication. This is especially true at this stage.(6)

        In general, as this disposition phase continues, you will be helping your directee to articulate and identify his feelings and thoughts about life that are surfacing through his prayer. As these feelings and heartfelt thoughts become more evident, encourage him to express them to God: "Did you talk to God about these feelings? ... Don't be afraid to express how you really feel when you are at prayer." Sometimes it helps to explain the Colloquy as being a two-way conversation with God: "Imagine Jesus sitting across from you. Tell him what is on your mind and what is in your heart. Then be silent and imagine Jesus responding to you. Together you enter into conversation."

        You help your directee to express more effectively life's deeper meanings that are surfacing by using indirect questions which feed back what you are hearing in an open-ended way:

PG:   How did the psalm make you feel?
D:     (longish pause) ... It got me a bit rattled.... It seems crazy to react
         that way but I did....
PG:    You were surprised that you got a bit upset....
D:       Yes, I was.... I really believe that God cares for me and so I
          couldn't understand why I was rattled. After all, I am the creature
          and God is the creator....
PG:     (commenting tentatively) ... You didn't expect such a rattling
           experience because you really believe how much God cares for you.
        You may have begun with some external direct questions which called for somewhat superficial responses. Now, however, little by little, you can move to a more indirect approach as your directee begins to unfold deeper responses. No doubt there will be some directees who respond on this deeper level almost immediately. Helping your directee notice what is going on in his interior experience facilitates the emergence of the Contemplative Attitude. It assists him in becoming more conscious of what is really present in his prayer experiences. This encourages him to make these inner reactions available to God.

        It will become important to encourage concreteness as your directee is articulating his experience. Generalizations can mean very many things. The statement, "I have found that I was really carrying the cross in the past week," can mean "I had an embarrassing fight with my son who confronted me on one of my weaknesses which I have been trying to hide," ... or it can mean "I was filled with distractions during my prayer and found it very difficult because these distractions concern things I do not feel comfortable about." Hence the prayer guide will call for, in various gentle and careful ways, the meaning behind these general expressions: "Excuse me, but you mentioned something about carrying the cross. I'm sorry but I can't get hold of what you mean...." or "Would you care to talk more about this difficult time you had?" or "Your week was filled with many struggles.... It was like carrying a cross?"

        When a person is unaware of deeper reactions being touched off in prayer, God seems distant or impersonal. It is as if one is hiding something from one's lover. When we hide something from someone we love, we feel more distant from that person. We do this to remain on safe territory. When a directee is unaware of his deeper reactions, he needs the help of the prayer guide to help him gently allow these reactions to surface. There is no significant growth during the Exercises journey unless God is allowed to influence one's real interior reactions that are presently needing to surface.

        Often the reason why a person is not capable of allowing God to influence his deeper interior reactions is connected to his false images of God. Even without knowing it, a person might be relating to God as tyrant, movie director, divine candy machine, grand designer, judge, false lover, or with combinations of these images. False images relate to God, to life, to others and to self. They influence how we listen to or avoid God's word. Basically the Disposition Days are intended to help correct these false images, or at least, to set the stage for their transformation so that a person becomes able to hear God's word. Like ourselves, our directees are not able to make contact easily with those false images touched off in prayer. If we recognize how long it has taken ourselves to correct our own false images, we will realize how long it will probably take our directees to deal with theirs.

        The concept of images can be a helpful instrument to reflect upon how one relates to life and to God. In many ways, the journey of life is made up of a transformation of images. The image one has of marriage or career at one point in one's life is not the same as the image one has later. Images are connected with a whole spectrum of historical and psychological events in the past which need to be healed or accepted or acknowledged. They are connected to teachings concerning self and God which have been ingested or appropriated over the years. Images are a coalescence of beliefs, cultural mores, self-images, thoughts, memories, imaginative bits of experiences.(7) Throughout, be attentive to how your directee is relating to God and to what images that might be operative in his life. Sometimes it is even helpful to raise this notion of images with your directee.

        How does one discover such images that are operative in one's life? By praying over the true images of God and by noticing how one reacts to them. After you help your directee notice how he is being affected in prayer, you can invite him to express his real feelings and memories that are being touched off. Gradually you can then suggest that he ask God to give further enlightenment on those images which are hindering a more personal relationship, and in time, to change them. The shift of images, with its consequent shifts in one's consciousness and relationships with others and the world, may take place much later after the Exercises journey is over.

        So much for some general comments that apply to the Disposition Days and to the whole Exercises journey. Now more specifically I deal with the second interview.

        After the normal time for getting settled and the bit of chit-chat, you may want to begin the session with a short prayer. This acts as a way of continuing the faith context and getting to the centre of things quickly; namely, what is happening in your directee's prayer over the past week. But this opening prayer is short. This is not a faith-sharing session and it is not a prayer session. Being too proper and careful about this prayer runs the risk of "pietizing" the atmosphere. If one makes the atmosphere of the interview too pious, an atmosphere is generated that may hinder rather than help the directee's openness. Certain expectations are set up: a certain rhetoric becomes more acceptable, and in that atmosphere, the directee may relate to you, and you may relate to the directee, in non-adult ways.

        Then you might begin with the question, "What has been happening in your prayer this week?" Often a directee at this point will not focus upon his prayer directly but will talk around it. This is healthy since it takes quite a while for a person to focus immediately on one's prayer experience. Remember how long it may have taken you! At this point what you need to listen for is:

a) Whether he is able to pray with scripture and has been faithful
    to the prayer time each day;
b) How he prays from scripture;
c) What may help to make his prayer more fruitful -- something on
    posture - or relaxation - or praying for a Grace - or dwelling on a
    point or verse of the scripture text.
        After this conversation in which there will be much listening and perhaps a little teaching, you can begin to focus more directly on the experience of the actual prayer times. If you think that it would help, you might suggest that your directee express what went on in only one of the more significant prayer exercises. Remember the purpose here is for him to learn how to articulate his interior experience. "Make haste slowly" as the maxim goes.

        Since your directee will be expressing what went on as he prayed over the scripture texts of Prayer Unit 1, try to note how he is relating to an image of God as near -- as nurturing, as mothering, as providing, as caring. If possible, you will begin to encourage the expression of his interior reactions and help him to notice them, too. Remember, in many instances, it may take several weeks before he articulates his reactions easily and before his deeper reactions begin to emerge.

        After listening to the way in which your directee relates to the scripture texts on God's nearness, you may need to spend some time just talking with each other. Last week you introduced yourselves a bit and now you may want to find out more about each other.

        Somewhere in this session, make sure you explain how to make the Review of prayer. Stress that the Review is not a blow-by-blow description:

        This is one of the most important spiritual exercises. At some point in the next few interviews you will need to remind your directee of its importance: "The key question to ask yourself for the Review is, `What happened in me during the prayer exercise?' This question does not invite you to put down what ideas you had. Rather it asks you how you felt about the thoughts that spontaneously occurred in you during the prayer exercise itself...." The Review is an instrument that helps your directee to notice what is happening in prayer, on his own without your facilitation. Practice in the making of the Review will, in time, empower your directee to discern his own spiritual movements.

        Towards the end of the interview session, give out Prayer Unit 2 on dependence on God and God's gift of God's self. As you give this material, focus your remarks according to what you have heard throughout this past interview.

Summary

Specifically: Generally:

 
 

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Endnotes for Chapters 1 and 2

1.The preparatory phase for the notation-[19] Exercises journey, presented in this manual, presumes that a directee either has already received guidance and development in prayer or is able to make use of these structures easily. If this is the situation of your directee, these first six chapters represent a revisiting, a solidifying of the methods and structures presumed at the beginning of the Exercises journey.

If this is not the situation of your directee, these first six chapters represent, in a collapsed form, the work of preparation that may take a longer period of time than that presented in this manual.

One of the very useful approaches that I have not given in this manual for this preparatory phase is the `blessed-history' approach. This approach became accessible to spiritual directors through the work of John J. English, S.J., and the Guelph Centre of Spirituality at the time when many people in North America became interested in discovering their roots and when psychological studies were making family-of-origin techniques popular. The `blessed-history' approach has become significant as an instrument to facilitate the preparatory phase for the Exercises journey. The reason that I have not suggested it is simply the fact that I have conceived this section as a training manual for beginning spiritual directors and prayer guides desiring to guide directees in the notation-[19] Exercises. When a prayer guide uses the approach of this manual, a directee inevitably deals with his `blessed history' in a less formal way. But when the director of the Exercises is not a seasoned director, the reverse does not usually follow; namely, that when a directee prays through his `blessed history,' he is automatically being prepared to make use of the structures of the Exercises.

For an understanding behind the use of one's `blessed history' in various settings of spiritual direction consult John J. English, S.J., Spiritual Freedom: From an Experience of the Ignatian Exercises to the Art of Spiritual Guidance, 2nd Edition (Chicago: Loyola University Press, 1995), Chapter 17, "Life Experienced as Graced History," p.261ff.

For some useful techniques to facilitate a directee's prayer over his `blessed history,' consult my Orientations, Vol. 1: A Collection of Helps for Prayer (Guelph: Loyola House, 1994), "My Blessed History," pp.109-104; "Remembering God's Presence in my History," pp.115-118.

2.The prayer units propose material for prayer exercises each day except on the day of the interview. Supplementary prayer units after Prayer Unit 30 give some alternate approaches.

If you desire that a prayer exercise be made on the day of the interview, you could suggest a Repetition or a special reflection period in preparation for the interview session or another prayer exercise using a scripture text from one of the Additional Readings.

All the prayer units have been set up as if you were to meet with your directee on the day after the f) prayer period in each unit. However, as the Exercises journey progresses, it may be more helpful to organize the interviews in such a way that you meet with your directee on the day after the two new prayer exercises -- usually the a) and b) segments on each prayer unit -- and before the Repetitions. The reason for this is that Repetition is intended to further the spiritual movements taking place. When you help your directee to recognize and encourage the forward movement already taking place in his prayer periods, discernment, more properly speaking, occurs.

3.For this, you can use prayer materials outlined in several places in Orientations, Vol. 1: A Collection of Helps for Prayer (Guelph: Loyola House, 1994).

4.In this manual, Chapter 31, "Early Stages In Ongoing Spiritual Direction," demonstrates how this list is derived and how it can be usefully categorized under four basic headings.

5.Consult the chapter on noticing interior facts in The Practice of Spiritual Direction (New York: The Seabury Press, 1982), by William A. Barry, S.J., and William J. Connolly, S.J.

6.Later on, a developed relationship with trust and rapport makes up for a multitude of listening blunders! When you have empowered your directee to begin discerning for himself, the quality of trust and mutuality makes up for your slip-ups. For further help in these listening skills, consult Margaret Ferris, Compassioning, Basic Counselling Skills for Christian Care-Givers (Kansas City: Sheed and Ward, 1993).

7.On the transformation of images, consult John English, S.J., Spiritual Freedom (Chicago: Loyola University Press, 1995), Chapter 16, "Transformation: A Change of Images," p.239ff.

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