Digital and AI tools help with decision-making in areas such as driving routes and lifestyle choices. Similarly, self-guided resources such as Catholic prayer apps and podcasts can help Catholics with their spiritual lives.
But just as an athlete needs a coach to excel, living the Christian life requires guidance from a spiritual companion.
Getting to Heaven
Many Christian writers and saints have testified to the importance of being accompanied by someone who is prayerful and learned – either lay or religious – in navigating the spiritual life to attain the most important goal of all – Heaven.
The Church has long preserved the practice of having holy and learned men and women journey with fellow Christians to help them reach eternal life with God and the saints.
In The Imitation of Christ, a 15th-century spiritual classic, the Augustinian Thomas à Kempis wrote: “Do not yield to every impulse and suggestion but consider things carefully and patiently in the light of God’s will. Take counsel with a wise and conscientious man. Seek the advice of your betters in preference to following your own inclinations” (chap. 4).
Similarly, Saint Josemaría Escrivá wrote in The Way (1939): “You wouldn’t think of building a good house to live in here on earth without an architect. How can you ever hope, without a director, to build the castle of your sanctification in order to live forever in heaven?” (no. 60).
Rooted in Scripture
The idea of accompaniment is rooted in Scripture. In the Old Testament, we read: “Seek out the counsel of a wise man and do not despise any worthy advice” (Tobit 4:18).
In the New Testament, we see that Jesus, after revealing himself to Saul on the way to Damascus, sent him a human instrument – Ananias – to guide and form him in the faith: “Rise and enter the city, and you will be told what you are to do” (Acts 9:6ff).
These passages suggest a pattern: while God calls directly, discernment often unfolds through human mediation.
Tuning our minds to the Lord
An error some Catholics commit is to seek spiritual direction with the intention of finding human solutions to problems at work or in the family.
The goal of spiritual accompaniment is not to provide a ‘perfectly managed life’ according to human metrics, but to foster identification with Christ.
The subject matter of spiritual direction, however, is primarily the interior life, especially personal growth in the theological virtues of faith, hope and love, and the integration of faith into one’s daily life.
The Second Vatican Council’s Lumen gentium reminds us, “in every temporal affair [we] must be guided by a Christian conscience” (LG, 34).
The role of the spiritual companion is not to provide ready-made solutions to human problems, but to help tune our consciences to the voice of the Lord speaking to us through our lived realities.
The goal of spiritual accompaniment is not to give us a “perfectly managed life” according to human metrics, but to foster identification with Christ.
Spiritual accompaniment will not give us answers to questions such as, “Does God want me to quit this job for a higher-paying one?”
Rather, it opens up a new perspective for us that enables us to go beyond our human viewpoint in order to ask ourselves deeper questions such as: “Am I growing in virtue in this decision or am I doing it out of vanity?”
Spiritual accompaniment helps ensure that whichever path we choose, we choose it with a Christian conscience.
Walking the path of holiness
“The truth will set you free” (John 8:32) has often been cited when talking about freedom in the Christian sense. Spiritual accompaniment helps us to arrive at the truth about ourselves and God’s plans for us. In this way, we are liberated from confusion, self-deception, and the pressure to rely solely on one’s judgement.
A spiritual companion can help identify personal talents and the habits that have a positive impact on our spiritual life. He also collaborates to discover patterns, blind spots, or inconsistencies in one’s spiritual life, while encouraging one to stay the course.
In spiritual accompaniment, this freedom is not autonomy from guidance, but the ability to act with a well-formed conscience.
A companion who is both learned and prayerful – and who understands us – can help us configure our personal circumstances and gifts to climb the inclined plane of virtue: showing patience in a difficult situation, industriousness in a boring task, or charity to someone we find difficult.
This does not eliminate personal responsibility; rather, it places freedom within a relationship of trust and accountability.
For this reason, the practice of spiritual accompaniment continues to be recommended within the Church as one means, among others, of sustaining growth in the Christian life.
KEY TAKEAWAYS :
☑️ While God calls us directly, discernment often unfolds through human mediation.
☑️ Spiritual companions do not provide ready-made solutions to human problems; they help us listen to the voice of the Lord.
☑️ A companion who is both learned and prayerful can help us to become free to act with a well-formed conscience.