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The Catholic New World


Lucy Abbott Tucker: “Most people—certainly the people I come across—believe God is active and present in their lives, but oftentimes, because of the rush of life, it’s hard to notice.”

Catholic New World/ Sandy Bertog

A regular feature of The Catholic New World, The InterVIEW is an in-depth conversation with a person whose words, actions or ideas affect today’s Catholic. It may be affirming of faith or confrontational. But it will always be stimulating.

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How to find spiritual ‘directions’ back to God

When more than 450 spiritual directors gathered in Chicago April 4-6, they came to learn and share their experiences, but also to spread the word that spiritual direction is not just for priests and members of religious communities. It’s for anyone, they say.

Chicago is home to several training programs for spiritual directors. Among them is the Institute for Spiritual Leadership, founded in 1975 by Jesuit Father Paul Robb. The Hyde Park institute—housed in a former convent at St. Thomas the Apostle Parish—has trained more than 700 people of various faith traditions since then.

Lucy Abbott Tucker, a former religious sister who came to the institute more than 20 years ago and never left, discussed how spiritual direction can help people with staff writer Michelle Martin.



The Catholic New World: What is spiritual direction?

Lucy Abbot Tucker: It’s basically a conversation between two people, and for me it’s very important that it’s two people who believe in the reality of God. There are some people who do spiritual direction from a non-God-based standpoint. I’m not sure I understand that.

One person is primarily the speaker and one person is primarily the listener, so you’re tending to one person in this conversation. That’s probably the simplest description.

The other things that I would say that are true for me are that spiritual direction is a time to talk about your life in the context of what your belief system is, to try to make meaning of what’s happening and to be reverent in front of those moments when we catch glimpses of God’s activity in our lives.



TCNW: How did you come to offer spiritual direction?

LAT: I came here to Chicago in 1983 to study at this institute. The training here has two components: a personal development component and a professional development component. Our belief is that you companion another person the same way you companion yourself. The personal component of the program invites you to look at your own life story and your own history, and to be attentive to how you have lived that story.

The professional component trains people in the skills that they will need to do that with another person.

When I came, it was more for the personal component of the program. I had been a teacher and a school principal in Connecticut for about 15 years. I thought it would be a nice time to take a little bit of reflective time off. I was 35 at the time; I thought you needed to be older and wiser than that to be a spiritual director. In a sense to my own surprise, I found a real call to be involved with this work.



TCNW: What do you get out of it?

LAT: When you sit with another person, you are hearing their life story and sharing in their belief that God is active and present in that story. That’s an incredible privilege.

TCNW: Who benefits from having a spiritual director?

LAT: I think everybody does.

Most people—certainly the people I come across—believe God is active and present in their lives, but oftentimes, because of the rush of life, it’s hard to notice that, and let that affect and be effective in the way we move through life.

I think people who really want to live what we call now a mindful life or a purposeful life, a life that’s rooted in God’s grace, all of those people benefit immensely from having the opportunity.

I have a friend who said the fact that someone has nothing more important to do for an entire hour than sit and listen to me is such as incredible gift. That’s in a sense what we’re doing. When someone comes in, we’re saying, you are the most important thing that’s happening right now. Nothing is going to interrupt that.

In some ways, the busier we are, the more we can benefit from spiritual direction.



TCNW: What is the relationship between spiritual direction and organized religion?

LAT: Many organized religions have some people who are doing spiritual direction, both giving and receiving it.

As I said, direction is rooted in whatever your faith story or tradition is. For most of us, that grows out of some religious practice or tradition.

TCNW: Does it matter if the spiritual director and the person being companioned are of the same tradition?

LAT: Not as long as the director is respectful of the religious tradition of the person who is coming to them, and as long as a (director) of a different religious tradition is willing to be a learner regarding that religious tradition, and doesn’t need to change the person’s faith practice.



TCNW: Catholicism has a long tradition of spiritual direction. Is that something you draw on?

LAT: Very much so. The institute was founded by a Jesuit, and we very much use Ignatian processes.

We do a class here on personal transformation for mission, (which) looks at psychological and spiritual paradigms of transformation. When we’re looking at the spiritual paradigms, we look at John of the Cross, we look at Ignatius of Loyola. Now, we also look at paradigms of transformation in Hinduism, Buddhism, Islam, eco-feminist spirituality—as well as psychological paradigms. We believe that as we mature psychologically, we also mature spiritually. We’re not any holier, but we are more mature.



TCNW: Among Catholics, spiritual direction has been more of a tradition among members of religious communities. Is that how you came to it? Is it becoming more popular among lay people?

LAT: I entered the convent in 1965, right after the Vatican Council. It was a time of energy in the Catholic Church, and one of the movements that was beginning then was the directed retreat movement, so I started making directed retreats. That was how I started going to a spiritual director one-on-one. It was my spiritual director who recommended that I come here. She would say that she really felt within me a giftedness to the ministry of spiritual direction. She was encouraging me to pursue studies in that area. I was a little more hesitant, but truly when I came here, I felt very called to this work.

It is becoming more common among lay people. This year we have 19 weekday students; 10 are lay people and nine are clergy or religious.



For more information, visit Spiritual Directors International at www.sdiworld.org and www.spiritleader.org or call (773) 752-5962.


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