Spiritual accompaniment: listening to the Holy Spirit
Wednesday, October 13th 2022
A spiritual accompaniment on the roads.
In his apostolic exhortation Evangelii Gaudium (n. 171), Pope Francis reminds us of the opportunity for spiritual accompaniment in the Christian life as a help that every baptized person can ask for and receive from the Church.
To grow in faith and love, it is not good to remain alone. For two millennia, through the Tradition of the Desert Fathers, the Oriental Tradition and the Ignatian Tradition, the Church has offered the baptized precious help through the practice of spiritual accompaniment. It is a matter of moving forward « in deep water » (Luke 5:4), with the help of an elder brother in the faith, in order to discern, know and accomplish the will of God.
In his apostolic exhortation Christus vivit (25 March 2019), which followed the synod on young people, Pope Francis gives some keys to better understand this little-known practice (n. 291-298).
First of all, he reminds us that accompaniment presupposes to listen: if we want to be helped in our journey of life, the first thing we expect is to be listened to in what we have to say about this journey.
But to listen, for those who accompany, means being attentive to three aspects. In a first time we need to be attentive to the fact that it is a person who is being listened to: « it is a question of listening to the other who gives himself to us in his words ». In a second time we need to be vigilant to the fact that this listening is at the service of discernment: « We must have the courage, tenderness and delicacy necessary to help the other person to recognise the truth and the lies or pretexts ». Finally, this listening focuses on the progress — human and spiritual — that awaits the person being accompanied: what further steps need to be taken, so that this journey of life is transformed into a journey that brings the person closer to the Lord?
The spiritual guide has never experienced exactly the same situation as the person being accompanied, because everyone is unique, but when climbing a wall, there are holds that are not apparent at first glance. If an experienced person shouts « left » or « right », then we are encouraged to continue and overcome this difficult passage in our lives. It is not the counsellor who rides in our place, but he or she puts us on the right track.
The role of the spiritual accompanier is to support the action of the Holy Spirit in the soul and to give peace in view of selflessness and self-sacrifice. Spiritual accompaniment helps to discover what the Lord wants to say to each christian through the Gospel, and to respond with a gift. As Pope Benedict XVI said: « The invitation to have recourse to the advice of a good spiritual father, able to accompany each person in the deepest knowledge of himself, and to lead him to union with the Lord, so that his life may be ever more in conformity with the Gospel, is always relevant for everyone. (General Audience, 16/09/2009).
A spiritual accompaniment, if it is based on true listening, leads to the confrontation one’s own life with Christ, with His message of love, and to vision, in the light of Scripture, through the action of the Holy Spirit, of God’s hand in one’s own existence.
