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Morris Plunges
Ahead, Overriding the Spirit’s
Powerful Warnings
Notice how the Spirit
was warning Morris about the course
he was taking, but he plunged ahead,
insisting that the Lord was leading
Him. What lord was this, leading him
into Jesuit Spiritual Formation and
Jesuit Spiritual Direction?
High Level of
Resistance From Conscience
Morris tells how he
was “experiencing a high level
of resistance. I was to learn later
that such resistance is
common…” (p.8). The resistance
is the voice of conscience warning
you not to do this. Therefore,
Morris just overrode the resistance.
He tells of how he had “twenty
days of resistance” but then he
‘called Louise Young. I shared
with her my spiritual journey and my
desire to explore the process of spiritual
direction.” (p. 8).
Jesuit Experts
Explain How to Overcome
“Resistance”
Morris tells of how
Barry and Connolly, two Jesuits, in
their book, The Practice of Spiritual
Direction, spend an entire chapter
dealing with the phenomenon of
‘resistance.” (Morris, p.
8). Therefore, Morris would have us
go to the Jesuits to find out how to
overcome the Holy
Spirit’s voice of warning us
about Jesuit Spiritual Directio
Jesuits: “The
Practice of Spiritual
direction;” “Finding God in
All things: A Companion to the
Spiritual Exercises of St. Ignatius
William A. Berry,
S.J., one of the Jesuit authors of
the Practice of Spiritual
Direction, has also written a
Companion to the Spiritual Exercises
of Ignatius Loyola, called Finding
God in All Things: A Companion to the
Spiritual Exercises of St. Ignatius
(Notre Dame, IN: Ave Maria, 1991)
Foster
Recommends Jesuit Barry
From the titles of the
books by those Jesuits, it is clear
that they are in the vanguard of the
Jesuit order in producing materials
for the implementation of Spiritual
Formation and Spiritual Directorship.
Foster comments on the Companion
to the Spiritual Exercises of St.
Ignatius: “This book of
reflections on spiritual teachings of
Ignatius Loyola is an excellent
treatment by a noted Jesuit
spiritual director and retreat
leader.” Foster and
Griffin, p. 299. (emphasis mine)
Finally, after much
“resistance” and fear,
Barry Young became Morris’
Spiritual Director. Morris describes
the ‘tremendous freedom”
once he took the plunge to reveal his
hidden self.
Spiritual
Director, Father Confessor
Basically, the
Spiritual Director functions as a
kind of Father confessor. Morris
quotes Elizabeth O’Conner
describing the process: “It is
an open relationship where your fear,
feelings of rebellion, critical
attitudes, misgivings, etc., are confessed…
Your Spiritual director is one to
whom you want to reveal your hidden
self.” (Elizabeth
O’Conner, Call to Commitment
(New York: Harper and Row, 1963), p.
201. (emphasis mine)
Whereas traditionally
in Roman Catholicism, in the
confessional the priest is supposedly
not supposed to see the person
confessing, in the new confessional
of Jesuit Spiritual Formation and
Jesuit Spiritual direction, there is
a face-to-face contact on a regular
basis at regular times (p.11) a la
Jesuit Spiritual Directorship.
Morris
Receives Article by Jesuit On
Spiritual Direction, Written For
Roman Catholic Orders
In this first session
with Barry, his Spiritual Director,
Morris says, “I shared very
openly about my personal history and
my family relationships…Barry
also shared with me an article by
William J. Connolly, entitles
‘Noticing Key Interior Facts in
the early Stages of Spiritual
Direction.’ [William J.
Connolly, ‘Noticing Key Facts in
the Early Stages of Spiritual
Direction,’ Review for Religious
35 (1976): 112-121.]
William J. Connolly is
a Jesuit. This article was published
in Review for Religious.
“Religious” is a Roman
Catholic Term for its adherents who
belong to a Roman Catholic Order or
congregation, or who are a monk,
friar, or nun.
In other words, the
education material generated by the
Jesuit Connolly for other Jesuits
Franciscans, Benedictines,
Dominicans, monks, friars, and nuns
regarding the practice of
“spiritual direction” is
now eagerly devoured by Morris and,
by his example and advocacy,
recommended to his hearers.
70% of
Morris’ Spiritual
Director’s Directees are
Involved in Ministry
In another note Morris
states, “Barry Young generally
meets with directees on a monthly
basis. It is interesting to note that
approximately 70% of his
directees are involved in some form
of ministry.” Thus, Spiritual
Directors are first targeting the
ministries of the Protestant
Churches, training them in Jesuit
practice, forming them in the
image of the Roman hierarchy. Even
the Mennonites are deeply into
spiritual formation. Their
syllabus has the Jesuits William A.
Berry & William J.
Connolly’s The Practice of
Spiritual Direction in their NC
School for Christian Spiritual
Formation as one of its readings.
Spiritual
Directors International
“Ignatius was, in
modern parlance, a good
listener.” –Joseph A.
Munitiz, S.J. and Philip Endean, S.J.
preface and introductory notes to
Saint Ignatius of Loyola, Personal
Writings (London: Penguin, 1996),
cited in McDonough and Bianchi, 111.
Spiritual
Directors International – A
Global Network of Confesso
Spiritual Directors
international is spanning the globe
with an organized network of
confession-hearing Spiritual
Directors. “Spiritual directors
International began in 1989, in a
gathering of spiritual directors of
the Christian faith at Mercy Center
in Burlingame, California, USA.”
–Spiritual Directors
International website, “Purpose
and History of Spiritual Directors
International.”
Mercy Center, run by
nuns, not only hosted the founding of
Spiritual directors International,
but hosts conferences such as a
conference March 4-7, 2005, attended
by the Dharma Realm Buddhist
Association, the San Francisco Zen
Center, and the United States
Conference of Catholic Bishops
(USCCB), led by Friar Thomas Hand,
and celebrated its 20th
anniversary at the Sisters of Mercy
of Burlingame. (Project MUSE
website.)
Secretary of
Spiritual Directors International is
a Jesuit
A Jesuit, James
Keegan, S.J., Mdiv ’06, serves
as the secretary of the group out of
Gloucester, MA. Cathleen Murtha, DW,
is the President. Spiritual Directors
international is all organized, from
world regions down to state levels.
Dominican,
Benedictine, Franciscan Nuns
Coordinate the Spiritual Director
Just the first few
pages of listings (out of many, many
pages) for just the states of
Illinois, Indiana, South Dakota, and
Michigan reveals that the
coordinators on the state level are
Dominican and Franciscan, Benedictine
and other orders of nuns, with OSF
(Order of Saint Francis), OP (Order
of Preachers-Dominicans), I.H.M.
(Immaculate Heart of Mary). And OSB
(Order of St. Benedict-the
Benedictines) appended to the
coordinator’s name. Some of the
designations of the Sisters are not
even listed in the Catholic
Encyclopedia, such as PHJC, and MPS,
SNJM, and DASD.
Thus, nuns, Jesuits,
and others are directing the global
work of Spiritual Directors.
Rome’s
Intelligence System
The confessional is
the greatest information-gathering
system in the world. This is why
Rome’s intelligence is the best
that there is on the face of the
planet. This is why, during the
Reagan administration, the United
States exchanged an ambassador with
the Vatican, and the Vatican sent a
Papal nuncio to the United States.
Now this papal intelligence is
flooded with the inner sanctum from
the heart of what once was
Protestantism.
Spiritual
Directors International is a
global organization, organizing the
global work according to world
fields, of the global confessional
network of Spiritual directors. Thus,
the Jesuits now have a global network
of confessionals in all denominations
from the Mennonites to the
Adventists, from the Presbyterians to
the Buddhists.
Spiritual Directors
International was founded at the
Sisters of Mercy in Burlingame,
California. Sisters of Mercy was
founded when Mary Baptist Russell and
her group of eight women landed in
San Francisco in 1854. Their
organization, Sisters of Mercy of the
Americas, is the organization that
has fostered Spiritual Directors
International, which has broken down
the world into regions and state
organizations to organize the global
network of nuns coordinating
Spiritual Directors confessionals.
Thus, Rome has
access now to inside information in
all churches and religions through
the confessional of Spiritual
Directors.
