Dear Master: Letters on Spiritual Direction Inspired by Saint John of the Cross

This book provides an example of how to act as a spiritual director in a one-on-one situation through correspondence. The directee has made progress and is interested in how to proceed in the more advanced or deeper stages of the spiritual journey. The director, St. John of the Cross admits that he is trying to "explain things ultimately unexplainable." 2 The topic under discussion is about how to achieve union with God that is part of the purgation, illumination and transformation experience. Some of the language and terms that both writers used to describe their experience differ considerably from my own experience (such as our intellect "becomes a mind-divine" 50). I was very challenged by intimate experiences of God's love that Ana and St. John experienced. Speaking of God's love that one experiences in the deeper stages, John describes the intensity of it as unable to be contained by one's heart (2), as a "wound of love" that "is not distasteful but delightful" (35) , as the enjoyment of God that overflows "into every one of your faculties and senses." (39) The most encouraging and yet sobering statement in the book was the following about what spiritual directors need not be: Not "highly educated but inexperienced, or one full of clever answers but indiscreet, not a listener but a controller, not a humble person but one proud of being so accomplished, not an experienced guide in spiritual matters but a counselor mainly trained in psychological techniques and personality analysis." 90