Navigating the Interior Life: Spiritual Direction and the Journey to God
Digital Logos Edition
Overview
Navigating the Interior Life provides a straight forward framework for effective spiritual direction and an understanding of how to experience growth both within and outside of a spiritual direction relationship. If you are looking to dig deeper, if you are stuck and don’t know why, if your relationship with God seems like something far less than you desire, this book will provide the necessary tools to better understand how to navigate the challenging waters on our journey toward our complete union in Christ—in this life and the next.
In the Logos edition, this volume is enhanced by amazing functionality. Important terms link to dictionaries, encyclopedias, and a wealth of other resources in your digital library. Perform powerful searches to find exactly what you’re looking for. Take the discussion with you using tablet and mobile apps. With your software, the most efficient and comprehensive research tools are in one place, so you get the most out of your study.
This volume is part of the Catholic Virtue and Holiness Collection (7 vols.). Take a look at the whole collection.
- Helps in understanding the need for spiritual direction
- Provides guidance for the pursuit of spiritual direction
- What Is Spiritual Direction?
- Do I Really Need Spiritual Direction?
- How Do I Know if I Am Ready for Spiritual Direction?
- How Do I Know if I Am Not Ready for Spiritual Direction?
- How Do I Find and Select A Spiritual Director?
- How Do I Set Up and Prepare for My First Meeting?
- Spiritual Director Responsibilities
- My Responsibilities in Spiritual Direction
- I Can’t Find One, Now What?
- Spiritual Progress Inside and Outside of Spiritual Direction
- Marian Devotion and the Spiritual Life
- Spiritual Self-Evaluation
- Navigation on the Narrow Path
- The Three Ways of the Spiritual Life
- Developing a Rule of Life
Top Highlights
“The seeker must make a life-time commitment to fight their way to God. They must commit to rising every time they fall, taking full responsibility for their spiritual life and growth, and never letting go of the idea that God is always ready to receive and strengthen us when we turn to Him; even when our falls are severe.” (Page 16)
“Docility is a humble readiness to follow God’s will for our lives” (Page 46)
“Instead, we need to break the pattern of a false, bootstrap spirituality that often results in self-delusion and spiritual atrophy. As St. Bernard once said, ‘He who constitutes himself his own director becomes the disciple of a fool.’” (Page 5)
“St. Catherine of Sienna in her Dialogue 49 brings this to an even finer point: ‘It is not enough for eternal life to sweep the house clean of deadly sin. One must fill it with virtue that is grounded in love.’” (Page 75)
“True repentance has three parts: one, the recognition of and sorrow for sin; two, turning away from sin (if we are on the right path, the first two stages bring us to the sacrament of confession); and three, doing good works that reflect a turning away from particular sin. A note of clarification is in order. The third stage of repentance includes whatever penance that emerges out of confession, but also then extends more fully into our lives as we walk in grace ‘and produce fruit as evidence of our repentance.’ In fact, the grace we receive in the sacrament of penance is often the very thing we need to effectively battle sin and live out virtue!” (Page 76)
A must read for all sincere God-seekers—one of the most unique and comprehensive guides to the spiritual life I’ve seen.
—Donna-Marie Cooper O’Boyle, EWTN host, speaker, and author of Rooted in Love: Our Calling as Catholic Women
I count myself among the many who have long needed spiritual direction, but have been unsure regarding who to receive it from or how to get started. Dan Burke’s wonderful new book is filled with practical wisdom and sound Church teaching on how to navigate and grow our interior lives. I will be referring to and recommending this gem for the rest of my life. Well done!
—Randy Hain, senior editor, Integrated Catholic Life eMagazine
Along with the helpful and concise information on creating, nurturing and sustaining effective spiritual direction relationships, the books dives even more deeply into how to live a true life of virtue. Dan Burke is a trusted guide to help you look at the roots sins that cause your separation from Christ and how to move beyond those with a Rule of Life guided by virtue that will help any spiritual seeker achieve lasting progress in his or her interior life.
—Lisa M. Hendey, author, The Handbook for Catholic Moms
- Title: Spiritual Direction and the Journey to God
- Authors: Daniel Burke, John Bartunek
- Series: Navigating the Interior Life
- Publisher: Emmaus Road
- Print Publication Date: 2012
- Logos Release Date: 2013
- Pages: 284
- Language: English
- Resources: 1
- Format: Digital › Logos Research Edition
- Subjects: Catholic Church › Doctrines; Spiritual direction › Christianity; Spiritual life › Catholic Church
- Resource ID: LLS:NVGTNGNTRRLF
- Resource Type: Monograph
- Metadata Last Updated: 2024-08-19T21:27:53Z
Daniel Burke is the founder of Catholic Spiritual Direction, the most widely read blog on the topic of authentic Catholic spirituality. Dan is also the executive director and writer for EWTN’s National Catholic Register, a regular co-host on Register Radio, and author of Apologetics of Extraordinary Love.
Reviews
1 rating
Kevin Clarke, Ph.D.
2/1/2023
I found this book in my collection after a software upgrade. Verbum should definitely not mainstream this one. There are some valuable insights in the book, such as "it is ideal to have a well-trained spiritual director that is also your confessor." Indeed. Elsewhere, however, the advice is confused or even misleading. The authors write that "it is up to the seeker to search out and find the soul that God has waiting for them." Spiritual direction, however, should not be approached in such a romanticized way. That could lead to a sense that the director speaks and directs for God, which seems to be the authors' position. The authors give some really questionable advice on docility and obedience in spiritual direction. To be clear, docility and obedience are suited to the clerical and spiritual life with qualifications, of course, but not to lay spiritual direction, at least not as the authors describe it. Especially in the laity's seeking spiritual direction, they owe no obedience to directors. Should a directee be obedient "even when we disagree or don’t completely understand"? The authors say they should. No, that is incorrect. A lay person should never follow spiritual counsel they disagree with. Understanding should precede action in the spiritual life. The spiritual director should be completely detached from whether the lay directee follows his or her counsel. Also, spiritual directors should not charge a fee. The author claims not to take a position, but roundaboutly does by encouraging it, saying, "our generosity is a reflection of the health of our souls, and for the health of our souls we should be particularly generous with anyone willing to invest their time in our spiritual well-being." I have increasingly found that directors are charging fees because of these reasons. What makes this book most deficient are its omissions: It gives very little guidance regarding the preservation of healthy boundaries, what sorts of limits the director should recognize, how to prevent spiritual co-dependencies, how to discern red flags (such as narcissism) in a potential spiritual director, nothing on whether there should be expectations of confidentiality, mandatory reporting (what if a directee admits child abuse, for example), level of theological education a director should have (in my opinion, S.T.L. or accredited Master's, at a minimum), etc. The authors suggest that seeking an educated director is an example of pride (p. 20); however, they forget that St. Teresa of Avila so strongly valued the erudition of her spiritual director that her director was the Spanish Dominican Domingo Báñez, professor at the famed Salamanca. Kudos to the authors for addressing a lacuna in the literature, and there are some goods here, such as appendix II, but I cannot recommend this text to anyone. Faithlife also needs to remove bad links (I see they took out the link in the book to Regnum Christi), as they need to remove the one to Fr. John McCloskey's website (do NOT click on that link!).
