Conchita de Armida received a tremendous grace of conversion at the age of about 22 and lived to 75 and received a lot of graces and she had some rather famous spiritual directors. Fr. Felix Rogier was the founder of the Missionaries of the Holy Spirit. Bishop Gonzales Iberra was a Jesuit, and the then famous archbishop of Mexico Martinez.

Of her experiences of both directing other souls and being directed by rather famous people she wrote a little booklet which I want to share with you in the process on spiritual direction and the relationship between the director and the directee.

Surprisingly the first rule that she has for the relationship is that the directee has to have a Christian world view. I was kind of surprised at this at first but then I thought about it and I began to realize this really means that one takes the Creed seriously. Bishop Roger asked Bishop Pilla, A Well how is it teaching in the seminary?@ And he answered: A Well they don= t know the faith as they used to.@

Knowing the faith is not reciting a prayer it= s seeing that we really believe God exists, that we are sinners, that he sent His Son and that all this stuff is real! God has done things and we are the beneficiaries of it. For instance when we help each other out I may do something for you then I say: A You owe me!@ What if I ask Jesus to talk to you about what you owe him? First thing you owe him is your vocation. It’s a tremendous grace. Are you grateful? Are you trying to make it what God intended it to be? Second thing you have to say is Jesus gave us his Mother. How do you even begin to think about the value of this gift or relate to it? He gave us his blood. We owe him. He prays for us, he= s a high priest. We owe his prayer for us. He gave us his life. We live his life. We owe it to him.

So it shows that this first rule is rather interesting that you have to have a faith Christian world view, that you really believe that these are realities that you can encounter. Now of course they are very rich and varied so you should feel free.

We are celebrating the feast of St. Francis today. St. Francis was deeply touched by the Incarnation. But that didn’t= t mean that he was just very happy making crèches because he made all those little Bethlehem scenes for people. It was profound. We heard this afternoon at the Office that he had this vision when he was near his death on the Canticle of the Sun. Well it was an experience of the attributes of God= s immensity and God= s indwelling. St. Francis is not a pantheist. He had a union with God that meant he experienced God= s immensity which means he saw God in everything. In the sun, in people, in everything. It wasn’t pantheism it was a real contact with God.

Then, of course, there are other people. St. Faustina was focused on the heart of Jesus, especially his mercy. Everybody may have a certain point of opening to God. That’s why the Protestants are right when they say you have to have a personal relationship to Jesus. If your faith has no personal relationship then you haven= t made that history yours and your participation in it. So what is the attractive dimension of faith that= s alive for you, that allows you to make contact with the living God, that is very active, even if we= re not paying attention to him? He’s very active. He’s working out your salvation and more.

So the first rule is a very important rule and she says once you get to talk to the directee about this then try to summarize it. She says the summary is to get the people to practice to do things consciously out of love for Jesus. Not with tension but just practice and see what you learn and how you grow. That= s the beginning of the seriousness of the relationship of the director to the directee and gives the directee a direction and a practical application.

The second rule deals with the fact that if you are to move in that love to the level of consecration - but we= re all consecrated. Everyone one of us who is in vows, we= re consecrated. If we= re consecrated that means we belong to Jesus, we= re not our own. Therefore the love acts have to change and have a deeper meaning. It means we have to give ourselves away. It means we have to learn how to surrender, which means we have to learn how to listen.

Right now those two points are important. So the person if he= s a religious or a consecrated person then their love acts change in intensity and concreteness. They practice giving the self away and learning how to surrender. It= s ordinary stuff I talk about. I’m not talking about some grandiose idea. I= m dealing with a person whose spiritual life is rather sensitive and so he asks himself sometimes when he= s driving whether he was selfish by not waiting for the people to walk across the street. He’s not

scrupulous. He’s trying to listen to how he can serve others all the time and how to give himself away. Or he’s shopping in the grocery store and what he can do when he= s in line by helping others. He talks about when he fails to do that. So his union with God is getting deeper and concrete. He’s very peaceful and sometimes a very joyful person because he’s filled with the awareness of God= s presence. So the consecrated level of our life is a consciousness that we don’t belong to ourselves. Therefore our whole time our energy and everything belongs to Jesus and therefore we give our self to him and we surrender to let him shape our life. That= s a learning so you have to deepen accordingly because Jesus moves us from the beginning to know him exteriorly and then more interiorly and then your union grows and that= s never ending. So whatever the Lord wants to accomplish in you and me that’s his business and ours in terms of cooperation.