Book review: Guidance in Spiritual Direction

A reprint of Monsignor Charles Doyle’s 1956 originally published by Newman Press. “Guidance in Spiritual Direction: advice from the holiest men and women of all time,” should be considered a guide book for spiritual directors.

The book is aimed at spiritual directors who are priests. It is not an easy read for the general reader. Monsignor Doyle wanted to collect information that would be pertinent to spiritual directors in aiding those seeking guidance. He suggests that all priests with the proper training can be spiritual directors and that they have the duty to do so.

He goes into great detail using various sources from early Church fathers, desert fathers, saints and other authors of note. His sources are Scripture, Saint John Cassian, Saint Teresa of Avila, Saint Augustine, Saint Therese, Saint John of the Cross, Bl. Columba Marmion, Saint Ignatius of Loyola, Saint Thomas Aquinas, Saint Bernard, Saint Catherine of Siena and many others. He quotes from them or refers to them throughout the book.

Monsignor Doyle divides the book into three parts: the purgative way, which is for beginners; the illuminative way; and the unitive way. The largest portion of the book is on the purgative way. On the back of the book it states: “your guidebook to the journey to heaven.”

This book is a product of its time, before Vatican II, that did not envisage lay men and women serving as spiritual directors. It can be a great help to spiritual directors and for those in their care. It is very academic. It has footnotes, but no bibliography or index. 

Monsignor Doyle, born in 1904, was a Canadian who wrote other books on spirituality, religious topics, the Holocaust and a biography of Pope Pius XII.  

I have personally been involved with spiritual direction, but not as a director. I have learned that usually the director should not be your confessor, but that might be the only possibility to have a director for you, especially for those outside urban areas.

There are not many trained lay spiritual directors in Oklahoma. Some priests and deacons would probably refuse to be directors feeling that they are not holy enough. I do not consider myself, even though I am a monk, holy enough, either. This book is highly recommended to spiritual directors as a “classic” guide for spiritual direction. Yet, again, it is not for the general reader.

Br. Benet Exton, O.S.B., Saint Gregory's Abbey, Shawnee, is a freelance writer for the Sooner Catholic.