Spiritual Direction: Principles & Practices

by Robert F. Morneau

One of today's most eminent Christian leaders describes 10 principles of spiritual direction and 10 guidelines for prayer, discernment, and asceticism. Morneau shares a rich understanding of... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0824512022
• ISBN13: 9780824512026
• Release Date: October 1992
• Publisher: Crossroad Publishing
• Length: 144 Pages
• Weight: 0.45 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.5" x 5.4" x 8.3"

Customer Reviews

A Good Path To Take

Robert Morneau's "Spiritual Direction: A Path to Spiritual Maturity" proves once again that Bishop Morneau is a writer of great spiritual maturity himself. This book of essays, written originally as a series of articles for professional journals like "Review for Religious" and "Pastoral Life," allows Morneau's thoughts wider circulation. "Spiritual Direction" itself is divided into two sections: Principles of Spirituality and The Practice of Spirituality. The first section is more thematically unified and focuses of the principles of prayer, discernment, asceticism, and spiritual direction. Each chapter in this chapter posits ten tenets, substantiated by a series of quotations giving the source or effect of each tenet and a commentary developing its implications. The chapters in the second section are more independent of each other and less structured. They address such diverse topics as reverence, spiritual exercises for eclectic nomads, the defense of joy, and Quaker spirituality. I was particularly struck by Morneau's thoughts on asceticism and reverence. I hope that someday he will write more linking these two concepts. He argues -- successfully in my estimation -- that asceticism is essential to Christian spirituality. To Morneau, "asceticism, that voluntary participation in the full life of another, is essentially relational." This thought dovetails nicely with his chapter on reverence, which he sees as a "profoundly communal virtue that creates an atmosphere" conducive to spiritual growth.