Questions and Answers
When discussing questions of morality, reference is often made to the “natural law.” What is that “law”?
The natural law is, according to Saint Thomas, nothing other than the participation of the rational creature in the eternal law. Therefore, we must begin with the notion of eternal law. St. Thomas explains that it is the plan of divine wisdom by which God directs all the actions and movements of creatures in order to the common good of the entire universe.
The natural law is the same eternal law made known to man through natural reason.
God, in fact, knows and orders from all eternity what is convenient and proportionate to rational nature; and that ordination existing in the divine mind is called or constitutes the eternal law. In creating man, God intimated this eternally conceived ordination into him in his own nature; therefore, by the mere fact of being born, every man is subject to this law. This participation in the eternal law, or the moral order constituted by God, is the natural law objectively considered.
When man reaches the use of reason, he knows, at least, the first principles of natural law (e.g., “one must do good and avoid evil”) as something that he has an obligation to fulfill, and this participation of the eternal law is the natural law subjectively considered.
Natural law is so named for two reasons. First, because it encompasses only the precepts that are deduced from the very nature of man. That is why it obliges all men without exception, and it would oblige in the same way if man had not been elevated by God to the supernatural order and end. Secondly, because it can be known with only the lights of natural reason, without the need for divine faith or human teaching.
Denied by atheists, materialists, pantheists, etc., the existence of natural law is, however, an incontrovertible truth that can be proved even by the evidence.
It is clearly stated in Sacred Scripture:
For when the Gentiles, who have not the law, do by nature those things that are of the law; these having not the law are a law to themselves: who shew the work of the law written in their hearts, their conscience bearing witness to them, and their thoughts between themselves accusing, or also defending one another, in the day when God shall judge the secrets of men by Jesus Christ, according to my gospel (Rom. 2:14-16).
Moreover, the testimony of their own conscience dictates to all men, in a very clear and irresistible way, that it is necessary to do good and avoid evil; that there are actions that are bad in themselves (e.g., killing the innocent) and others that are good even if they are not ordered by any human law (e.g., honoring one’s parents). For this reason, when those very clear precepts of natural law are broken, man feels remorse and shame; and, on the contrary, the faithful fulfillment of it fills him with joy and peace.
We expect much from our spiritual director, but what do we have to do in order to draw spiritual benefit from his direction?
The first and foremost of all a dirige’s duties is full sincerity and openness of heart, because without this it is completely impossible for the direction to produce fruit. The director must know everything: temptations, weaknesses, purposes, good and bad inclinations, difficulties and stimuli, triumphs and defeats, hopes and illusions—everything must be manifested with humility and simplicity. Some spiritual authors even demand the manifestation of the lack of confidence that one may begin to feel in relation to the director.
It is wrong—and useless for spiritual profit—to manifest only good or less bad things, leaving our true miseries and sins to be confessed to some other priest. Without sincerity and openness it would be better to renounce a spiritual direction that is pure and simple hypocrisy, deception and waste of time.
However, it is necessary not to exaggerate. Everything that is important for the spiritual life must be manifested with absolute sincerity to the director; but it would be a manifest abuse to give him a detailed account of the smallest incidents and details of the intimate life of the person being directed. Many minor things can and should be solved by the dirige himself.
It also requires full docility and obedience to the director. Without this meekness and obedience, the direction would be totally ineffective and a waste of time. Although it is true that the director does not have jurisdiction over his dirige (as does the religious superior in relation to his subjects), he must demand an all-embracing obedience in matters pertaining to the direction, under pain of refusing at all to continue it. As diriges, we must simply obey, without distinctions, restrictions or interposing our own interpretations.
Much worse than disobedience would be to manipulate the direction, so that the director does not ask more than what we ourselves want. St. John of the Cross severely condemns this abuse. However, it would not be contrary to obedience to take the initiative in pointing out attractiveness and disgust, and even to respectfully raise objections, yet still humbly obey if the director insists despite them.
We must also be perseverant. The direction is completely sterilized, rendering it practically null, by frequent changes of director for futile or inconsistent reasons; by spending long periods without direction; by continually changing exercises, methods and procedures of sanctification; by letting oneself be carried away without resistance to the whim of the moment or of a capricious and fickle will in the practice of the norms received from the director; etc., etc.
Finally, the dirige must not forget that if his director is obliged to keep the sacramental seal or natural secret, the dirige himself is also bound to keep a special discretion in regard to his director. Most specifically, the dirige must never entrust to others the advice, norms or particular advice received from his director, not even by way of edification of others. The particular advice given in order to a certain soul and with a view to its special psychology and temperament may not suit other souls placed in different circumstances or endowed with a different temperament. Unfortunately, many disgusts, quarrels, jealousy on the part of other souls and a thousand other inconveniences sometimes follow from the indiscretion of penitents!