The great task of spiritual direction is to facilitate the encounter between God and the person; to help the person understand what the Lord wants to communicate to her and find out how could the person better serve Him. In this "task" we trust the Lord as the creative source of life and energy because the Spirit is always acting in our hearts and our deepest desires rise directly out of the passionately burning love of God at the core of our being. Not only our prayer but our whole life is called to be, not a sterile monologue, but a creative dialogue with the living God. 

A ministry of Consolation. A guiding principle in spiritual direction is fostering consolation. By consolation we do not simply mean feeling comfortable, being happy about one's life, though in God's eyes we may need some shaking and straightening. We speak of persons who are spiritually alive, growing and flourishing; people who care and serve the family and the community. Despite the problems and failures, these persons are called to experience consolation; a consolation which is characterized by "courage, strength, tears, inspirations and quiet, easing and putting away all obstacles, that one may go on in well doing" [SE 315]. Because in their desire to do well they are exposed to different inner voices, the task of spiritual direction is helping them to lend their ears to the "right" one: God's voice. Where is God consoling you? 

Strength and weakness. Walking under the influence of the Spirit, year after year, the Father's will becomes ours, His vocation our desire and His strength our strength. The family life, the education of the children, the challenges of professional and social life may become natural, light, even pleasant. We have been "conquered" by the Spirit. "You protect me and save me, Lord; your care has made me great, and your power has kept me safe " (Ps 18,35). We don't even have to pray about it. When we look around and see unhappy people we realize how fortunate we are in our vocation and mission. Our prayer then is that of thanksgiving. However, all of us have our weakness. The "conquered" ground where God's will is light and pleasant comes to a borderline beyond which we have to struggle and pray to be faithful, loving and forgiving. There we are frequently tempted by jealousy, power, money, competition, achievement or lust. And we are not always faithful. God's strength coexists with our weakness. A good question in spiritual direction is: Where is the conquered ground of this person? Where the borderline of temptation, weakness and moral failure? 

The capacity to face truth. In Mark's Gospel [Mk 3,1‑6] Jesus meets a man with a handicap: his hand is malformed. Jesus tells the man, much to his confusion, to stand in the middle of the crowd. "Don't hide your infirmity, dear child! I can do something about it!"[1]. There are many ways to deal with weakness in ourselves and, therefore, in the others: "denying it" (I am not angry, jealous, attached!), "blaming it on the devil" (The devil makes me think, feel, do it!), 'judging and condemning" the weak person (especially under the influence of some spiritualities). Christ looks at our weaknesses as they are but does not condemn us. A person unable to face weakness as God does may become blind to it and therefore "frozen", or discouraged and burnt out. Spiritual direction is not very effective in these cases. 

Discerning vocation and preparing for permanent commitments. How to accompany a young adult about to make a permanent commitment in marriage or religious life? It helps to remember that a commitment is a free decision and it is up to each individual to reach that decision. To hesitate is normal. To feel some fear too. However, the decision cannot be done in a rush way, with closed eyes. It is a free gift of self, of our past, present and future as the expression of our love to God, and we wish to know that this is the vocation and mission to which God calls us. We believe that God's vocation is felt as our deepest and most authentic desire.

This is the particular grace we ask in the "Three classes of man" meditation [ES 150]. Another particular aspect of this grace is becoming aware of our main weakness, our central need or aspiration. In Ignatian words: our inordinate tendency of ES 63. 

Therefore, when young adults are about to make these life decisions, the spiritual director tries to help them:

• Find out the "wrong" reasons which could influence them: fear of solitude or intimacy, financial security, physical attraction...

• Develop the capacity for unselfish love: care of others, compassion, fidelity, self denial ...

• Maintain a significant prayer life which allows them to find out, in God's presence, their deepest and most authentic desires,

• Know how to take permanent life decisions, not to chicken up in front of risk. ‑ Trust God's fidelity more than their own.

However, among all these elements, the one field particularly relevant to spiritual direction is the world of desires. 

Vocation and the world of desires. There is much trust, gratitude and generosity in a person who sincerely wishes to know and do what God wants: "What do you want me to do?" This is the very core in the love relationship between the Father and His children. But it is also true that God respects our freedom. Our vocation is being and doing what we really want. God's plans for each one of us is more a "divine desire" than a "program", a wind (Ruah) blowing in a certain direction rather than a well defined road. We understand what God wants from us when our hearts desire what God wishes; when God's desires become our desires. Finding God's will means, therefore, becoming aware of our deep and authentic desires.

The world of desires is not always easy because we may have different desires regarding natural, social and spiritual life. Many of these desires are contradictory and exclude each other: if I want to satisfy the desire of security I have to give up the desire to discover new horizons. Some desires may be strong but of poor 'Value (fame, money or power), while a very precious desire may not be accompanied by the same emotional feeling (to cooperate in Christ's mission). Some of our most precious desires may be felt in a "vague" way. But we ‑ can have the intuition that they are particularly relevant and wish to clarify them before we reach a life decision. An important purpose of prayer is finding out what we really wish; which is our deepest and most authentic desire.

God is faithful. When our deep desire connects with God's desire we can be sure that along the years, despite our failures and weakness, each time we come back to Him and connect with His spirit our deep desire will wake up and fill us with determination, energy and joy. When Jesus asks Peter: "Do you love me?" Jesus is inviting him to reach down in his heart and find out how much he loved Jesus. If Jesus asks Peter three times it is because Peter has denied Him three times; something in Peter was not yet identified with Jesus (in His Passion and Death). Now Peter can renewed and deepen his love for the Master. Peter becomes a true disciple. 

God's voice is simple, clear, but not specific (concrete). Very often persons with deep faith and strong desires to serve God are disappointed and discouraged because God doesn't tell them clearly what He wants. They expect a clear and specific answer. In fact God does speak very clearly, and very soon. God doesn't play games with us. He wishes to communicate with us. God speaks very clearly as soon as we are ready to hear. Nobody knows the language of our heart as our Father does. "Only God can touch the substance of our hearts " says St. John of the Cross. But usually God does not speak in a specific and concrete way. He respects our autonomy, dignity and freedom. God leaves up to us the responsibility and the risk to decide. God's Spirit is like a draft of wind that indicates a direction, giving strength and courage along the way. We make the specific choices about means and ways of our journey. We may err or get hurt. God respects our mistakes, accompanies us in our recoveries, shows us again the general direction and renews the energy for the journey. Finding God's will about us is not so much about guessing what God wants us to decide, as to assume the responsibility to decide according to God's promptings and desires.