Helping the youth discover God

THIS is a very challenging task for anyone who has the

duty to give some spiritual guidance to young people. But once

accomplished, you can be sure that a great good would have been

served, and that the sense of fulfillment for both the guide and the

guided would be incomparable.

            I believe that the first thing to do is to offer prayers

and sacrifices for them. It has to be made clear from the start that

spiritual direction is an eminently spiritual and supernatural affair

whose main means are also spiritual and supernatural. These means

should never be relegated to second place.

            Then the next thing to do is to win their friendship and

confidence. This may mean spending time with them, knowing them more

and more, and getting involved in their things just as they are slowly

introduced to the world of the spiritual and supernatural. As much as

possible, there has to be some agreement of a regular meeting so that

this task is sustained.

            And once this is attained, then a slow and steady effort

of developing the directee’s spiritual life begins, first explaining

the spiritual and supernatural realities. The doctrine of our faith

and the morals that go with it should be explained in a way adapted to

the mentality of the specific person guided.

            What should be accomplished as quickly as possible is to

give the directee a good picture of who God is and of how he is to us.

He has to be convinced that God is a loving father, full of goodness,

love and mercy, and that he is always with us—in us and around us,

i.e., everywhere. He is never indifferent to us.

            The directee has to be told that we are meant to be with

God, to relate ourselves to him and to correspond to his loving, wise

and merciful providence over us. We may have to show him how this is

so by explaining the structure, so to speak, of our human nature and

the world in general.

            Obviously, the role of the supernatural faith has to be

explained very well. The directee has to come to the conclusion that

faith is a gift freely given by God, and with it we get to see things

more globally and more objectively.

            With faith, we are not inventing things or indulging in

some fantasies. With it, we are actually in touch with reality in its

most radical mode. With it, we are given everything to answer all our

questions, to solve all our problems including the humanly insolvable

ones, etc.

            As much as possible, the directee should be led to

experience something similar to what saints experienced with they

discovered God for the first time. In the case of St. Augustine, for

example, he described that encounter this way: “Late have I loved you,

Beauty so ancient and so new...Lo, you were within, but I outside

seeking there for you...You were with me, but I was not with you...”

            The directee should be helped in overcoming his

weaknesses—his doubts, laziness, instability, the consequences of his

sins, etc.—as well as in developing the virtues like humility,

sincerity, temperance, fortitude, fidelity, etc.

            He has to be taught how to pray and to offer sacrifices,

how to wage the unavoidable spiritual struggle against temptations and

sins, and to always be aggressive in growing his love for God and for

others.

            He has to be made to realize the importance of a certain

plan—articulated on a daily, weekly, monthly, yearly and

moment-to-moment basis—that would help him keep a spiritual and

supernatural bearing in all the situations and circumstances in his

life.

            A sign of success in this endeavour would be when the

directee becomes self-propelled in his spiritual life with little

guidance needed, and when he himself desires to help others in their

spiritual life.