 in the Son and the Holy Spirit. I got a recent question which was from someone concerned about whether or not laypeople, quote, or should be spiritual directors and what is the history of that in the church and I think that this probably comes from a good place of a high view of the priesthood in the sense that it ought to be priests and there's a lot of there's a lot of truth to to the to the idea that it ought to be priests or be very good if it were. Spiritual direction was coming from priests so be that as it may the question is a good one in general and what is the history of spiritual direction? Well spiritual direction of course began with Jesus teaching his disciples how to follow him and then you have in the epistles St. Paul of course after Jesus ascended saying follow me as I follow Christ and and so of course then he's writing letters and mentoring the people of God and then you have a phenomenon that began to emerge with laypeople. Funny enough the first activity that looks like what spiritual direction is now in a sense is how holy laypeople would go off into the desert and to give their lives completely to God in a very setical dynamic or life or whatever and people would go to them and ask for advice because they were obviously spending all of their time in prayer and that sort of thing. So at the very beginning a lot of this was spiritual direction a lot of the spiritual direction came from laypeople or predominantly laypeople. Then of course it emerged and then began to merge more with the priesthood which makes sense because the priest is commissioned to provide the sacraments care for the souls feed the sheep that sort of thing and so over the years the science of spiritual direction has emerged but the church has no formal documents that for instance establish who can or can't be a spiritual director or what are the criteria for that or whatever. In our school in the heart of Christ school and in the Avila Institute one of the things that I teach students in the spiritual direction what on one course is that everyone is called to be a witness of the gospel so you know if you recently come to Christ come to know him convert to the Catholic Church or you've had a reversion or something like that you're called to bear witness to that and to tell people about Jesus and as you're beginning to know what it means to follow him then you can help others and there's this kind of progression that looks like the fulfillment in essence of the Great Commission which is going to all the world make disciples of all nations baptizing them and even father and son the Holy Spirit. So this making disciples is a commission to all believers where to be disciples and then delete others and to help others and so there's this level of proclamation I can give witness to my testimony if I'm new to the faith but I can still say you know this is what's happened to me and then I can begin to guide or help others at a very nominal level to find the Lord and to preach the gospel that sort of thing and then I can become a spiritual mentor which is another level which means that I know something and I've been following for some time maybe I've you know at some point then I get past a bit true mortal sin and I and really making progress daily mental prayer living the paradigm of a set then I can come to maybe some level of mentorship or spiritual direction but in our time just a general consensus in the church though it's not formal consensus but a consensus among those who do formation and all that particularly rooted in John of the Cross and Tree survivalists teaching on the reality that someone needs to be fairly well along the way fairly mature in their faith but once they're in that state then you can begin to lead others and something maybe a little bit more in the realm of what you call spiritual director in our sense we believe that if you have the charism of spiritual direction people will actually come to you and you can help them but it's very good to get trained formal training which is why we have the Heart of Christ spiritual direction school so in the end everyone is called to bear witness to the gospel to make disciples to be a disciple to lead others to mentor others not everyone's called to spiritual direction that's another level of discipline that we believe should be reserved for those who are mature in their faith and in particular demonstrative ways and then have some training and then have the charism for it but yeah lay people have been involved since the beginnings they jump all the second you might be surprised to know was mentored by layman Carmelite Jan Tyranoski who was a tailor who helped him in a great way to come to holiness into his vocation so spiritual direction is for priests for laity for anyone who has the charism one last word about priests and that priests really are ideal in the sense that they have good rounded round round formation rounded formation in moral and moral theology dogmatic theology and philosophy and of course then the precepts of the faith and the teachings of the faith so and they can take our confession which means that they can see the depths the you know the deepest darkest aspects of our souls so priests can can and can be very good directors the challenge with priests is one they they're not given formation in spiritual direction in seminaries as a norm and I've actually never seen it so that's a down downside they're not giving formation in spiritual theology as a norm like what we teach the evidence to and we have a lot of priests who come through our program there for that reason because they feel called to be spiritual directors but don't have spiritual theological formation in their minds to do it the way they'd like to do it so I hope that answers your question and I hope that helps and it's important that we all recognize that we're called to help each other lead each other and to grow in the faith and to make disciples of all nations may Jesus Christ be praised now and forever amen