It may seem counterintuitive to think of spiritual direction and social justice in the same sentence. Spiritual direction, after all, takes place private, not in public. It its essence, it emphasizes an inner journey towards God, not necessarily outward actions.
However, a deep, experiential encounter with God will always lead to transformation that reverberates out from us into the world. The Jesuits call this “active contemplation” – a spirituality that is meant to be lived out in the world. As we get closer to discerning our true callings and gifts, we are also drawn outward – to live out our role in God’s redemption of all things. Another way to put this is that the more we truly understand how loved we are by God, the more empowered we are to direct God’s love out into the world. This is the first way that spiritual direction is intertwined with social justice.
A second way that spiritual direction is linked with social justice is that it creates space for each person to see themselves as “the locus of God’s actions.” This phrase comes from Elizabeth Liebert and AnneMarie Paulin-Campbell, who wrote a feminist approach to the Spiritual Exercises. In spiritual direction, the bedrock premise and promise is that God is with and within every person, regardless of skin color, body shape, sexual orientation, gender expression, or ability. In the on-one-one space of spiritual direction, or in a one-on-one encounter with God through contemplative prayer, you are invited to bring your person and experience to the center, so the real God can meet the real you. The unique way that Christ is incarnated in you is recognized and honored. For ethnic, sexual, and other minorities who are used to living at the edges of church life or told they don’t embody Christianity in the “right” ways, the space of direction can be profoundly healing and affirming.
Spiritual Direction and Ignatian Spirituality also turn us towards social justice. As we journey with Jesus in the Spiritual Exercises and in the Gospels, we can see that he lived his life in solidarity with the poor and the marginalized. Pedro Arrupe calls this “the preferential option for the poor”; Dean Brackley calls it a “spirituality for solidarity.” Ignatian spirituality also calls us to downward mobility, which is something Jesus knew well and demonstrated in his own life. (This is not to say that every Christian must be poor or choose to be an itinerant preacher, but rather that a life of making choices in opposition to materialism and exploitation will most likely lead, quite naturally, to fewer rather than more riches.) This can sound scary, but is not something to fear. As Jesus told his disciples, following Jesus above all else also means living in the abundance of God’s Kingdom, in greater and deeper peace, joy, faith, and love – that “all these things will be added to you” (Matthew 6:33).