Lesson 12: Assignments and Readings
Reading Assignments
Jordan Aumann, O.P., Spiritual Theology (Huntington, Indiana: Our Sunday Visitor, 1980), Chapter 13: “Aids to Spiritual Growth” and Chapter 14: “Discernment of Spirits.”
St. Ignatius Loyola, The Spiritual Exercises, tr. Louis J. Puhl, S.J. (Chicago: Loyola University Press, 1951), #24-43 on the examination of conscience and #313-336 on the rules for the discernment of spirits.
Possible Writing Assignments
1. What aspects of spiritual direction could one reasonably expect to receive from having a regular confessor and what sort of things would presumably require some more formal arrangement for spiritual direction outside the confessional?
2. What is meant by spiritual consolation and spiritual desolation? How are these like and how do they differ from merely natural feelings of encouragement and discouragement?
Suggested Readings
Thomas H. Green, S.J., Weeds among the Wheat: Discernment (Notre Dame, Indiana: Ave Maria Press, 1983).
Jean Laplace, S.J., The Direction of Conscience, translated by John C. Guiness (New York: Herder and Herder, 1967).
Joseph de Guibert, S.J., The Jesuits: Their Spiritual Doctrine and Practice, A Historical Study , translated by William J. Young, S.J. (St. Louis: The Institute of Jesuit Sources and Chicago: Loyola University Press, 1964).
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