X. Direction.
"Ask council of all that are wise." Job, iv. 18.
One of the most important exercises for maintaining fidelity to one's duties, and for acquiring perfection, is communication with the director. It is the means of avoiding self-deception, fickleness, disturbance, and lukewarmness. The seminarist will find, in careful reading of the preceding articles, what ought to form the matter of his direction. He will make a special point of the following particulars, which he should never omit in intercourse with his director.
1. General and Particular Rule.—How far do I keep my engagements? What are the points in which I feel most difficulty or repugnance? What have I done to establish myself in the virtues of obedience and self-denial?
2. Prayer.—What preparation do I make for it? What method have I followed in this exercise? What are my resolutions? Have I put them in practice? What fruit have I hitherto derived from my prayers, and what is my desire to profit by them? What difficulties do I meet with?
3. Virtues.—What progress have I made in thoughtfulness, humility, and purity of intention? and what conquests have I gained over heedlessness, vanity, self-love, and my ruling passion?
4. He will not fail to communicate to his director his pains, temptations, dryness and hardness of mind; as, likewise, the books he has, what he has read, those with whom he has intercourse, the visits which he makes and receives.
5. He never goes out from direction without taking a practical resolution in concert with his director.
"A faithful friend is a strong defence, and he that hath found such an one hath found a treasure." Eccles. vi. 14.