The one requirement St. Teresa of Avila had when looking for a spiritual director was that he must know himself. This is a curious stipulation. She did not ask for a well known preacher or a touted teacher. Rather, she wanted to receive direction from someone who understood the ins and outs of their own interior life. In essence, she wanted someone who was humble.
Her wisdom cannot be understated. As we are all people who experience similar temptations and have the same fallen nature, St. Teresa realized that the best person to guide her would be the one who could identify the interior movements in their own life. Additionally, because humility was evident in that person’s life, they would be able to speak with authority to Teresa because they would not be sharing their own wants and feelings, but rather how God works, because he works consistently throughout all of the lives of those who let Him.
So what does it mean to know one’s self? First, it means identifying our sinful tendencies. We can often rationalize our own actions even if we know they are sinful. Or we understand that we are sinful and point the blame elsewhere like our first parents did after their first sin. We cannot change our sinful tendencies by ourselves. If we could, Jesus would not have needed to die on the cross for us. But we need God’s grace to conquer the sin in our life. And the first step is admitting our sins and allowing grace in through the sacraments and church community.
Next, it means identifying the good things in our lives that stop us from hearing God’s call in our hearts. We cannot stop at just following the 10 commandments and expect holiness. That was the foundation of Judaism. Jesus came to fulfill Judaism, which means that stopping our sin was not an end to itself, but rather it was to open our ears, minds, and hearts to the will of God. This means that even though there are good things in our life, enjoying them may get in the way of hearing or responding to God’s call to bring us elsewhere. Thus, we need to be truly honest with ourselves about identifying God’s voice and then asking for the strength to respond. Because it is one thing to hear, but a whole other to respond as we see in the story of the Rich Young Man or the Parable of the Two Sons (one does the father’s will and the other fails to do so).
Finally, we need to ask for the courage of the Holy Spirit to follow Jesus to the cross. The theme of St. John Paul II’s pontificate was “Be Not Afraid,” and those words are the timeless encouragement from our Lord to His followers in every age. If we follow the will of God, we will give up some things, both sinful and good. We will lose out on pleasures and even be ridiculed. But we must not lose heart, for Jesus tells us that, “I have conquered the world!” On our journey there will be moments of doubt, second guessing, and even despair. We may even feel like we have completely lost who we are. But that is okay. In fact, it is what we are called to: If it is no longer we who live, it is Christ who lives in us, as St. Paul tells us, and it is in Him that we truly find ourselves. So the call is clear: to be honest with oneself is to identify sin and distractions so that grace can give us the strength to follow our savior no matter where that may lead.
