A Spiritual Theology of Pastoral Supervision and Spiritual Direction: Incarnational and Redemptive Ministries of Love in Truth

Abstract

Pastoral supervision and spiritual direction are inherently personal in nature. They reveal a transformative life of spiritual and soul care demanding the formation of theological reflection, healing, guidance, and discernment. Whilst pastoral supervision serves to guide theological reflection on service and mission, spiritual direction facilitates the moments of awakening to the presence and narrative of God’s grace and work in the depths of the soul. Under the light of Catholic Social Teaching, the notions of solidarity and subsidiarity will be pressed into service to unveil a common spiritual–theological foundation animating the roots of both these ministries. To understand the common dynamics of pastoral supervision and spiritual direction, the article develops a spiritual theology to reveal that both ministries, however distinct in practice, share the same incarnational (creative) and redemptive (re-creative) qualities. In other words, they both share the same source, root, origin, or existence in God’s word and grace. This comes to light by learning to pronounce love in truth, a prophetical work of solidarity and subsidiarity, of friendship and sharing orienting integral human development to listen and respond to God’s movement. The actions of solidarity and subsidiarity are rooted in the beatitude of righteousness revealing the little goodness, a work of possibility and responsibility. Such actions serve to transform the time of ministry into spaces of blessing and mystery, of appreciating the sacredness and unknowability of the other with boldness, curiosity and gentleness. The article concludes by showing how both ministries of pastoral supervision and spiritual direction share the spiritual-pastoral appeal to form communities witnessing the little goodness of love in truth.

1. Introduction: Practising Love in Truth

Pastoral supervision and spiritual direction are distinct in their practice and focus. Pastoral supervision fosters theological reflection on ministry to develop the imagination of faith to produce greater vision and understanding in life and ministry. Spiritual direction facilitates discernment to grow in wisdom and understanding towards the journey of union with God. What the article desires to show is that at the ethical metaphysical or phenomenological level, their distinctiveness evaporates to unveil a spiritual core in God resonating with incarnational (creative) and redemptive (re-creative) qualities uniting ethics and prayer pronouncing love in truth. The incarnation refers to the mystery of Jesus, the Christ, the Word of God (Jn 1:1), who became human (flesh) “and lived among us” (Jn 1:14). The mystery of the incarnation connects to the mystery of redemption in which Jesus as messiah, Lord and Son of God, was crucified and resurrected into new life to overcome the weight of human sin and proclaim the witness the extraordinary force of grace to give life in God “for us” (Rom 5:8).

The journey into the life and world of the People of God begins with learning to bear the mysteries of the faith, to practice the action of love in truth that essentially signifies ethical responsibility as first contemplation and prayer. Accordingly, the article seeks via Catholic Social Teaching and the philosophy of Emmanuel Levinas to show that both ministries share the same substance of the mysteries of the faith unveiled through the teachings of subsidiarity and solidarity. Although the ministries are different in focus and practice, they each nevertheless bear witness to the subsidiarity of sharing and forging autonomy as much as the solidarity of friendship and of orienting affectivity or passion for helping others to be responsible. Both ministries evidence an incarnational character whilst bearing witness to encountering or contemplating Christ’s redemptive identity and mission (Lk 4:18–19).

Ministries animate and orient the heart’s cry for communion and a covenantal vocation of service, wisdom, and love. Ministries help to serve the Church in terms of formation, accountability and forging abilities and possibilities together into a life-giving and generative responsibility. Such responsibility unveils the discovery of truth as the commitment to love (Benedict 2009, no. 2). Pope Benedict XVI explains, “Truth needs to be sought, found, and expressed within the ‘economy’ of charity, but charity in its turn needs to be understood, confirmed, and practised in the light of truth” (Benedict 2009, no. 2). Given that “meaning—shines forth in the works of poets and artists”, truth takes on a poetic and artistic sensibility where charity is enunciated in truth by understanding how the “economy” of charity faces and transcends “obstacles” of memory, “culture”, and “history” (Levinas 1996, p. 42) to be possibilities growing in creativity, service, and wisdom. The nature of truth here possesses a quality of unveiling meaning. In connection with charity, the love of neighbour and God, truth reveals how love remains in a troubled, turbulent and challenging world. Love outlasts evil because it “is from God” (1 Jn 4:7).

Accordingly, truth needs the commitment and promise of charity (love) in the sensibility of its artistic, poetic (spiritual) form. Such commitment and promise of love help make transcendence a reality in the face of obstacles and suffering. This is because the transcendence of love makes truth acceptable, “credible” (Benedict 2009, no. 2) and approachable to digest. Ministries that seek to practice the transcendence of love in truth are demanding through their social and spiritual responsibilities to the other. So then, the ministries need to be approachable and develop an ethical, prayerful sensibility or affectivity to welcome the other and invite a soulful, ethical, and prayerful “intelligibility” (Levinas 1996, p. 42). Such spiritual resonance helps to make sense of the transcendence of God’s work accompanying the soul in the ministry of listening, healing and care.

Let us look more closely at the intelligibility of the responsibilities of pastoral supervision and spiritual direction, the better to highlight how these two ministries share a common depth of existence and transcendence in Christ’s incarnation and redemption beyond the “disclosed being” of the “world and history” (Levinas 1996, p. 99). This helps to understand that, in everyday being (reality), pastoral supervision and spiritual direction are very distinct. However, beyond being (at the existential or ethical metaphysical level), that is to say otherwise than the “interest” of these two ministries to be distinguishable, they possess a core similitude in the mystery of God’s word pronouncing and living out love in truth uniting ethics and prayer. Levinas often uses the term “otherwise” to speak of “otherwise than Being”, namely responsibility for the other beyond the temptations of self-interest, the essence of the totality of being.

At the core of the ministry, there remains the hiddenness of the Gospel (Matt 13:33), a small “goodness” (1 Cor 13:4), as it were, to “escape from the corruption that is in the world” (2 Pet 1:4) to be a “likeness” of God (Gen 1:26), to “become participants in the divine nature” (2 Pet 1:4). The small “goodness” emerges to reflect the ethical “relation to God” (Levinas 1998, p. 110) as the devotion and grave love towards one’s neighbour: “Truly I tell you, just as you did it to one of the least of these who are members of my family, you did it to me” (Matt 25:40). Hence, “In this way, not only do we do a service to charity enlightened by truth, but we also help give credibility to truth, demonstrating its persuasive and authenticating power in the practical setting of social living” (Benedict 2009, no. 2). Through encountering the fragments of truth in discernment, God’s mercy and grace can be seen to bear witness to love. In Levinasian terms, this means that the trace of God’s word in the other’s face “overflows cognition” beyond any representation in consciousness (Levinas [1998] 1999a, p. 162). God’s depth of love reveals an “image of God”: “to find oneself in his trace … as it said in Exodus 33[:19–23]” (Levinas 1996, p. 64). Hence, otherwise than the self-interest and the egoisms of a world bent on corruption, privilege, and superficiality, there remains the “glory” (Levinas [1998] 1999a, p. 162) (“credibility”) of God’s hidden presence (Ex 33:22). Such is the form of the “little goodness” (Levinas 1999b, p. 108), the prevenience of grace, evoking the pronunciation of love in truth in ministry.

Pastoral supervision and spiritual direction, despite their differences in the being/reality of their activity, testify to the same “credible” journey of faith to proclaim the little, hidden goodness in the world. This is because these ministries relate to the affectivity, formation, prayerfulness, openness, and mutuality (2 Peter 1:5–7) inherent in the heart and soul that are an image of God’s work of incarnation and redemption in the world. This means theologically that the development of personhood and vocation are incarnational and redemptive expressions of waiting in hope and being God’s “beloved” (Nouwen 1994, p. 39). The call towards love and truth is thus incarnational (creative) and redemptive (“because Christ Jesus has made me his own” (Phil 3:12)). Pastoral supervision and spiritual direction testify therefore to a Christological (redemptive and re-creative) expression to encountering God’s word as God’s beloved. Christology looks at the study of the person of Jesus, the Christ, drawing in areas of soteriology (redemption) and Christian anthropology (to be a person in Christ, and hence, “re-creative”). The idea of being the “beloved” of God is important. This is because it orients ministry towards the core encounter of hearing God’s word in the depths of the soul.

Henri Nouwen explains that God’s word “is the never-interrupted voice of love speaking from eternity and giving life and love whenever it is heard. When I hear that voice, I know that I am at home with God and have nothing to fear. … As the beloved, I can confront, console, admonish, and encourage without fear of rejection or need for affirmation” (Nouwen 1994, p. 39). Nouwen adds here a spiritual expression of love in truth.

At the existential (looking at the contours of freedom, responsibility and existence) and spiritual level, the act of hearing God’s word should not be interpreted as unique to either pastoral supervision or spiritual direction. This is because they are both pathways to encounter God’s word whether through theological reflection or contemplation. God’s word is beyond any thematizations and representations of experience, however noble. Once this is accepted, then God’s word as an encounter in all its passivity can be carried to the different contexts of pastoral supervision and spiritual direction, discerned, and applied. In this way, both ministries should not be understood as elite, special and unique above others. Such an attitude can fall into “exalting knowledge or a specific experience”) and “a will lacking humility” (Francis 2018, no.’s 40, 49), attitudes creating a totalizing force of egoistic knowledge that will reduce the idea of God to self-interest. Hence, the programmatic word of God is “An affection which must be described otherwise than as an appearance, otherwise than as a participation in a content, or comprehension” (Levinas 1996, p. 157). God’s word therefore resides in “passivity and patience,” (Levinas 1996, p. 157) beyond mere impulsive seeing and hearing such as glaring, staring, and overhearing. God’s word finds expression through practising love in truth, an act that approaches the other to bear the mysteries of faith.

To move towards locating the ministries of pastoral supervision and spiritual direction, the notions of subsidiarity and solidarity can be pressed into service. Subsidiarity and solidarity are elements of Catholic Social Teaching promoting integral human development (human flourishing), fair ethical relations (commutative justice), social, equitable sharing of resources and responsibilities (distributive justice) and making a stance for good social action in the community (social justice). Appealing to Catholic Social Teaching in this way can help to evidence a more practical dimension in which pastoral supervision and spiritual direction come together (have the same source) in their elemental foundations of finding resonance in God’s word proclaiming the mysteries of faith. This is because, in terms of the language of faith, both subsidiarity and solidarity help to facilitate the practice of the beatitudes and the encounter of the nearness and newness of the Father’s Kingdom, an age of love in truth.

Let us think of the meaning of both subsidiarity and solidarity and how they relate to each other in more understandable language. Solidarity is about deepening good friendship and care between people as much as helping and forming others to be responsible for their neighbour, ensuring good development and a sense of justice. Subsidiarity is about sharing and giving others autonomy and is deepened by solidarity, orienting affectivity or passion for helping others to be responsible. Furthermore, subsidiarity helps to nurture the temptation of control to give a true voice to their gifts. Together, subsidiarity and solidarity help to create a horizon of love in truth (being caring and responsible), of good and transformative human integral development (human flourishing). In terms of pastoral ministry and spiritual theology, solidarity speaks of making the community a place of unity and diversity, and subsidiarity of making sure the gifts of the community members build a greater hope and inviting the future.

Acting together, subsidiarity helps to coordinate the human good evoking the solidarity of friendship, understanding and covenantal promises of commitment in ministry. Coordination becomes redemptive where it facilitates intimacy, openness, and spontaneity. Any pastoral or spiritual practice will take on an incarnational (and further a paschal) design by allowing intimacy, openness, and spontaneity to be communicated as faith orienting both truth and love: “Charity in truth, to which Jesus Christ bore witness by his earthly life and especially by his death and resurrection, is the principal driving force behind the authentic development of every person and of all humanity” (Benedict 2009, no. 2). Further, the commitment of faith in a pastoral supervision or spiritual direction relation unveils entry into listening to Christ’s proclamation of the beatitudes, of hope to encounter the Kingdom of God through sharing the inheritance of the earth, namely truth, love, forgiveness, redemption and being a person-in-Christ. Noting the demanding commitment to the Beatitudes, Pope Francis relates, “The Beatitudes are in no way trite or undemanding, quite the opposite. We can only practice them if the Holy Spirit fills us with his power and frees us from our weakness, our selfishness, our complacency and our pride” (Francis 2018, no. 65).

Given the emphasis on practising the Beatitudes, the fruit of the Spirit’s presence can be exemplified in the development of the Catholic Church’s social teaching. One can imagine an inherent connection between the notions of solidarity and subsidiarity underlying the practice of beatitudes. Pope Benedict XVI writes, “Subsidiarity respects personal dignity by recognizing in the person a subject who is always capable of giving something to others”, and further relates, “Solidarity is first and foremost a sense of responsibility on the part of everyone with regard to everyone” (Benedict 2009, no.’s 38, 57). The beatitudes in the light of Catholic Social Teaching therefore reveal its purpose to command “an ethical imperative for the universal Church, as she responds to the teachings of her Founder, the Lord Jesus” (Benedict 2009, no. 27).

The article, responding to the “ethical imperative” to love in truth, will now proceed to demonstrate further the connection between subsidiarity and solidarity. The connection will help to exemplify and articulate the redemptive and incarnational character of pastoral supervision and spiritual direction as acts of blessing and righteousness. The redemptive, incarnational disposition of pastoral supervision and spiritual direction can therefore be understood as pronouncing love in truth practised as a form of synodal listening, of walking together. The article will present that such a theological disposition demands the practice of humility, gentleness, boldness and curiosity in facing the other’s unknowability and mystery. In incarnational terms, this means, for the pastoral supervisor and spiritual director, being grounded in the present, appreciating the other’s (supervisee’s/directee’s) concern, need and cry for justice (opportunities for subsidiarity and sharing) and compassion (possibilities of solidarity and friendship).

A redemptive threshold is reached through incarnational responsibility. The idea of incarnational responsibility signifies listening to God’s word and responding to it spontaneously with hope and vigilance. Incarnational responsibility, in essence, is the discipleship of proclaiming the nearness of the Kingdom of God (Matt 3:2). Hence, participation in Christ through whom “we have our being” (Acts 17:28) gives rise to a redemptive journey to the Father’s Kingdom, oriented by the grace of love “poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit” (Rom 5:5)” (Benedict 2009, no. 5). In the concluding section, the article will reflect how the fruit of such incarnational ministry is the redemption and hope of making community together, forming covenantal bonds of hope for an age of love in truth revealed through the invincible and largely, hidden little goodness that finds biblical resonance in Jesus’ parable about the nearly invisible “yeast” being the leaven of the Kingdom of God (Matt 13:33). Hence, the little goodness as “yeast” can be seen in the “leaven” of subsidiarity and solidarity animating the practice of spiritual formation, theological reflection, and pastoral ministry. In a word, the little goodness is the maternity of compassion.

Throughout the article, there will be reference to Levinas’ philosophy. There is a whole tradition of developing Christian theology with Levinas’ thought and ethical metaphysics (Purcell 2006, p. 3). The writings of the Catholic Moral Theologian, Roger Burggraeve, are a testament to this (Burggraeve 2020), who through the decades has pioneered the use of Levinas’ thought for Christian theology. Furthermore, Levinas himself was enthusiastic about Christian theologians making use of his writings stemming in part from his own openness to inquire about the philosophical (phenomenological) meaning of the Christian mysteries (Levinas 1998, p. 54). One should not perceive any shame in using Levinas’ thoughts to enrich Christian theology.

Ethics and, by extension, prayer, are conceived as first philosophy and theology; together, they form the driving force in Levinas’ biblical method of developing a metaphysical approach to the other “beyond being”, that is to say beyond the essence of self-interest. Given the “common tonality between Christians and Jews”, using Levinas’ thought orients new opportunities and perspectives for Christian theology to develop and approach the “revelation” of the mysteries of the faith (de Saint Cheron 2010, p. 14). What is new especially is the way Levinas has developed an ethical sensibility and phenomenology of the other which is profoundly prayerful and demanding. In the context of reflecting on grace, the noted Levinas scholar, Michael Purcell, states “Levinas’ ethical metaphysics, when applied to theology, gives theology a new phenomenological voice in which the theology of grace might be articulated” (Purcell 2009, p. 966). This is what the article serves to do in relation to ministries of pastoral supervision and spiritual direction, unveiling how the prevenience of grace equally is found at the source of these two ministries animating the encounter of love in truth. The encounter signifies a movement into “intersubjectivity” (Purcell 2009, p. 966), as exemplified in the practices of subsidiarity and solidarity, given especially that “Grace is known in the response it provokes” (Purcell 2009, p. 974).

2. Subsidiarity and Solidarity: Grounding Pastoral Supervision and Spiritual Direction in Catholic Social Teaching

Subsidiarity and solidarity are demanding pastoral and spiritual practices. They form integral parts of Catholic Social Teaching (focused essentially on upholding human dignity); however, in terms of scholarship, there has not been a specific reflection on how the connection between these two key themes finds resonance in both pastoral supervision and spiritual direction. There is rather more interest in relating the psychological foundations to these two ministries as exemplified in the studies of Coe (2000), May (2005), Hewson and Carroll (2016), Gubi et al. (2020) and Paver (2007). Also, the two themes of subsidiarity and solidarity find a natural resonance with ecclesiology and Moral theology/Christian ethics of papal writings as found in Pope John-Paul II, Centesimus annus (John-Paul 1991) and Pope Benedict XVI, Deus Caritas Est (Benedict 2005). Notwithstanding, there are spiritual and pastoral perspectives to these ecclesial and moral concerns to be gleaned and gathered which, for example, Pope Benedict XVI articulates in terms of integral human development (“practising charity in truth”) in the hope of building up the “earthly city” (Benedict 2009, no. 7) of God: “In the present social and cultural context, where there is a widespread tendency to relativize truth, practising charity in truth helps people to understand that adhering to the values of Christianity is not merely useful but essential for building a good society and for true integral human development” (Benedict 2009, no. 4). Given that subsidiarity and solidarity animate integral human development, we can therefore seek to conceive of pastoral supervision and spiritual direction as ministries “practising charity [love] in truth” (Benedict 2009, no. 4).

Conceivably, then, as ministries orienting the interior and exterior journey of faith, pastoral supervision and spiritual direction aim for good and transformative integral human development and flourishing. This means that the sense of love in truth helps to orient their pastoral theological and spiritual foundations. Hence, the prophetical ministry of spiritual direction, concerned with “healing and reconciliation” (Leech 1977, p. 187) is an outpouring of love in truth. In comparison, where pastoral supervision (much like Clinical Pastoral Education) aims to inspire “theological reflection” (Leach 2006, p. 38) to enable “the supervisee to own his or her identity as pastoral minister” (Carroll 2010, p. 156), the goal again is love in truth. In the light of love in truth, the work of healing and reconciliation in spiritual direction on the one hand and the work of theological reflection in pastoral supervision on the other can act as affective barriers against the forces of nominalism. The danger of nominalism is that is results in relativizing truth and contaminating love with indifference such as the “cultural levelling” contaminating the world with self-interest (as against subsidiarity) and separateness (as against solidarity) (Benedict 2009, no. 26). This is because both ministries have a ground in God’s word that is beyond representations of experience or thematizations of knowledge.

In terms of creating value in formation and development, the practice of subsidiarity and solidarity in the ministries of pastoral supervision and spiritual direction act in a way together to reveal the “great challenge” of love in truth: to animate the “ethical interaction of consciences and minds that would give rise to truly human development”, which is at “the heart of the Church’s social doctrine” (Benedict 2009, no.’s 2, 9). As such, these two ministries do have ecclesial and moral/ethical implications which this article will address and seek to show in the conclusion.

The practices of subsidiarity and solidarity help to orient the pastoral and spiritual relations into an incarnational and redemptive horizon in the hope of building up the Kingdom of God, of making a community together witnessing to love in truth. Let us move now to understanding the meaning and value of subsidiary and solidarity towards presenting the transformative (creative and re-creative) practice of pastoral supervision and spiritual direction as ministries of love in truth, of the transcendence of attending to God’s word in the other’s face.

First, one may ask how pastoral supervision and spiritual direction possess relevance to Catholic Social Teaching. Given both ministries possess an incarnational (creative) and redemptive (re-creative) context in terms of encountering the grace of Trinitarian love, both cannot divorce themselves from the nature of integral human development, of encountering love in truth. Pope Benedict XVI points out the following:

It is creative love, through which we have our being; it is redemptive love, through which we are recreated. Love is revealed and made present by Christ (cf. Jn 13:1) and “poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit” (Rom 5:5). As the objects of God’s love, men and women become subjects of charity, they are called to make themselves instruments of grace, so as to pour forth God’s charity and to weave networks of charity.

This dynamic of charity received and given is what gives rise to the Church’s social teaching, which is caritas in veritate in re sociali: the proclamation of the truth of Christ’s love in society. This doctrine is a service to charity, but its locus is truth. Truth preserves and expresses charity’s power to liberate in the ever-changing events of history.

(Benedict 2009, no. 5)

Here, one will find awakening a stirring connection between subsidiarity and solidarity. The connection is stirring because it is evocative of Jesus’ proclamation of the Good News, “to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favour” (Lk 4:19), to invite hope for redemption. Such hope is the creative, incarnational presence of Jesus’ witness of love in truth to release the redemptive energies of the small goodness. Such energies recreate possibilities for peace in a troubled world “to liberate” the flow of grace into the turbulence of history. Envisioning such possibilities, Pope Benedict XVI introduced the concept of subsidiarity in connection to solidarity: “The principle of subsidiarity must remain closely linked to the principle of solidarity and vice versa, since the former without the latter gives way to social privatism, while the latter without the former gives way to paternalist social assistance that is demeaning to those in need” (Benedict 2009, no. 58). Let us look at this more closely in terms of biblical resonance.

Subsidiarity (“so we, who are many, are one body in Christ, and individually we are members one of another” Rom 12:6) without solidarity (“If one member suffers, all suffer together with it; if one member is honoured, all rejoice together with it.”—1 Cor 12:26) leads to “social privatism” (self-interest). In contrast, solidarity (“We know love by this, that he laid down his life for us—and we ought to lay down our lives for one another”—1 Jn 3:16) without subsidiarity (“do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God”—Micah 6:8) reveals a state of “paternalistic social assistance” (Benedict 2009, no. 58). The act of love becomes a stance of truth against privatism and paternalism. Together, the creative and re-creative energies of love in truth by way of subsidiarity and solidarity can further be exemplified through blessing, of appreciating how God’s word gradually transforms the self with the grace of a little goodness.

3. Blessing, Gradualness, and the Little Goodness

Ministries within the Church hold a narrative of opening to God’s word in Christ and the Spirit through the blessing of “breaking the bad silence” that can never utter “Here I am” (Ex 3:4) (Levinas 1996, p. 146). In terms of the biblical evocation of love in truth, that Christ is “the Truth” (cf. Jn 14:6)) (Benedict 2009, no. 1), uttering “Here I am” (Ex 3:4) like Moses speaks of the spontaneity of blessing coinciding with responsibility. Here, both subsidiarity and solidarity can find resonance in meaning and practice together through blessing. Helping to relate the biblical meaning of blessing, Burggraeve writes the following:

Starting from the Old Testament, blessing can be described as a positive tangible reality: health, water, life, wealth, fertility, wholeness, and well-being, in short, everything that is good and beneficial. Synthetically, the Bible makes a direct connection between blessing and life, in the sense that blessing stands for the fullness of life as an earthly created reality.

(Burggraeve 2023, p. 2)

From such a “created earthly reality”, we can move a step towards the existential and theological state of blessing, namely an “absolute reliability” that “also connects the person on whom the blessing is pronounced with ‘the absolute’” (Burggraeve 2023, p. 2). The existence of God’s presence is the guarantee of “reliability” or grace stirring in the blessing. Here, an “integral ecology” (Pope Francis 2015, no. 11) of blessing comes to mind demanding that subsidiarity and solidarity be an expression of both the gradualness (growth) of truth and love, aspects of the incarnational and redemptive glory in Christ. After all, Pope Benedict XVI remarks, “The Christian faith, by becoming incarnate in cultures and at the same time transcending them, can help them grow in universal brotherhood and solidarity, for the advancement of global and community development” (Benedict 2009, no. 59). Where faith becomes “incarnate” in culture, both subsidiarity and solidarity may witness to redemptive “advancement” (gradualness or diachrony (the time of responsibility)) of the Kingdom of God (Burggraeve 2023, p. 3). Pope St. John-Paul II expresses this succinctly in the context of the family (and marriage) which can equally apply to the ministries of pastoral supervision and spiritual direction. He writes the following in regard to “Gradualness and Conversion”:

What is needed is a continuous, permanent conversion which, while requiring an interior detachment from every evil and an adherence to good in its fullness, is brought about concretely in steps which lead us ever forward. Thus a dynamic process develops, one which advances gradually with the progressive integration of the gifts of God and the demands of His definitive and absolute love in the entire personal and social life of man.

(John-Paul 1981, no. 9)

We can begin to imagine that both subsidiarity and solidarity are a “passage or transition” (Burggraeve 2016, p. 69) of blessing into the conversion and formation of integrating the “gifts of God”. Such divine gifts help to animate both ministries of pastoral supervision and spiritual direction. Subsidiarity and solidarity both contribute to the work of blessing. Hence, where for example, Pope Benedict states, “Subsidiarity is first and foremost a form of assistance to the human person via the autonomy of intermediate bodies,” (Benedict 2009, no. 57) such “assistance” can be seen as fostering growth and formation towards the ideal of conversion, a theme relevant to both ministries of pastoral supervision and spiritual direction. Subsidiarity acts in a way to deter unnecessary structures of power to obsessively control the lives of people. This perspective of subsidiarity can be applied to the human relation of care by providing opportunities for self-expression, growth in confidence and the development of professional skills. Where such subsidiarity facilitates a good “autonomy” or confident self-expression for the common good, there is evident a defining opportunity to nurture a healthy theological “ecology” or beatitude or blessing of integral human development, the gradualness of conversion and love in truth relevant to the existential roots of both pastoral supervision and spiritual direction. Relational subsidiarity (integral human development) will therefore reveal an incarnational and redemptive “little goodness” as it were, the beatitude of meekness (the gentleness of “love in truth” (Benedict 2009, no. 9)): “Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the earth” (Matt 5:5) to animate the two ministries.

The origin of the notion of the “little goodness” comes from Vasily Grossman’s epic book, Life and Fate, portraying Russia in the time of Stalin with all its horror and tragedy. It has been developed phenomenologically by Emmanuel Levinas (Levinas 1999b, p. 108) and Roger Burggraeve who presents greater clarity to Levinas’ thought (Burggraeve 2006, p. 644). The notion of little goodness is useful because it helps to highlight what Levinas means by “otherwise than Being” (Levinas [1998] 1999a, p. 7). To use Levinas’ style language, otherwise than the self-interest or essence of Being is the maternity or compassion of responsibility, the possibility and ability to recognize the pain, suffering, tears and fears of the other which can be ignored by any political, economic, social or even religious system and institution (Burggraeve 2006, p. 644). Here, there is a corollary insight into the source of ecclesial ministries such as pastoral supervision and spiritual direction. At the source is the little goodness that animates solidarity and subsidiarity. Responding to Levinas’ engagement of the small goodness (Levinas 2001, pp. 80–82), Burggraeve writes the following:

In this regard, Levinas speaks about the ethical necessity of ‘the small goodness’ (la petite bonté) (EFP133-135/80-82) [Interview with Francois Poirié in (Levinas 2001, pp. 80–82)]. He calls it small because it runs from the unique ‘I’ to the unique ‘Other’. It does what no single system is in a position to do, namely, to face and meet the needs of the unique Other. This goodness is small also because it is anything but spectacular. It wants to be anything but total. It is about a modest, partial goodness, with no pretensions to solve everything once and for all and thus create paradise on earth. It does what it can with full enthusiasm and dedication, without wanting to get everything in its grasp.

(Burggraeve 2006, p. 644)

Here, the blessing of the little goodness acts by way of subsidiarity (“It wants to be anything but total”), functioning beyond totality and control to produce a thriving solidarity (“with full enthusiasm and dedication”) that transcends “pretensions” of elitism, judgement, and illusion. The little goodness leads then to an openness of the prevenience of grace, the affectivity of the Spirit, that attends to the grave human condition of tears, outrage, and suffering, so that hope might emerge wherein God “will wipe every tear from their eyes” (Rev 21:4).

Animating such sensibility of responsibility (little goodness) in a spiritual direction, the directee learns the “discipline” of openness oriented by the meekness of vulnerability. Nouwen writes, “To follow Christ in the way of the cross requires not the human effort to put on your own belt and walk where you like, but the generous willingness to stretch out your hands and to let somebody else put a belt around you and take you where you would rather not go (see Jn 21:18)” (Nouwen 1981, pp. 400–1). In other words, one needs to be “touchable” to the suffering of the other (Burggraeve 2006, p. 645), to the demand of the other to be responsible. Such quality of being “touchable” signifies the blessing and gradualness of the little goodness giving light to subsidiarity in ministry. Therefore, subsidiarity in spiritual direction takes the directee from a place of inertia, boredom, exile, or absurdity to the solitude of fulfilment and blessing to “the vital source of our existence” (Nouwen 1981, p. 400), namely God’s word of compassion, the “miracle” of what “remains” (Levinas 2001, p. 81), the sparkle of grace animating the self’s affectivity of charity and hope.

Spiritual direction is affective in nature, orienting the life of the soul. In comparison, subsidiarity in pastoral supervision has a more cognitive emphasis. Subsidiarity here helps to turn the supervisee’s “experience into learning”. This means to orient “transformation in the supervisee’s ministry practice” (Williams 2020, p. 24). Such autonomy of developing confidence in theological reflection gives freedom and blessing for the time of grace to be encountered in terms of the eternal progress of fulfilment or transformation by the little goodness.

Comparing the distinct ministries of pastoral supervision and spiritual direction, what one can begin to discern is that spiritual direction is profoundly affective, existential, incarnational and redemptive in nature, describing the phenomenon of encountering God’s movements in the soul. Alternatively, pastoral supervision acts in a way to unveil movement in transformative ministry to the extent that the experience is available for reflection and cognition. Spiritual direction therefore provides an impetus to learn to be vulnerable and open to love in truth whilst pastoral supervision presents a time to reflect on the spaces of God’s incarnational and redemptive movement within ministry. Nevertheless, for both ministries, subsidiarity, oriented by the solidarity of human friendship, becomes a time of blessing for the gradual transformative power of the little goodness to be pronounced as the beatitude gentleness (Matt 5:5), the ability to approach the relation with God and others in a way that allows love in truth wherein “Each person finds his good by adherence to God’s plan for him” (Benedict 2009, no. 1), namely, the work and liturgy “to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God” (Mic 6:8), which in essence, is the nature of the beatitude of righteousness (Matt 5:6).

4. Hadassah, the Righteousness of the Little Goodness

The nature of love in truth evokes the small goodness and blessing of solidarity and subsidiarity. Consequently, “responsibility in solidarity” (Benedict 2009, no. 11) and “respecting the fundamental right to life of every people and every individual” (Benedict 2009, no. 28) embody the subsidiarity of recognizing the other (Benedict 2009, no. 57). Where recognition leads to responsibility, one may approach the beatitude, “Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled” (Matt 5:6) with the boldness of “truth in love” (Eph 4:15) (Benedict 2009, no. 2). Such “righteousness” in terms of solidarity means sharing one’s gifts through service and humility by way of an incarnational spirituality of being a person in Christ (Gal 2:20). By extension, such solidarity provides an opening for the maturing of subsidiarity of offering the hope of sharing in Christ’s redemptive, re-creative and obedient love (Benestad 2019, p. 205). Solidarity therefore is like the ordaining and ordering force of divine love moulding subsidiarity into a state of obedient listening (Nouwen 1981, p. 400) to God’s promptings in the inner self to move away from the absurdity of being deaf (Nouwen 1981, p. 399) to God’s word in the soul, heart, and conscience (Nouwen 1981, pp. 399–400). In essence, a solidarity of respect opens towards subsidiarity of reciprocity, “the heart of what it is to be a human being” (Benedict 2009, no. 57), by evoking hospitality towards the other. The ground of the little goodness is thus fertilized, as it were, with the hospitality or “pure one-for-the-other” (Levinas 1996, p. 148), which in spiritual theological terms can be understood as recognizing the nature of the desire (hungering and thirsting) for righteousness (Matt 5:6). Such acknowledgment is carried forward by the movement to hear and listen to God’s word in the other’s face.

A synodal disposition of “listening” (and walking together) therefore becomes evident as a stance against the temptation to be “deaf” to the suffering and face of the poor one, our brother/sister stranger (Burggraeve 2018, p. 18) in need. The practice then of obedient listening in pastoral supervision and spiritual direction offers a pathway, even rugged and difficult in nature, to develop a hunger and taste for righteousness. Obedient listening stems from the ground and source of both ministries, however distinct, in the incarnational and redemptive character of God’s salvific grace that is pronounced in hungering and thirsting for righteousness and the very hope that it will transpire into action, the exposure of love in truth. To “hunger and thirst for righteousness”, act in a way to evoke or awaken the lived experience of the senses as a means to begin to discover how truth can be communicated as love in the small goodness that ministry offers. Accordingly, by further uttering or pronouncing “righteousness” in deeds, the listening self is led towards unique freedom of the passivity of openness and exposure to the sacred, namely the vulnerability and mystery of encountering the other’s unknowability and soul, namely in the first instance, the face of the other: “The proximity of the other is signifying of the face. Signifying from the outset from beyond the plastic forms which do not cease covering it like a mask with their presence in perception” (Levinas 1998, p. 147).

Let us exemplify such vulnerability of the face in the example of Esther, a mother of Israel, with her namesake, “Hadassah” (Esth 2:7) [metaphor for righteousness]. The metaphor is useful because it reveals a prophetic role of anointing the act of listening with a redemptive character of caring to the point of sacrifice and courage. Moreover, from the face of Esther’s “extreme exposure, defenselessness, vulnerability itself” (Levinas 1998, p. 147) signifying the possible near extinction of her people from Haman’s hand, she testifies to a liturgy of solidarity and subsidiarity, vulnerability to the point of crying (hungering and thirsting) for assistance for justice and peace (Benedict 2009, no’s 54, 57) and righteousness.

Obedience to God’s word, animating the goodness of listening, witnesses to the character of divine righteousness. The redemptive force of righteousness is illustrated by the blessing of being like a “myrtle tree”: “For you shall go out in joy, and be led back in peace; the mountains and the hills before you shall burst into song, and all the trees of the field shall clap their hands. Instead of the thorn shall come up the cypress; instead of the brier shall come up the myrtle; and it shall be to the Lord for a memorial, for an everlasting sign that shall not be cut off” (Isa 55:12–13). In Hebrew, the word for myrtle tree is “hadas”, which forms part of a name given to Queen Esther by Modercai, “Hadassah” (Esth 2:7) (Yahuda 1946, p. 174). The myrtle tree is thus associated with Esther’s righteousness to save her people from the evil intentions of Haman.

The rich Jewish metaphor of the myrtle tree can help to navigate further how both pastoral supervision and spiritual direction share a similar redemptive and prophetic foundation. A Talmudic interpretation (Megillah [Scroll] 13a from the Seder Moed (“the order of festivals such as Purim)) of Zech 1:8 presents the myrtle tree as a metaphor for righteous prophets. Hence, Esther was called “Hadassah” because of her association with the righteous (“who are called myrtles [hadassim]” (The William-Davidson Talmud (Koren-Steinsaltz) 2012). In developing the Midrash, the Jewish sages write, “Just as a myrtle has a sweet smell and a bitter taste, so too Esther was good and listened (‘sweet’) to the righteous Mordechai, and was adverse (‘bitter’) to the wicked Haman” (The William-Davidson Talmud (Koren-Steinsaltz) 2012). Moreover, Esther’s physical appearance of beauty, created by divine grace (“a cord of divine grace was strung around her” (The William-Davidson Talmud (Koren-Steinsaltz) 2012) radiated out of her metaphorical association with the myrtle tree, being “neither tall nor short, but of average size”, and “greenish” and “pale” in complexion (The William-Davidson Talmud (Koren-Steinsaltz) 2012). Metaphors are useful to lead the theological, pastoral, and spiritual imagination of faith towards deepening a sense of biblical affectivity. Hence, the affectivity of righteousness recalls the myrtle tree and the redemptive figures in Israel’s history. One can therefore begin to imagine that the myrtle tree could be employed as a metaphor for pastoral supervision and spiritual direction.

The earthy, beautiful, and fragrant myrtle tree has also symbolic meaning in the Jewish festival of Sukkot. According to the book of Nehemiah 8:15, a branch of the myrtle tree was used as one of four species for Sukkot (the Feast [“week-long autumn festival” (de Lange 2003, p. 39)] of Booths/Tabernacles) where Ezra, the Father of Judaism, proclaims, “Go out to the hills and bring branches of olive, wild olive, myrtle, palm, and other leafy trees to make booths, as it is written” (cf. Lev 23:40). The festival of Sukkot commemorates “Israel’s wilderness journey beyond Sinai” and is symbolized by the building of booths or “sukka”, “temporary dwellings which sheltered the Israelites during their years of wandering after the Sinai event” (Vernoff 1999, p. 7). During the festival, the four species (arba’a minim), the “palm, willow, myrtle and citron”, are “waved in Sukkot ritual … symbolizing not arrival at the Land but integral unity” to remember God’s hope and “anticipation” for redemption (Vernoff 1999, pp. 7, 9). During the ritual also, the four species are “held together and waved in the ‘six directions,’ which include up and down” (Vernoff 1999, p. 10). There is redemptive symbolism taking place, as each of “the four species symbolize the unified wholeness of the body, of Israel, of humankind” whereas “the six directions manifestly symbolize the totality, the unified wholeness, of the divine rule over these various levels of creation—a rule to become fully acknowledged and consolidated only with the redemption” (Vernoff 1999, p. 10). If the myrtle tree, like the pomegranate (Num 20:5, Deut 8:8, Ex 28:33–35), can have important symbolism in Judaism, it can also possess great meaning for Christianity as well. This is nothing new. Christian theologians through the centuries have utilized the Old Testament for the development of theology such as with Mariology (Pelikan 1996, p. 24).

The branches of the myrtle tree could be envisaged to portray the elemental forces of solidarity and subsidiarity underlying pastoral supervision and spiritual direction. Accordingly, the myrtle tree symbolizes opportunities for blessing, for the gradualness of grace as the outpouring of little goodness. These are possibilities for righteousness to coincide with the discernment of inviting moments of God’s spirit to be a sparkle in the soul, a sign of transformation and growth to overflow into sharing and autonomy, incarnationally driven in the hope of redemption. The incarnational character of ministry as truth in love unveils a redemptive space, diachronic in nature because responsibility for the other is irrevocable (Levinas 1998, pp. 171–72).

The challenge, therefore, for pastoral supervisors and spiritual directors alike remains to be like the myrtle tree, being a symbol of anticipation and redemption, energizing (giving light to) an incarnational life of righteousness where “In Christ, charity in truth becomes the Face of his Person, a vocation for us to love our brothers and sisters in the truth of his plan” (Benedict 2009, no. 1). For example, Jesus knew this himself when he delayed going to the “Jewish festival of booths” (Jn 7:2). He says to his brothers, “Go to the festival yourselves. I am not going to this festival, for my time has not yet fully come” (Jn 7:8). This is intriguing not just because of its redemptive, and further incarnational relevance. Jesus, as the Christ, reveals at the temple during the festival in Jerusalem, “My teaching is not mine but his who sent me” (Jn 7:16). This infers a sense of mystery, and further unknowability, of the work of the Holy Spirit forming in the soul, prompting moments of reflection, wisdom, care, guidance, challenge, and compassion to encounter the other. The world of the other (including God) is an intrigue. Levinas reflects, “The relationship with the other is not an idyllic and harmonious relationship of communion, or of sympathy through which we put ourselves in the other’s place; we recognize the other as resembling us, but exterior to us; the relationship with the other is a relationship with Mystery” (Levinas 1997, p. 74). In the world of the other, the presence of God touches the soul evoking a gradualness of awakening to the little goodness, to the pronunciation of grace, the affectivity of love in truth.

Let us move now to exploring the ministries of pastoral supervision and spiritual direction in terms of unknowability, highlighting the journey into the mystery of the other. Here, one begins to discern more of the incarnational and redemptive source of these two ministries invoking love in truth and inviting a trustful, patient relation of respecting the other’s mystery, gifts and dignity as against poor practices that do more damage than good.

5. Unknowability in Pastoral Supervision and Spiritual Direction

There are examples where ministry falls into a variety of harmful experiences motivated more by self-interest, the ego, control, laziness and a lack of empathy and compassion. For example, Michael Paterson poses a series of questions to highlight the danger where pastoral supervision is not practised as “soulful vision” but rather is “sabotaged” by managerial control and self-interest (Paterson 2020, p. 78). He reflects on the following:

For what is super about having someone checking up on you to make sure there are no oversights? What is super about having someone analyse or diagnose your professional practice only to prescribe treatment plans that you are meant to follow? What is visionary about being held hostage for an hour while the person in the other chair gets their ego needs met by showing off their wisdom and experience?

(Paterson 2020, p. 78)

Such “perfunctory” and “corrective” reductions in pastoral supervision portray a lack of imagination about the importance of “transformation” (Paterson 2020, p. 78). There is a need then to learn to think otherwise, to show interest, care, and patience in human growth wherein transformation can be seen as a function of relationality and subsidiarity, and human fraternity and solidarity. Where for example, pastoral supervision takes on an indifferent, perfunctory, and narrow perspective reducing the other to “another myself” (Levinas 1997, p. 75), the dialogue can be understood as more “snooper-vision” or even “death by inquisition” (Paterson 2020, pp. 77–78), with little acknowledgment of the other. This is akin to the encounter of horror. Levinas provides some insight into this notion when he states, “Horror is somehow a movement which will strip consciousness of its very “subjectivity”. This is a dehumanizing “impersonal vigilance” of anonymous evil (Levinas 1995, p. 60). Looking at the same dangers in spiritual direction, Dennis Billy CSsR reflects the following:

Spiritual direction was once defined as ‘the help one person gives another to enable him to become himself in his faith. … Help given and received that seeks to draw a person closer to God should take place within an atmosphere of mutual trust and privileged respect. If it does, the person seeking direction will surely come to a deeper awareness of God in his or her life. If it does not, the quality of the direction will suffer, sometimes even to the point of damaging that person’s relationship with God and with others.

(Billy 1998, p. 68)

We can begin to see emerging or intuit that there are pre-conditions of dialogue in both pastoral supervision and spiritual direction. These pre-conditions such as openness, respect and patience demand humility and gentleness, the necessary practical wisdom to embrace responsible dialogue with-and-for-the-other. Ministries can fall into the horror of damaging the other, overstepping boundaries and inviting a “haunting spectre” that does not respect the other’s “private existence” and dignity (Levinas 1995, p. 61).

In contrast, fostering a sense of unknowability (that the other is an enigma) about the other invites sacred ground (Ex 3:5). The pre-conditions serve together to respect and preserve altogether the other’s unknowability (Levinas [1998] 1999a, p. 123). This means appreciating that both difference and mystery point to a paradoxical truth that in the face of the other, the directee/supervisee, there is a word, God’s word, that awakens or demands that the pastoral supervisor or spiritual director take on a professional and ethical act of transcendence of “being-for-all-the-others” (Burggraeve 2018, p. 33). In other words, the pastoral supervisor and spiritual director (despite their distinctiveness) must seek not to do harm to the supervisee or directee (Burggraeve 2018, p. 26). In this way, a “holy ground” (Ex 3:5) of integrity, sympathy, and empathy can come to light as incarnational and redemptive moments of compassion: a taste for gentleness (Matt 5:5) as much as for “righteousness” (Matt 5:6).

Responsibility and care for the other’s well-being cannot be evaded. Even the pastoral supervisor or spiritual director cannot think that they are not vulnerable to transformation in the relation. Both the solidarity of building friendship and the subsidiarity of nurturing autonomy create incarnational and redemptive spaces for God’s word to be pronounced and heard. Consider Mary’s responses to the angel Gabriel upon hearing that she will become the mother of the “Most High” (Lk 1:33): “How can this be, since I am a virgin?” (Lk 1:34) and “Here am I, the servant of the Lord; let it be with me according to your word” (Lk 1:38). Mary’s responses help to illustrate the drama of unknowability that affects both ministries of pastoral supervision and spiritual direction. Mary is transformed from perplexity and restlessness to an evocation of love in truth: the pronunciation of faith of giving her “Yes” to God (and us). Through Mary’s divine maternity (the dogma of Mary as Theotokos/Mother of God, the one who gave birth to God), she enters the mysteries of the incarnation and redemption to give birth to Jesus, messiah and saviour.

The angel, by responding to Mary, carries forth the act of revelation of the Incarnation to reveal “nothing will be impossible with God” (Lk 1:37). The angel’s revelation to Mary shows that in the saying/message of these words to Mary, the humility of unknowability provokes grace and transformation, necessary qualities in ministry. Mary’s responses portray the pre-conditions of dialogue, an inquisitive maternity or subsidiarity of faith and solidarity in God demonstrating how to respond to “love in truth” in passivity: “let it be with me according to your word” (Lk 1:38).

Giving light to the sense of passivity, Levinas writes, “The subjectivity of a subject is vulnerability, exposure to affection, sensibility, a passivity more passive still that any passivity, an irrecuperable time, an unassemblable [sic] diachrony of patience, an exposedness always to be exposed the more, an exposure of expressing, and thus to saying, thus to giving” (Levinas [1998] 1999a, p. 50). The “diachrony of patience” (willingness to journey into the time and mystery of encountering the other in responsibility) signifies first a state of unknowing, and of then consequential gradualness to encounter the epiphany. When Mary states, “let it be with me according to your word”, there is room for analysis by appealing to Levinas’ thought. Accordingly, in Levinasian terms, Mary’s fiat signifies the passivity of the “diachrony of patience” through responsibility and suffering (“an exposedness always to be exposed the more”). In terms then of giving light to the incarnational (saying Yes to God) and redemptive (to give of oneself) qualities of pastoral supervision and spiritual direction, Mary’s state of passivity demonstrates how unknowability is vulnerability itself to God and to others, to be exposed to suffering and pathways of healing and redemption.

At the phenomenological (what appears to be consciousness) and spiritual core of ministry, there is the presence of mystery and unknowability. Both the pastoral supervisor and spiritual director, therefore, breaking open a hospitable and revelatory ground of care, are called to recognize the need for passivity, humility and obedient listening, of recognizing the other’s unknowability. Such a pre-condition of genuine dialogue can help to orient gentleness and righteousness in relationships of care, support, guidance, and nurture as a means, for example, to ask difficult questions (“an exposure to expressing”) to help the other (directee or supervisee) to grow and mature. Dialogue in ministry therefore becomes prophetic and maternal because it is essentially “giving” growing out of the patience of an affectivity of righteousness. Accordingly, a pastoral supervisor or spiritual director takes on the qualities of a myrtle tree, as it were, evidencing the boldness of faith and commitment to live out a life of righteousness and blessing. In this way, one can appreciate Mary’s words when she prays, “my soul magnifies the Lord” (Lk 1:46).

6. Boldness, Curiosity and Gentleness in Ministry: Towards Love in Truth

Boldness also needs to be oriented by curiosity. Paterson, reflecting on his experiences of pastoral supervision, underlines how “curiosity” needs boldness to find meaning in the difficulties suffering as much as a “commitment to telling the truth” (Paterson 2020, p. 79). Where curiosity and boldness come together, the supervisee can learn to draw out the meaning of experiences of ministry with a deepening theological reflection in three key areas: (i) “to reflect on the past in the present for the sake of the future,” (ii) “to turn experience into an opportunity for learning,” and (iii) “to enhance their ability to reflect-in-action (in real time) through the habit of reflection-on-action (after the event)” (Paterson 2020, p. 79). Such reflective activity denotes the encounter of ethical transcendence, of appreciating how the value of righteousness takes form into the depths of the soul. Curiosity can lead further to animating boldness to encounter truth: “The directee, in other words, is encouraged to explore not only his or her point of view concerning self-image, God, and prayer, but the viewpoint of God himself” (Billy 1998, p. 72). In the context of spiritual direction, Billy points to how one must move from a mere boldness towards courage or “extraordinary truth” before the mysteries of faith:

The relations among the Persons of the Trinity also must be taken into account in spiritual direction. Such an affirmation may at first seem rather bold for the likes of the ordinary, matter-of-fact dialogue that takes up much of the time spent in this important helping relationship. A closer look at the statement, however, reveals the extraordinary truth of the Christian faith: God became human so that humanity might become divine; God has visited the human race in Jesus Christ and through his Spirit continues to inspire it.

(Billy 1998, p. 77)

The force of grace of love in truth is an invitation to enter the redemptive time of the Trinity. In practical, incarnational terms, this means being grounded in the present to talk about the past and move to hope towards the Father’s Kingdom, evidencing how memory and hope come together to transform experience into curiosity, learning, perplexity into discernment, and suffering into wisdom. Hence, the supervisee in pastoral supervision or the directee in spiritual direction learns how the spontaneity of faith can transform into a revelation of God’s word, “a Saying, the most passive passivity”, into a “form of giving” (Levinas [1998] 1999a, p. 50). This represents a life of blessing, gradually coming to fruit as righteousness, as the outpouring of subsidiarity and solidarity “through the Spirit”. In other words, at the source or roots of pastoral supervision and spiritual direction, there is the “passivity” of love in truth: the vocation and calling to hear God’s word, to enter and participate in the mysteries of faith and hear the cry of “the most vulnerable” (Francis 2018, no. 79).

Such participation is grave and demanding. This is because from the contours of the unknowability of encountering the other, pastoral supervision and spiritual direction are oriented by a programmatic journey of “difficult freedom” (Levinas 1990, p. 272). Freedom is difficult because of the learning encountered to be spontaneous and curious in faith, bold in hope and vigilant in love: to encounter an “extraordinary truth” (Billy 1998, p. 77) to be responsible for our brother/sister stranger, to “lift up the lowly” and fill “the hungry with good things” (Lk 1:52–53). Accordingly, Pope Francis points to a biblical entry into the beatitude of righteousness as the proclamation to “‘Seek justice, correct oppression; defend the fatherless, plead for the widow’ (Is 1:17)” (Francis 2018, no. 72). Like Esther and Mary, like the righteous ones, to be like the myrtle tree, there remains an openness to be an image and likeness of God (Gen 1:27), to discern good from evil and “mature in a love that ‘becomes concern and care for the other’” (Benedict 2009, no. 11). Righteousness can further be tempered through a beatitude of meekness (gentleness). Pope Francis reflects on the following:

Christ says: “Learn from me; for I am gentle and humble of heart, and you will find rest for your souls” (Mt 11:29). If we are constantly upset and impatient with others, we will end up drained and weary. But if we regard the faults and limitations of others with tenderness and meekness, without an air of superiority, we can actually help them and stop wasting our energy on useless complaining. Saint Thérèse of Lisieux tells us that “perfect charity consists in putting up with others’ mistakes, and not being scandalized by their faults”.

(Francis 2018, no. 72)

If solidarity brings spiritual friendship, and subsidiarity, humility, then “perfect charity” reveals a determined desire to make community together despite the neurotic, difficult ways we encounter others. Righteousness needs humility to temper its force and remain patient and hence not be subject to impulsive projections of the ego. For there is much that is unknowable lest a pastoral supervisor or spiritual director falls into the trap of reducing the other to his/her own representations of experience. This means not being obsessed with the other’s demanding difference, but rather, respecting the sense of unknowability. Such affectivity gives freedom to the overflowing gift of love in friendship (solidarity) and humility to recognize a future world and an age of love for all to share (subsidiarity). Here, we discover the “hope” and “riches” of Christ’s “glorious inheritance among the saints” (Eph 1:18), the meekness, sensitivity, and responsibility to be righteous: “But God has so arranged the body, giving the greater honour to the inferior member, that there may be no dissension within the body, but the members may have the same care for one another. If one member suffers, all suffer together with it; if one member is honoured, all rejoice together with it” (1 Cor 12:24–26). Such care in righteousness (to invite gentleness) provides a necessary humility to “to bring good news to the poor” (Lk 4:18), a little goodness of truth in love to make community together and be like the myrtle tree growing in the “holy ground” (Ex 3:5) of “divine grace” (The William-Davidson Talmud (Koren-Steinsaltz) 2012).

7. Conclusions: Making Community Together Through the Little Goodness

Nouwen expresses, “Spiritual direction is direction given to people in their relation to God. Just as a creative dialogue with other human beings cannot just be left to our natural responses, so too our intimate conversation with God needs formation and training (Nouwen 1981, p. 399). Pastoral supervision, in contrast, helps to guide the supervisee to greater interior theological reflection and understanding about the movement of God in ministry to nurture face-to-face relations. Both ministries need “formation and training” to move towards the “extraordinary force” (Benedict 2009, no. 1) of making community together. For Nouwen, the Church community centres on incorporating the mysteries of the faith into everyday life and ministry. Such formation enables the evocative encounter with “the Christ event” (Nouwen 1981, p. 401). The encounter is evocative because it demands the “centrality of the human person” to “opt for courageous and generous engagement in the field of justice and peace” (Benedict 2009, no.’s 1, 47). As ministries of truth in love, the “Christ event” from incarnation to Parousia, helps to pronounce the subsidiarity of affirming the other’s value and dignity and solidarity (Benedict 2009, no. 57) through opening possibilities for the little goodness of solidarity of forming a taste for justice and peace through and in community. Nouwen’s discernment on making community is one that asks for maturity in ministry and life as he asks the question, “Isn’t there a subtle pressure in both the Church and society to remain a dependent child?” (Nouwen 1994, p. 122).

Subsidiarity and solidarity, love and truth, righteousness and gentleness, pastoral supervision and spiritual direction, movements of divine providence and grace, can be transformed therefore into the maturity of the little goodness and leaven (Matt 13:33) of making community together revealing the infinity of God’s potential to give light and create light (Gen 1:3). St. Paul’s evocation of the Holy Spirit evokes further the incarnational and redemptive light of God: “But, as it is written, ‘What no eye has seen, nor ear heard, nor the human heart conceived, what God has prepared for those who love him’—these things God has revealed to us through the Spirit; for the Spirit searches everything, even the depths of God.” (1 Cor 2:9–10; cf. Isa 64:4). This is the little goodness, “the ‘mad goodness,’ the most human thing that there is in man” (Levinas 1999b, p. 109). This is because, “it defines man, despite its powerlessness” (Levinas 1999b, p. 109). For “despite all the horrors man has brought about, that poor kindness holds on” (Levinas 1999b, pp. 108–9).

In the transformative grace of the little goodness, Nouwen’s statement about spiritual direction comes to light:

It is important that we start thinking about a ministry in which we help one another to practice the disciplines of the Church, the Book, and the heart and thus live a life in which we become more and more sensitive to the ongoing presence of God in our lives. What finally counts is not just that there are good spiritual men and women in this very chaotic world, but that there are communities of Christians who together listen with great care and sensitivity to him who wants to make his healing presence known to all people.

(Nouwen 1981, p. 404)

In many ways, this could be a good mission statement today for synodality. To walk together, to “enlarge the space of your tent” (Isa 52:2), heralds the challenge that the People of God need to be “thinking about a ministry in which we help one another”, and to allow such thinking to coincide with the practice of the little goodness, “the saintliness of the human” (Levinas 1999b, p. 109). Two such ministries are pastoral supervision and spiritual direction. They are distinct in purpose; yet, as this article has sought to show, need the depths of philosophy, theology, and spirituality to energize and orient their mission towards a horizon of love in truth. Spiritual direction has been deepened by the plenitude of writings and practices of the great spiritual authors/saints from both East and West. Pastoral supervision is relatively recent in tradition, and now has become a growing norm in many Catholic dioceses and is increasingly used in various other Christian denominations such as Anglican and Uniting Church.

When the People of God begin to think and act together with the sparkle or force of God’s grace and little goodness forming through time, the roots of the community begin to be formed. To help nurture these roots, the little goodness provides a formative foundation so that hearing can mature into listening, that looking can form into seeing (cf. Matt 13:13). Whilst these pastoral and spiritual senses grow in the time of developing the gifts of the Spirit (1 Cor 12:1–11), we are called again to remember Paul’s admonishment about being responsible for “the inferior member” (1 Cor 12:24). If the sense of community is going to develop by way of solidarity and friendship as much as subsidiarity and facilitating autonomy, there must be an ethic of responsibility for the poor one, our brother/sister stranger to invite love in truth into the relation.

Given that pastoral supervision enacts theological reflection and questions, the little goodness evokes a questioning and response in the words of Christ: “‘Who is my mother, and who are my brothers?’ And pointing to his disciples, he said, ‘Here are my mother and my brothers! For whoever does the will of my Father in heaven is my brother and sister and mother’” (Matt 12:48–50).

Kenneth Pohly provides the following definition of pastoral supervision: “Pastoral Supervision is a method of engaging in and reflecting on ministry in which a supervisor (teacher) and one or more supervisees (learners) covenant together to reflect critically on their ministry as a way of growing in self-awareness, ministering competence, theological understanding, and Christian commitment” (Pohly 2001, pp. 107–8). If pastoral supervision aids cognitive reflection upon pastoral practice and discipleship, then spiritual direction acts in a way to care for the soul, to understand the work of God’s blessing amidst the mystery of journeying to God. The work of God’s blessing gravitates towards an incarnation and redemptive horizon of understanding the work of righteousness and meekness to inherit the force and energy of God’s forgiveness. Here, then, in the good light of diachrony, the little goodness of solidarity and subsidiarity in pastoral supervision and spiritual direction, one can envision hopeful practice in which “self-development” cannot be divorced from “social justice” (Leech 1977, p. 188).

Leech, reflecting on the nature of spiritual direction, provides a key insight to Nouwen’s awakening insight for “communities of Christians who together listen with great care and sensitivity”, and writes the following:

Theology is at the heart of the question of social relevance of direction. Is this ministry merely concerned with deepening a personal relationship of intimacy with Christ as Saviour? Or is it concerned to deepen perception of the working of God in the structures of society? Is it concerned to enable individuals to live lives of devotion and piety within the accepted framework of the social order, or does it question the spiritual and moral values of that order? Adjustment to society, or the Kingdom of God—which is its perspective? Whether spiritual direction has any social dimension at all is deeply connected to the theological assumptions on which it is based.

(Leech 1977, p. 181)

Leech’s questions are appealing and far-reaching over 50 years on as they would help to make sense of the work of synodality today in the Church as Pope Francis proclaims, “The Synod is neither a convention, nor a ‘parlour’, a parliament nor senate, where people make deals and reach a consensus. The Synod is rather an ecclesial expression, i.e., the Church that journeys together to understand reality with the eyes of faith and with the heart of God” (Faggioli 2020, p. 92). The metaphors of “the eyes of faith” and “the heart of God” helps to reveal the way of making community together towards the essence of integral human development, namely love in truth. One can appreciate here by these questions, the importance of adhering to the imperatives of the beatitudes. This means, for example, that spiritual direction like pastoral supervision, needs “super-vision” (Carroll 2010, p. 154). Such “super-vision” reveals “the eyes of faith” and “the heart of God”. One can begin to see that although pastoral supervision and spiritual direction are distinct ministries, there is a need to appreciate their common origin in the life of God that demands the formation of soul, mind and heart in the hope of making community together. I have therefore sought in this article to offer a spiritual theological and phenomenological context to bring both ministries together, to make them equally accountable and credible to Jesus’ moral ethic of love in truth: “But the aim of such instruction is love that comes from a pure heart, a good conscience, and sincere faith” (1 Tim 1:5).

I have wanted to show that approaching the unknowability/mystery of the other demands little goodness (where “that poor kindness holds on” (Levinas 1999b, pp. 108–9)). Through the form of the little goodness as love in truth, the spiritual gifts (1 Cor 12:1) of righteousness, blessing, gentleness, and boldness, the pastoral supervisor and spiritual director can learn to receive the grace of a covenantal heart of spiritual friendship (solidarity) and sharing (subsidiarity). This is the promise and blessing of love in truth (in its incarnational and redemptive qualities), to grow in holiness and be like the myrtle tree, righteous and open to divine grace. For in the gradualness of conversion to the little goodness (and the imagination of faith), blessing and holiness come together as Moses envisioned. Before his death, Moses stated in his final blessing to the Israelites with the following introductory words: “The Lord came from Sinai, and dawned from Seir upon us; he shone forth from Mount Paran. With him were myriads of holy ones; at his right, a host of his own” (Deut 33:2). In a final word, both ministries of pastoral supervision and spiritual direction can find hope to form “myriads of holy ones” (myrtles [hadassim]) (The William-Davidson Talmud (Koren-Steinsaltz) 2012) in the Church community of faith, and so bring a little goodness (love in truth) to the world “in our hope of sharing the glory of God” (Rom 5:2).