Course XI - Teaching 11: The Superior as Spiritual Director

Sons that start the Spiritual Way and have no certain Spiritual Director, implicitly take their Superior as Spiritual Director.
The Superior should observe the physical state of the Son trusted to him. He has to form perfect beings by seeking a harmonious physical, intellectual and spiritual life in the Son.
The soul wants identify with the Divine, but the body, since it is temple of the spirit, also needs transformation. One’s body, instead of being hostile and fighting and disagreeing constantly with our spirit, has to be a factor of stimulation and help for the spiritual transmutation.
Imperfection of certain souls and their incapacity to approach certain ascetic experiences many times are the result of lack of physical health.
The Superior, as Spiritual Director, has to know imperfections of his Sons in the flesh, and also has to know stains of the soul. He has to study is these stains are congenital, hereditary, organic diseases and their eventual cure, so that they are not an impediment to the spiritual progress. He should not attend only physical diseases; also he has to consider nervous and psychic diseases, which are so ordinary.
Also the Superior should study them closely, since sometimes these physical or psychic diseases are the product of the mystical development of the individual being, and he should lead the Sons to stand them patiently. He shall know both kinds of diseases for their fruits in the soul, since a karmic disease that has not been removed, impedes the spiritual progress, and a mystical disease, given by God, fosters and helps virtue to sanctify the soul.
Also, Superiors should have nothing to do with diseases of their Sons, if and when these diseases are not very serious or an impediment for them to follow the spiritual way.
Here is the special mission of the Superiors: to lead their Sons to perfection despite all.
They have to consider and analyze very serious physical defects.
In plain words, most young people have congenital anomalies at present and generally those who come to this world pay the price of an uncultivated Humanity, with no real concept about holiness of marriage and conception.
After marriage, sexual passion increases by lack of a right guide instead of growing calm. Marriage is a constant passion fight instead of an altar of peace and respect; low passions cannot provide beautiful and balanced bodies to those beings coming to inhabit them.
Sexual passions pass unconsciously from parents to children, and their influences remain deposited and transformed there into troubles and complexes during the adolescence.
Over all, the Superior has to watch with attention. He has to enable the Son to talk and confess. He shall find in the Son’s words a solution to his troubles. When one leads the Son to talk, his sorrows and worries become more bearable. The Superior should lead the Son to talk about his family, and he will know eventual diseases of this Son according to family diseases.
Many times, previous to be responsible for a vocation, the Superior should also make use of medical diagnosis, particularly in those Sons who are very nervous and sensitive.
Of course, the Superior does not finish this observation in one day, because this process is the result of constant analysis.
Mistrust all those who are always melancholic, since this denotes that rather than a spiritual vocation they need an emotional relief.
Sons with fixed or persistent ideas should not be admitted: for instance, when they say, “I cannot work”, “I cannot study”, or “I feel inhibited for certain activities”. These defects must be corrected immediately, otherwise they lead to ruin.
But the Superior can transform and lead souls to be fit for perfection by analyzing them constantly.
The spiritual life lies on psychic life, and psychic life on physical life, and the Superior that neglects the harmony of body and soul in his Sons never will achieve their perfection.
When the Sons have certain Spiritual Director, the Superior must contact him to know the Son’s mood, even generally, with no confidences in detail, in order to direct and guide him toward his true path of Spiritual Realization.