As I have often said, what we might say of the body is also true of the soul. Our spiritual lives also ought to undergo an annual check-up. Just as we get a “physical,” so too, we ought to get a “spiritual” check-up. The Lenten season provides us with the opportunity to do a kind of “self-examination,” spiritually. In doing so, we ought to find some time, at least on an annual basis, to have a sit-down conversation with a priest or someone trained in sound methods of spiritual direction to talk about what’s happening in our spiritual life. After all, the body will return to dust in a few decades, but the soul lives on for eternity.
So, what would an annual spiritual check-up look like? Well, it would be a good opportunity to talk about your relationship with each of the members of the Blessed Trinity – Father, Son and Holy Spirit. We might include a review of our relationship with our Blessed Mother, Saint Joseph and other favorites saints or patrons. As a doctor would check our vital signs, so our spiritual check up might include a review of how our prayer is going – what methods we are using, when do we pray, where do we pray and what we experience in our prayer. The vitals would include a review of our relationships and how healthy they are: with spouses, children, other friends, co-workers and whoever is my neighbor. And of course, a review of the vitals would include the virtues we are striving to practice and the vices and sins that plague us.
In reviewing all of this annually, a wise spiritual guide might notice certain patterns in our lives and what seems to have changed in the various areas of our life since our last check up, either last year, or perhaps more recently. And, if we practice a brief daily examination of your thoughts, words, actions and omissions at the end of the day, we might notice certain patterns in your life that concern us, as well. All of this would be material for discussion during an annual spiritual check-up, just as when you notice a new pain, a new limitation that curtails some activity that you once enjoyed and mention to your doctor.
Imagine, for example, that you most readily relate to Jesus, but you don’t really feel like you have any kind of relationship of the Holy Spirit. This might be something to bring up during your spiritual check-up. Or you have been struggling to enter into any meaningful kind of prayer, and this has been going on for months. This would be a very important matter to examine with a priest or spiritual director. Or perhaps lately you have noticed a recurring anger whenever a certain person’s name is mentioned. In so many different ways, spiritual growth might advance if we would just notice interior patterns and how we respond to them.
As with the body, noticing is a key to the spiritual life. The body gives us signs when something is not right. So does our own soul. One example of this might be to notice what patterns seem to occur when we are either hungry, angry, lonely or tired. Perhaps our responses to others are more direct, or we become more withdrawn and don’t want to be around people. Perhaps we turn to “medicating” our emotional needs with alcohol, drugs, pornography, food, shopping, or other bad habits. But the important thing is that we are “self-aware” and notice whatever patterns of thoughts, speech or behavior in which we tend to be engaged.
One thing we have going for the body that we have scarcely begun to develop for the soul are specialists in the spiritual life. For heart problems we see a cardiologist. For cancer diagnosis, we see an oncologist. For prostate issues we turn to a urologist. And for suspicious spots and anomalies on our skin we see a dermatologist. Well, what if we had “spiritual specialists” to whom we might seek help with the seven deadly sins? How many of us could use an anger specialist? Or perhaps someone to help us with gluttony and over-eating? How beneficial would it be to see a specialist in pride or envy when several people notice narcissistic tendencies in our speech? I think you get the point: how underdeveloped our spiritual lives remain if we don’t attend to the spiritual maladies in our lives – which can often be the source of some of our more pronounced physical problems.
I’ve often thought the Church ought to recruit people and train them to go into the careers of counseling and spiritual direction, precisely to offer wise, sound, spiritual guidance in our parishes. Imagine if your parish priest was good at this spiritual check-up approach and spiritual direction such that people would get a “spiritual’ check-up annually, or even more frequently. If a priest had just 6 one-hour check-ups a day, Monday through Friday, he could sit down with 30 people a week. And if he could sustain that kind of schedule for 50 weeks out of the year, that would be 1,500 people who could have a spiritual check-up and begin to make some advancement in their spiritual health and well-being. It is my great desire that more of our priests would be trained to give spiritual direction, and other members of the laity as well.
In the meantime, consider what steps you yourself might take to initiate and undertake your own regular spiritual review and ask a priest you trust, a Christian counselor or even a long-time friend to meet with you so that you might talk it out with someone you trust. Also, continue or begin the practice of daily examen, that is, a review of how you have responded to the promptings of the Holy Spirit and the ways you have withheld your consent to follow the Holy Spirit’s lead because of fear or a lack of faith. We still have plenty of time in this Lenten season to ask the Holy Spirit for the grace to make a good review of spiritual life in advance of a spiritual check-up you might undergo on a regular basis. Do not be afraid of a richer and more profound relationship with the Lord.
