Reflections on Encounter
I write this at just over the half-way mark of LCSD’s Encounter Course. I am already aware of how much I will miss it when my three years come to an end. I signed up for Encounter because I had begun to see people as their Spiritual Director (SD). A friend of mine, an active SD and teacher on the Ignatian Course disagreed with other friends who said ‘there’s no need to train - you’re a priest, just do it’. He said that this specific ministry within the church (of course, not a distinctively priestly one) does call for specific formation and ongoing supervision. Well, I gave him the benefit of the doubt, and I am very pleased I did. Not just because I have found Encounter hugely beneficial for my growing ministry as a SD, but because I have stumbled across a challenging, loving community of Christians with whom I am sharing a very special period of my life.
The weekly zoom evenings and termly intensive days in person (usually at The Royal Foundation of St Katherine) have brought the great privilege of knowing a whole new group of people on a deep and personal level. They know me not as their priest, but as a fellow student. This has been liberating, and a tonic that has benefitted the rest of my week when I am a parish priest. My personal prayer life had sustained me for some years in a steady state - the rollercoaster ride of discernment, college and curacy felt far behind me. But Encounter has reinvigorated an excitement about growing in prayer and intimacy with God. There have been plenty of other ways, too, in which Encounter has brought life outside my practice as a budding SD. Not least, my ability to listen and explore conversations with parishioners and others, and strengthening my instinct to trust other people to God, and not over think my role in their faith development.
Encounter is a challenging place. It challenges my prejudices, my ego, my reliance on my roles and experience as a Rector of a parish. This is refreshing, if sometimes a little inconvenient!
I hope Encounter will represent, for me, the beginning of a period of real excitement about growing as a ‘holy listener’. I hope our formative year group relationships are just beginning too - making friends on Encounter has been a blessed surprise. And I hope that the more SDs there are out there, the healthily and holier the Church in all its forms may be, the more people may discover the gift of having an Spiritual Director, and the more people may discover God’s call for them to accompany others as an SD. I hope my role as a trustee of LCSD might help a little too.
Nearing a decade of ordained life, Encounter has been a real gift to me. In this small way, I feel a little like Cleopas and his companion. At this stage of my journey, through bringing Encounter alongside me, the Risen Jesus has bought me (and I hope others) a little more to life in Him.
Questions for you and your directees:
How do your identities/labels for your place/roles in the Church sit within you?
Do they sit together, or apart?
When you acknowledge them, what inner movements do they stir?
What is really feeding your Spiritual life at the moment?
Is there a potential hunger for a new or different season somewhere too?
The Reverend Canon Jack Noble
The Reverend Canon Jack Noble is the Rector of St Giles’ Cripplegate in the City of London. He is a Trustee of the London Centre for Spiritual Direction and the Two Cities (Diocese of London) Bishop’s Advisor for Prayer and Spiritual Direction.
Insta: @stgilescripplegate
Facebook: St Giles’ Cripplegate
Twitter: @frjacknoble