Spiritual Guidance and Training

Spiritual Guidance

Spiritual Guidance (or Spiritual Direction as it is sometimes) is a hallowed way of accompanying you on your spiritual journey. Together, you and your guide listen deeply to the mystery and moving of Spirit in your life in order to discern the sacred thread that leads you into a deeper relationship with the spiritual world. Individual monthly meetings in Ellsworth or Seal Cove are arranged with either Kathryn or Joan. Group spiritual guidance can also be arranged.

At the heart of the spiritual direction relationship is a befriending in silence, and a deep trusting that there is, in fact, a spiritual dimension to one's life, and that one can come to know and live out of that dimension.

The whole purpose of spiritual direction is to penetrate beneath the surface of a person's life, to get behind the façade of conventional gestures and attitudes which one presents to the world, and to bring out one's inner spiritual freedom, one's inmost truth, which is what [Christians] call the likeness of Christ in one's soul. --Thomas Merton

There are few road maps for spiritual direction. Each relationship is unique. Over the course of time, the two seek to discern what is emerging in the person's life — where there are blocks or fears that are preventing a deeper communion with God and where there is movement and change and growth.

Centering Prayer

Mondays 1:00 pm - 2:00 pm, and Saturday mornings 7:30 am - 8:00 am

Twice a week others join us for 20 minute "sessions" when we pause to sit in silence practicing the contemplative form of prayer known as "centering prayer." People arrive a few minutes early to settle into silence in the prayer room, and the beginning and ending of the session will be signalled with a bell. On Mondays the "session" also includes a half hour of questions, responses, and sharing of our experiences with this prayer.

Classes at Bangor Theological Seminary

Kathryn Booth is an adjunct professor at Bangor Theological Seminary and teaches short and full-length courses in Spiritual Life and Formation.

Here is a sample of Kathryn's BTS courses:

  • Essential Silence: a Benedictine-style teaching retreat for BTS students (Winter 2012)
  • SFD 1730: The Spiritual Life (Spring 2009)
  • SFD 1728 Introduction to Spiritual Direction (Spring 2008)
  • SFD Introduction to Contemplative Life (Summer Intensive 2007)
  • SFD 1700 Rules for Holy Living (Summer 2006 Intensive)
  • Introduction to Contemplative Life (Spring Short Class 2005)
  • Introduction to Contemplative Prayer (Fall Short Class 2005)