The previous version of this page recommended The Practice of Spiritual Direction as a devotional for men’s small groups. That was wrong enough to be worth correcting up front.
This is a training manual for people learning to be spiritual directors. William A. Barry and William J. Connolly wrote it for practitioners, and it reads like it. There are no reflection questions, no chapter exercises, no group study material. Anyone who buys it expecting a devotional will be disappointed by page ten.
What it is
Barry and Connolly were two of the six co-founders of the Center for Religious Development in Cambridge, Massachusetts, opened in 1971 as one of the first places offering a full year of formal training in spiritual direction. This book is that training, written down. HarperOne published the revised second edition in 2009 (ISBN 9780061652639), and it has been the standard text in the field for decades.
The central claim is a narrow one and the authors defend it carefully: spiritual direction is not counselling, not mentoring, and not advice. The director’s job is to help someone notice what God is already doing in their prayer and pay attention to it. Most of the book is about the discipline of not intervening, which is harder than it sounds and is where most well-meaning people go wrong.
A note on tradition
Both authors were Jesuit priests, and the book is written from inside Roman Catholic practice. The framework leans heavily on Ignatian spirituality, particularly the discernment of spirits, and the assumed context is a Catholic one.
We hold to historic Protestant convictions and this book does not shift them. It is not making an argument about salvation, authority, or the sacraments; it is describing how to sit with someone while they pray. Protestants have drawn on Ignatian discernment for a long time without difficulty. Read it as a book from a different tradition that has thought harder about this particular skill than most of ours have, and take what serves.
Strengths
It is genuinely rigorous. Barry and Connolly treat spiritual direction as a craft with failure modes, and much of the book is honest about how directors get it wrong: filling silences, solving problems that were not asked about, mistaking their own reaction for discernment. That kind of self-criticism is rare in books about prayer.
The case material is the best part. Real conversations, examined closely, with the authors pointing out what the director noticed and what they let pass.
Limitations
It is dry. This is a professional text and it does not try to move you. The prose is careful rather than warm, and there are stretches that read like a seminar.
It also assumes you either are, or intend to become, a director. If you simply want to find a spiritual director, or to pray better yourself, most of the book is aimed past you.
Who should read it
A pastor, elder, or lay leader who regularly ends up in long conversations about other people’s prayer lives and suspects he is doing it badly. That is a real category of man, and this is the book for him.
Anyone wanting a devotional, a study, or encouragement should go elsewhere. There is nothing wrong with this book. It is just not that.
The Practice of Spiritual Direction on Amazon (revised 2nd edition, HarperOne)