In her autobiography St. Teresa of Avila stresses how women need spiritual guidance, she herself having turned to several spiritual directors in her lifetime. As St. Teresa mentions, a woman's spiritual life is endangered by emotionalism, dreaming, illusions and self-centeredness. In the book, The Privilege of Being a Woman, Dr. Alice von Hildebrand explains how "women need men whose mission is to help them to channel their emotions, to distinguish between those that are valid and those that are tainted by irrationality, those which are legitimate and those which are illegitimate." She further states: "Two great spiritual directors, Saint Francis de Sales and Dom Colomba Marmion, emphasize the fact that 'however intellectual or enlightened a woman may be, God, according to the ordinary rulings of His providence, wills her to be directed by a man who is His minister.'"
More thoughts on spiritual direction to follow later this week.
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