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Document Details : Title: God's Compassionate Heart Subtitle: The Source of Compassionate Accompaniment Author(s): RUFFING, Janet K. Journal: Studies in Spirituality Volume: 23 Date: 2013 Pages: 201-211 DOI: 10.2143/SIS.23.0.3007317 Abstract : What is the source of a spiritual director’s compassionate accompaniment of directees? Although the learned skills of basic and advanced empathy will help many directors accompany their directees, contemplative practice suggests that directors actually mediate God’s compassionate heart, the deepest source of compassionate accompaniment of another in this ministry. Julian of Norwich’s mystical teaching on God’s mercy and her description of her own mystical transformation as a result of her visions offer guidance about the process of contemplative transformation that contemporary spiritual directors might fruitfully undergo so that they, too, express God’s compassionate heart. One major obstacle to such transformation and the accompaniment rooted in it is our contemporary compulsion of busyness. |
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