While looking through “A Maryknoll Book of Inspiration: Readings for Every Day of the Year,” I came across the entry for today, May 22, and the title intrigued me. What is it about you ask? Answer you, I will with the title, “Spiritual Masters.” With so many stories, films and lessons throughout time focusing on a student’s journey that is led by their revered master, these two words cannot help but conjure many thoughts as to their combined meaning. As my mind began to take flight with the idea of spiritual masters, I noticed the short length of this particular reading. What would the writer be able to convey in these three brief sentences excerpted from “Modern Spiritual Masters?” The answer to my question was simple and provided a sense of peace:
“A spiritual master is ultimately a guide — someone who has traveled the path that lies before us. At the end of the day, such guides do not show us how to be like them, but how to be more truly ourselves, how to find our own hidden gifts, how to respond to the sacred voice that issues from our own hearts and from the challenges of our own time and place. The goal of the spiritual master is not that we should remain forever novices or apprentices, but that we should learn to walk our own path, and perhaps one day become a guide for others.”
Thank you, to all of the godparents, teachers, coaches and whatever other guise a spiritual master may appear to us as, for helping us to find our own path.
