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The Spiritual Life with Fr. James Martin, S.J.

Why you need a spiritual director

The Spiritual Life with Fr. James Martin, S.J.

America Media

Spirituality, Religion & Spirituality, Christianity

4.91.2K Ratings

🗓️ 21 October 2025

⏱️ 68 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

We’ve heard your questions about spiritual direction and have an episode that should answer (almost) all of them! To help us demystify the art of spiritual direction, host James Martin, S.J. speaks with Jesuit sociologist and trained spiritual director, Patrick Gilger, S.J., about: What spiritual direction is and what it is not What you can expect from a wise spiritual director How spiritual direction helped both Jim and Paddy deepen their relationship with God and dislodge barriers to prayer Where to find a good spiritual director  Read: "How do you find a good spiritual director?" by Fr. Martin here: https://www.americamagazine.org/podcasts/2025/10/21/how-do-find-spiritual-director-catholic Do you have a spiritual question for Fr. Jim? You can write to us at:  thespirituallife@americamedia.org Become a subscriber today at Americamagazine.org/subscribe Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0

Body, mind, and spirit.

0:03.0

We believe if one needs help, so do the others.

0:06.4

As part of Catholic Health Care's holistic approach to treating the whole person,

0:10.8

here, people are not viewed as symptoms or insurance claims.

0:14.8

And when we treat the body, mind, and spirit, we believe the whole person will thrive.

0:20.5

Catholic Health Care, learn more at

0:22.8

we care you flourish.org. Sponsored by the Catholic Health Association. Welcome to the spiritual

0:29.7

life. I'm Father Jim Martin. On this podcast, we reflect on how people experience God in their

0:35.0

prayer and in their daily lives. And I am joined in the studio

0:38.7

by my amazing globetrotting producer, Maggie Van Doren. Maggie, I always say, good to be with you,

0:44.5

good to be with you here. Yeah, it's really good to be with you in person here in New York City.

0:48.1

Yeah, welcome. Today we are speaking with Petty Gilger, my Jesuit brother and my friend.

0:54.5

And it is good to say to our listeners and our viewers that this was the very first podcast that we recorded as a kind of test.

1:02.3

But it was so good that we decided to share it with you, even though just a little caveat, neither Patty nor me are dressed in our cleric.

1:10.2

So please forgive us for that.

1:11.7

But can you tell us a little bit about Patty Gilger? So Patty Gilger is a good friend of ours,

1:16.2

and he is a priest of the Midwest province of the Society of Jesus, meaning he is a Jesuit.

1:22.0

He's trained in philosophy and theology and has a Ph.D. in sociology. He is ridiculously

1:27.4

smart. But the real reason that we

1:30.0

wanted him on the spiritual life is he's a trained spiritual director. Yeah. And this was a really

1:36.5

great conversation. You can tell he is a good director. And it's something, interestingly,

1:42.2

even though this was the first show we recorded as a test, it's something that has come up constantly in our podcast and our conversations. What is spiritual direction? How does it work? How do you get one? And we really are able to tackle these questions that we've been hearing for the past couple of months head on.

...

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