The series on perfection will continue, but I am taking a break from this theme for a day, and am encouraging all to go back and read what I have shared to far. What I am going to do is trace more of the stages in the writings of St. Paul, so that you all can see how these stages develop and reveal themselves.
Having a great spiritual director is becoming a luxury, but it is a necessity. God does give grace directly. If we look at the lives of the saints, very few had, or at least mention their directors, until the mystics began doing so. The martyrs, possibly imprisoned by years, had no one, not even confessors. Go back and look at at the lives of such people as SS. Philip Howard, Anne Line, even Edmund Campion, all denied help in preparing for horrific deaths of one kind or the other.