The Catholic Spiritual Direction blog serves people from over 8,500 cities spanning the globe.

October 1, 2010. The Catholic Spiritual Direction blog has skyrocketed in readership from a handful of people visiting the site every week to about 20,000 visits every month. And those visitors are from over 8,500 cities spanning most of the world’s countries.

As a virtual ministry, the blog is serving the Church and souls in a practical way. Some readers log in from places where practicing the Catholic faith is met with persecution, hoping to find guidance for their spiritual questions. Others are simply looking for inspiration and material for meditation as they grow in their faith.

Wherever they are from and wherever they are at in their faith, they bear witness to the fact that the pursuit of a spiritual life in Christ unites all of us on a level much deeper than nationality and culture.

What the blog offers

The site includes daily meditations uploaded from Fr John Bartunek’s book The Better Part: A Christ-centered Resource for Personal Prayer. At the same time, it also has a rich array of meditations and excerpts from various saints and blessed, including regular posts from the guest “bloggers,” St Teresa of Avila, St John of the Cross, and Brother Andrew, plus short passages from other spiritual writers.

Aside from providing spiritual food, the main purpose of the blog is to answer real people’s questions. Most of the daily posts are answers to specific spiritual questions from readers, such as these:

• I have prayed for months for my son, who, thanks be to God, has finally begun rehabilitation for his drug addiction. I feel that many of my prayers have been answered, but I now feel a burden on my heart to teach him to pray. How can I do that?
• In a recent faith-sharing group, someone asked if the Holy Spirit would or would not be with unbaptized persons if they ask Him to dwell in them or give them fortitude in a difficult situation. I was hoping you could shed some light on this for me.
• I am a convert and am struggling with the idea of praying to Mary. Can you help?
• If I have nothing to confess, should I still go to confession?  Would that be scrupulosity or devotion?
• Should Catholics participate in Halloween festivities?
• Is it a problem to integrate the truths found in prayer traditions outside of Christianity with Christian prayer methods?

Get involved

The site’s creators offer four suggestions for ways you can support the Catholic Spiritual Direction blog:

• Visit the site and participate by sending in your questions at rcspiritualdirection@gmail.com.
• Pray for other readers as they work on growing in their spiritual life.
• Tell others about the site, especially people who may be searching for a solid, Catholic site that will give them reliable guidance.
• Offer financial support. The donate button in the upper right-hand corner is there for those who would like to help the blog reach more readers.

The Catholic Spiritual Direction blog is just one of many ways to evangelize and catechize fellow Catholics—and to reach out to non-Catholic seekers. If it helps you, use it!