The solemnity of SS Peter and Paul is as good a day as any to address a subject that often comes up in correspondence with the monastery: spiritual direction. Peter and Paul represent two different but complementary strands in the Christian tradition, summed up by a former member of the community as, "I'd go to Peter if I had a whopper of a sin to confess; but to Paul if I wanted a spiritual spiff".

Those thinking seriously about consecrated life are usually advised to "get a spiritual director". If they succeed, and it is by no means easy to find someone with the requisite gifts, the results are not always happy. There can be unreal expectations on both sides. Some directors incline to what we might call the Pauline approach: rather cerebral and sometimes rather prescriptive. Others are more like Peter: kind but a bit chaotic when a little clarity would be helpful. "Directees" are sometimes confused about what they they are hoping to achieve and lean too much on their directors. The temptation to become a kind of spiritual Peter Pan is not unknown.

In the seventeenth century Fr Augustine Baker, a Benedictine monk, thought long and hard about this question. He knew that every Christian aspires to "a perfection of union in spirit with God by perfect love", but that the means to attaining this will differ according to personality and circumstance. Those called to seek God primarily in the contemplative way must dispose themselves "to receive the influxes and inspirations of God, whose guidance chiefly they endeavour to follow in all things." At the beginning they will need a guide, but the guide must set them on the right way so that in future they do not need to have recourse to any but the Holy Spirit. Put as baldly as that, one can see why Baker was regarded with great suspicion by many of his enemies. But fortunately, he wrote voluminously, and in his many treatises we have a sustained teaching on contemplative prayer which is one of the glories of the Church in England and Wales.

What Baker looked for in a spiritual guide was humility and "a good natural judgement". His task is to teach "how they may themselves find out the way proper to them, by observing themselves what doeth good and what causeth harm to their spirits; in a word he is only God's usher, and must lead souls in God's way and not his own." He was by no means narrowly clerical, freely acknowledging that some of the best guides are "lay persons and women". Those directed are to "deal freely, plainly and candidly [with their director]. . . concealing nothing necessary to be known."

The human director must give way, however: "God alone is our only master and director; and creatures, when He is pleased to use them, are only His instruments." Then the real work is to begin. God's guidance is to be sought in reading, which Fr Baker esteemed "for worth and spiritual profit, to be next unto prayer". The reading list he drew up for the nuns of Cambrai, from whom ultimately our own community derives, and which I myself followed as a novice, is a tough and demanding one. You can find it in "Sancta Sophia", but read it with Baker's warning not to trouble your head about things which are above your understanding. What we seek is union with God, not merely knowledge about God. Particularly worthy of note is Fr Baker's appreciation of the English mystical tradition. He advised the Cambrai nuns to reread "The Cloud of Unknowing" and "The Epistle of Privy Counsel" every two years, and accompany such reading with a solid diet of scripture and patristics.

Unsurprisingly, the third and "principle way by which God teachers internal livers" is "interior illuminations and inspirations of God's Holy Spirit, who is to be acknowledged the only supreme Master." Attentiveness to His voice is what matters, and we are enjoined to silence that inner voice which so often distracts and misleads us. The monastery is not only a school of the Lord's service, it is "a workhouse wherein the art of the Divine Spirit is taught and practised."

The monastery as workhouse: that idea is already present in RB, and it scotches the notion that contemplative life is an "easy option". Prayer has to be worked at, even if it is a gift. It is a gift God desires all to share. In Fr Baker's words, "May the blessed spirit of Prayer rest upon us all. Amen. Amen."