In 1993, LDT together with the Conference of Religious initiated the Two Week Formation Programme for Spiritual Guides under the Directorship of Rev. Fr. Gerard Hughes, S.J. and his team. These participants call themselves, The Sojourners.

The LDT together with Sr. Linda Lizada, rc, helped out with this programme. A total of thirteen participants from various Faith Traditions completed the course. It was organised at the Garden Hotel, Balmoral Road.

LDT made collaborative efforts with the Spirituality and Counselling Centre, and organised Retreats in Daily Life for Lent and Advent. On one occasion the Retreat in Daily Life was conducted in two media: English and Mandarin.

In November 2006, a series of four conferences on Spiritual Direction and a 4-day Workshop on the Supervision of Spiritual Direction were conducted by Sr. Mary Ann Scofield, RSM and Rev. James Keegan, S.J.. A total of about 800 people participated these conferences.

The first and second conference was entitled, "Walking Together in God's Presence" and it provided an appreciation and a basic understanding of spiritual direction, and brought to the participants a greater awareness of the human cry to tend to the Holy in their lives.

The next conference was entitled, "Deep is Calling to Deep", was on the area of being supervised and how to supervise. The forth conference was, "Were Not Our Hearts Burning?" which gave deeper insights on the differences between therapy, pastoral counselling, spiritual accompaniment and direction.

In January 2007, a two-day workshop, entitled, "Dreamwork in Spiritual Direction", was conducted by Sr. Linda Lizada, rc.



A group of approximately 20 participants, made up of lay persons, religious brothers and sisters, some sojourners, and those in the practice of giving and receiving spiritual direction and retreats in Singapore. A Good Shepherd Sister also attended the workshop.

The retreat concluded with an Eucharistic Celebration of the Pentecost Vigil, attended by the participants and their families. Many shared their experiences during the Retreat in Daily Life during the refreshments after the prayer service.

The Daily Retreat in preparation for Advent was organized in Church of St. Bernadette from 1-15 Dec 07, and was led by Sr. Mary Chua. Initially, the response was rather lukewarm, but after some personal contact and efforts, there was a sizeable number of interested participants.

At first, most participants were unwilling to spare two weeks as they thought that it was a full “stay-in” retreat. However, they soon learned that all that was required was about two hours of their time per session. From there, participants were excited and committed themselves for the program.

Each participant was assigned with a Spiritual Director from the Life Direction Team and/or a priest from the Church of St. Bernadette.

After the opening session on 1 Dec, each participant moved on with their daily lives, meeting their respective chaos, challenges, work, etc. And this went on till they met again on 15 Dec.

What was most surprising was that when they shared their faith journey during those two weeks, it was found that each faced some form of obstacles that prevented them from fulfilling their journey of faith. It was either a call from family or work, or some other commitments that came along the way that prevented them from smoothly continuing their journey.

Despite all these, there was a common message amongst everyone: “Do not be afraid, He knows best and will always path a way for us.” “Learn to let go and listen out.” “It is never easy to be more like Jesus, especially in serving others”.

All participants found their journey fruitful and were very much thankful that they had answered their call to participate in the program. They expressed that they would not let it go without any further effort to continue to pursue daily prayers and reflection in their life from now on.

On 28 December 2007, LDT members and "graduants" of the Spiritual Direction Formation Programme gathered at the Monfort Centre with much excitement for the annual Christmas Gathering Pot Luck.

Contributions of "cooked" and "purchased" food filled the table, and there was much joy and celebration.

Sr. Rosalia, Sr. Molly, and Sr. Celin even found some large pomellos in the garden!

Much thanks to all the volunteers, headed by Elsie Lim, who helped in co-ordinating the gathering!