Dr. Luz Marina Díaz (she/her)
Luz Marina is a member of Spiritual Directors International.
She embraces the
Guidelines of Ethical Conduct for Spiritual Directors
written by Spiritual Directors International.
About Luz Marina Díaz
Luz Marina Díaz was born in Caracas, Venezuela. She spent much of her early life working as a system analyst, dancing, choreographing, and teaching in two major modern dance companies in Venezuela. Then, in 1994, she came to New York and discovered her vocation as a religious educator, spiritual director, and liturgical dancer.
She has more than 20 years of service in catechetical leadership as director of religious education and RCIA. She received a spiritual director certificate from Fairfield University in 2010 and a spiritual direction supervisor certificate from Fordham University in 2022. In addition, she attended workshops on spiritual direction supervision in 2018 with Lucy Abbott Tucker.
Diaz's spiritual director training focused on a contemplative, evocative, and compassionate model with a concentration on teaching, and guiding Ignatius Loyola's Spiritual Exercises. Her final project to obtain the Advanced Certificate in Supervision was a qualitative research on Internal Family Systems and Inner Relationship Focusing; she proposed an IFS-informed Spiritual Direction/Supervision model.
Since 2010, she has been providing spiritual direction through monthly one-to-one sessions, group spiritual direction, 19 annotation of Loyola’s spiritual exercises, and 8-day directed Ignatian retreats at Eastern Point Retreat Center.
She holds a bachelor's degree in computer science from Universidad Central de Venezuela, a Master of Arts in Religious Education (M.A.), and a Doctorate (Ph.D.) in Religious Education from Fordham University. In her Ph.D. dissertation titled Spiritual Conversation as Religiously Educative: Education toward Wisdom, Diaz studied the practice of Spiritual Conversation in three contexts: spiritual direction, Rite of Christian Initiation (RCIA), and biomedicine.
From 2016 to 2018, Díaz taught Theology of Spiritual Direction; since 2018, she has been the director of the Spiritual Direction Practicum at Fordham University.
What is
spiritual
direction?
Spiritual direction is not a modern innovation.
It has been present in some form in Christianism, Judaism, Hinduism, Buddhism and Native religions.
On the assumption that God is present in everything and desiring to have a relationship with every person, spiritual direction offers a safe and sacred time and space for a person named directee to share a personal narrative (life/prayer experience) with a person named spiritual director in order to discern God's activity and respond to it under the guidance of the Holy Spirit.
why spiritual direction?
God is present in everything and desires to have a relationship with every person.
Responding to God’s Invitation to Intimacy.
Looking for more grounding and support, solitude, wisdom, and community (life transitions.)
Seeking a more tangible and personal sense of God to fit a person's current life circumstances and beliefs.
A spiritual, though not religious person, wanting to engage more deeply with what Divine Mystery offers them now.
Seeking God's direction in a decision to make.
what to bring to spiritual direction?
“We bring whatever we notice about our lives now: our lived experience, our dreams and emotions, our sensations and intuitions, our impending decisions, our desire to be of service, our need for healing.”
Spiritual Guidance — MTB (mariatattubowen.com)
We bring prayer experiences.
We learn about spiritual practices.
frequency
One-hour monthly sessions
Weekly sessions when doing the 19th Annotation of the Spiritual Exercises
Daily sessions (between 30 to 40) when making a directed retreat in a Spiritual Retreat Center
Book an appointment
If you would like to meet for the first time -you may contact me directly via phone (Eastern Time Zone) or email:
Phone: 1-646-488-9979
Email: lmdiaz@sfxavier.org