112 The Art of Accompaniment
Building Trust
Since accompaniment involves learning from personal life experiences,
mentors should take care to cultivate a space of trust within the relation-
ship. This includes things like confidentiality and appropriate boundaries,
but also requires mutuality that allows those accompanied to feel comfort-
able in being vulnerable with another.
In order to build trust through mutuality, mentors can share their own
struggles, joys, and experiences with those they accompany to show the
action of God, witness to the Christian life, and empathize with them. In
prioritizing empathy in the relationship of accompaniment, mentors show
themselves to be on the Christian journey with those accompanied, not
simply commentating or directing them in a separate or removed sense.
Mentors also build trust with those they accompany by listening and
dialogue. Those accompanied should feel comfortable and secure in sharing
more personal information with their mentors. This safety and security is
built through the mentors’ openness to other perspectives, non-judgment,
and understanding.
Content of Accompaniment
As stated in the main body of The Art of Accompaniment, the way in
which accompaniment forms those accompanied is through the interpre-
tation of their experience. This experience is comprised of the overall path
of the lives of those accompanied, but also the smaller, day-to-day rela-
tionships, situations, and events. The task of the mentor is to help the one
they accompany more clearly perceive the action of God in their daily lives,
and assist them in discerning the meaning of this action for their vocation
and overall growth in holiness. Working with experience as the content of
accompaniment takes different forms according to the type of relationship
of accompaniment.
More formal relationships of accompaniment might allow for the more
gradual sharing of experiences, as well as a more organized plan of how
the experiences are shared, listened to, prayed about, interpreted through
the lens of the faith, and integrated into the life of those accompanied. In
a more formal relationship, mentors and those they accompany can spend
more time getting to know one another, learning the most helpful way to be