Spirituality: Some Assumptions
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Spirituality is all about life! If we want to see
our spirituality in action, it may be enough to film a few days in
our lives. There it will be, in our lifestyle. Specific moments may
not identify what it is, but it will be transparent in the flow of
daily activities. Seemingly insignificant details as well as grand
moments come together to shape and reveal its contours.
Spirituality cannot be limited to ascetical
practices. The spiritual person is not the one who spends his or her
time in chapel or saying prayers, for example. This reductionism
generates an in vitro lifestyle that will never overcome an
inherent osteoporosis. The best of both the eastern and the western
traditions understands this. Alphonsus de Liguori quotes Francis de
Sales to make the point:
Some identify perfection with austerity of
life, others with prayer, still others with frequenting the
sacraments and others with almsgiving. But they fool themselves:
perfection consists in loving God wholeheartedly.
The spiritual life springs from the deepest and
most dynamic dimensions of being alive. It speaks of the passionate
and mystical drive that leads a person to live knowing that life has
meaning, that difficulties and struggles make sense in relation to a
broader context.
A human being is not just an animal. Whether one
is Christian or not, whether one is religious or not, each human
being manifests that something which distinguishes him/her
from beasts, that mysterious but unequivocal attribute that
religions and philosophies seek to express with the term spirit.
To lose this is to lose ones humanity, to become just an animal.
Paul Tillich spoke in the 1950s of this lost dimension of depth
as the great tragedy of the current materialistic and consumerist
times.
Spirituality is lived and expressed in the
context of religion (religare), it explicitly relates one to
God as the source of life. Origen of Alexandria spoke of God as
that which someone puts over and above all. Saint Augustine
stated in his Confessions that God is more intimate to me
than I am to myself.
And yet religion does not generate the truth or
falsity in a lifestyle. This springs from the authenticity of the
life of the person. As Jesus said to the Samaritan woman by the
well, true worshipers will worship the Father in Spirit and truth
(Jn 4, 23).
Christian spirituality consists in living life
according to the Spirit of Jesus. It expresses values,
attitudes and commitments rooted in a relationship with the Father.
It is a lifestyle that incarnates and witnesses the values,
attitudes and commitments of Jesus in and through the context of
concrete cultures and in specific moments of history. All
spiritualities in the Christian tradition are defined by the
fundamental spirituality of Jesus, according to his Spirit.
As Christians we discover, through Jesus, son of
God and son of Mary of Nazareth, the presence of God in the
universe, in human life and in history as Love that gives
itself freely and abundantly and as Salvation. Jesus leads us
to this discovery through his own life and actions, through his
death and resurrection. In our relationship with him we relate to
the Father of Jesus as our God and take up Jesus cause or mission
as ours. For to me life is Christ (Phil 1, 21). His Spirit is
the source and vitality of our spirituality.
Christian Spirituality, then, can be described as
the following of Jesus on the road to the Father in and through the
Spirit of Jesus.
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