Peace be with you!

I had some unplanned travel of my own recently, but I’m back at my keyboard. In this session, Fr. Freeh completes the summary of our reflections so far.

“Spirituality is uniquely our own.”

I can’t think of a more fitting message to take with us into the celebration of the solemnity of All Saints and the commemoration of All Souls coming up this weekend.

While the secular world focuses on costumes and candy at best, and horror and the satanic at worst…this is the time of the year when the Church invites us–the Church Militant–to focus on our hope of heaven, honoring our spiritual heroes in the Church Triumphant, praying for those souls in the Church Suffering. Together–Militant, Triumphant, and Suffering–we are the Communion of Saints, the Body of Christ.

#9 It’s serendipitous that our review begins by considering the source of our unity: our shared belief as expressed in the Creed. We believe in a Trinitarian God Who desires an intimate relationship with each individual. Each of us is a child of God, created by God to know Him. Not “know about” Him, but to enter into the mystery of God, so that our lives become an expression of our genuine relationship with Him. We become the “living prayer” of God.

#9b & 10 Having considered the unity of our faith, we moved into the variety of its expression, touching on a few of the spiritual giants raised to the altars of the Church. In  “applied spirituality” we live in an awareness of God’s love for us, ready to respond in loving and serving Him and our neighbor. This is what prevents us from falling into the trap of individualism. Instead, we become the best possible versions of ourselves, the individuals God created us to be.

#11 People tend to do what they want. But as our spirituality deepens and grows, it transforms even the desires of our hearts: we begin to want to be holy. We pray for the grace of the desire for holiness so that we can say with St. Paul, “I count all things to be but loss…and count them but as dung, that I may gain Christ.”

#12 And so we come again to living what we believe. With a world chock full of alternatives, we need to examine our lives to see if we have substituted a false god in the center of our lives for the true God. Founded on prayer, our spirituality is revealed in the difference we make with our lives. Authentic spirituality finds its true expression in our vocations–the intersection of our faith and the needs of the world.

Every time we say the Lord’s Prayer, we pray “Thy Kingdom come.” As Fr. Freeh points out, authentic Christian spirituality isn’t about shadow boxing. We need to confront evil and falsehood and build up the light of Christ’s Kingdom…so that one day, we too may be welcomed into heaven with the saints and holy souls we remember on our altars and in our prayers.

In the spirit of summarizing, I’ve created a new page to this blog that lists the links from all the previous posts. I’ll be updating as we move forward and discover more resources to help us in our spiritual journey.

God is good…now and forever!

 Sunday’s readings.