Good News Spirituality

Welcome! We return now to our regular series, with the second session of Now and Forever.

“In the beginning was the Word. And the Word was with God, and the Word was God…All things came to be through him.” (Jn1:1, 3)

Words have power. God Himself spoke Creation into existence through His Word, Jesus Christ.

As we explore apostolic spirituality, it’s good to pause and consider the power words have to change us for good or ill, and to recognize our human tendency to twist our words to suit our own agendas, and even to please others. In other words…we lie. Small lies, big lies, habitual lies, convenient lies, and the ever-popular “half-truth.” The lies divide us from each other, from our own best selves, and from God. We lie so much that, like Pilate, we are trapped in the “mindless relativism” that asks with bitter cynicism, “What is truth?”  –even when Truth stands right in front of us.

But, like Christ, we can be silent in the face of this question, and still have a powerful answer. Christ’s response wasn’t in what He said, but in what He did. In His passion and death on the cross for the sake of our salvation, He united both truth and love in concrete action. This is Christ’s call to apostolic spirituality.

As the session title says, spirituality is a difficult word. Looking it up in a dictionary doesn’t help much. Too often, we’re content with the abstract definition. We’d rather think about spirituality than do something about it. I like the reflection’s emphasis on the reality of spirituality, because we only find spirituality’s meaning when we act. When we do something positive, and different–maybe even life-changing–because of our belief in Jesus Christ, we grow spiritually, and so does the world.

Through our actions, we teach the world again the real meaning of “love,” and so they again begin to learn the meaning of “truth.”

What does this mean in practical terms? For me, it meant going back to the seven corporal works of mercy, and seven works of spiritual mercy, and realizing I needed to practice them in a regular, intentional way. (Need a refresher on what those are? I did. Here’s a link to the Catholic Encyclopedia.) I found out that I was already doing some of these–but maybe not as well as I should. And some were gaping holes. And some, I’m not sure I’ll ever be ready for. (Effectively “admonishing the sinner” requires more tact than I can usually muster.) But this is where the rubber meets the road, where my own spiritual growth makes a positive difference to the world.

Please share your thoughts. What strikes you about this video session? What are some of the ways that you apply spirituality to the daily reality of life? We’ve just come through Lent…now, let’s get ready for Pentecost.

Have a blessed Easter season!

Welcome, friend, to the inaugural post of the Good News Spirituality blog. My name is Ann, and I’m the host blogger here at GNS. Not sure how I got tagged for this, and my reaction to the opportunity covered the emotional spectrum. Surprised, honored and humbled, yes. But “alarmed” took first place. I often describe my prayer life as “being the yappy little dog at God’s ankles.” (Yip-yip-grrrr! At least I’m persistent.) Not, in my opinion, the best qualification for the post of “spirituality blogger.” But I’m counting on the fact that there are lots of folks out there with a much deeper appreciation of spirituality. The idea here is for me to kick off a conversation based on Now and Forever, a series of ten-minute videos discussing “Good News spirituality”–a conversation sure to be enriched by reader contributions.

First, a little background…

The Now and Forever video series features Fr. Vincent Freeh, MSC. As a Missionary of the Sacred Heart, Fr. Freeh has served in the trenches of evangelization, both in New Guinea and in a variety of parishes around the United States. He and several immediate family members have also been engaged intermittently in restoring family for more than 20 years. In these ten-minute videos, he reflects on spirituality with the help of Vicky Phillips, a member of his current parish.

The author of the essays forming the basis for their reflections wishes to remain anonymous in order to clear the air of anything that might inhibit open discussion. The essays were originally written more than a dozen years ago under the auspices of the Charles and Catherine Freeh Family Foundation, and the actual author has only a vague recollection of their content.

Now, on to the video…and, I hope, a lively discussion, which I’ll kick off following the video below.

This video covers a lot of ground in ten minutes. But for me, putting spirituality squarely in the context of a parish really sets this apart from the modern approach to spirituality. How often have we heard people say, “I’m spiritual, but not religious”?

The spiritual-but-not-religious person will bring up all the sins committed by organized religions. Some of the more forthright will also admit they don’t want to adhere to a list of “shalts” and “shalt nots.” Hey, we’ve given them the ammunition. Spanish Inquisition, anyone? And a catechetical approach that emphasizes the rules rather than celebrates the “whys” behind them…the certain belief in the dignity of the human person, created by God.

I’m not going to pretend all organized religions are the same. But for the Catholic Church, let’s look at the other side of the tally card. As the meme goes, the Catholic Church–driven by the dignity of the human person–has fed, clothed, educated, and rescued from war, famine, and natural disaster, more people on this planet than any other organization in the world. And that’s just today.

And this is why the parish is so important. Spirituality makes no real difference unless it is acted upon. Acting as an individual is a necessary first step. But acting in concert with a community of faith is a force multiplier. In the parish environment, our spirituality revitalizes not just ourselves, but our family of faith. We are challenged to not just “be spiritual,” but to act on our beliefs in concert with others. Parish-grounded spirituality transforms not just the person, but also the parish, and the Church. We become salt and light, the leaven that transforms our culture and the whole world through corporal and spiritual works of mercy…the living, breathing presence of God’s love.

One aspect of the “spiritual-but-not-religious” approach has bothered me for quite a while, and it’s this: Evil people have absolutely no problem about getting organized. Look back to the last bloody century for lessons from the Nazis and atheistic Communism. If spiritual people avoid religion because sometimes we have strayed into doing evil…we leave the field wide open for organizations of evil intent. To paraphrase the famous saying, “All it takes for evil organizations to succeed is for good organizations to do nothing.”

This is such a wide and deep topic, and the video has so much in it, that I could go on and on…the But I’m taking my cue from the last line of video (Fr. Freeh says there was an error in editing, but I think it’s kind of neat): “Guess what? I’m really curious to find out what you think.”

So, what struck you as you watched this video? The floor is yours.  Rules of the road: Keep it clean, keep it courteous. Other than that, say what you think and feel.

The purpose of this blog is to reach a deeper understanding of Good News Spirituality and how it may be directed to the transformation “of the culture and cultures of the world.” From the author’s perspective, this school of apostolic spirituality is best understood in the words of father Fr. Jules Chevalier, Founder of the Missionaries of the Sacred Heart, who said: “The greatest human need, if people are to find meaning and happiness on earth, is to learn to believe in God’s love for them and to let that love transform their lives.”

With regard to spirituality’s apostolic nature, Pope Paul VI hit the mark in his Apostolic Exhortation on Evangelization in the Modern World:  “Finally: the person who has evangelized goes on to evangelize others. Here lies the test of truth, the touchstone of evangelization: It is unthinkable that a person should accept the word and give himself to the kingdom without becoming a person who bears witness to it and proclaims it in his turn.”

Herewith a summary of Christian spirituality to provide a background for bloggers.

For a Christian, spirituality is the art of hearing God’s word and responding to God’s love. It means taking on the mind and heart of Christ in the power if the Holy Spirit. It is the practice of living at a level of reflection so as to follow God’s will in all things, thereby gaining purpose and meaning for life. All authentic forms of Christian spirituality must look to the fulfillment of the Great Commandment: “Love God above all else, and your neighbor as yourself.”

Here is a more technical definition taken from the New Catholic Encyclopedia: “Christian spirituality begins when God’s word is accepted in faith. It manifests itself in the expression and the development of the love of God in prayer and action. It is the subjective assimilation and living in charity of the objective, theological realities of revelation.”

In a simple sense, spirituality is the “why” in all that we do. Why we do things in large measure depends on our beliefs, our values, our attitudes, our goals, our principles, our priorities–those very things that make up our sense of identity. Spiritual direction differs from counseling in that it deals with identity in one’s relationship to God, not how to cope with problems.

In more modern terms, we can describe spirituality as life’s “concept rationale”–the reason for doing what we do. In this sense, it is an act of management planning that maintains consistency between our identity and our lived experience. It’s “the why”, “the big idea,” the “bottom line,” or “what it’s all about.”

In the words of Jesus, “Where your treasure is, there your heart is also.”