What is Spirituality

1. Everyone has a spirituality

2. Everyone worships at an altar of sorts (consumerism, materialism, hedonism, narcissism, individualism, Christianity, Judaism, Buddhism, Islam, atheism, Catholicism)

Yes, Mastercard!

SPIRITUALITY

• Is how an individual lives out their specific theology• Is what an individual does with the fire

within• Reflects what an individual truly values• Is a horizon of ultimate value• In Christian spirituality, the horizon of

ultimate value is the triune God revealed in Jesus Christ in whose life we participate in through the gift of the Holy Spirit

Challenges in the Spiritual Life Today

1. NARCISSISM – is an over-focus on self, too much ME preoccupation, extreme self-centeredness

2. PRAGMATISM – is when value is placed on someone based only on their achievement, valuable because they have succeeded

3. RESTLESSNESS – is searching for meaning and value in life; something innate drives us to keep searching for fulfillment; God drive, soul memory, searching for the Divine

(According to Rolheiser, 2004)

You have made us for yourself O Lord, and our hearts are restless until they rest in you.”

Saint Augustine

St. Augustine – 4th century Doctor of the Church• Monastic lifestyle became one to imitate

to a path of holiness• Male and female monastics came to be

viewed as the ideal Christians• Flight from the world and its temptations • Need for ascetism and contemplative

prayer• One finds God in solitude, quiet

TYPES OF SPIRITUALITY within Catholic TraditionSpirituality draws us closer to God, and helps to love others better

1. Carmelite – Depths of Silence2. Franciscan – Love for Creation3. Thomastic- Intellectual Vigor4. Benedictine - Reverence for the Ordinary5. Ignatian – (Jesuit) Stand for Justice6. Feminine – Growth from a lived experience7. Solidarity – Joined together to eliminate injustices

1. Carmelite Spirituality• Two famous 16th century Carmelites were John• of the Cross and Teresa of Avila.

• They were committed to prayer and to solitude as the foundation for proper action in the world.

• We listen long and hard for God’s word and to speak in gentleness to others.

• Believers who have a Carmelite • spirituality may search for a silent • retreat, or practice centering prayer, and • often leave well refreshed more conscious of• how to serve others.

Depths of Silence

2. Franciscan Spirituality

• Praises nature and finds inspiration for living well in the cool trickle of a stream.

• The whole world is a Tabernacle.• Believers see God’s abundant

goodness in nature and naturally want to preserve it.

• Could be committed to environmental issues, striving to maintain cleaner air and water, preserving the rainforest.

CREATION

3. Thomastic Spirituality

• Believers have a passion for truth and order.

• Some like a carefully reasoned thoughtful approach to faith.

• Would enjoy reading Thomas Aquinas’s Summa Theologica

• Enjoy a scholarly approach, with history• Would enjoy Lectio Divina, a four step

approach to reading Scripture, meditating on God’s message, praying over it, and then contemplating its meaning.

Intellectual Vigor

4. Benedictine Spirituality

• Affirms that God is found in the ordinary• Makes the everyday holy• Given the chaos of ordinary life, this

spirituality is firmly grounded in four anchors: the Rule (God is found in the ordinary), the gospel, the wisdom of the community, and the circumstances of the believer’s life

• Important to keep an inner place free and uncluttered, refreshed by God

Reverence for the Ordinary

5. Ignatian Spirituality• Ignatian spiritualists believe that we have a

deep inner longing for God.• Jesuits encourage people to have a deep,

intimate relationship with God.• God isn’t punitive, tyrannical, or obsessed with rules.• God desires what is best for us• We learn to establish patterns that bring us

peace, and avoid situations that make us angry or miserable

Stand for Justice

6. Feminine Spirituality

There is a contemporary renaissance in women’s spirituality.

More concerned with a lived experience, less with abstract theories.

Less interested in rules, women believers often yearn for more caring and love in a hurting, hungry world.

Clare of Assisi, Catherine of Siena, Hildegard of Bingen, Julian of Norwich, Teresa of Avila, Therese of Lisieux have enriched a feminine path to the Divine.

Sophia, Feminine Wisdom in Hebrew Scriptures

7. Solidarity Spirituality

• Believers stand with each other because God first stood with us.

• Emerged from Latin America after the Spanish conquest; the poor have never recovered.

• Joined together we can more effectively bring about God’s kingdom and fight injustice.

• Believers such as Dorothy Day, Oscar Romero, St. Vincent de Paul, Mother Teresa lived out their spiritualities in solidarity with the world’s poor.

Whatsoever you do to the least of my brothers and sisters, you do it to me.

What’s Right for Me?“There are many paths into the same

orchard.” Eli Weisel