Understanding Spirituality

• Confusion exists in Western culture regarding spirituality.
• Defenses arise when spirituality is introduced because comments are often perceived as religious.
• Confusion arises out of how we distinguish the term 'spirituality' from 'religion'.
• Spirit comes from the Latin word 'spiritus', meaning breath of life.
• Spirit is the unseen force that breathes life into us and enlivens us.
• Spirit assists in defining the true, real, unique self.
• Religion originates from the Latin 'religio', translated as reliance or connection.
• Spirituality seeks an image of the Spirit in search for connection.
• Spirituality involves awareness of the transcendent ('the beyond in our midst').
• It encompasses awareness of something beyond intellectual knowledge or normal sensory experience.
• Spirituality is the aspect of human existence that relates to structures of significance.
• This aspect gives meaning and direction and aids in dealing with life's vicissitudes.
• Spirituality relates to the human quest for meaning, purpose, self-transcending knowledge, relationships, love, and a sense of the holy.
• Morality is based on spirituality, regarding the rightness/wrongness according to our values and meaning.
• The aim of spirituality is to become fully human, united with the divine through understanding, perseverance, and patience.

Origen of Alexandria

• The ultimate goal of human life is intimate and continual communion with God.
• Origen views the path to intimacy with God as the soul's journey from earth to heaven.
• Finding God is done through senses via the Body, through knowledge through the Soul, and communion through the Spirit.
• Union with God happens through contemplation.
• The result of contemplation is a life of pure love and active charity.

St. Augustine of Hippo

• Spirituality is an inquiry into the supreme good, or Summum Bonum, which gives happiness.
• This happiness can be found in the enjoyment of God and his presence.
• Following the commandments expresses man's desire for communion with God.
• Living a moral life under God's commandments cares for spirituality.
• Man has a wounded nature from original sin.
• Augustine sees that desire is present in man and classifies them into three: Desire of Flesh, Desire for Wealth/Possessions, and Desire for Power/Authority.
• Follow the commandments because doing God's will is humanity's deepest will too.
• Relying on God leads to a joyous, not perishing life.
• Love God with all your heart, soul, strength, mind, and your neighbor as yourself. (Lk. 10:27)
• St. Augustine teaches the practice of the Evangelical Counsels as humanity follows the command of God.
• Love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul (Chastity), strength (Poverty), and mind (Obedience).
• Cultivation and practice of the Evangelical Counsels helps combat the desires present in humanity.
• Combat chastity again desire of the flesh; poverty against wealth; obedience against power/authority.

St. Benedict of Nursia

• Benedict is most interested in the question: “Do you truly seek God?".
• This is a universal human quest and is central to the whole Benedictine way of life.
• The Rule of St. Benedict is direct, clear, and has been adapted in every age by those who live according to it.
• Benedict was sensitive to the human condition and understood that real people aren't all alike.
• Benedict values life's little details and is not interested in imposing some grand spiritual scheme on the community.
• Seeks to lead ordinary people to heavenly heights.
• Aspects to Seek God includes: The Common Good, Commitment, Mutual Sharing, Hospitality, Care of the Earth and Peace.
• To avoid Seeking Material Things includes: Individualism, Non-Involvement, Competition, Rejection, Exploitation or Violence.

Authentic Catholic Spirituality

• Sees religion and spirituality as intimately linked rather than opposed to each other.
• Rules and relationships go together and a relationship without rules leads to contempt and abuse (e.g. 10 Commandments)
• Acknowledges that there are Revealed Ways by which people connect with God (e.g. Sacraments).
• Believes that spirituality is not formed by human experience alone but by conforming to a Manual – The Word of God.
• Interest in the humanity of Christ and the desire to live the apostolic life in imitation of him influenced religious orders in the 12th century.
• In the early 13th century a new manifestation of the apostolic life appeared in the form of orders of mendicant preachers.

St. Thomas Aquinas

• According to the Summa Theologiae, religion can stem from:
  • re ligare meaning to bind again
  • re legere meaning to read again
  • re eligere meaning to choose again
• Religion is not a theological virtue but a moral virtue.
• Religion is the virtue by which humans pay due worship to God.

The Renaissance

• Renaissance Humanism was a movement in thought, literature, and art.
• Characterized by a revival in interest in the classical world and studies which focused not on religion but on what it is to be human.
• Secular humanism and the differentiation between nature and grace, exalted human reason and experience (natural revelation) as the measure of all things instead of God and special revelation.
• Human beings and human reason and nature were now seen as functioning apart from religion.
• God became less of an omnipotent, omnipresent entity.
• Spirituality was practiced more from a human starting point.
• Christianity was nevertheless still influential.
• Majority of inventions and philosophical inquiries were still made within a Christian context and worldview.
• Theory of the earth revolving around the sun as just a specification of the created order.

The Enlightenment

• Focus was on rationality and science performed from an anti-spiritual stance, trusting in human reason.
• The Christian religion was often seen very negatively.
• Humans were the center point of all moral reasoning and questions of truth, not special revelation (truth as revealed in the Bible).
• The Enlightenment philosophers still believed in a god; but they were deists believing that a rational being created the world but She or He was not at all involved in creation and she/he is not personal.
• Christian understanding of spirituality was increasingly marginalized.
• Scholars began to refer back to the pagan religions and practices of the past or to the newly discovered religions and spiritualities of the colonies while scientific positivism became more and more prominent.

Romanticism

• Began in the mid-18th century and lasted until about the mid-19th century.
• First gained momentum in Germany.
• Characterized by an emphasis upon feelings and experience, a focus on the self, a return to nature, a new nationalism, and a nostalgic return to old practices, religions, pantheism as well as mythologies.
• Also the time when a strong historicism developed.
• A new historical consciousness became widespread amongst intellectuals.
• Within this mindset, the particular (seen in a historical context) became more important than the view of the universal of the Enlightenment. The the result was an emphasis on the subjective.
• Hegel, who was influenced by Romanticism, developed his idea of dialectical reasoning (synthesis).
• Previously people had thought in terms of either/or, thesis or antithesis.
• Hegel claimed that eternal truths do not exist and that different ideas are equally valid, mean differing kinds of spiritualities can coexist.

Modernism

• Charles Darwin, who introduced the theory of evolution, made an important contribution in this context.
• Resulted in a movement away from the viability and rationality of religion, towards a much more naturalistic, evolutionary view. Life became secular.
• Freud attempted to explain human behavior entirely on a naturalistic and deterministic basis, without invoking a higher cause, that is, soul or spirit.
• Freud criticized religion as 'the universal obsessional neurosis of humanity' and thus had a very negative view of religion.

Existentialism

• Philosophical movement which took place in reaction to the Enlightenment was existentialism.
• The existentialists believed that there is no inherent meaning in life, and no intrinsic essential human nature.
• A uniquely defining characteristic of human existence was that existence comes before essence. Meaning has to be constructed by the individual; the individual has to make choices and define him- or herself.

Postmodernism

• One of the most basic tenets of postmodernism is the assumption that there is no absolute truth; it puts an end to all truth claims.
• Postmodernism often rejects a logical rational basis, not by default, but by conscious design.
• The movement often sees spirituality as a subjective entity, which can be interpreted and used according to personal likes and dislikes.
• Any form of spirituality is valid and anyone is free to devise their own spirituality, which cannot be imposed on another.
• These spiritualities can be termed secular and have high tolerance for ambiguity.
• A subjective-life spirituality is growing and will probably surpass religion.
• Society now live in a world governed by the dictatorship of relativism and submerged in a crisis of truth.
• If humans don't look for truth, people are guided by other interests, or fears, or the pressure of the crowd, of the media, of power, of self-comfort, and people are not free, are slaves''