Further: On towards the heart of the spiritual life.
Second part in a series on 'Retreats' and 'Reflection'.
Ordinary Sunday 20: 20th August, 2000
Fr John Davis, Vicar, St Peter's Eastern Hill
Two weeks ago, I explored some themes relating to prayer and that reaching towards the heart of the spiritual life that is to be found in connectedness with our God and each other. I would like to continue with this theme, so central to a growing Christian life. In doing so, I share further some of what was offered and some of what I have recently experienced myself. It is good to share and to hear from a number of you that these are areas that you would wish to explore further. We can do this together.
The Scriptures continually point us in this direction. They provide the absolute ground and basis for everything that follows. The lives and examples of the saints do so too. We are repeatedly directed towards that Lord who is himself the way, the truth and the life. It is to our advantage to hear from others who have intentionally travelled this same spiritual road. To read what they have said, to explore what they did and then to attempt to discern what there might be in their experience and their understanding that be of help to us. This can be a real joy. In whatever faltering way we can, we can join our prayers with theirs. At times these are prayers without words, beyond words. At others, such as now in the context of this mass, our prayers are also those of the public liturgy as they have been offered in thanksgiving through all these generations.
Many of us are conscious of the sense of not only life being a journey, with clear and obvious marking points (especially when viewed in hindsight), but also more specifically the spiritual life being a journey too, a pilgrimage. Some of us have been blessed with great stability, others with much more turbulence and searching. A clear sense of discernment - that this is exactly what was intended to happen or where you were meant to be - can be experienced or given in either situation. And there can be other times when it is not at all clear and when the comforts of the faith seem to fall away.
It was interesting to read in yesterday's paper extended reflections by people in their 50s on being in their 50s. All the rest of the world of course groans as the Baby Boomers go through their personal agonies or accomplishments yet again. All those who have survived such traumas and look upon them from the perspective of even another generation further on may observe that there is yet more to come. Those who are younger perhaps get impatient with us. But I have to tell you, it is a very interesting time for those of us who happen to be living it!
Any period of life can be the occasion for growth and re-assessment of priorities; for renewed insight and maybe even a deeper discernment. But there are some periods when it is scarcely avoidable. The opportunities are often immediate. The cost of not responding is potentially enormous, personally and spiritually. Perhaps people in their 50s feel some of that urgency very acutely. So we are on the lookout for suitable journeys and pilgrimages. We have had enough experience of life to know that some options are pretty shallow. And we are not the only ones with that insight.
We all often get irritated that the Church is portrayed as some kind of optional extra, a mere relic from a former age, a service or social club for comfortable people of comfortably like minds. There may be a nod towards the divine and the transcendent, it is noted, but nothing too demanding. Alternatively, the various versions of intransigent fundamentalism and narrow certain bigotry and assuredness capture the very name of Christian. Or perhaps our own approach is thought to be too strong on beauty and taste and too weak on commitment and challenge. None of these caricatures needs to be accepted or acceptable. But certainly, even the most faithful endurance needs feeding.
So it is then that the language of journey and pilgrimage has its attractions. There are actual journeys; there are interior journeys. There are occasions of recognition, where familiar things can be seen with new eyes. Grace, growth, conversion of life - these are all words and concepts of some familiarity. They can also be full of life and meaning for anyone who is searching and responsive.
So from time to time, we need to hear again some basic things. For a Christian or for a person searching to find the driving force of this religious path, it is indeed necessary to start with that affirmation that Christ is the Way, Christ is the Truth, Christ is the Life - to use the Lord's own words from St John's gospel.
The implications of this, the living out of this in our own particular circumstances, can have many different expressions.
There are gifts freely given that Christians from the beginning have attested to: the Galatians list speaks of love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control. Aquinas would list wisdom, understanding, knowledge, counsel, fortitude, piety, and fear of the Lord.
Any one of these gifts in operation can be part of the experience of God, any one can bring us closer to God.
The Lord's summary of the law: love God and love neighbour, and do it with everything you have - heart, mind, soul, strength - offers the overall direction of things. But the particular shaping is up to us and our circumstances. We will differ according to our personality, disposition and ability. Insofar as any of the gifts of the Spirit are ours, we will be assisted in this shaping. Living out this understanding of our obligations - loving God and loving neighbour - will brings us a closer awareness of the God who is ever reaching out to each and all of us in love. That is the message.
One of the great renewing wisdoms of this last generation has been the renewed emphasis of the truth that the basis of the spiritual life is the whole of life. There is not just a little spiritual corner that requires our attention. There are not parts of our living and loving that are outside the care of God. Above all, the way to spiritual wholeness is not by way of compartmentalisation. Rather, the task is one of integration.
So there is a potentially dynamic relationship between all that makes us up: there is all of our human activity - work, leisure, responsibilities, and tasks. Prayer is in there and so are the various moral choices we must make each day, our choices too in growth in faith and in the exercising of some of those gifts of the Spirit already noted. All this is part of the integration; the growing in the life that has a shaping place in it for God.
All of this is part of the journeying we do.
At some stage in the life of a maturing person there is that re-appraisal time. That is what those inward looking reflections were about in yesterday's paper. It is quintessentially what one might expect of someone in their 50s but by no means exclusively their experience alone. It could come earlier, it could come later, or maybe even never at all.
But if the basic question in an earlier stage of life might be "Who am I? And "What am I going to do with my life?" the later set of questions is likely rather to be: "How am I living my life and how can I live with greater authenticity?"
A church is a place where either of these sets of questions should be able to be addressed.
On another occasion it would be interesting to explore some of what has been written about the centrality of these transitions in the human life that are very much part of the continuing Christian spiritual tradition of which we are heirs. This involves looking at the pilgrimage of human life as being made up of three journeys. We know something of the first and second. The third journey is that completion and resolution of issues prior to dying.
These are most fruitful themes to consider.
The fascinating thing is that these ideas have not emerged freshly minted in contemporary pop psychology. They are a basic part of the spiritual literature of our faith, unfolding the experience through the centuries of the men and women of faith and struggle who have gone before us in this search for God and in the search for spiritual growing and flowering, by God's grace.
In the gospel today, St John completes his discourse on the bread of life. Of course, if ever there is any food for a journey of the sort that we have been discussing, this is it. This part of the gospel flows from the evangelist's reflections on what has been shown to us in the words and in the cross of Jesus. As one commentator summed it up:
This Jesus is and remains for us, the living bread come down from heaven, flesh and blood given for the life of the world, communion with the Holy Trinity, food for eternity and pledge of resurrection.
Jesus said:
Just as the living Father sent me, and I live because of the Father, so whoever eats me will live because of me. This is the bread that came down from heaven, not like that which your ancestors ate, and they died. But.the one who eats this bread will live forever. Jn 6:58
The Lord be with you.
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