Monastery of the Holy Cross

Every morning, after Mass, Br. Augustine and I pray an act of spiritual communion together, since he is still unable to receive the Eucharist.  St. Alphonsus Liguori offers this interesting thought for prayer:

“Since I cannot now receive Thee sacramentally, come at least spiritually into my heart.” [emphasis added]

We hear it said often today that people want to be ’spiritual, not religious’, in the sense of ‘religion’ being dead letter, irrelevant theologizing, rote memorization of pious exercises, auto-salvation by robotic conformity to ritual and commandment.  By contrast, being ’spiritual’ seems to mean free, rooted in good intentions, even if works don’t come of them, refusal to judge even oneself, choosing whatever aids to spiritual feeling ‘work for me’: crystals, incense, flower petals, Feng shui mirrors, yoga, the rosary, labyrinths, maybe all of the above.

Now some of this desire for ’spirituality’ is authentic.  Part of the challenge of Vatican II is to find ways to re-appropriate the Tradition to allow it to speak to the world under our current understanding  of the cosmos and the human person.  This understanding is radically changed from, say, the time of St. Thomas Aquinas who ably articulated the Tradition under an earlier integration of cosmos and humanity (perhaps the greatest synthesizer of this old order was actually Dante, but that’s debatable and a digression).  So following old forms ‘just because’ can at times lead to a desiccated formalism.  It can also lead to conversion, but let’s grant that the desire to be spiritual is, at its best, a desire to have the spiritual teachings of a tradition, even the Church’s Tradition, mean something to me as a unique individual in a unique historical setting.

We can say first off that our spiritual nature is superior to our material nature, and so a concern for the health and vigor of the spirit is a good thing in itself; it is better than a preoccupation with worldly wealth or regard.  It is better than vanity about how one looks or even prays, if we are simply praying to create a good impression and get ahead in ‘the world’.  There is a reality beyond the world.

That said, what Christianity, particularly in its Catholic and Orthodox statements, proposes is something beyond even the spiritual.  The sacramental economy is the one in which the spirit, or perhaps we might even say The Spirit, pervades all things, unlocks the reality behind visible phenomena, conveys the very power of God to the individual who receives baptism (a sacrament precisely because it requires water and spoken words).  The sacraments, in other words, do more than improve us spiritually.  The goal of spiritual improvement can be admirably achieved even within paganism.  The price of much of pagan ’spiritualism’ is matter itself, which becomes a prison for neo-Platonists and illusion for Buddhists.  Beyond the spiritual, there is the sacramental, the encounter with the Creator of matter and spirit, Who knows each of us as a uniquely lovable individual and desires to share a loving relationship with us.  And when we enter into this relationship with God through the sacraments, the guarantors of His presence and the goodness of material creation, we enter into Truth.  This Truth is not merely the expulsion of illusion, but the infusion of meaning into all things visible and invisible.  And that meaning is Love.