Fausto Gomez OP
The concept of Christian spirituality is complex and very rich, indeed. Hereafter we mention and explain briefly its main dimensions.
All kinds of Christian spirituality have anthropological grounding: the dignity of every human being. For Christian anthropology, the human person is created to the image of God the Father, recreated in Jesus, Son of God and Man-for-others, and renewed constantly in the Holy Spirit.
Christian spirituality is a Trinitarian spirituality. Our God is One and Triune, intimate union and communion, who wants to be present in loving hearts: “My Father and I will love him, and we will come to him and abide in him” (John 17:20-24). Christian life is a Trinitarian life. God is our Father: Filiation is a keyword in our life. Jesus is our brother: Fraternity is the second key word. The believers live in the Spirit: grace, or charism, is the third key word in our Christian, moral and spiritual life (Jean-Pierre Torrell).
Christian spirituality is Christological spirituality. Christ, anointed by God with the Holy Spirit (Acts 10:38) is the Way, the Truth and the Life (John 14:6) as unveiled by revelation. By reason of his humanity Jesus leads human beings to God. St. Alphonsus Liguori writes: “All holiness and perfection consists in loving Jesus our God.” Christian spirituality is the spiritually of following, imitating and identifying with Jesus, including essentially the way of the Cross. Christians are called to be transfigured on the mountain of contemplation. This transfiguration, like the Transfiguration of Christ (Matt 17:1-9), gives them strength to go down from the mountain and walk patiently, compassionately and even joyfully their own way of the Cross.
Christian spirituality is Pneumatological spirituality. The Holy Spirit, the third person of the Blessed Trinity, is the sanctifier of all. Christian spirituality is often described as walking according to the Spirit (cf. Rom 8:4), which means, in the language of the Bible and tradition, encountering Christ who is the Way, journeying to the Father who is the goal (John 14:6), and living in the Spirit. Spirituality or the theology of the Spirit connects deeply with the treatise of grace and of virtues. Grace implies the indwelling of the Blessed Trinity appropriated to the indwelling of the Holy Spirit, the Spirit of grace. Divine grace, an entitative habit, grounds the operative habits of the infused virtues that are perfected by the Gifts – supernatural habits – of the Holy Spirit.
Christian spirituality is creational spirituality: Father, Son and Holy Spirit are the principle of all things. Human beings contemplate the presence of God, the creator of heaven and earth (Isa 45:18; Matt 11:25), in creation (Ps 92:4-7). The deepest meaning of ecological ethics is transcendence (cf. Pope Francis, Laudato Si’). God the Creator is, moreover, the merciful Father of all human beings who, through his Son Jesus Christ in the Holy Spirit, heals and forgives (cf. Luke 15:12-32).
Christian spirituality is also Marian spirituality: Mary is the Mother of Jesus, the Mother of the Church, the Mother of the followers of Jesus, and the disciple of disciples: the closest to Jesus and to his work of redemption. Hence, the place of Mary in the Church is “the highest after Christ and yet very close to us” (Vatican II, LG 54). Therefore, “all [Christians] should devoutly venerate her and commend their life and apostolate to her motherly concern” (Vatican II, AA 4). The goal of the devotion to Mary – to her Rosary – is not just learning what Jesus taught, but “learning him,” “learning from her to ‘read’ Christ, to discover his secrets and to understand his message” (John Paul II, Rosarium Virginis Mariae 14).
Christian spirituality is ecclesial spirituality. The Church is mystery of communion, koinonia. Christians are members of the community of disciples, of the Mystical Body of Christ. Ecclesial communion is essential to spirituality, the spirituality of the apostolic community, which was – and is – a prayerful and sharing community (cf. Acts 2:42-47, and 4:32-35). Thus, “Christian spirituality requires a stable, enduring relationship with a community of faith that shares common practices and stable convictions about who we are and who God is in Jesus and through the Spirit” (Richard Gula).
Christian spirituality is liturgical spirituality. The liturgy is the source of spiritual life and its devout celebration, a constant fountain of growth in the spiritual life and the experience of God. Liturgical spirituality, which is “Christocentric, easterly, biblical, sacramental, and cyclical” (Salvatori Marsili), focuses on the Eucharist (cf. John 6:53), which is “the fount and apex of the whole Christian life,” and “source and apex of the whole work of preaching the Gospel.” (LG 11, PO 5).
Christian spirituality is missionary and evangelical spirituality. The Christian lives the mystery of Christ as “one sent” by Jesus in the Church (Matt 28:19-20): “As the Father sent me I also send you” (John 20:21). It is missionary: a spirituality “to live the mystery of Christ as sent”( (John Paul II, RM 88). It is evangelical: as Christ was sent to preach the Good News, his disciples are also sent to the world to proclaim the Gospel of Jesus.
Christian spirituality is, furthermore, mystical spirituality for all. All Christians are equally called – no first and second class Christians – to the mystical life, including the ordinary people whose strong popular spirituality Pope Francis calls “people’s mysticism”: “The Christian of the future will be either a ‘mystic’, that is to say, a person that has ‘experienced’ something or ‘someone’, or he will not be a Christian” (Karl Rahner).
Finally, Christian spirituality is also eschatological spirituality. As pilgrims, Christians never lose sight of the end – of heaven. The ultimate goal of Christian spirituality is “the contemplation of the first truth in our homeland” (St. Thomas Aquinas).
Christian spirituality is also temporal spirituality, that is, historical and social. As temporal spirituality, it is a way of being a faithful, hopeful and loving follower of Christ in a given kairos and time. (Image: The Holy Family with God the Father and the Holy Spirit (c 1630), Carlo Dolci, private collection)
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