Spirituality

I am sure most of us at one point or another have heard the word spirituality mentioned. You might have heard it in a homily where it might have been asked, “what is your spirituality?” Or someone might have made a comment, “well you are more Franciscan or more Ignatian in your spirituality.” When we shop for books there is a whole section about spirituality. So for us as Catholics, what is spirituality?
First when we speak about Catholic spirituality we must point out where it comes from. All aspects of our faith, have as their source God, Himself. Everything, including our spirituality, comes from God and then also ultimately leads to God. So when we seek to grow in holiness or we seek to have a deeper faith life, we must turn to God and ask Him to shower those graces upon us so that ultimately those graces lead us back to Him. Seeking to grow in holiness or having a deeper faith life certainly involves effort on our part, but it is important to remember that we must be seeking that holiness and deeper faith only because we want to have our lives point to God. Self-help, which many times is lumped into spirituality, involves doing something on our own, through our own efforts to become happier and more complete people. While this is good up to a point, it should never detract from the ultimate goal of all self-help, to become closer to God. We know that we are to seek God in this life, so that we can be with Him in the next.
So, the next question then is how is spirituality formed? Coming from God, our spirituality ultimately involves our story- our journey. Each of us carve a different path to God because each of us have taken different roads to get to where we are in our lives today. These roads have been lined with family influences and stories; choices we have made, both good and bad; people who have come into and out of our lives; among other things. So to begin to examine how your own spirituality has been formed, it is often beneficial to look at your story and then to begin to reflect on where God might have been present at those moments.
Our Catholic faith has different spiritual influences that form our spirituality. At any given time in our lives we might move from one influence to another. We also might stay within one area as well. Some examples of Catholic spirituality might be:
Thomistic- the spirituality of the intellect with an emphasis on devotions, rosary, Adoration, repetitive prayer.
Ignatian- the spirituality of the Ascetics with a focus on contemplation, poetry, psalms, prayer of doing, retreats
Franciscan- the spirituality of service with a focus on nature, meditations, spontaneous prayer, popular music
Augustinian- the spirituality of devotion with a focus on symbols, friendship, scriptural reflections, journaling
Carmelite- the spirituality of the lived experience not just the intellect with an emphasis on conversation with God, mental prayer, and the mystical tradition of the Church.
All of these and many more, often contain elements of each other and serve as a great starting point for discovery of your own spiritual story.
So our challenge is to examine our own story, our own path. We can do this through prayer, through reading about the founders and disciples of each of these traditions and by exploring our spirituality through meeting with a spiritual director. Ultimately, we should always remember how our spiritual journey points us to God and a deeper relationship with Him. The Gospel tells us that we must be rich in what matters to God. We come to that richness by examining our own spiritual path, seeing our God at work in our lives, and then orienting our lives to point back to Him.