Fr. Michael Schleupner offers today’s reflection about spirituality. Let’s take a quiet moment to read Fr. Michael’s insights.
Dear Friends,
I have decided to do a few posts on the topic of spirituality. In Catholicism and much of Christianity, and, I think, in other faith traditions also, this has become a major focus over the past fifty years. And it should be!
Why? Because we all have a spirituality, whether we know it or not.
What is spirituality? The place to begin is with the longing that is within us. We all have a longing within us. This longing is implanted within us, part of our very being. It is a longing for more, which we may for a long time identify as a longing for something more.
In fact, it is really a longing for someone more, but Someone spelled with a capital S. It is a longing for God.
Father Ronald Rolheiser, a very fine Catholic theologian, says that spirituality is what we do about this longing or this desire for God. That is a helpful and easy way to understand this.
My own homemade definition of spirituality is this: an inner sense of God and myself and of our relationship, along with my expressing this in prayer and in the way I live.
Notice that I begin my definition with the word inner. Spirituality means that we have an inner life. This is very important, but it can be difficult to have in our culture.
In our culture, lots of sound or noise and lots of activity draw us out of ourselves. An effect of this is that we are never led to go inside, to go within ourselves, and to be attentive to our inner life.
We need an inner life to have a spirituality.
In upcoming posts, I will look at five elements that I see as core for this inner life and for a Christian (Catholic) spirituality.
They are: 1) Faith, 2) Prayer, 3) Habit, 4) Connectedness, and 5) Beauty.
Gracious God, help us to remember: our hearts are restless until they rest in you! Amen!
~Father Michael Schleupner
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1 reply on “Spirituality”
How Exciting!!! I am looking forward to your further posts on Spirituality! Thank You!
Yesterday, I was rushed – and I ‘thought’ I did not have time for prayer and meditation – and by 11 am I was under so much stress, I had a severe anxiety/panic attack. I realized that prayer/meditation is as important to the mind/heart/soul – as nutrition is to the body – or medication is for illnesses.
The body cannot function without nutrition – the body cannot heal without medication – the mind/heart/soul cannot function without ‘inner time’ for prayer and meditation. I learned an important lesson yesterday!
Thank You for sharing – and I look forward to learning more about the five elements of spirituality!