“I find it best to use [the word ‘spirituality’] as little as possible, following the precedent of our scriptures, which have an aversion to abstractions of any kind, preferring to use stories and metaphors that keep us involved and participating in what is right before us.” –Eugene Peterson
“Spirituality” is not a word I use very often. For one thing, it’s a word that can mean whatever people want it to mean, so maybe it doesn’t mean much at all. In my experience, anybody who believes any darned thing can claim to be spiritual, even if (to me) they seem to believe only in their own importance.
I’ve also observed that people who don’t believe in anything can still claim to be spiritual. In fact, I’ve known some atheists who claimed to be spiritual people. I’m not sure why they would want to make such a claim, but they do. Don’t ask me to explain it. I suspect it has something to do with how they define the word “spiritual”. You know, that word that can mean whatever people want it to mean.
And here’s another thing: I don’t talk about spirituality much because I believe that so-called “Christian spirituality” is dirt simple to understand. It’s not rocket science. Christian spirituality goes something like this: “Jesus is Lord. I’m not.”
Simple to understand, yes. But not easy to put into practice. That’s the challenge.
Most Christians are still working on that. I mean, they have to. They believe in Jesus, yes. But that means they must now choose to make Jesus the Lord of their lives, not just in words but in the reality of living. They are engaged in a long, slow process of transformation, maturation, and learning. So it kind of makes sense that real Christians would never go around claiming to be “spiritual”. Which is why I prefer not to.
“Spirituality is not about ends or benefits or things; it’s about means. It’s about how you do this. How do you live in reality?” –Eugene Peterson
You hear some people say: “I’m spiritual, but I’m not religious.” What does that mean, exactly? When I hear people say that, I just assume they are confused. I also assume they are trying (but failing) to sound sophisticated or enlightened.
Over the years, a few people have asked me to be their “spiritual director”. I always decline. I don’t want to have monthly meetings with people to talk about how they feel, or how they pray, or how they doubt, or how they conceive of God, or how they sin. I think such fabricated conversations are not very helpful. I love to explore ideas with other people, and to even share personal stories, but I don’t want to get drawn into somebody’s self-absorption. So I’m not a big fan of this thing we call “spiritual direction”.
With that in mind, let me just say that the best so-called “spiritual director” I ever had was NOT a monk or a priest or a self-help guru. No, he was a Marine gunnery sergeant. Back in the day, when I was young and strong and maybe even handsome, I attended Naval Aviation Officer Candidate School (AOCS). Our mentors were Marine drill instructors. For fourteen weeks, they pushed us, pushed us some more, cussed us out, called us profane names, got in our faces, humiliated us, wore us down, stressed us out, made us do nonsensical things, and forced us to keep going when we thought we didn’t have anything left. The result: We got stronger physically and mentally.
For medical reasons I was unable to complete the flight training that followed AOCS. Even so, I will always be grateful for experiencing AOCS itself. By the end of that initial program, I had more confidence, more drive, more clarity, and more discipline. I had learned the joy of striving to achieve a hard goal. I had learned the value of perseverance, and of raising my own standards to get it done. I had learned the importance of being passionate about life and the living of it. I had learned the importance of standing up to my fears and uncertainties. I had learned that it is better to take responsibility for my own actions and choices rather than to act like a pathetic victim. I had learned to value sacrifice, brotherhood, loyalty, and duty. And, speaking personally, the whole experience taught me a lot about faith and hope. I’m serious about that.
Maybe you’re thinking there was nothing “spiritual” about that training. Well, okay. But you might want to consider the possibility that you’re still confusing spirituality with navel-gazing.
Christians have to learn to wait. There was a time when I didn’t believe that. Years ago I was one of those Christians who insisted that God’s job was to give me “heaven on earth”. I thought my life was supposed to be filled with blessings. Right here. Right now. Health, wealth, and comfort. For me, God was something like a genie who grants wishes.
A couple of teachers taught me I was wrong about all that. The first teacher was the Bible itself. I began to notice that God’s prophets and apostles had to endure hardships. They often had to go where they didn’t want to go. They often had to do what they didn’t want to do. They were often misunderstood, mocked, and even hated. They were typically poor and tired. And they were often afraid. In other words, they had to deal with challenges of every kind. Yet they persevered because they believed God would have the last word. And, of course, the best example of perseverance was Jesus himself. Obvious, right? But it took me years to see it. Bottom line: No “heaven on earth”.
The second teacher was my own lived experience. Once I began to experience challenges in my young life, I had to change the way I thought about God. No longer could I view him as a kind of heavenly genie. I began to understand that he would journey with me through all of life’s challenges, but he wouldn’t make those challenges disappear. So I would have to deal with “trials”, just like everyone else. I would have to live with the consequences of my choices, just like everyone else. I wouldn’t get a “free pass” just because I happened to be a Christian. In fact, God would actually use my trials to make me tougher and stronger. That is the way of the Christian disciple, no matter what some obnoxious TV preacher might say.
Back then, the world was not enough for me. And that’s still true for me today. But I’ve learned that I will have to wait to see Paradise. In the meantime, I won’t expect my earthly journey to be without challenges. And, to tell the truth, I’m not even sure I’d want it to be that way. For the followers of Christ, challenges can actually become blessings. Usually we won’t like those challenges. Mostly, we won’t understand them. But that’s the way it works.
“When I talk with Catholics who have left the Church, the number one reason I get that they left was poor preaching. This is especially true of those who left for the Evangelical Churches. Catholic priests as a group have the reputation of being poor preachers.” –Msgr Charles Pope
“Let’s face it, we have known for decades that the average Catholic judges his or her experience of Mass by the quality of the music and the homily. So why haven’t we mastered both of these? Would we be compromising ourselves in any way if people came away from church on Sunday truly inspired by the music and the homily?” –Matthew Kelly
I suspect that some Catholic priests and deacons won’t like what I’m going to say in this essay. I also suspect that many Catholic laypeople will think: “It’s about time somebody said this.” Either way, I’m going to go ahead and say it, because I need to get it off my chest.
Let me start with a quote from Yves Congar:
“If in one country Mass were celebrated for 30 years without preaching and in another, there was preaching for 30 years without Mass, people would be more Christian in the country where there was preaching.”
Now, we can debate the truth of that statement all day long, but, to my mind, Fr Congar is saying something that is purposely provocative just to get us to take the task of preaching more seriously. He’s trying to get us to understand that preaching homilies is not just some minor inconvenience or some disposable afterthought. The opposite is true, and Congar is trying to get us to see that, to understand that.
We all know that praying at the Altar is the most important thing that a parish priest can do. But if we’re talking about growing and strengthening parishes, then preaching good Sunday homilies is the most effective thing that a parish priest can do. Sorry, but in the real world, that’s just the way it is, and quoting from some church document won’t change that. If you’re a parish priest or deacon, and you still don’t understand how important your preaching is, then you haven’t been paying attention, and you certainly haven’t been listening to what laypeople everywhere have been trying to tell us. If you’re a humdrum preacher, your parishioners may tolerate you, but that’s about the best you can hope for. They’ve already tuned you out. That’s not just the way it is, that’s the way it has always been.
So if the content of your homilies and your “preaching skills” are not up to par, then you should work hard to improve. If you regularly talk at your people rather than to them, you need to learn a new method. You need to acquire some self-awareness. If your preaching lacks passion and real-world relevance, you should put in the time and the effort necessary to become a better preacher, even if that means you’ll have less time for skipping out on your parish or running off to the next seminar or dealing with all those hellish bureaucratic tasks.
Priests and deacons, this should be our priority–yours and mine. We should make it our intention to become the best preachers we can be, even if this means we might make other clergy look mediocre by comparison. The same thing applies to all the other sacramental and liturgical tasks that Catholic clergy must do, but preaching is Job One. Preaching is that important because that’s where parish renewal can actually begin.
“Sadly, we are perennially prone to turn God into our own tribal deity.” –Ron Rolheiser
I’ve heard this saying: “Religion can be hazardous to your spiritual health.” True that.
A few of the most “religious” people I’ve encountered were self-described “traditionalist Catholics”. They stand out for their exacting and narrow version of “Catholicism”. They insist that God hears only Latin prayers. They also insist that God is legalistic and distant, hard to please, humorless, known more for severity than for mercy. And these folks always insist that they are in a position to dismiss any Catholic who doesn’t embrace their version of “The Faith”.
Then again, a few of the most “religious” people I’ve encountered were self-described “progressive Catholics”. These days, they usually whine constantly about some version of intersectional “victimhood”. You know, feminism and pronouns and stuff. They stand out for their deconstructed version of “Catholicism”. They insist that God is somehow tolerant and yet bigoted, known more for theological quackery and dumbed-down Marxism than for truth. And these folks always insist that they are in a position to dismiss any Catholic who doesn’t embrace their version of “The Faith”.
Okay, whatever. Let me be painfully honest. I’ve got no time for those people. Zero. So it looks like I’m the one dismissing them now, right? Fair enough. You got me. But I don’t dismiss those folks because I think I’m more righteous than they are. I do it because I’m an old man with heart problems, so I just don’t have the time or energy to deal with quasi-religious nonsense anymore. And frankly, I don’t want to be polluted by the thinking of those people. But that’s just me. I’m sure that God will sort all of us out one day. And I figure we’re all going to be surprised at the results.
So if you must label me, you can’t call me a traditionalist or a progressive. I guess you could say I’m just a meat-and-potatoes Catholic. Yeah, that works. And, for what it’s worth, just know that I’m not one of those Catholics who is trying to be “spiritual”. I’m simply trying to be a disciple. But don’t try to pin that label on me. Some days I get close. Other days, not so much.
The psychologist Jordan Peterson once said: “I don’t think people believe what they say they believe. I think they believe what they act out.”
This is not a new idea. We’ve all heard the old sayings: “Talk is cheap” and “Actions speak louder than words”.
But how does all this square with our Catholic faith? Pretty well, actually. Jesus said: “A sound tree cannot bear bad fruit, nor can a bad tree bear good fruit. Every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire. Thus you will know them by their fruits. (Mt 7:18-20).”
I’m a big “freedom guy”. I’ve always believed that adults should make their own decisions about the trajectory of their lives. So, yes, do what you want. But let’s at least admit that what we do is the best indicator of what we actually believe. Let’s don’t fool ourselves into thinking that it works any other way. Talk is still cheap. It always was.