REFLECTION ON PERSONAL SPIRITUALITY

A reflection regarding personal Spirituality

If I ask of myself the following question and my answer is all important to my happiness, to my becoming whole; to being the key that unlocks all the doors that need to be unlocked in this one life, then I had better answer it very carefully and with the help of divine Sophia, Spirit of Wisdom.

The question: If God, The Holy One, sent His Son-from-the-beginning, the Son of God, to be one of us, among us: What is my response to God?

Having given deep thought to this, I realise that I am part of a triangle of Love: God, Jesus and Humanity. I also realise that I am part of a triangle within this triangle - God, Jesus and me (or perhaps it is my soul)!

My first response is gratitude for the Gift of Faith (believing, being able to believe, in the Triune God intellectually and with my will) and my heart responds with Love: love of self, love of humanity and love of God.

This Love has to be nurtured, or it will die. I have to turn to Jesus, daily, again and again, for the grace to feed my love; for the courage to accept whatever comes my way, knowing that God is in control. In short a never ending embarkation and undertaking of my spiritual journey.
I find when I strive to feed my love, out of this a need grows then to thank God, not just with words but with action. I have to therefore look to Jesus in the Gospels for the practicalities of living out my gratitude as well as my love.

I also have to recognise that the world clamours for all my attention and I need to ensure that I find a way to shut out the world, shut down my busy, frantic mind from time to time – to turn inward in silence. So I meditate.

{First composed in 2002 or 2003 but the parts highlighted in green are present amendments or additions]

I think I had to recognize first how beloved I am by God. As a child I understood that God loved us enormously, the figure of Christ on a cross did not confuse this understanding but etched on my soul an image of Love. Certainly, as a child I did not recognise that God loves unconditionally – that became a
struggle and a process on my personal journey!

I must now continually remind myself who I am in God in order to then feel gratitude. So the recognition of being loved must be paramount to any reasonable and valid response to God. We cannot love unless we are first loved.

Perhaps only now after some seven or eight years of practicing meditation do I see God working in me and with me. This began with Transcendental Meditation and then I ‘found’ Centering Prayer, which as a Catholic is much more meaningful to me. Now I am more comfortable (feel safer) with going inward into silence. This going inward into silence is not having a blank mind, the thoughts come and I let them go by returning to my sacred word. I suppose I am still learning to not engage with the thoughts that come up. Perhaps I will elaborate more about this later.

I want to go back to my ‘Faith’ as a gift. I do not doubt this gift but according to St Thomas Aquinas it is not my intellect that informed my belief – that was the work of my soul through my intellect. It is important, I see now, to connect everything to mind, body and spirit. The confusion still exists, however, despite having studied many sources and explanations for the distinction between soul and spirit. St. Thomas said: the faculties only act by the energy of the soul. This does not mean, if I understand him correctly, that
my soul is separate from my faculties. Also, the spirit is God-in-me or perhaps rather God-in-my-soul and body. My faculties are inseparable from my body, and my soul animates my body, which in turn is all given life by the spirit. The spirit is the life-giving principle of the person (body, mind and soul) but the
soul is not separate from the body.

Does knowing this bring me closer to God? Does knowing this deepen my relationship with Christ? Yes, I think so because if I understand who I am, then I can understand better what my response ought to be to the Divine in me and in everyone – indeed in everything!

At least I am aware that I have to strengthen my moral and intellectual be-ing, so it stands to reason that the penny would eventually drop that I also need to strengthen the stamina of my soul. It never detracts from the awareness of the higher Being, the Absolute Cause on which, and for which, we all depend.