Spirituality and Theology

Back in the recent thread What are you reading these days? we had an extensive discussion of books on spirituality in the course of which Jean asked:

So is that the accepted distinction between spirituality and theology? How religion is lived v official dogma? Just asking bc I don't know. It seems to be imp to people here.

The fullest best answer of the relationship is given by Gutiérrez in his book on the spirituality of the poor. 

We Drink from Our Own Wells

It was one of the twenty books on my comprehensive exam for a M.A.in spirituality from Notre Dame so I have an extensive outline with quotes.  It is certainly on my top ten list of any book to read. I think that his understanding of spirituality is more important than liberation theology, but that is probably the prejudice of a someone trained in psychology and sociology. He understands the complex intertwining of persons, institutions and cultures.  Although this book does not treat synodality it is probably the best way to begin to understand the Latin American experience which has shaped both Gutiérrez and Francis.

This will be the first of three posts, In the second I will look more extensively in how he relates spirituality to discipleship, and in the third how he relates it to community. Italics are my comments. I had him for a week-long course at Notre Dame. It was more like a retreat.  When he talked about the Magisterium he was referring to the teaching documents of the Latin American bishops. Francis has adopted the practice of quoting the teaching documents of bishop's conferences as well as those of popes. 

From My Outline

The peak of the spire of theological reflection is the classic sequella Christi, the following of Jesus, which, especially since the seventeenth century, we often call spirituality _xviii

Chenu: “Clearly theological systems are nothing but the expression of spiritualities. That constitutes both their interest and their greatness.’ “a theology worthy of the name is a spirituality that has found rational instruments for its religious experience _xviii

Just as Vatican II inverted the pyramid making the people of God the starting point for talking about the Church, Gutierrez following Chenu, makes spirituality (Christian experience, not systematic theology) the starting point for theological reflection. Systematic theology should be judged by religious experience rather than religious experience being judged by systematic theology. 

Reflection on practice in the light of faith… is precisely in this terrain, that of the Christian’s daily life, that spirituality is situated.

To be a disciple is to insert oneself into the practice of Jesus. Spirituality is the backbone of the discourse on faith; it gives this discourse its deepest significance and its most intensely questioning reach. _xviii

 

The root of Christian life, to the place where the love of God is daily intertwined with the love of our neighbor,....the knot they tie is where spirituality is situated. xix

 

Spirituality is not concerned simply with a particular area of Christian existence; it is a style of life that puts its seal on our way of accepting the gift of filiation (the basis of fellowship) to which the Father calls us. _p..4

Critique of the thinking of the schools of spirituality

Spirituality as a subdiscipline of theology (beginning in the 17th Century) developed the idea of Schools of Spirituality based on the different spiritualities of religious orders. Gutierrez critiques then reconceptualizes how to treat the classical spiritualities of religious orders.

 Elitism of minorities

‘Christian spirituality has long been presented as geared to minorities. It seems to be the peculiar possession of some extent, closed groups; it is linked for the most part to the existence of religious orders and congregations.  _p..13

 The spirituality of the laity was still –and could not help being –strongly characterized by important elements taken from the way of Christian perfection that had been canonized by the experience of monastic life.  This approach implied a distinction that resulted in two classes of Christians or, if you prefer, two ways of Christian life _p..13

 It is rather difficult to face up to the fact that the minorities to whom this spirituality is directed are also privileged minorities from the social, cultural, and to some extent, economic standpoint. _p..14

 Individualism divorced from social realities

 A second characteristic of the spirituality (that of the schools) in question is its individualistic bent…the spiritual life was called the interior life, which many understood as a life lived exclusively within the individual. The important thing … was the deployment of the virtues as potentialities that had to do with the individual and had little connection to the outside world. _p..14

 This (the Gutiérrez approach) is certainly not about a spirituality which constitutes a kind of parenthesis between daily commitments, still less is it an escape of refuge from difficult times. _xviii

 An important and painful example of the lack of vital unity (which every spirituality demands) is the separation that takes places, beneath all the resplendent phrases, between prayer and action. p..17

 An authentic unity is based on a synthesis of elements that are seemingly disparate but that in fact enrich one another……possibilities emerge in the very questioning directed at a particular kind of spirituality I have tried to describe (that of the schools) p..18

The Social Context of Every Great Spirituality

 

Every great spirituality is connected with the great historical movement of the age in which it was formulated. p..27

 Nor is the movement principally a movement within the church; it is rather something that is happening in the history of Latin American peoples as a whole. _p..28

 All the analysis that is done here in regard to the spirituality of the poor can be done for all the great historical spiritualities of religious life, e.g. desert monasticism, Benedictines, Franciscan, Jesuits. All these were not isolated developments within the Church but rather linked to major historical developments of their age. As history develops, the need for particular types of religious orders and their particular spirituality diminishes but may still be relevant for some people. Historically this resulted in spiritualities becoming the property of elite minorities.

 Surprise may also come from the idea that the subject of the experience that is giving rise to a spirituality is an entire people, and not an individual who stands apart and is to some extent isolated, at least initially _p..29

 While spiritualities have often being named after great saints, e.g. Benedict, Francis, Ignatius, we should see these saints as catalysts for movements not as isolated individuals. Their widely shared charism not the fact that they were charismatic is the important factor.  A personality cult view of religious founders has resulted in a lot of authoritarian founders of recent religious orders and lay movements. Francis has recently imposed term limits on founders of new religious orders and lay movements to deal with this personality cult issue

 

A rich variety has marked the ways in which throughout history the Christian community has undertaken the following of Jesus; these ways represent experience that we cannot simply leave behind. p..31

 The lives of desert solitaries were once seen by many as the height of Christian perfection in the centuries in which Christianity was becoming corrupted by imperial support. When the Roman Empire and cities declined, great rural abbeys contributed much to economic life then became the model. However periodical revivals of the solitary life occurred not only in solitude but in relationship to  abbeys and then mendicant religious orders. Thomas Merton encouraged the revival of solitary life among American Trappist’s  With so many people living alone, a new solitary life has great possibilities in modern America..    

Relationship Between Spiritual and Theological Reflection

 The experience becomes the subject of later reflection, and is proposed to the entire ecclesial community as a way of being disciples of Christ 35

 The adoption of a spiritual perspective is followed by reflection on faith (therefore a theology) as lived in that perspective. 35

 Spiritual experience is the terrain in which theological reflection strikes root. p.35

 When all is said and down, then, all authentic theology is spiritual theology. p.37

 

Some characteristics of the development of any spirituality

 At the root of every spirituality there is a particular experience that is had of concrete persons living at a particular time.  The experience is both proper to them and yet communicable to others. 37

 In every spiritual history there is an initial moment that is a kind of heroic age. Ignatius of Loyola thinking back on his experiences at Pamplona and Manresa, spoke of his ‘primitive church.’ 52

 In a second moment, spiritual experience becomes a subject of reflection; it is theologized, turned into theology 52

 

To reflect theologically on a spiritual experience means to work it through by relating it to the word of the Lord, to the thinking of one’s own age, and to other ways of understanding the following of Jesus 53

 The above is what Guiterrez does in his book for the spirituality of the poor .   

A broader view of spirituality

 A spirituality is only one expression of that diversity of charisms in the church of which Paul speaks so often. p.53

I might compare what happens to spiritualities in the history of the church to what happens in biological species in the history of a phylum: the strongest survive. Spiritualities come down through the centuries and continually serve as appropriate ways of following Jesus. p.53

The analogy of religious life to biological species is also developed in Sandra Schneiders great work on religious life.

 

The History of the Schools of Spirituality

The term spirituality is a relatively recent one in the history of the church. It came into use around the beginning of the seventeenth century in French religious circles at a time that saw a wealth of contributions and works on the subject. Everything that had to do with Christian perfection fell under the heading of spiritual life, whereas reflection on the subject yielded a spiritual theology p 54

The way in question, the way that seals the witness given by the Christian community, is the way of the Spirit- which is to say the way of love that expressed itself in deeds.

A spirituality is not restricted to the so-called religious aspects of life: prayer and worship. It is not limited to one sector but is all embracing, because the whole of human life, personal and communal, is involved in the journey.

While for Guitteres spirituality is Christian spirituality, the following the Jesus, his broad notion of spirituality as a way of life could be the basis for treating other religious movements and even secular movements as spiritualities. For example, my own experience of social psychology as an integration of sociology and psychology could be seen as a spirituality that has shaped both my religious and work life.

A spirituality is a manner of life that gives a profound unity to our prayer, thought and action. p.88

A spirituality is, in effect, the field in which freedom is exercised. p. 88

For a synthesis may have a variety of starting points. This is precisely what we see in the great spiritualities that the Christian community has known.” p.88

The reason for this diversity is that the nucleus around which a spiritual way is built is not exactly the same in every case. Moreover, the starting point in each instance bears the mark of the historical context in which  the experience of the encounter with the Lord took place p.88

A particular spirituality always represents a reorganizing of the fundamental foci of Christian life, on the basis of a central intuition or insight. The intuition is that of great men and women of the Spirit as they respond to the needs and demands of their age. Every Spirituality is a way that is offered for the greater service of God and others: freedom to love. p.89

The concrete forms may differ… the end results shows the comprehensiveness, the all inclusiveness , that is characteristic of every great spirituality…gives distinctive personality to one manner of being a Christian…no spirituality can claim to be the way to be a Christian. It is simply one way among others. p.89

Among the rights of Christian listed in the new Code of Canon Law is the right to one’s own spirituality as long as it is drawn from those approved by the Church.