Dear Theophilus, 

We have gone heavily into science in the last several letters. What we need is a change in pace and to consider some other topics. I thought what would be a good antidote to all the talk is to look at some practical aspects of our faith and this is what I propose to do in this letter.

Spirituality is the theoretical and practical description of our faith and this is an area that is little known by our faithful. In a sense, what a lot of us do is illustrated by the following example. We can about all the physics of heat and discuss the first and second laws of thermodynamics and expound on various aspects of endothermic and exothermic processes, but this will not help us one iota if we are freezing in a cabin. We have to get down to doing something, like chopping wood and so on. Similarly with our faith - we can talk all that we want, but we have to do. But doing isn't everything; it has to be an intelligent doing. Thus, if we were to cut wet wood, we would still have difficulties warming up. Our actions have to be intelligent and to aid us in this I propose that we consider some aspects of the spirituality of our faith.

It is an accepted fact that our life affects the way that we see things and the way we understand them. It is only a person who lives a particular type of life that is in a position to understand what the faith teaches. This is an important point because we often hear people who have very little knowledge about our faith, speaking as if they were experts. This may work for mathematics or science, but for religion it does not. In order to understand, we have to behave in a certain way and this is one of the reasons that we are called to practice virtues. Not to make ourselves perfect, but to put us into a position to better understand and therefore, to better accept what our faith teaches us. One of the major problems that we will encounter is that we are locked into a certain world-view and this colors our perception of things. Reality knocks on our door but we keep the door closed and impoverish ourselves.

Dogmas get bad press as things that make us biased and closed to other differing views. It is true that some people use dogmas in this way and it is unfortunate because this is not what they are intended for. Surprising as it may seem, dogmas do not define so much as what is true or untrue as they define the limits of what can be known. They, for example will say that this is what can be said about God and not anything more nor anything less. They take into account the scriptures, and life experiences of members of the Church and this has been condensed and summarized into what are called dogmas. Very broadly, what these teachings show us is the self-authenticating tradition of doctrine and life and they point out that any human situation, no matter how dire and unpromising it may look, can bear fruit and can help us grow. They call us to a general principle of authentic discretion - avoiding excesses, taking the middle royal road. This is an obvious warning to zealots who seem to think they have exclusive rights to the truth.

In order to be fruitful in our spiritual quest, we must learn to see and value the world as God does. This is a very difficult thing to do. There is so much about the world that we may find repugnant but, when we have these feelings, we must remember that we are putting our feelings into a position of judging everything from our point of view. This we cannot do if we are to progress.

There is something else that we must remember, as we embark on our journey. We cannot have preconceptions of what God is or is not, or what God can do and what God cannot. Once we put these restrictions in, we are no longer dealing with God, but with an idol, an illusion. Remember, just as we are free, so is God.

Before we get on with prayer, which is at the heart of Christian spirituality, we should remind ourselves that we are in a deep sense a mystery even to ourselves. This mystery is touched on in scriptures through reference to two terms that are used to describe human beings: we are in the image and likeness of God. From our present position after the fall, we are not in a good position to fully understand or grasp what it means to be made in the image of God. One beacon of light in this matter is thrown by Christ - he shows what it means to be the image of God in as clear a description as we are able to grasp. One thing that the doctrine of the image of God teaches us is that the center of our lives is not to be found in ourselves, no matter how deeply we descend. Man, therefore, eventually finds his life by losing it, a distinctly Christian way.

Another aid in determining who we truly are is scripture. Scripture is akin to a mirror being raised in front of us, showing all that there is to us. This is why it is important that scripture is not censored and this is also the reason why scripture is sometimes 'scandalous'. We are therefore to present ourselves before scripture on a continual and regular basis for the renewal of the image in us. This is never done on its own but within the context of a community and the liturgy.

There are many terms used to discuss the various aspects of man. One is the soul; another is body; a third is the spirit; and finally, we have the heart. These terms sometimes overlap in their use and this contributes to some confusion. Man in his total essence is often called the soul. The body, on the other hand, is the soul in its interaction with the physical world, the soul in its outward appearance. The spirit is what drives us on, what mobilizes us, while the heart represents our inner values, what is most important to us. These are poor and inadequate statements for something that is so complex and so rich that words have a very hard time trying to describe it. But maybe these simple definitions will act as a beginning for your deeper understanding.

There are two areas which it is absolutely necessary to discuss if we are to understand ourselves - the fall and sin. To experience the effects of the fall is to sense the sublimity of what it means to be human and therefore, to feel the horror and humiliation on having marred the nobility that we were destined for. One area of our being that the fall has damaged and weakened is, not so much the intellect, as the will. It is in this area that we are lacking and our world view does little to redress this failing in us. We will see later, how this question is viewed in our faith.

Sin is always a failure to measure up to what we should be, either through excess or through defect. It is not only, as we saw in one of the previous letters, a failure to keep some law. Sin is fundamentally an interruption in our relationship with God. The first of the sins, because it is first and because it starts the whole ball rolling, is referred to as original sin. Through original sin we find ourselves opposed to what we know we should do or choose. Original sin initiates the breakdown of the relationship between man and God and between man and man. In a sense, original sin represents the distortion of our likeness to God, our inability to behave in a certain way which is in accordance with God's will. As a result of original sin, it is more difficult to grasp the truth and to act upon it. The cause of original sin can be sin in a saying by one of the Fathers of the Church, Irenaeus: man wanted to be god before he was even a man. The deep power of original sin over us lies in the fact that it radically necessitates us, that is, it affects our freedom. As St. Paul says, I do what I do not want to do. Thid does not mean that freedom has been totally taken away from us. It means that we tend to make the wrong choices in the sense that they harm us and limit our ability to be truly human.

At the heart of spirituality, at least Christian spirituality, is the mystery of love. I say mystery because there is a lot of misapprehension about what love is. We tend to think of love as some emotional state; this is not the fundamental meaning of the word. Maybe this would be a good point at which to stop and continue in the next letter.

Yours,

Bar-Abbas

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