| Chapter 1: | Transformation and the Study of Christian Spirituality |
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Responsive relationship to the sacred conditions every significant relationship in the person's life—the relationship to self, others, and the world. This way of life always involves an ordered, and often intentionally disciplined, relatedness to the sacred as perceived in images and values. In an explicitly religious context, these disciplines of the spiritual life, such as prayer and fasting, are employed responsively to engage, deepen, and intensify the awareness of and integrate personal life in relation to the experience of the sacred. Even in nonreligious contexts, practices are employed, such as listening to motivational or “inspirational” speakers, to intensify awareness of and responsive relatedness to the ultimate value perceived, for example, as career success or financial security. In the case of L’Arche, it is the practice of care in relationships with persons with disabilities and others in a community of faith that becomes one of the core disciplines of the spiritual life. The praxis of communion opens members of the community to a deeper and more transforming experience of the sacred.
When the phenomenon of Christian spirituality is viewed through the prism of this formal definition, it can be understood as the way in which a person experiences and responds to God in the person of Jesus Christ through the power of the Holy Spirit in the context of one's life in all of its dimensions. The centers of sacred value and images of ultimate power are mediated symbolically and conceptually through the spiritual and theological tradition of the Church as community of faith. The Church is also the carrier and teacher of spiritual practices through which a disciplined response to this desire for loving relatedness to God in Jesus Christ is made possible. At a functional level, it is the power of the Spirit that integrates and orientates personal being and personal life in all of the dimensions of its existence toward sacred value and ultimate power. At the phenomenological level, the power of the Spirit is experienced as a radical desire for participation in and union with God in Christ.
Spirituality and Transformation
The working definition of spirituality that I am proposing here assumes an implicit but crucial dimension of any approach to “life in the