Understanding aspects of the spiritual journey

Understanding Grace

• Ourselves We Cannot Save
• God Relates To Us Personally

Understanding The Need For Forgiveness, Sin, Reconciliation

• The Present Shame Of Sin

Understanding Our Images Of God, Of Jesus

• Our Images Of God Affect How We Relate To Prayer And Life
• Presenting Jesus of Nazareth -- How do you understand the real Jesus and your relationship to the world? Who do you imagine Jesus to be? How do you understand the real Jesus? And therefore how do you understand Christian spirituality and your own spirituality vis a vis your relationship to others and to the world? This digest will help you to reflect upon these questions more deeply.
• Who Is Jesus For You? --- The Message Of Jesus

Understanding Prayer Methods

• Many Paths To Prayer -- On The Meaning Of Lectio Divina by Vincent Dwyer This presentation shows how this approach leads almost naturally towards contemplative living and finding God in all of life.
• Accepting The Embrace Of God The Ancient Art Of Lectio Divina by Luke Dysinger, O.S.B. This is a further elaboration of the meaning of this fundamental prayer process. It includes using Lectio Divina as a way of praying over one's personal salvation history and for group praying and sharing.
• Meditation Contemplation -- and the Wandering of our Minds? With the guidance of Richard of St. Victor, this brief essay seeks to clarify the difference between meditation and contemplation, and to highlight the role that our wandering minds with their distractions play in our prayer -- both negative and positive.

Understanding Interior Experiences

• God's Communication And Our Interior Awareness -- What do we mean by the phrase "spiritual movements"?

Understanding Relevant Issues Connected With The Spiritual Journey

• A Christian Transposition of the Enneagram: with Paul of Tarsus and Ignatius LoyolaThis article arises out of a recent work-shop. The enneagram is a system of personal self-discovery which came out of an esoteric tradition. It has been found useful by many counsellors and spiritual directors to help directees find their path of greater integration, but it needs to be transposed out of its original context into one based on Christian spiritual teaching. We do so with the help of Paul's anthropology and theology of grace, and Ignatius' own keen insights into spiritual dynamics. (Revised October 2017)
• Does Prayer Help Our Personal Psychological Growth???
• Brokenness And Inner Healing
• Enjoyment As An Expression Of Worship An article by the late Olga Warnke, IBVM on the importance of enjoyment for those who are serious about their spirituality in an age of competitiveness and workaholism.
• Suffering -- Our Human Situation
• Connecting With The Earth: Experiencing The Sacred -- Growth In Spirituality Involves Caring For Our Planet Home
• From Symbolic Rapport To Public Rhetoric In The Catholic Church -- In our practices of prayer and spirituality we often forget that access to the Transcendent is facilitated though symbol.
• Toward A Spirituality For Resigned Priests For those who have left the exercise of the priesthood here is an exploration of spirituality.
• Singing And Dancing With The Musicale Of Creation, by John English, S.J. -- By probing the phenomena and meaning of the experience of creaturehood, this article brings together science and religious experience. An excellent vehicle for critical reflection, spiritual direction and personal prayer.
• Chrysalis -- by Erik Oland, sj. -- A reflection on how spirituality combines the performing arts and the priesthood.
• From Contemplation to Action in an Era of Blindness: -- Environmental Decline and Christian Contemplation (in Thomas Aquinas and Thomas Merton) by Mark S. Muldoon. This presentation was given at a Symposium on Science, Spirituality, and the Environment