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Claiming Our Own Spirituality There are many ways God speaks to us. There are many people who have something important to tell us, though they themselves may not realize it. Yesterday my partner and I were talking, half seriously, half jokingly, about how we take care of one another. “Did you ever think,” he said, “that I could be your guardian angel?” I wondered. I don’t think he is, but he surely is a big help to the celestial spirit. Bob tells me what I need to hear. I don’t always agree with him but I need to hear him – and I admit that he is usually right. He keeps me on track. In my spiritual journey I rely on Bob and a lot of other people. Our parish community has an extraordinary number of deeply spiritual people whose feet are planted firmly on the ground but who are still able to see well beyond the next mountain. We support one another when times get rough (read, “when people in the church who should know better are ‘officially’ telling the world there is something wrong with us.”) Among these are a few whose spirituality is more akin to mine, whom I particularly admire and respect. They and a select few others are my dialogue partners. We share stories of our life with God so as to learn about ourselves and about God. We reflect on scripture. We read how others see God. We examine what we have heard from our church and our world to test its validity and we adjust our faith and our lives accordingly. In his book, Faith That Dares to Speak, Donald Cozzens writes: Within the heart of every committed disciple exists a storehouse of experiences and memories that determine the contours, the straight and crooked legs, of his or her journey of faith. Experienced and remembered from the vantage point of faith, these defining moments affirm the abiding presence of grace in the disciple’s journey. They are, so to speak, grace-notes revealing the mostly hidden workings of God’s spirit in our everyday lives. Whether they are painful memories of petty or serious betrayals, memories of unseen fidelity and compassion, or memories of graced achievement or embarrassing failures, they become the fonts of personal wisdom. To live our lives with any kind of integrity means that we carry within us the spiritual scars that inevitably mark and transform our souls as we continue the fundamental journey of faith In aggregate, these grace-points of communion and reconciliation give shape to our individual stories of faith. They are the confirming, lingering tastes of the divine graciousness. From time to time, it is as if faith is transcended and one no longer believes, she knows. Staying in the course through the windstorms of life, the disciple discovers a strength and peace clearly not her own. And a joy that defies explanation. Drawing on this storehouse of graced experiences and memories truly makes one wise with a wisdom that reaches beyond the boundaries of personal, finite existence. And it keeps one on course, keeps the disciple faithful to the gospel in good times and bad. But perhaps more importantly, the disciple discovers that she has something to say. She has something to say to herself – a profound expression of gratitude for the sustaining graces that have carried her to this point in her life. But the disciple also has something to say to the fellowship of disciples, to the church. This is so because believers sustain each other with their stories of grace and healing. They bear witness to the Spirit working not only in individuals’ seemingly private journeys of faith; they bear witness to the Spirit working in the church’s journey, working in the people of God as a whole. Believers, then, are sources of wisdom for the church. They have something to say, and the church has a responsibility to listen. For when listening to the voice of the faithful, it is often listening to the voice of the Spirit So we begin, then, by asking ourselves what we have learned from our years of discipleship. What rays of light have touched our benighted souls? How has our immersion in sacramental ritual stirred our senses, invoking a surprising trust in the saving mysteries of our faith? Reflecting on these ordinary encounters with ritual and sacrament, with parish community and believers from other faith traditions, indeed with our own memories of blessing and grace, we sense a font of truth, perhaps even of wisdom. And here, honoring our personal past as well as the faith stories of our ancestors, we understand that we have something to say. Limited, finite, shortsighted – of course. But such is the case of all human insight and wisdom, even when inspired. What we have to say will regularly need the corrective of the community’s wisdom; nevertheless, we have something to say.1 Cozzens later says, … there comes a time in the lives of many Christians … when they feel prompted, even compelled, by the Spirit to speak to the church of their concerns, fears, hopes, and anxieties. If they fail to speak, the church is poorer for it. And they themselves are poorer for it – for such betrayals, minor though they seem at the time, chip away at the soul’s integrity.1 We gay Catholics have something to say to the church. We, too, have “stories of grace and healing.” We are, in fact, living lives that transcend our faith. But often we don’t see that, we don’t feel that, because we are not given the validation we have come to expect -- namely, the approval of the pope and the bishops. As Catholics, it is ingrained in us to look to Rome for validation. We follow the party line. We believe what we are told. But to the pope and the bishops, gay is not good. We are told that we are not OK yet we know deep down inside that we did not choose to be gay. So we complain and argue and grab hold of any suggestion that someone “in authority” says or is likely to say something positive about us. As a result, our spiritual lives languish. Our church is changing dramatically. As horrendous as the pedophile scandal is, it may be just the thing we -- all Catholics -- need to wake us up. We may very well be living in the era of what James Alison calls “the collapsing Temple.” What we need to remember is that it is Jesus of Nazareth who is “the way, the truth, and the life.” It is in him that we will find our validation. What is he saying about us? What is he saying to us? Recently, John McNeill said, We must fight to free ourselves from any attachment to the institutional church, whether that be to have their approval or the equally destructive attachment that comes from the anger at the Church's injustice. We should see ourselves as equals and siblings to Church authorities and pray for them as they try to discern the Spirit of God in their lives. Leave the Hierarchical church in God's hands. Be grateful to them for the gifts they helped bring to us like the scriptures and the sacraments. But do not waste one ounce of energy in a negative attachment of anger with the Church. Commit every ounce of our energy to the positive ministry of love to which God has called us.2 We are obviously called to something new. It is about time we began listening to one another and hearing and seeing what we are doing right. We have our own spirituality. We need to define it. And we need to be guardian angels to one another. ---- Jerry Betz --------------------------- 1 Faith That Dares to Speak, by Donald Cozzens. Collegeville, Minnesota: Liturgical Press, 2004. pp.6-8.
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