Tag: saints

Stages of spiritual development: a comprehensive guide

Most of us are familiar with intelligence quotient (IQ) tests. In 1995 Daniel Goleman published Emotional Intelligence a groundbreaking book based on the idea that how well you did in life depended not on IQ but on EQ, your emotional quotient, that is, how well you got along with others. Perhaps there is also a SQ, a spiritual quotient. Your SQ would be how far along you are on the spiritual journey as mapped out over the centuries by various spiritual thinkers.

    In the sixteenth century, Theresa of Avila and John of the Cross outlined the stages of the spiritual life, from complete union with evil to complete union with God. 

     In the first stage, that of pagan life, one gives into temptation and doubt about God and lives in desolation. Eventually, through the grace of God, one may be converted to belief in God. This can occur rapidly (the “born again” experience) or gradually over time. 

    During the conversion stage, doubt about God disappears but temptation remains strong, so to survive spiritually one must move to the next stage, which is purgation, or “the dark night of the senses.” One must separate from evil by purifying one’s senses and learning virtue, and the best way to do this is through active contemplation, particularly prayer and scripture study.

    Eventually, one gets to the stage of illumination, or spiritual betrothal, where the spiritual life is going well and there is lots of sweet consolation. It’s like being engaged to be married to God.

    The next stage is shocking because it seems as if God has abandoned you. In this stage, temptation is gone, but so is consolation. The thinking here is that God has not actually deserted you; instead, God is trying to move you from a faith based on feelings to a faith based on conscious decision, a much more unshakable faith. In this spiritual desert, which people like Mother Teresa went through, doubt is strong. The only solution is to keep choosing to believe.

    The final stage is divinization, not that you become God, but you are in total union with God. All temptation and doubt are gone. You are fully your beloved’s, in spiritual marriage.

    Soren Kierkegaard (1813-1855) had a more generalized map. In the aesthetic stage, the sole focus is on self-centered pleasure. Eventually, you realize this is causing yourself and others great pain, and so at this point, you can choose to enter the ethical stage. In this stage, becoming “holier than thou” is easy until you realize you also fall short of your ideals and need God’s help to be truly holy. When you surrender to God’s grace, you enter the religious stage.

     Empirical research on stages of faith has been conducted in the past twenty years. By conducting thousands of interviews, James Fowler of Emory University mapped out six stages.

    Briefly, in magical faith, one thinks of God as a cosmic Santa Claus. In mythical faith, one takes every scriptural story as historical, scientific fact. In group faith, one believes whatever one’s group believes. In personal faith, one starts asking questions like “what do I really believe?” Here, people often feel they are losing their faith, but they are actually going deeper. In paradoxical faith, one accepts paradox, for example: Jesus is the only way to God, and yet there are other ways. In sacrificial faith, one becomes willing to lay down one’s life for principles like justice or freedom for all people, not just those of one’s own religious tradition.   

    SQ, like all spiritual things, cannot be exactly quantified. You cannot say your SQ is 100 or 160. However, if over the years, you have a deeper, more contemplative, loving, ethical, grace-filled and service-oriented spirituality, if you can embrace paradox and all people, and think freely for yourself, you can be assured, given the spiritual maps above, that your spiritual IQ is growing.

Bruce Tallman is a London spiritual director and educator of adults in religion. http://www.brucetallman.com

Exploring Atheism in the Context of Progressive Christianity

Gretta Vosper, director of the Canadian Centre for Progressive Christianity, a United Church of Canada minister, and author of the bestselling With Or Without God: Why the Way We Live Is More Important Than What We Believe, declared she was an atheist in 2001. A minister who is an atheist?

       She said in most mainline churches there is a vast gap between what the clergy know and what the laity believe. What she believes most clergy know is that there is no supernatural being called God and even if there was, God does not intervene in human affairs or respond to prayer. God is merely our own human efforts in the world for justice and peace. She also believes the Bible was just written by humans, there is no heaven, and the Christian creeds are irrelevant. I’m sure most clergy were surprised the United Church let her continue in spite of her atheism. 

    Like most atheists, she has no authentically satisfactory explanation of where everything came from. You have to stop the infinite regress of asking “Where did that come from?” at some point. Asking, as atheists do, “Where did God come from?” makes no sense because the concept of God implies eternality. God has always existed. Atheists could say the same about the universe, but at some point, you are forced to give something God-like qualities like eternal existence. You have to make something into God, either God or the universe. 

    Vosper sees religion as an attempt to deal with chaos in the world. However, how does she explain order in the world? The late Bernard Lonergan, a Jesuit theologian, explained through his concept of “emergent probability” how there can be both order and chaos in the universe because God works through “secondary causes,” such as nature, without violating those causes. God is mystery, and just because we don’t understand exactly how God works does not mean God does not exist.

       I like the approach of biblical scholars who say humans wrote the Bible and therefore it has scientific and historical errors in it, because God works through secondary causes like flawed and limited human beings, but underlying it all, the Bible is inspired by God. 

       Also, in my experience, prayer does work, and I regularly hear from my clients how prayer works in their lives. Some things have to be believed to be seen. If you don’t believe in God’s intervention, you won’t see it, but if you do believe in it, you see it everywhere. Coincidences happen that are too coincidental to be mere coincidences. They are “God-incidences.”

       Progressive Christianity can be helpful, but Vosper’s attempt to leave God out does not address our existential angst. Who do you turn to when human effort fails, you fail yourself, people betray you, or you suddenly find you have cancer and are going to die?

       To be fair to Vosper, I think she has a point: we need to look for the positive common values found in all religions, and this is more important than our various creeds. She is right that our beliefs are meaningless if we do not live our faith. Believing the faith is easy, living it is hard. As G. K. Chesterton said, “Christianity has not failed, it has just never been tried.”

       In fact, it has been tried by individuals who Christians call “saints,” who always put more emphasis on living the faith than on doctrine. As one of the most famous, Francis of Assisi, said, “Preach the gospel wherever you go, using words if necessary.” 

       So yes, let’s be progressive and update our faith in the light of contemporary scholarship, but let’s not throw out God with the childhood religion, as atheists do. Let’s have an adult faith. In God, not Gretta Vosper.

Bruce Tallman is a London spiritual director and educator of adults in religion. www.brucetallman.com

TEACHINGS OF THE LIVING CHRIST

The birthing of the universe is miraculous:

one-trillionth of a % faster = universe flies apart

one-trillionth of a % slower = universe collapses into itself

only God could pull this off

only God is able to do all things

including bringing life out of death

as with Christ

according to the Buddhist saint Thich Nhat Hahn

“After Buddha’s death devotion turned 

from the Dharmakaya (the teaching)

to the Eternal Buddha (the Teacher)

Buddha became in Mahayana Buddhism

the Buddha of Faith/the Living Buddha

like the Christ of Faith/the Living Christ”

(Living Buddha, Living Christ)

Jesus taught thru the Bible that love takes place

in personal care for:

children: “Let the little children come to me, 

and do not hinder them, for the kingdom of heaven 

belongs to such as these” (Matthew 19:14)

parents: “Honor your father and mother

that your days may be long in the land 

that the Lord your God is giving you” (Exodus 20:12)

the sick and poor: “Come to me, all you who are weary 

and burdened, and I will give you rest –

take my yoke upon you and learn from me

for I am gentle and humble in heart” (Matthew 11: 28-30)

Jesus also taught thru the Church 

“Contemplative prayer is a gift/a grace

that can only be accepted in humility and poverty” 

(Catechism of the Catholic Church)

and he taught thru the saints 

like Teresa of Avila 

that “If you get to the fifth inner mansion

there is absolute certainty

that God has planted Godself

in the center of your soul

and at that point your only desire

is to do God’s will”

(The Interior Castle).

THE TRUTH ABOUT HUMANS

To be responsible human beings

we need to make responsible choices

and to do that we need to seek and face the truth

and reality is the first principle of truth

and to be fully human is to be fully connected to reality

particularly our humanness/vulnerability –

we need to ask “what is real here- what is really going on?”

“what am I capable/not capable of?”

and “what are the dangers?”

to be real as a human being 

means to abandon the loneliness 

of being caught 

in illusions/dreams/ideologies

frightened of reality

part of our human reality

is the tendency to be distracted 

from the truth 

in the first mansion of Teresa of Avila’s Interior Castle

it is dark and dangerous 

because those who inhabit it dwell

in the first stage of the spiritual journey

and are still so preoccupied 

with worldly riches and pleasures

they are distracted 

from moving into the second mansion – 

the only way out of the first mansion

is to beseech Mary 

and all the saints

to rescue you 

thru the power 

of prayer/meditation/contemplation

so you discover the truth 

that our vulnerability

is grounded

in the reality of God.

 

 

THE COSMIC MASS & OTHER GREAT EXPERIENCES

    Some powerful spiritual experiences happened to me in 2023.

  At Queen of the Apostles Retreat Center in Mississauga in March, Ronald Rolheiser gave a series of talks based on his book Wrestling with God: Finding Hope and Meaning in Our Daily Struggles to Be Human.

    Rolheiser said that our basic problem is not so much sin as the complex way God made us – psychologically, emotionally, socially, and sexually – that can tempt us to sin. He gave many examples of this and then some “counsels for the long haul:” we need to constantly purify our concept of God; honour our complexity and sexuality: both eros and chastity; befriend our “shadow” – the things we try to hide from others and ourselves; grieve our wounds; and forgive ourselves and others often.

    In Chicago, in August, at the Parliament of the World’s Religions (which promotes interreligious understanding) there were about 7000 participants from every spiritual tradition: Christian, Jewish, Muslim, Hindu, Buddhist, Taoist, and Confucian. The Sikhs fed lunch to everyone who came to them every day – often thousands of people. This is part of Sikh tradition called “langar” – feeding the hungry. There were workshops on every imaginable topic, keynotes by Antonio Guterres, Secretary General of the U.N., Nancy Pelosi, former Speaker of the House of Representatives, and Rev. Jesse Jackson.

    The biggest highlight for me was the Cosmic Mass led by Matthew Fox. The Mass was structured according to traditional Catholic and Anglican ritual but also according to the four “vias” of Meister Eckhart, a Catholic theologian and mystic from the 13th century.

    The “Via Positiva” involved about a thousand people holding hands and dancing in a circle while cosmic images from the Hubble Space Telescope played on a large screen in the darkened hall. The “Via Negativa” had us get down on our hands and knees with our foreheads to the ground (after we were given time to reflect on sorrowful things in our lives) and wailing out our grief – I’ll never forget that cacophony. The ”Via Creativa” involved spiritual leaders from every major world religion gathering around a huge altar and reciting prayers of peace from their tradition. The “Via Transformativa” saw the religious leaders encourage everyone to go forth and spread love, justice, and interreligious cooperation to the world.

    Another spiritual experience came from the “Mystic Summit” (mysticssummit.com), an online course consisting of thirty-five interviews with mystics from every tradition.

    There were readings of mystic poetry from Mirabai Starr; interpretations of Rumi, the great Sufi mystic; a discussion of Revelations of Divine Love by Julian of Norwich; the Kabbalah, a profound treatise of Jewish mysticism; Brian Swimme talking about science, religion and cosmology; expositions on grace, paradox, and non-dualism; a discussion about guardian angels in various traditions; the life of Padre Pio, a Catholic mystic who suffered from stigmata, the five bodily wounds of Christ; Joseph of Cupertino, another Catholic saint who was known for his ability to levitate; interviews with shamans; the life of Bede Griffiths, a Catholic priest and Benedictine monk, who lived as a Hindu and founded a Christian ashram in South India; A Course In Miracles, a modern interpretation of the sayings of Jesus, was mentioned by several mystics; and finally a discourse on Paramahansa Yogananda’s great work Autobiography of a Yogi.

    In short, the Summit was a spiritual cornucopia rounding out a year of fresh insights, and I found that Richard Rohr’s biblically based idea of the Universal Christ provided a sense of unity in the midst of all the religious diversity of these retreats, parliaments, rituals and summits.

 

   

 

TWO TYPES OF CONTEMPLATION

In passive/infused contemplation

derived from Teresa of Avila and John of the Cross

God has taken over your spiritual life

your will is still

and you become the passive recipient of God’s graces

in active contemplation

derived from Ignatius of Loyola

you apply your imagination to scripture scenarios

  • – Jesus walking on the raging sea
  • – Zacchaeus hiding in the sycamore tree

to see the movements

of God’s grace in your own life

helping you make holy choices

for your future

in either case, contemplation

is the highest expression of the intellectual

and spiritual life

of human beings.

 

THE EVOLUTION OF BELIEF

In 139 C.E. (Common Era), Ptolemy, a Greek astronomer,

developed a system of circles within circles

which became the primary astronomical model

for 1500 years!

 

for 15 centuries everyone believed

this was how the universe operated

but the accretion of more and more untested beliefs

along with increasingly sophisticated science/history/psychology

caused some Christians, desperately trying to keep up

to assert increasingly unbelievable things

like the existence of hell – a place of eternal torture –

what could anyone do in their brief lifespan to warrant that? –

this belief was the projection of our worst fear onto God

made God into an Absolute Demon/Monster

and created scepticism/atheism

 hell exists, but it is a God-forsaking mental state not a place

7 centuries before Teilhard de Chardin

St. Angela of Foligno saw the whole evolving creation as

a divine milieu – a universe pregnant with God – a heaven

 

in Fall/Redemption traditional spirituality

the quest is for perfection

and the goal is to keep the soul clean

but in Quantum Theology/Spirituality no perfection exists –

imperfection is integral to all nature –

and holiness is cosmic hospitality – welcoming all things –

and the goal is to keep the soul green/

evergreen/ever-growing

 

7 centuries before, and surprisingly like, Quantum Theology

Meister Eckhart’s writings on the soul

answered the fundamental philosophical/theological questions:

“who are we?/why do we exist?”

which supply the basic purpose/direction of our lives

 

no one but Meister Eckhart

according to Matthew Fox

so thoroughly integrated

biblical theology/spirituality/

prophecy/mysticism/

faith/reason/

art/life.

 

PROPHETS CRYING

In The Integral Vision, the greatest book of the 21st century

because it puts all knowledge together in a single system,

Ken Wilber asserts that all human potential

can be simplified to five essential elements:

quadrants (I/We/It/Its)/ levels (of consciousness)/

lines (of development)/states (of experience)/

types (of personality) which are existential realities

not theoretical concepts – we can experience all of them

 

similarly, all Christology has to be experiential

not just academic because prophetess Ilia Delio claims

all mystics arrive at a profound experience

of Christ in the universe – Christ experienced in daily life

as millions of believers testify

 

by the end of the 17th century our experience

of our place in the cosmos had radically shifted:

humans no longer occupied the center of the universe

and since spots were discovered on the surface of the sun

we knew the heavenly realm had blemishes

and so the heavenly and earthly realms

were no longer distinctly different –

there was no longer “a perfect realm up there”

versus “an imperfect realm down here”

 

Pierre Teilhard de Chardin was a prophet

crying in the wilderness of a scientific/evolutionary age

“Make way for the Lord”

as well as a Desert Father

working lifelong in China’s vast deserts

telling us about new ways to look at Christ

which the Church had difficulty embracing

 

staunch Catholic tradition was unbroken/unbreakable

and behind/underlying/in front of contemporary Catholicism

Franciscans today carry on the tradition of St Francis of Assisi

and Catholic philosophers wrestle today

with similar problems to St Thomas Aquinas –

 spirituality and religion still search for the sacred

not ego-based values of health/happiness/success

but for a person/law/principle that transcends the self –

spirituality in the world but not of the world

not purely imminent pantheism nor purely transcendent theism

but imminent and transcendent panentheism –

prophets still cry for the human/God or God/human.

THE BROAD AND NARROW GATES

 In our scientific age “More than knowledge

that comes from research, we need wisdom

that comes from prayer” – William Johnston, SJ

 

“To know your origins is to know your True Self”

– Lao Tzu

 

“hell” is “perpetual alienation from the True Self” –

it is constantly living in the False Self

so that your whole life is false

 

the True Self is hidden in God

so that most of us don’t discover our origins

until we die –

“Broad is the gate that leads to destruction

and many enter through it;

narrow is the gate that leads to eternal life”

– Jesus in Matthew 7:13-14

 

to enter by the narrow gate/find eternal life

we must understand Teresa of Avila’s

first four mansions in her Interior Castle

which can be summarized by reference to the will:

First Mansion: will marked by self-indulgence

Second Mansion: will marked by spiritual growth

but not steadfastness

Third Mansion: will marked by beginning of resolution

Fourth Mansion: will marked by steadfast union

with the Divine Will in prayer

 

every day every one out of ignorance and fear

mentally or physically strikes out at “the enemy”

and so the pain in the world goes on –

before the broad gate of aggression we could rather ask

“Do I want war or peace in my inner and outer worlds?”

 

fear always fears

that what it loves will be taken away

regret always regrets

that what it loved was taken away

but nothing God loves

can be taken away from God –

so that if you are in God

there is nothing to fear or regret.

 

THE UNIVERSE IS YOUR SPIRITUAL DIRECTOR

Like Paul Tillich, Raimundo Panikkar saw God

as integrally connected to concrete reality –

no cosmos without God/no God without cosmos –

God’s utterances and actions depend on there being

a universe – what could God say or do with nothingness?

 

the quantum theologian’s basic affirmation

is a very old yet radically new principle:

“Love is an interdependent life-force

ranging from subatomic interactions to divine grandeur –

it is the origin and goal of our search for meaning”

 

“The serenity of Jesus came not from knowing mysteries

but from observing the cosmos –

if God cares about the sparrow – feeds it/nests it –

and the lilies – clothes them in grandeur –

surely God cares about you – God’s finest creation”

– John Dominic Crossan

 

infused contemplation – contemplation whose Source is God –

births a new consciousness

of visions/voices/mystical experiences

but there is also danger because of deceit by demons –

Saint Teresa of Avila

knew she needed a prudent guide in mystical theology

which she found in

Saint John of the Cross

 

Thomas Merton became weary of fame as a writer

and knew why the Rule of Saint Benedict says

“True monks work with their hands as the Apostles did –

the fields/sun/rain/mud

are our spiritual directors”

 

all good theologians/saints/mystics know

that the Uni-verse – the One Verse

constantly changes and evolves

and to keep up we must constantly evolve our selves –

if we do not accept the insecurity

that is the price of change

we become rigid/stagnant/lifeless water

like a life-sucking demon

rather than an ever-flowing/life-giving Stream of Love

like God.