Spirituality; Understanding the Holy Spirit within our very lives:

Spirituality;  Understanding the Holy Spirit within our very lives:

“What the soul is to the human body, the Holy Spirit is to the Body of Christ, which is the Church.”   “To this Spirit of Christ, as an invisible principle, is to be ascribed the fact that all the parts of the body are joined with each other and with their exalted head; for the whole Spirit of Christ is in the head, the whole Spirit is in the body, and the whole Spirit is in each of the members.”  The Holy Spirit makes the Church “the temple of the living God.”  (CCC 797).

Following is an evening session in a parish in Guin, Alabama where I was under an electrical contract at 3M.  This was during April of 1988. 

Spirituality is synonymous with faith, i.e. it doesn’t just happen, but needs to be developed over a period of time.  It improves, it changes in intensity, and imbeds itself within the human condition.  Faith is trust - spirituality puts faith in motion.  Trust in God is not when all our prayers are answered, our desires met, or our lives pampered; rather in adverse situations we will become changed; the strong will survive even though the struggle seems futile.

The quest to find spirituality can be a three-step sequential process:  (My thoughts).

 Growth through healing:  When the brothers of Joseph saw that their father loved him best of all his sons, they hated him so much that they would not even greet him.  Once Joseph had a dream, which he told to his brothers: “Listen to this dream I had.  There we were, binding sheaves in the field, when suddenly my sheave rose up to an upright position, and your sheaves formed a ring around my sheaf and bowed down to it.”  “Are you really going to make yourself king over us?”  “Or impose your rule on us?”  (Gn 37: 4 - 8).  Of course this precluded the eventual scenario that found Joseph, sold as a slave and became the second in charge of Egypt where he later brought forgiveness to his brothers.   We find bitterness that could have been the ultimate result but through the grace of God the brothers found a mercy that God used to heal the evil from jealousy. 
Viewing the impossible:  A sign of glory when Peter, James, and John were led up a high mountain with Jesus; and suddenly Jesus was joined by Moses and Elijah; and he was Transfigured before them as he was viewed in his Resurrected body on Easter morning.  Our lives have found meaning and find sense from the confusion of his Passion.  ( Lk 9: 28 - 36).
Gaining Freedom:  Finding ourselves through discovering God - in the person of Jesus Christ as master of our lives, our faith, our spirituality.  The Resurrection is the victory of persistence and trust becomes faith while we find our willingness to accept this truth.  Through this we discover the reality of becoming spiritual; led by the Holy Spirit.

      Ralph B. Hathaway