The richness of the spiritual life

The spiritual journey and sanctification are often closely linked – and with good reason. Spirituality is about the divine relationship with humanity in which people grow deeper by the day and which means that one lives according to the will of God, as it was expressed, amongst others in the divine commandments. One has to be obedient to God and do what God wants.

But sanctification is but one small part of the spiritual journey. This is clear when we reflect on sanctification as it is used in the Bible. Sanctification is only one aspect of a holy life. One is made holy by the Holy God, God is holy and is also the model of holiness, we live a holy calling, grow in holiness and learn to obey and seek the guidance of the Holy Spirit. And the new life in Christ, we know is also more than about holiness.

We discover the fuller picture when we study the New Devotion as movement from which Thomas a Kempis’ Imitation of Christ was born. The spiritual journey comprised, for example, in the New Devotion of Geert Grote at least four dimensions:

First of all the New Devotion in particular focussed on Christ. The spiritual journey consisted of a continuous consciousness of the intimate relationship with God in Christ. This explains why Thomas a Kempis would write his famous Imitation of Christ. It meant concretely that one’s heart is always focussed on Christ.

The relationship of love with Christ implies secondly that one allocates the primary place in the spiritual journey to texts about Christ. Not church traditions, nor pronounements and teachings of the offices or great thinkers, but the Bible is the source of the spiritual journey. And one does not read the Bible to “know” more. One reads it out of love, for its love and to love more. That is why one lovingly makes the Bible your own, reflects on it and meditates on it. In the time of the New Devotion its members did this as part of a group at at least five specific slots every day, but also on their own, in their quiet time, in a disciplined and ordered manner. The Bible was the book of life, the guide for the spiritual life for the New Devotion. And when they focussed on the Bible as the space of Christ, they broke in a radical way with the spiritual life as it was propagated in the church of their time in which theological speculation and debates were the focal point.

Only then, thirdly, did the New Devotion emphasise the moral life and sanctification. The reading of Scripture brought one to love God and others. Scripture reading transforms one’s life and this is what one should seek. Everything else, all the theological debates and scoring of points, was nothing else but empty talk, a seeking of vain glory, a matter of idle curiosity.

Finally, there was, and this is most intriguing, the desire for interiority. Interiority is a major issue in spirituality. Some say that the motif of interiority is what distinguishes spirituality, others think that it creates problems (google the remarks of Sheldrake on interiority). But interiority is about awareness of God’s presence, praying, being in silence, inner reflection.

Interiority is about withdrawing from daily life for the sake of experiencing the divine presence, inner devotion in silence and prayer, reflection. We could also call it “quiet time.” Our spiritual journey is about the quiet quest for a true worship of God, to await the touch of God.

Sanctification does not happen if God does not touch us, visit us, purify us and heal us. We do not discover and attain holiness. We receive it as a gift and make it our own by interiorising it. The spiritual life is rich with many dimensions. To think of it in a moralising way as the doing of good deeds, is to give up the richness of faith. The New Devotion helps us rediscover our spiritual heritage as much richer than this. It is not only about being holy. We recognise the spiritual journey as a life in the love of Christ, driven by the Biblical message of transformation, to desire to be like Christ (conformation) and the waiting on God’s presence in us. If we remember this, we will not easily fall into the trap of moralising.