Stages in the spiritual life

The spiritual life is not a template; it is a process meant to change our lives. There are stages in the spiritual life that move us from one level to another.

 

The first is compliance. The Ten Commandments dominate in this phase. Being spiritual in this phase depends on keeping a list of do’s and don’ts, on keeping the “rules”–whatever they are–on being perfect.

 

This kind of spiritual score keeping is a necessary but very immature stage. We concern ourselves with actions rather than attitudes. We worry about not insulting someone, perhaps, but not about wanting to insult them.

 

The point is that we don’t make choices in this stage. Not real choices. We simply conform or rebel. We do what we’re told and call ourselves holy for having done so. We do everything we’re told but we never ask ourselves whether or not what we’re doing has anything at all to do with the Beatitudes or not.

 

The second level of the spiritual life is awareness. It has more to do with becoming Christian than it does with going through the rituals of being Christian. This stage of spiritual development awakens in us the awareness that our roles as Christians is to help make the world a just and peaceful place. We are not here simply to make ourselves paragons of organizational piety.

 

At the second level of the spiritual life, we come to realize that though God began the process of Creation it is our responsibility to complete it. Then we set out to become the kind of people we were put on Earth to be. We begin to go out of ourselves for the sake of the world rather than simply awarding ourselves gold stars for being regular observers of ancient rituals. “Do not wish to be called holy before you are holy,” the Desert Monastics taught. It is holiness, not regularity, that we are now about in our spiritual life.

 

Finally, the third level of the spiritual life is transformation. It requires that we ourselves begin to “put on the mind of Christ.” We ourselves begin to think like Jesus of the Mount of Beatitudes who in the face of The Ten Commandments required love that was demanding, holier than laws could ever be. We face what it means to be just in an unjust world, meek in an arrogant one, humble in a domineering one, compassionate in a prejudiced one, full of grief for those who suffer from suffering not of their own doing, compassionate for those who are oppressed by the indifferent in this world.

Then the truly spiritual soul sees the world as God sees the world and sets out to make it right. But that can happen only if we spend our lives immersed in the Scriptures, steeped in its passion for good, conscious of its struggles, in tune with the heart of God.

          —from Awakenings: Prophetic Reflections by Joan Chittister, ed. Mary Lou Kownacki and Mary Hembrow Snyder (Orbis)