Living a spiritual life

In the past, I had multiple occasions to deepen my theoretical knowledge of Christianity, especially through the philosophical study of some of its tenets and authors. I’ve been working on Christian ideas about free will, God’s divine intervention in nature, the notion of ‘creation’, the interpretation of Scripture, and the relation between science, faith and religion. While I acquired a certain amount of knowledge in all these domains, very little of it made (or even invited me to become) a Christian.

Perhaps more relevantly, in my contemplative practice over the past seven years, I’ve repeatedly stumbled upon a specific experience, connected with a deep sense of ease and love, peace and freedom, beauty and silence, free from any specific ‘name’ and ‘form’ (see here or here). I still encounter a very similar condition when I sink into a more contemplative, silent, wordless form of prayer.

However, there are three main differences between what I experienced earlier and what I experience now, which concern not much the quality and texture of that state, but more its context and meaning. First, I reach it now via a very different route: it is not the result of me following a series of steps, based on my study of a certain tradition; it is more something that is always and already available there in the background, as some kind of deep, essential bond that is constitutive of who I am. If there is anything I do to get there, is simply to make myself small, so that it can take up all the space it wants. Second, I no longer consider that state as The Place where I want to (or need, or should) be, but simply as a part of a larger landscape, a sort of inner temple, where I can drop my unspoken questions and perceive how they are received in silence, feeling whether the smoke of their offering goes up or turns back to me. Being there is a powerful means, not an end in itself. Third, in my previous contemplative practice I always operated, in a way or another, under the assumption that “I” needed to do something in order to “save” myself. Of course, I learned quite soon about the trap and the conceit of “wanting to be awakened.” Yet, I always assumed that salvation would depend on how I hold myself, on my attitude towards reality: it would be the consequence of something that I do (or cease to do). Now, I see that salvation is a gift, which is neither earned through practice, nor given because of specific merits.

In a sense, I can say that I had both knowledge and a certain contemplative experience that could be surely connected with Christianity, but they were never sufficient to turn me into a Christian. Even more, I never really felt the need to understand my contemplative experience from a Christian perspective. Quite the opposite, I always remained rather critical, from an intellectual point of view, about Christianity as such.

What transformed me was a movement of conversion, which was based neither on knowledge, nor on any wonderous contemplative state, but on a very deep realization of my inability and impossibility to save myself. I was already aware of having a "problem" (a certain degree of "suffering" inherent in life, a certain dissatisfaction with the ordinary way of living), and I was even aware that this problem was deeply connected with attitudes of pride, conceit, egoism. Yet, I have always attempted at fighting them by myself and always assumed that if “I” was the problem, then “I” needed to fix it. Perhaps some people can realize in a more reflective and contemplative way that this is not going to work. In my case, I realized it by repeatedly hitting my head against a wall of impossibility. Only when something within me, after the last defeat, really surrendered this idea of “me” being the one who must save “myself”, only then I was reached by Him (remember this). This was the fundamental movement of my conversion, a movement which is still unfolding and I see no reason why it should not continue to develop in the future.

Over the past months, I did not primarily learn new information about Christianity (although I did discover quite a lot!), but I started to understand what Christianity actually means in practice, as a way of life. To speak more precisely, I should say that something has been given to me, and this something does the understanding for me, as I can clearly distinguish (phenomenologically) the moments in which this understanding is operating and sharp, and when it gets clouded again. I can also clearly see how the thing that does the understanding is not my personal “self”, which rather follows after it and tries to catch up with it. If I have to specify this experience using theological terms, I would say that what happened since my conversion is that I encountered, received, hosted, and have been inhabited by the Spirit of Christ. In fact, the more I advance (and I don’t think I’m very advanced yet) the more it becomes clear to me that genuine acts of faith, hope, and love that I experience are not really done by “me”, neither could they be done by “me”, but it is the Spirit who performs them in me. I'll explain.

Jesus once said “If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me” (Luke 9:23). I spent the last two weeks on a spiritual pilgrimage (through Rome, Assisi, Bolzano and Munich). By carefully observing myself and my recent past, it’s becoming more apparent what Jesus's saying means.

What is in myself? I recognize a lot of inclinations, the roots of possible intentions, actions, ways of being in the world. All these inclinations have usually something in common: they seek my own advantage, they originate from “myself” as the beneficiary of the action, and assess it from that point of view. To make it short, they are based on some form of egoism, if not pride, conceit and self-love. Some of them are very basic and almost necessary for survival, other are fancier and more connected with social recognition, prestige, pleasure and relationships. Most of them are quite “normal”, in the statistical sense that I see them in almost everybody around me, and not just in humans, but to different extents also in animals and even plants. Let me call these “natural inclinations”.

What’s wrong with natural inclinations? Nothing, if you ask them. Everything if you ask God. In essence, natural inclinations create the tendency to judge the world and everything in it from the perspective of my own advantage (call it “happiness” or “pleasure” or even “salvation”). It’s all about “me”, what I can get, what I can gain, what I can avoid. This “I” comes before all the rest, sometimes in very subtle and clever ways that would be very hard to recognize if one would not have the mirror of others, of a community, and of a tradition in which these things have been already noticed and recorded. In this egocentric perspective, even religion (any) or contemplative practices (any) can be seen as a way of satisfying a specific demand that I have. They are answers to my question.

But God is not the answer to a question. God is the one who addressed the question to me: “Do you love me?” (John 21:15, recall this). It is true that answering that question I can find the solution to my problems (depending on the kind of answer!), but this comes afterwards, as a gift, and not as some sort of commodity that I can buy based on my own resources. I’m not the customer deciding what to get. I’m the kid hoping to find a surprise when coming home. Precisely by inverting the order between me and God, by putting me first, all the natural inclinations I recognize, even the most seemingly harmless ones, keep me away from God—and this is the original sin. Being away from God is not a sin or an evil because of some other reason, or because I lose something there. That distance is the paradigm itself of what “evil” means. Again, the consequences of sin (unhappiness, sorrow, you name it) should not be taken to be the cause of why it is problematic (keeping distance from God).

For all my life I just followed most of my natural inclinations, trying at best to sort them out, based on what was more socially acceptable, more sustainable, or simply more feasible for me (this kind of selection is also based on a natural inclination). Until I realized that none of them would ever work. Then I felt lost, since no matter what I would do, would seem to be pointless. Then I was found by the Spirit, who pointed out to me the meaning of the Cross.

When Jesus asks his followers to “deny themselves” he is asking to say “no” to these natural inclinations. Simply stop following along, put up some resistance, press the feet in the ground and no longer run after what they suggest. Since my personality is made out of these inclinations, saying this “no” is in fact a way of “denying” myself—or to use Paul’s more evocative terminology, to die to the flesh (Galatian 2:19-20). This “no”, no matter how it comes about (because of a failure, because of understanding, whatever works) is the initiator of the movement of conversion. This “no” is what allows the Spirit, who’s constantly seeking us to reconcile us with God, to come nearer and do his work. Each "no" is a little nail in the flesh. It's painful. It doesn't come naturally or gladly. The Cross is not designed to be comfortable. And yet, in approaching this discomfort we gain another kind of comfort, namely, the proximity to Jesus himself, and his grace. Almost magically (in fact, "supernaturally") this proximity is a balsam that makes all other fleshy pains bearable and even welcome.

Jesus says that anyone who wants to be his follower need to “take up his cross daily”. The cross was invented as a death penalty and a torture, where the body is excruciated and the subject is bound to experience all sorts of pains again what his wanted. Jesus accepted this torture to deliver a clear bright message: not only God is love, but his love is stronger and deeper than any torture and injustice and it can embrace all the evil in the world and redeem it, if we only want so. However, I do not think that Jesus expected all his followers to literally die on a cross as he did—the fact that he did that once, should suffice for us all. Yet, anyone who wants to follow him has to take up their own cross. What does this mean?

In my experience, I recognize this movement precisely in the act of saying “no” to my natural inclinations. This sounds like challenging one’s own will and testing whether I’m strong enough or not. When in the past I tried to take this “no” in this way, as a challenge against myself, it worked only partially, with much difficulty, and never on the long term. What happens now, under the advice of the Spirit, is something different.

I see the natural inclinations. I recognize they are not good for me and that they bring me away from God. In recognizing them, I realized that, if left to my own device, I will simply fall back to my old habits. Their presence becomes an incentive to reflect on my own limitations and weaknesses and this allows me to cultivate a sense of humbleness: I know myself as someone who is naturally inclined to fall out of the path that he would nevertheless like to follow. It is from this space of humility (the recognition of the impossibility to save myself) that I ask for help. I know I can’t do it by myself, so I invoke Him: please, help!

This invocation is not just a private prayer between me and God. The recognition of my own weakness also entails that I can’t help myself alone, hence I need others, I need a community, a church and the sacramental life that is made possible within it. Private and communal prayer, personal commitment and ecclesial life, one’s own intention and sacramental communion go together. Without this shared dimension there would be no genuine humility, or it would be forceless, because cut from the living body where the Spirit is operating and present.

It is through this initial act of humility that I see the first work and grace of the Spirit coming, namely, faith. In the past I always thought that faith had to do with what "I" believe about something. I considered it as a cognitive attitude, a mental state. Again, a natural way of looking at things, which is also partially misleading. As I experience it now, faith is more like a power, a strength, an ability, the capacity of relying and trusting on the fact that God loves me and through that love he will take care of me better than what I could imagine (and many things follow from this, but I'll skip them for now, recall this). The power of faith does not come from me. If I examine myself I see just a lot of doubts, uncertainties, and fear of committing to anything. My reason can argue pro or against anything. My will is scattered. When I experience faith I experience something steady, present, calm, self-confident, maybe silent and discrete by filling myself with a scent of trust. It doesn't come from "me". It is a gift that is bestowed upon me as I try to make myself available and closer to its source: the Spirit.

I see the inclinations. I want and desire to say “no”. I know that by myself I won’t be successful. I ask for help. I gain faith. And then, I’m able to say the “no”. However, I still need to persist, both on the spot, and over time—I need to take up my cross daily, namely, I need to repeat my “no” over and over again. I can say “no” to an extra ice-cream, but then a few minutes later indulge in a slice of cake. Or I can say “no” to any extra food for a day, and try to stick to that decision, because I know that I do not need extra food on that day.

Jesus himself could have come out of the cross at any point, as many were inviting him to do, but he didn’t. He remained on the cross till his death. Before being crucified, he invited his disciples to remain in his love (John 15:4). Hence, it is not enough to take up one’s cross, one needs also to carry it (to remain in it). If the cross is the movement of conversion away from one’s natural inclinations, then carrying it daily means persisting in this movement. That’s why conversion is not an isolated episode that happens in a moment and then is over. Conversion is the persisting and continuous movement of turning way from what separates oneself from God in order to grow in proximity and intimacy with him. Every day I find not only occasions to say some “no” but I am also called to be resolute in this decision. Personally, I find this aspect the most challenging. I can easily realize that certain things bring no good, but as time passes, this realization usually fluctuates until it transforms into a doubt. But I also know that I cannot find any long-term resolution within myself, and that’s why I need to ask (and keep asking) for help again, and again, and again. That's why we pray: "do not abandon us to temptation". The temptation of saying "yes" and "going with the flow" is always there, it's easy, common, alluring. But if the Spirit is with us (and he never abandons us), we are not alone, we are not abandoned to our own devices and we can rely on his strength to keep turning away to what seems naturally good but actually inclines us to move farther and farther away from the Good.

The second gift of the Spirit is hope. This does not concern the imagination of some future and desired state that I would like to reach at some point. Hope has more to do with the realization that there is more to reality than what I can observe and experience right now. No matter how difficult things might appear in this moment, or how confused (or confusing), there is a providential supporting hand that is and will be helping me to move forward, as it always did (Psalm 63). Hope is a sort of dynamization of faith, which grows out of it over time, in the tension towards a “more” that is promised, although it is currently not yet experienced. Jesus did not accept the Cross without announcing also his resurrection. Hope is what connects us with what follows after the Cross, and eventually with the complete renewal of all things (Revelation 21:5). I could not produce this kind of hope, since I know nothing about it. It is the Spirit, again, who hopes in me and by doing so allows me to persist and remain, moment by moment, day by day, despite weaknesses and falls.

Faith and hope are like a fire. Faith provides the combustible; hope is the sparkling of the flames. When the fire is on, then it irradiates warmth. This is the third gift of the Spirit: love. Here the English word is rather poor, since the kind of love at stake is what in Greek is expressed as agape, or in Latin as caritas: love of self-giving and utter surrender to the other, completely for their own sake, without keeping or wanting anything for oneself. This is the most beautiful gift (and experience). There is no measure or causal link that connects what I have described above and the fact of receiving this gift. It does not depend on how “good” I’ve been at saying my “no-s” or how long I’ve endured. Nevertheless, that intention and attitude (no matter how imperfect) of trying and desiring to do so, does creates a certain proximity with Jesus, and in that proximity, we actually open up to the Spirit, who always strives and desires to freely bestow his love upon us. We often make things more complex than they are. God does not expect from us to be perfect (or wait until we realize that we will never be so!), he hopes only that we make an attempt, as a good father would do when trying to teach something to his child.

However, it is here that the most surprising thing actually happens. When the Spirit starts infusing his love within me and when I not only experience it but love through it (so to say), then I not only love God (or whatever name one wants to use) and am happy in this contemplative state (as I used to do in the past via other routes to divine love). In a sense, I am ‘infected’ by Christ's own love that loves within me and I start loving in the same way, or an echo of his love is produced within myself. As a result, my way of loving is totally different from my habitual and “natural” way of loving. It is no longer a seeking of something good for the sake of my own happiness, but it is rather a desire for a complete self-giving, regardless of any rewards, just for the sake of giving thanks, glorifying, celebrating the source of all of this. Concretely, this becomes a strong desire to serve (remember this).

On one occasion Jesus said “the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many” (Matthew 20:28). The way Jesus understood his coming—which was his act of love and charity for humanity—wasn’t aimed at being recognized, but rather at serving (me, you, we all). His love is inextricably entangled with service. When the Spirit blows this love in me, I do feel the same. Here, more than anywhere else, I have the proof that it is not me who is making up any of this, because I’m completely sure and it is totally obvious to me that I could not be able to love in this way, nor I ever loved anything or anyone in this way in my whole life. It is simply not something within my own nature—and yet, I do feel it, when the Spirit works within my nature. In this way, I discover a desire to “follow him”, which is not the attempt at imitating a model given to me by an external authority, but rather the effort of developing and letting growing this seed of love that has been gifted to me, moving in the direction indicated by Christ.

Christianity has not brought me “peace of mind” in the sense in which this “peace” is conceived in several contemplative traditions (both East and West), as a stoic absence of any perturbation, impassibility, absence of any struggle. In fact, my days are a constant (even if only relatively modest and quite) battle as I described. And if what I have said is not totally off track, I can easily expect that this is going only to grow and become subtler, but never to go away. In fact, it shouldn’t, because the fundamental tension of saying “no” to natural inclinations is what keeps “me” involved in this process (since “I am” my natural inclinations), feeds humility, prevents spiritual conceit, and allows me to “imitate” Christ (in my small corner and with all due limitations).  

However, I also discover a sort of deeper level of “peace”, which is not really a specific state of mind, but rather has to do with the meaning of this whole process. Again, it is the Spirit who is whispering in me that I am fighting the right battle and, no matter what the result will be, no matter where, when, or how I’ll fall, or even die in this field, it has been worth the effort, it makes sense. Regardless of any possible successes, fighting this battle reminds me that I am not alone and that I am not fighting for myself. Others are with me, and He is above me. This is a profound consolation—not in the sense that I’m accepting a sort of consolation prize, but rather in the sense that I am at peace with God and myself and the world. This, I bet, is Jesus’ peace (John 14:27). The Spirit is reminding this—living a spiritual life is relaxing in this peace as in a cool pool of spring water.

Cross of Father Innocenzo (XVII cent.), San Damiano, Assisi (IT)