A CONTEMPORARY SPIRITUALITY

December 2019

My Assumptions

1    Every human being has a vocation [a calling from God], probably several, and honouring them is what brings us fully alive.  One of mine is to be a priest. I will only be fully myself by being a priest, and I will be the priest I am called to be by being fully myself: priesthood will then flow naturally through me.  Every priest will exercise their priesthood in a unique way, and their other vocations will inform the way they do so.  Mine has at its core a search for meaning in life: a search that involves my body, head, heart & soul.  I also have a need to share what is shown me.

2    “No revelation can be complete and systematic, from the weakness of the human intellect; so far as it is not such, it is mysterious … The religious truth is neither light nor darkness, but both together; it is like the dim view of a country seen in the twilight, which forms half extricated from the darkness, with broken lines and isolated masses. Revelation, in this way of considering it, is not a revealed system, but consists of a number of detached and incomplete truths belonging to a vast system unrevealed.”             John Henry Newman

3    “Negative Capability, that is, when a man is capable of being in uncertainties, mysteries, doubts, without any irritable reaching after fact and reason”.                               Keats

4    John’s Gospel talks of Jesus existing with God from the beginning, of being born as a human being, and then returning to be with God after His death & resurrection.

5    I have learnt that the key to life is my soul, the divine spark, the pre-existent Cosmic Christ, the immanent God Whom I already know.

Therefore

1    When I nourish my soul, the God in me flourishes;  God & I work together, & our relationship grows.   Everyone knows, deep down, what nourishes their soul.  It is most easily found in things that we find pleasurable, and in suffering.

Prayer is whatever nourishes my relationship with God.  It is a corporate activity guiding me into becoming.   This is a much bigger picture of prayer & an exciting one. It is something in which all of creation is involved: it unites everything.

2    My soul recognises and resonates with the bigger picture that I glimpse in the night sky, of a universe greater than I can imagine, yet of which I am a part, and which supports and sustains me, insignificant as I am  

3    My soul connects me with the Divine spark within everything: we all partake in universal consciousness?: 

4     My soul is connected in a the loving web with the souls of family & friends, those who have already returned Home, and those yet to be born.

5     My soul resonates to Memories of the Home from which it came. These Memories surround us: music, beauty, peace, hospitality, friendship, creativity, silence etc, as well as in our Sense of Loss.  They seem to be common to all human beings

6     My soul recognises & resonates with holy spaces.  It is good to spend time there & to be changed by them

7.     My soul resonates with, and is both nourished & challenged by soul friends whom I encounter:  

8.    My soul recognises Angels, Miracles and Signs that meet me on the way. 

9     My soul is fed and challenged when I pray.

10     My journal where I reflect each day helps me recognise & name my soul’s promptings in the midst of life

11     Writing for the Annunciation Trust web-site is one way of sharing what my soul teaches, with others