Catholic Spiritual Practices: A Treasury of Old and New
Edited by Colleen M. Griffith and Thomas H. Groome
The great advantage of a collection of essays like these is
that they reveal the both the meaning and practice of the spiritual practices
in a concise manner. The disadvantage of
this book and books like these is you only get a little taste of the subjects
considered which only gives you an appetite to discover more works on the
various subjects. Initially, what I
really enjoyed about his book is that it illuminated some Catholic practices
that I thought obscure from my Protestant understanding, or, I didn’t really
know how the practice connected to the concrete expressions of everyday faith.
Commenting on the modern disconnect between the terms
‘religious’ and ‘spiritual’ Colleen Griffith writes, “A spirituality that is
disconnected from religious tradition is bereft of both community and history;
it has no recourse to the benefits of a larger body of discourse and practice,
and it lacks accountability” (3). Having
no foundation, no root from which to draw upon leads one to privatize
spirituality and not bear out the benefits of a worshipping community longing
for the same purpose of life. Griffith
goes on to helpfully say that the why of engaging in spiritual practices is
concerned with promoting of way of life, a faith that does not leave us
unchanged but leads to transformation.
This kind of take on the spiritual practices is most beneficial to the
layperson because it begins to address the practice of these spiritual
disciplines in connection with everyday life, not leaving these practices to
the domain of the church or priestly office.
In effect, what is needed is not so much a manual on spiritual practices
but some encouraging wisdom for the stay at home mom to the C.E.O and some
reasons why these practices are in existence.
The rest of the chapters focus on three aspects of the
practices: namely, practices of prayer, practices of care and practices of
spiritual growth. In the section on intercessory prayer, the authors write, “When
we try to pray for others, we are clear we are changed ourselves. We open up, we soften, we put into perspective
hurts they have dealt us. We enter their
lives now from their point of view instead of exclusively our own..” (30). Instead of a blunt reaction of condemnation
or a callous comment about someone else, praying on behalf of others lightens
our grip of always having the right.
Instead, we often begin to live with more empathy and come to the needs
of others before we are asked. The
chapter on practicing forgiveness by Marjorie Thompson was quite possibly the
best chapter in the book. She writes, “To
forgive is to make a conscious choice to release the person who has wounded us
from the sentence of our judgment, however justified that judgment may be”
(78). She goes onto say that forgetting
a wretched thing done against us might not be possible but forgetting in the
sense of not allowing that event to haunt our thoughts and imaginations is
possible. In one sense, this call to
forgive is the essence of the character of God and his love. Finally, in the chapter on fasting Joan
Chittister reminds us that fasting counters our consumer mentality with what it
means to be wholly dependent on God (141).
While some of these chapters will specifically apply to
practicing Catholics (praying with images, praying with the saints, etc.), I
found most of the chapters as a good start to understanding spiritual
disciplines in a Catholic context. Even
more, I found many of the disciplines to be of great value whatever church you
belong. The only unusual thing about the
book was that it seemed to be geared towards giving an understanding of the
practices from just Catholics. However,
right off the bat I noted that N.T. Wright and Marjorie Thompson were included
(Wright is Anglican, Thompson is Presbyterian).
Whatever the reason, their contributions were very good also.
Thanks to Paraclete Press for the review copy of this book
in exchange for review.
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