A few years ago Rob Faesen, a theologian at KU Leuven, published an interesting article, “Why Does the History of Christian Spirituality Matter?” Faesen answers his question with a single sentence, “This history helps us to pay attention to the genuine encounter between God as God and the human person as human.” His explication of this statement is helpful in understanding why knowing the thoughts and writings of the past is so useful—if not essential—for developing a vibrant spiritual life today.
Faesen’s first point is that knowing historical Christian spirituality helps us to encounter God as God. “There are so many apparent encounters,” he warns, “which may well appear to be religious but which in fact obscure the true living God.” Understanding the ways in which Christians of the past approached God, and particularly how they succeeded and failed in these approaches, better equips us to experience God as beyond any limiting concepts and dogmas we might impose upon the divine.
Secondly, Faesen says, “The encounter of any man or woman with God involves every aspect of his or her humanity” (emphasis in original). A spirituality that neglects any aspect of our human existence—body, soul (in Faesen’s scheme, such powers as reasoning and will) or spirit (the mysterious depth of relationship)—will in the end be inauthentic and fail us in fully relating to God. All of these contribute to what he calls “the mysterious and unfathomable depths of the human person,” our openness and relationality with and to others through which we are constituted. A true spirituality encompasses and includes everything we are to facilitate a full relationship with God and others.
Faesen’s final point might initially sound strange in a discussion of Christian spirituality, but addresses what has too often been a weakness in Christian theology (and therefore spirituality): a true spirituality is rooted in the reality of the encounter between God and humanity. The emphasis on reality is important: some Christian theologies place God at an entirely unapproachable distance from humanity, therefore making a real and full relationship impossible. He therefore says, “History is teaching us here that a spirituality which truly appreciates this encounter is one that possesses strength and life” (emphasis in original). The “real openness” between God and humanity is fundamental to our existence, and thus to a true Christian spirituality.
One of Faesen’s concluding statements underlines the importance of all this:
What we learn from the history of Christian spirituality is that the proper evaluation of this real relational character and of the encounter between God and the human person has been exceptionally fruitful— for literature, culture, art and liturgy. Christian culture has flourished much less when either an unbridgeable gap between the divine and the human, or their fusion, has been emphasized.
I encourage everyone to read his article.
Image: Fra Angelico, “The Forerunners of Christ with Saints and Martyrs” (Source).
