Spiritual Practices

"Spiritual practices become life transforming to the extent that they help us to see differently and to behave differently. Even though we may not always be able to change what we see, seeing it differently helps us to respond differently. Perception, remember, informs moral judgments. Once we see the stranger as neighbor in need, we might respond differently. Spiritual practices open us to see and judge all things in relation to our experience of God and our commitment to care about what God cares about." (155)

"Since God is ever present to us in the Spirit at the depths of human experience, we really cannot clearly separate our relationship to God (spirituality) from the way we live in the world (morality), for our relationship to God is mediated by the way we respond to all things. . . . Spirituality focuses on our relationship with God and morality on who we are to be and how we are to behave in the world. For the Christian believer, who we are and how we behave are functions of our experience of God." (211)

Gula, Richard M. The Call to Holiness: Embracing a Fully Christian Life. New York: Paulist Press, 2003.

This was a book I read in a long-ago ethics or morality class I took at the Oblate School of Theology, preparing for my master's degree in theology. I am looking at it again and seeing what wisdom Gula shares.