What is Christian Spirituality?

Christian Spirituality is rooted in the person of Christ. He is at the centre and is the focus of all our striving and searching. This truth has serious consequences i.e. we must come to know him as well as come to know about him. This means that Christian Spirituality is not something we can study at a distance as simply a phenomenon of the human quest. It means we need to engage with and enter into the Mystery that is God and Christ in union with the Holy Spirit.


The Paschal (Easter) Mystery – that Christ has suffered and died on the cross, and rose from the dead lies at the core of Christian spirituality.

Also Christian Spirituality is deeply dependant on the Word of God. "Ignorance of the scriptures is ignorance of Christ", wrote St. Jerome. Learning to read, understand and love the word of God expressed in the inspired texts of the bible is essential to Christian Spirituality.

There are more but I will leave them to another time. But I want to mention something I feel is very important in the whole debate about spirituality.

Many of the contemporary spiritualities emphasis EMPOWERMENT. Now dont misunderstand me please. Empowerment is very important and a necessary element if we are to have a just and inclusive society. But in Christian Spirituality, the ultimate experience is that of SURRENDER.

“If you would be my follower", Jesus said, "renounce yourself, take up your cross and follow me.” It is in surrendering to God that we find the goal of our spiritual life. And that practice of surrender is one that is carried out every day in the simplest and most ordinary ways. To be a spiritual person is to surrender to the Mystery that beckons us into the deepest and most fulfilling life in God; to find Christ in one another; and to realise our total and utter dependence on someone who is greater, higher and most holy in whom the goal of all our striving is to be found.