experience

The book's author Dale M. Schlitt, OMI offers a selection of testimonials to experiences of the Trinity throughout the history of Christian spirituality. Each of the book's sixteen chapters focus on a different source of testimony beginning with chapters on Jesus and Paul.. The chapters also offer a range of modes of testimony including architecture, memoir, hymn, and interreligious dialogue. Here is an overview of the book's contents:

Testimonials to Experience of the Trinity is a study in spirituality of the Trinity. “Testimonial” refers to an affirming witness to experience of the...

In this article, SSCS member Rossano Zas Friz de Col, S.J., argues for the importance of Igantian spirituality in a society where religious practice and spiritual life have for many Christians become separate realities. Here is his summary of his argument's main points:

First, I will show the implications of what secularization means today by comparing the socio-religious context of Saint Ignatius of Loyola and Sigmund Freud. This analysis will help develop the second point, establishing a relationship between these two socioreligious contexts by highlighting the importance of decision...

Although this article's author Phil Daughtry focuses on the spirituality of youth in Australia, readers may find that his descriptions sound quite similar to the experiences of youth in their own geographic area. Here is the article's abstract:

The Australian spiritual consciousness has been described as “a whisper in the mind, a shy hope in the heart.” This is not a spirituality of explicit religious language or loud evangelicalism but rather a deeply grounded hope, spoken of tentatively and with great care. This description by Gary Bouma alerts...

Janet Ruffing begins her article by describing some of the questions facing Christian spirituality studies today. For Ruffing, practice begins with an inner experience of God followed by reflection and interpretation to discern its meaning. She then shows how mystical texts, theology and scientific disciplines can inform our understanding of spiritual practices. Here are the essay’s opening paragraphs:

As we reflect on the field of Christian spirituality over the last twenty-five years, . . . . methodological and definitional questions, philosophical questions, theological questions, and...

After Douglas Christie visited La Perla, a site in Argentina infamous for its role as a place of torture and death during that country’s “Dirty War”, he turned to the writings of  Jan van Ruusbroec and Michel de Certeau to help him reflect about his experience. His essay is an exploration about the deep sense of darkness, loss, and absence he encountered there. Instead of reacting with despair and hopelessness, Christie found the experience “unexpectedly fruitful.” Here’s a paragraph from the essay’s concluding section:

I began these reflections at La Perla, standing before the black door...

Mark Burrows, Poetry Editor of the SSCS journal Spiritus, has co-edited this multi-author collection of essays which one reviewer has described as “an important resource for students of Christian spirituality.” According to the book’s introductory blurb:

This book explores the much debated relation of language and bodily experience (i.e. the ‘flesh’), considering in particular how poetry functions as revelatory discourse and thus relates to the formal horizon of theological inquiry. The central thematic focus is around a ‘phenomenology of the flesh’ as that which connects us with the...