Introduction

Abstract

Introduction Steven Chase What is a “spiritual classic”? How are spiritual classics embedded in contemporary spirituality? Each article in this issue of Spiritus offers commentary on diverse paths of wisdom that continue to shape our Christian traditions and contemporary spiritual life. Claire Wolfteich opens with a beautifully crafted essay from her presidential address given to the Society for the Study of Christian Spirituality during the annual meeting of the American Academy of Religion in November 2016. The essay focuses on the place of motherhood in Christian spirituality and raises several challenging questions: “How do we, as scholars of Christian spirituality, retrieve, adapt, name, and/or construct a fund of spiritual vocabulary, imagery, and practice rich enough, resonant enough, moving enough, to speak to and to give voice to contemporary people? . . . How might we articulate more fully the complexity of mothering as a dimension of Christian spirituality, as a spiritual practice? How might we identify and critically engage maternal spiritual wisdom (or lack thereof) from the Christian tradition?’” Using autobiographies or women’s life writings as case studies, Wolfteich makes a strong argument that, “the critical retrieval and reconstruction of mothering practices, experiences, struggles, and spiritual knowing remain a significant task for Christian theology, spirituality studies, and the church.” Summarizing the complexity of vocation and Christian spirituality in practice, particularly at the intersection of gender, race, mothering, and public life in different social-historical-cultural contexts, Wolfteich concludes that “retrieving and critically engaging the narratives of mothers is an important task for theology and spirituality studies.” Finally, in her closing notes on the nature of maternal narratives, Wolfteich points out how spiritual classics are the deep roots of ongoing contemporary spiritual practices: “maternal narratives make visible the highly contextualized and culturally-specific spiritual challenges and insights embedded in the practice of mothering.” Without doing so explicitly, Matt Ashley also explores the borders of the meaning of “spiritual classic” in the context of the relation between spiritual life lived and the spiritual life thought. In his essay on Pope Francis as an interpreter of Ignatius of Loyola, Ashley opens with words from the pope that [End Page VII] resonate with the dichotomy between the pastorally minded and the more academically oriented: What gets generated in this way is a false opposition between the so-called “pastorally minded” and the “academics,” between those on the side of the people and those on the side of doctrine. What gets generated is a false opposition between theology and thinking pastorally, between believing reflection and believing life. And then life has no room for reflection and reflection finds no room in life. As Ashley points out, Pope Francis states that one of the main contributions of Vatican II was the overcoming of this opposition: “This meeting of doctrine and the pastoral mindset is not optional, it is constitutive of a theology that aims to be ecclesial.” Ashley does not diminish the importance of continued discourse between spiritual theology and spiritual practice. In fact, he turns to Ignatius of Loyola as an integrator of the doctrinal element of faith and the pastoral element of a life of faith. He makes the case that Ignatius’s Exercises provide a hermeneutical lens for deepening our understanding of Pope Francis’s theological assertions. Ashley applies the pope’s perspective on mercy and justice as the primary hermeneutical lens for dissolving the false dichotomy in which “life has no room for reflection and reflection finds no room in life.” Utilizing both personal experience and cognitive reflection, Ashley writes that, “creativity, depth, and Christian force of Francis’s ‘theology of mercy’ comes from an embrace of the mystery of God’s merciful response to our world’s situation that is configured by his own experience and appropriation of the spirituality of Ignatius of Loyola.” David Greene’s article also pushes the perimeters of a “spiritual classic” giving us an entry-point into creative spirituality in the form of Anton Bruckner’s Eighth Symphony. Greene compares Bruckner’s work with Beethoven and Mahler’s final masterpieces. Many connoisseurs of Bruckner’s work use the language of “sublime,” “transcendent,” and “mysterious continuity” to describe his masterful music. Greene agrees. Reminding us of the medieval...