How does Salvatorian spirituality reflect the spirituality of the Gospels? (Continued)
When we try to live in this spirit, we learn to let go peacefully of our anxieties, fears, and resentments. We become attentive in new ways to other people, to nature, to ourselves, even to the world's suffering. If we keep a "closed attitude" which keeps ourselves as our center of concern, we lack the wisdom to love as Jesus loves. We long to feel the fullness of God's love. We will feel it as we let go of ourselves. God cannot fill what is already filled with itself.
In community, it is a comfort that none of us is the first to walk this path of spirituality. We draw strength and confidence from the wisdom of tradition, trusting in God that we will come through every experience alive in a new way.
We begin on this path of spirituality often with a first fervor. It is necessary to feel the process of spiritual transformation because it is a long journey toward becoming the image of God whom we seek. In a description of a "faithful and wise member in community" given by a seventh century monk, we notice that it is "the member who all along the way maintains the ideals of one's vocation, who adds fire to fire, fervor to fervor, love to love, until the end of one's life."
We let go of our immaturity when we take up what we are responsible for: transforming our love and our behaviors. Spirituality requires that we let go of our preoccupation with "what we can get out of it." To do this courageously is one of the primary efforts of authentic and wholesome spiritual practice. As we move away from "filling up on ourselves," there develops in us an inner freedom allowing us to live and love more authentically.
Spiritual practice teaches us to give of ourselves regardless of what we feel. That is why the member who is "faithful and wise" will be adding to the ideals of one's vocation, fire, fervor, and love.