The Importance of the Spiritual Life

Many people today talk about being “spiritual” but not following any religious faith. More and more individuals refer to themselves as having no religious affiliation. Those who examine statistics refer to them as the “nones”. So what is the importance of the spiritual life for us?  Can it simply be a sort of free-floating acknowledgement of something beyond ourselves?  Do humanitarianism, political ideals, or being spiritual suffice in helping us to rise to noble purpose and find meaning in life?
           
Recently I have been able to reflect on two life experiences that have been tremendously spiritual and have been shaped by a clear belief in the Catholic Faith.
           
The first experience is going to see the recently released film The Sound of Freedom. It stars Jim Caviezel who played Jesus in the hit of twenty years ago, The Passion of the Christ.  A co-star and driving force behind Sound of Freedom is the Mexican actor Eduardo Verastequi. The film portrays the real story of an American, Tim Ballard, who was a special agent in the Department of Homeland Security specializing in the rescuing of children from human trafficking and the sex trade. Ballard rescues two children, a brother and a sister, taken from their family in Central America and sent to others countries to be exploited in terrible ways. This movie shows the magnitude of the network of evil that human trafficking entails. What is remarkable about the production of this film is that it is born of the deep spiritual life of Caviezel and Vererastequi both devout Catholics. To get a glimpse of the deep faith of Caviezel search on-line for “How the Rosary Miraculously Led  Jim Caviezel to Hollywood ”. To see the role of the Catholic Faith in Verastegui’s life and dedication to the elimination of the exploitation of children search on-line for “Eduardo Verastegui Talks about His New Film Sound of Freedom/ Knigthcast”.
           
It was not simply humanitarian ideals or social activism that led Caviezel and Verastegui to make Sound of Freedeom. It was their relationship with Jesus Christ in their Catholic Faith that compelled them to make this film and highlight the dire problem of the trafficking and exploitation of our children. 
           
The second experience was reading a book that was recommended to me by a dear friend of mine who is a Carmelite nun. In a recent conversation with her she said to me, “You must read a book that I just finished.  It is entitled My Thirty-Third Year. It is the story of a German priest who is sent to a Soviet prison camp in 1945 and survives.” Motjher sent me the book and I devoured it. Father Gerhard Fittkau is the pastor of a rural parish in Eastern Germany. His life is filled with the beauty of bringing Christ to his flock who are filled with faith but also with fear as the Soviet Army approaches and the Third Reich collapses. Their worst fears are made real as the Soviet soldiers plunder, rape, and exploit their families on their arrival. What is worse is the deporting of many men and women to the gulags of northern Russia where many of them die from starvation, incredibly inhuman treatment and outright torture. Father Fittkau, among the deportees, manages miraculously to hold on to one book on his terrible trek to the east – his hand missal. Each day he goes to the prayers of the Sacred Liturgy – to the Ordinary of the Mass, to the prayers for feast days, to the Sacred Scripture woven through the Masses for Sundays – and there he finds strength to put his faith in God and maintain his identity as a priest. He returns, guided by the hand of God in mysterious and almost miraculous ways, to serve his people again but in a country dominated by atheistic communism. It was not an ideology or some utopian social experiment that gave him hope and strength.  It was his unshakable belief in the way that God works in the Catholic Church by coming to us in the sacraments and especially in the Holy Eucharist at Mass.
           
As I reflected on these two very different, yet in some ways very similar experiences, I saw that a deep dive into the importance of what our spiritual life should be is so needed today. Please join me in the coming weeks as we look at the profound wisdom of the Church to see how our Catholic Faith informs our spiritual life and enables us to influence the world and to serve our brothers and sisters.

Most Reverend William J. Waltersheid
Auxiliary Bishop of Pittsburgh