In a remarkable article entitled ‘Food for the Soul’ the Abbot of Worth, Christopher Jamison, remarks: ‘Those who suffer eating disorders often deny that they have a problem; so too those who don’t eat enough spiritual food. “I’m fine”, they say, “I’m spiritual and I don’t need religion". Christians carry a heavy responsibility for our failure to offer our traditions in ways that hungry people can swallow. In this issue, The Way attempts once more to face up to this responsibility and to provide a fare that is both genuine and credible.
Jos Moons, ‘The Search for an Attractive Form of Faith’, 7–20
The exuberance of Roman Catholicism after Vatican II has subsided. Instead, we seem beset by conflicts between different strategies and emphases for maintaining and spreading the Christian faith.
John Sullivan, ‘The Believer as Citizen Mystic’, 21–34
The Christian believer in a modern democratic society should be a good citizen of that society, and this is important for the nature of the believer's spirituality and religious life. John Sullivan explores how the Christian as citizen mystic can find God in all things.
Christine Valters Paintner, ‘The Practice of Contemplation as Witness and Resistance’, 35–47
Sarah Apetrei, ‘Mysticism and Feminism in Seventeenth-Century England’, 48–69
A number of women writers in late seventeenth-century England provocatively linked mysticism with an incipient feminism. Their spirituality challenged contemporary social roles, and the links that they made between sexual equality, human dignity and the divine nature lead us to examine the limits we ourselves set upon both human potential and the justice of God.
Thomas G. Casey, ‘The Dedalus Dream: Reflections on Irish Society with the Help of James Joyce’, 71–83
Tradition has an ambivalent value in James Joyce's fiction. His work often looks forward to a modern Ireland in which tradition, and in particular the traditions of the Church, play a diminishing role. What challenges does the Ireland that portrayed and foreseen by Joyce hold for Ireland in the twenty-first century?
Anthony Egan, ‘Spirituality, Globalisation and Resistance: Notes from South Africa’, 85–98
How does spirituality express itself in the struggle against the effects of economic globalisation? Focusing on new social movements in today's South Africa and the changing religious landscape, Anthony Egan asks what Christian spirituality has to offer
Beth Crisp, ‘The Retreat: Coming Soon to your Television Screen’, 99–112
Recent television programmes in a number of countries have followed members of the public with different religious backgrounds as they experience something of life in an enclosed order. Beth Crisp explores what these programmes can tell us about changing attitudes within religious houses and about how they are viewed in the mass media.
Terry Biddington, ‘Spirituality in the Market Place’, 113–126
The Manchester Mind, Body, Spirit festival exemplifies the modern so-called 'spiritual marketplace', with a wide variety of beliefs and practices competing for the attention of spiritual seekers. How should the churches respond to the needs and demands that this marketplace serves, and how far have they failed both traditional and New Age
Ama Samy, ‘The Jesuit Blindness: The Crisis Jesuits Will Not Face’, 127–140
Recent Jesuit General Congregations have emphasized social justice as being at the heart of the Society's mission. But the Jesuits' developing commitments to their tasks in the world should not lead them to neglect the individual experience of God.