The years around 1900 were marked by an international aesthetic movement known as ‘Arts and Crafts’. Turning their backs on cheap and often shoddy mass-produced goods, its proponents argued for individually constructed furniture, clothing, tableware and even buildings, often employing simple patterns and local materials. As a formula for an urban lifestyle suitable for tens of millions, the movement failed. But as an image of the spiritual life, it retains its potency. For the truth is that God does not mass-produce human lives. There are at least as many ways of living out faithful discipleship as there are those willing to try it. Certainly, these patterns of life fall into broad categories: lay and clerical, communal and solitary, conservative and radical. But no two individuals will combine these elements in identical patterns. This issue of The Way reflects upon a variety of shapes that the Christian life can assume.
Jane Kopas, ‘Thomas Merton’s Contemplative Journey’, 7–20
Thomas Merton, monk, writer and peace activist, was born one hundred years ago this year. As he followed his own sense of God’s call, he became, paradoxically, a ‘spokesman for silence’. Here Jane Kopas traces the spiritual journey of one who, as she writes, ‘embraces his contradictions as well as strengths’, thereby encouraging others to do the same for themselves.
Jacqueline Stewart, ‘Liturgy, Theology, Marriage and the Family’, 21–31
Later this year the Roman Catholic Church will conclude a unique, two-part synod dedicated to the study of family life in the opening decades of the twenty-first century. The Vatican has made it clear that in the preparation for this meeting it is importa
Oonagh Walker, ‘Around the Family Table: What Do the Laity Really Want?’, 32–40
Many would argue that the mission of the Church has been hampered in recent centuries by too great a division between its lay and clerical members. Oonagh Walker’s account of the ways in which an initiative originating in the middle of the Second World Wa
Joseph A. Munitiz, ‘Thoughts on Hell’, 41–44
Free-will would seem to make it necessary that human beings have the power definitively to reject God’s love; the traditional name for this state is hell. Yet God is omnipotent and, as scripture tells us, wants all people to be saved. Joseph Munitiz here ponders on some of The Ways in which modern theologians have tried to resolve this seeming contradiction.
Michel Rondet, ‘Does God Have a Particular Will for Each of Us?’, 45–52
A positive answer to the question that forms the starting-point of this essay may summon up a warm image of an infinitely caring God, or a sinister one of a divine puppet-master. Michel Rondet believes that it is by understanding ourselves as gifted with creativity by God, who invites us to respond freely, that we can best find a way beyond this seeming impasse.
Carol McDonough, ‘Hermits and the Roman Catholic Church: Recovering an Ancient Vocation’, 53–69
In the second of two linked articles Carol McDonough explores how the hermit vocation, which had been all but lost in the Church after the European Enlightenment, re-appeared in the twentieth century and was given official recognition in the Second Vatican Council and the revised Code of Canon Law which followed it.
Norlan Julia, ‘Reigniting the Fire of Priesthood: The Spiritual Exercises at the Heart of Tertianship’, 71–82
Jesuits, members of the religious order founded by Ignatius Loyola, have a notoriously long formation. Ignatius himself recognised that it would be easily possible, during the decade or more that this demands, to lose touch with a man’s original inspiration. Here Norlan Julia offers a personal account of the remedy prescribed in the Jesuit Constitutions, the programme known as tertianship.
Chad Thralls, ‘Spirituality in the City: Encountering the Other’, 83–89
The word ‘spirituality’ often conjures up images of quiet landscapes, peaceful retreat-houses and silent chapels. These are all a far cry from the regular day-to-day experience of most contemporary city-dwellers. Yet, Chad Thralls argues, city life offers us unique opportunities for conversion of heart by recognising and responding to our connections with other people.
Maria McCoy, ‘Ignatian Spirituality and Christian Feminism’, 91–106
Studies in recent years have highlighted the ways in which the spirituality Ignatius Loyola developed was shaped by his experience of listening to, and working with, women. Maria McCoy here describes retreats that she has recently directed which draw part