This encounter with the holy transformed her life. The physiological issues surrounding her infertility had not changed, but her encounter with the holy had transformed her approach to this issue. She continued to go for the medical procedures necessary to enhance her chances for bearing children, but with a realization that if this were not possible she could accept the outcome.
Experiences like this are not unusual. In the 1960s humanistic psychologist Abraham Maslow spoke about peak experiences—those times in human life when we get a glimpse of the divine and a sense that we as human beings are a part of something larger that eludes explanation.5 We have “aha” experiences that according to Maslow can be small events—for example, a beautiful sunset—or powerful events that lead us to make a major life change or to see the world differently.
For many people encounters with the holy are relatively infrequent. They come “out of the blue” and although profoundly meaningful nevertheless are not repeatable or sustainable. It is as if communication with the profound depth of life occurred, but the likelihood that it might happen again seems relatively rare. Spiritual directors William Barry and William Connolly say these experiences are God's invitations to deepen our relationship with the divine.6 They claim that every time someone stops to participate in the visual glory of a sunset, that person has been offered an invitation by God to share more deeply in relationship.
Believers following the Christian tradition have the opportunity to relate to God through any of the persons of the Trinity: God, the loving parent; Jesus Christ, the Son; and the Holy Spirit. Mainline Protestants are probably most comfortable with relating to God, the caring and loving parent, or to the Holy Spirit as it is present in the fellowship of the church. But these are only two ways of being in relationship with God. What we do to be disciplined in this relating requires further reflection.
The evangelical friend I mentioned earlier would no doubt say that her primary means of relating to the sacred is through her relationship with Jesus. In her church, people have a sense that Jesus is with them because of his love and their faith. For them, living the sanctified life means having a sense that Jesus is present at each moment. The phrase “thank you, Jesus” is frequently on the lips of some who find Jesus the primary means for relating to God's sacred presence in daily life.
For others, the relationship may come through the sense of the Holy Spirit, either in the community of faith, in small groups of that community, or in a direct relationship of prayer. The late Canadian novelist Robertson Davies, in one of the books of his Deptford Trilogy, has an elderly priest speak about the depth of his relationship with God.7 This old and now infirm man says that when he was young he never understood how anyone could relate to a ghost, even if it were the Holy Ghost. In his youth, the third person of the Trinity lacked an experiential relevance for him. Now, however, as an old man he greatly appreciates that God is also present to believers as the Holy Spirit. He wonders how, as an old man, he can relate to God through the eyes of Jesus, a young idealist who was primarily concerned with calling people to an ethical lifestyle. As an old man, he experiences deep and abiding relationship with the Holy Spirit.
The deep and abiding relationship with the divine calls us beyond ourselves. It invites us to order our lives in faithfulness to the sacred presence and mystery that surrounds and undergirds us. By moving into relationship with the divine, we move beyond our self-absorbed, self-focused existence. Our life becomes oriented around the values that flow from our religious faith and our religious sensibilities. This form of self-transcendence grounds our life in faithfulness to the divine. As we move increasingly into a deeper relationship with God, we discover afresh God's deepest presence in the midst of our lives. As we have taken up and been caught up in the transforming relationships of those we love, so now we accept God's invitation to be in relationship with the sacred presence that is as close to us as our breath.
The spiritual exercises in the concluding chapter of this book provide a means for accepting God's invitation to love, to work for justice, to be transformed. They acknowledge the God who calls us in the beauty of the sunset, in the last breaths of a loved one dying, in the acts of sacrifice and love that promote justice and yearn for peace. These practices are avenues to the holy for those who will hear either “the still small voice” or the earthquake and the fire.
Justification by Faith
The spiritual practices of mainline Protestants will necessarily begin with the theological assumption that such practices are drawn upon as a response to God's love. They are not used to earn one's salvation. Mainline Protestants have inherited through their denominational traditions a belief in a God of love who offers salvation as a gift for those who believe. This God does not require believers to earn divine favor; instead, divine favor is bestowed on all who have faith. In order to understand the significance of the belief in “justification by faith” for mainline Protestant traditions, it is helpful to review a few formative events at the time of the Reformation and consider their impact on spiritual practices.
Belief in a benevolent God whose grace was freely bestowed was not the norm in popular piety in the centuries immediately preceding the Reformation. The notion of God as a stern judge was common during the High Middle Ages, from the fourteenth century to the period prior to the Reformation. The belief that God delighted in sending recalcitrant sinners to hell kept faithful persons on guard lest they anger this fearful divine power. Many of the faithful lived in fear that they would be severely punished for their infractions.
The Roman Catholic Church claimed the power to mediate God's grace and God's correction to the faithful. The sacrament of penance or confession administered by the church during this period did little to diminish the fear engendered in the faithful. God, the all-powerful judge, could be placated by making one's confession to a priest, receiving absolution from him, and carrying out any assigned penance. Normally the penance imposed by the priest was some act or good work. Confession and absolution were deemed effective only if the penitent had a truly contrite heart.
By the High Middle Ages this process of confession had been complicated by the widespread and increasingly corrupt use of indulgences. In the eleventh century the practice emerged of allowing believers to make a contribution to the church and receive in exchange a paper (indulgence) that could be used to satisfy the penance phase of absolution. The contribution to the church constituted a “good work.” Those who could afford it were able to make contributions to Rome and receive indulgences that would meet future penitential obligations required for absolution.
By the sixteenth century, many religious leaders were abusing the use of indulgences. People who could afford them were able to purchase these substitutions for penitential acts in anticipation of sins they would commit. From the perspective of the church, these indulgences had become useful ways to raise funds. But the widespreading selling of indulgences by the Dominican friar Johann Tetzel alarmed and infuriated an Augustinian monk and priest named Martin Luther. Luther discovered that his congregants could purchase in Magdeburg, the region across the river from Saxony, papal-authorized letters of jubilee indulgences (for rebuilding St. Peter's Cathedral) that Frederick the Elector had refused to sell in Saxony. Luther's parishioners now arrived for confession with these letters that granted pardons not only to them but also to their forebears in purgatory. When Luther refused to grant absolution in cases where there was obviously no genuine repentance, the holders of the indulgences appealed to Tetzel.
Luther's actions created a controversy; Tetzel contended that Luther was failing to obey the pope's instructions. Luther, who protested to Archbishop Albert, did not know that the sale of these indulgences raised money not only for St. Peter's Cathedral in Rome but also for Albert. Albert was using the money to relieve the debt he had incurred gaining papal consent for extending the boundaries of his archbishopric.
Luther's disdain for clerical abuse of indulgences, both in regard to the way they were used by the church for monetary gain and in their impact on the lives of penitents