Why Catholic Spirituality

in the age of authenticity

Religious alternatives surround us in the United States. If we become tired, bored, or indignant towards the religious group we were born into or chose later in life, we can leave and search for something that feels right. Options exist and the dominant culture encourages each person to follow their intuition.

Tara Isabella Burton documents this rise of new forms of religious experience in Strange Rites. She describes how more Americans are choosing and combining eclectic practices to form meaning, community, and rituals. Numerous examples are given, such as: Harry Potter fan fiction clubs, the cult surrounding Gwyneth Paltrow’s Goop, and polyamory/kink culture. Burton describes the religious experiences within these groups and calls them the Remixed: 

Today’s Remixed reject authority, institution, creed, and moral universalism. They value intuition, personal feeling, and experiences... They want to choose- and, more often than not, purchase – the spiritual path that feels more authentic, more meaningful, to them. They prioritize intuitional spirituality over institutional religion. And they want, when available institutional options fail to suit their needs, the freedom to mix and match, to create their own daily rituals and practices and belief systems.¹

In all of these forms of religiosity, people strive to be their authentic selves in the age of consumerism and content creation. They engage with practices that make sense to them and further their sense of spiritual development. The Remixed go their own way in meeting their spiritual needs, often far away from institutional religion.

I am a Millennial, I’ve grown-up amid these cultural shifts and have many friends who are Remixed. Am I a member of the Remixed? It’s hard to say, as I claim to be a member of the Catholic Church, a place many would say promotes “authority, institution, creed, and moral universalism.” I did not write the beliefs of the Church.

However, I have freely chosen to believe them.

When it was public that I was discerning to join the Jesuits in college, I was asked more than once: “Why are you throwing your life away?” I had many conversations with my peers about wanting to be a priest; some were Catholic, many were not. Choosing to be a Catholic priest seemed to be the worst decision someone could do with their life. This led to questions I asked myself: Why would I give up the rich experiences of sex and self-determination for something seemingly cold and constraining? Am I being manipulated? Am I afraid of taking control of my own destiny? Am I running away from myself? I didn’t have any concrete answers. There seemed to be many reasons against wanting to be a Catholic priest.

Charles Taylor describes the fragilization that happens when someone encounters another person who holds alternative beliefs. It causes them to rethink their own beliefs. I certainly felt fragile in college with the constant questioning and I questioned my own desires. Why did I want to be a Catholic priest? All I had was a delicate thought and feeling that Jesus Christ was calling me to be a priest and that I could be fulfilled living that life. Clarity was gained through meeting Jesuits, learning about them, and going to discernment retreats. I learned about Ignatian Spirituality and spent time in silent prayer. Prayer transformed how I approached existential questions. I came to believe that the fullness of freedom and authenticity is in following after Christ. I always had an implicit belief in this, but it became very explicit for me by engaging in spiritual practices. I felt that Christ was calling me to a particular way of following him as a member of the Society of Jesus.

Catholic spirituality is why I remain Catholic in the age of the Remixed. Spirituality values personal experience, feeling, and desire. At the same time, Catholic tradition offers the personal experience, feelings, and desires of the saints that have lived through the centuries as guides. We learn how to be authentically spiritual by their example. For instance, Ignatius of Loyola provides a way (which has only recently been called Ignatian Spirituality). Jacques Servais, SJ, describes von Balthasar’s encounter with Ignatius:

He was struck deep from the outset by an image that quickly seemed to him a “motif of his life”: Ignatius’ broken leg from the battle at Pamplona. A mysterious symbol: God breaks our existence in order to heal it and make of it a necessary tool for his work. Letting oneself be placed, like Ignatius, with Christ Crucified and letting oneself become his companion, in accordance with the Father’s will: this is what Balthasar discovered as his personal vocation.²

The lives of the saints make real the structured beliefs of Catholic theology. At the foundation of Catholic theology is Scripture and the tradition. These two form the single deposit of faith and becomes real through people’s lives. Adolphe Tanqueray in his classic treatise on Ascetical and Mystical Spirituality writes: “Spirituality is a science that is lived.”³ Science here is understood in the pre-modern sense: an organized body of knowledge that is broader than what is today considered modern science. The pre-modern definition of science includes philosophy and theology that is animated by a “love of wisdom.”

This living for the divine makes the human heart bigger to encompass all human experiences: the joys and the sorrows, the gains and the losses. There is meaning to be found in the good and the bad, as both can draw us closer to God. The experience of a broken leg opened Ignatius up to something new and began his conversion. When a Jesuit says “finding God in all things,” this is what he means. God is in the failures and injuries that occur in our lives, showing that we are never abandoned, and that even the bad can bring us closer to the divine. As the Exultet says at the Easter Vigil: “O happy fault that earned so great, so glorious a Redeemer!”

Scripture, tradition, the lives of the saints, all of this is rooted in the experience of the early disciples with Jesus Christ: of having hearts set aflame through friendship with God. The disciples on the road to Emmaus felt a change when encountering the risen Lord: “Were not our hearts burning within us while he spoke to us on the way and opened the scriptures to us?” (Luke 24:32) Catholic spirituality shows the way to having this encounter. Pope Benedict XVI in Deus Caritas Est describes what it means to be a Christian:

Being Christian is not the result of an ethical choice or a lofty idea, but the encounter with an event, a person, which gives life a new horizon and a decisive direction.

The sacraments, the prayers, the Bible, the stories of holy people, participating in a local church community, all of these things foster encountering God as revealed by Jesus Christ. These things communicate grace, an undeserved gift from God that gives us access to the inner life of the Trinity. The times I’ve tasted this leaves me craving more and keeps me rooted in the Christian life. It’s transformed what I desire and how I see the world.

In the end, I am partly Remixed. I have freely chosen to be Catholic in light of my intuition, feelings, and personal experiences. Authenticity has been granted to me each day through grace. It hasn’t been something that I have had to fight or struggle for, but is something I feel I continually receive as a gift. No amount of capital can purchase this. At the same time, this authenticity and freedom do not necessarily conflict with the authority and institution that is the Catholic Church. I hope to say more about this in the coming months.

I’m starting this Substack to write about spirituality. Despite our culture providing us countless alternatives in a constant flux of vibe shifts, authenticity can still be found in creeds and tradition. In the age of the Remixed, I think Catholic spirituality still has relevant things to say to our culture about the self, the good, the divine, and all things in between.

1. Strange Rites: New Religions for a Godless World by Tara Isabella Burton, 19.

2. Hans Urs Von Balthasar on the Spiritual Exercises: An Anthology, edited by Jacques Servais, SJ, 17.

3. The Spiritual Life: A Treatise on Ascetical and Mystical Theology by Adolphe Tanqueray, 11.