The Archbishop of Toledo, Francisco Cerro Cháves, has decided to erect a contemplative diocesan house in La Rinconada de Tajo, which aims to “create in our diocesan Church a permanent space and time for contemplation” in the face of the proliferation of different spiritualities in Spain.
In his letter, the archbishop starts from the premise that “in a world where so many times the task and adverse circumstances push and lead our lives astray, we need find spaces and times of contemplation where to learn to look at the world from the Heart of God” in a personal and community way.
Likewise, Cerro Cháves notes that “some of our Christian brothers live like sheep without a shepherd, eating in pastures and drinking in fountains of ‘meditations’ that are fashionable and that truly cannot fully satisfy a baptized person.” “Many times,” he adds, “we are given new, easy and fast offers to achieve inner peace in states of depression or stress. They are offers of spiritual self-medication, of miraculous remedies without God. They are methods, sources of energy, ‘divinities’ that can be molded according to our interests and needs”.
In this sense, the prelate lists some of those “offers”: “Sometimes it is some substitute for yoga (practice of Hindu origin), other times they are diffuse experiences collected under the nebula called New Age (New Age), others it is Reiki (with a Shinto and Buddhist base), etc.”
“Christian spiritual rich”
In this context, the archbishop affirms that “as a pastor, it pains me to see the great lack of knowledge that we can have within our own Church of the rich Christian spirituality that has been flowing and flowing since the first century and that offers true personal encounters with our Creator, an authentic haven of Peace and Health that leads us to Eternal Life”.
The primate affirms in his writing that “for those of us who are baptized, there can be no true Christian spirituality if God himself is not its source, its path and its goal. There is no true interiority if the Holy Spirit himself does not occupy our center, real healthy medicine.
And it is that, according to the archbishop, “an anthropocentric contemplation is a simple placebo that only generates a false inner healing, a spiritual sterility, which leads to a spiritual death by suffocation. For a baptized person, all this is a cracked cistern that not only does not quench thirst, but can even be the cause of death of their faith.
In this context, Don Francisco notes that “in most of our diocesan institutions (parishes, apostolic movements and associations, etc.) we try to foster a sincere, faithful and persevering encounter with Christ Jesus, source of living water…”. And it’s just “the presence of Christ in the Eucharist” It should be a source of contemplation and adoration. “There is no parish in which the monstrance has not become a focus of contemplation and fervent prayer. For a Christian at heart, none of those oriental sources without God can quench his thirst”, he assured.