The term “spiritual” is one of those words which, although it had a deep meaning in the early days of Christianity and in all the great epochs of the history of the Church, sometimes loses its richness and dilutes in superficial meanings, or turns into a synonym of purely negative expressions – such as “incorporeal, immaterial” – and becomes one of the many “uplifting” words, synonymous with “religious” or “supernatural”[1].
For Origen, the “spiritual” man is a “practical” man, because the Spirit is acquired and manifested in action. According to the Alexandrian theologian, the “spiritual” man is the one where “theory and “practice”, care of neighbor and spiritual charism for the good of the neighbour. And, between these two charisms, he emphasizes above all what he calls diakrisis, that is, the gift of discerning the variety of spirits.
spiritual fatherhood
What’s needed.
1) To be a “spiritual father”, it is not necessary to be a man. A woman can be too; of course, in this case, she will not be called “father”, but rather “mother” spiritual.
Many female religious congregations have a beautiful custom: that of calling the superior “mother”, while the others are “sisters”. This practice is rooted in a long ecclesial tradition. He was born in the East, among the monks and nuns of the desert: in the desert, there was no “anti-feminism”, because any Christian, man or woman, could be a “monk”; and likewise any Christian, man or woman, could be another’s “spiritual father”.
If there is no fundamental difference between man and woman in the spiritual life, why should there be in “spiritual fatherhood”, that is to say in the help that some of us bring to others? Garcia M. Colombás says, “The spiritual father was the man who, filled with the Holy Spirit, imparted the life of the Spirit, begot children according to the Spirit. […] Obviously, like monks, nuns could be full of the Spirit. These received the name of “amma” or “mother”, which corresponds to the masculine title of “abba”. […] “Amma” does not necessarily imply the exercise of spiritual motherhood, but the ability to exercise it; it would therefore be wrong to systematically translate this name as “abbess” or “superior” of a female community. Many holy women, no doubt more numerous than holy men, may have concealed their high spiritual quality, which would have enabled them, if given the opportunity, to guide other souls along the paths of God “[2].
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[1] This article will be followed by a second: “Spiritual Discretion
[2] GM Colombas, El monacato primitiveMadrid, BAC, 1975.
[3] Apotegmas de los padres del desiertoBuenos Aires, Lumen, 1979, 163.
[4] Let us remember that Saint Francis of Assisi, out of humility, did not want to be ordained beyond the degree of deacon. Saint Ignatius, on the other hand, felt from the start that God wanted him to be a priest, above all to be able to confess (cf. A. Queralt, “Vocación al sacerdocio en el carisma ignaciano”, in Manresa 47 [1975] 153-170).
[5] GM Colombas, El monacato primitivesupra, 98-100.
[6] Ivy, 97.
[7] Ivi, 269-270; see 100; 250-253.
[8] Recall that the diakrisis, discretion and discernment of spirits, is a gift or a charism: by this we mean that there is a personal grace for the benefit of others (cf. 1 Horn 12.8-10).
[9] GM Colombas, El monacato primitivecited above, 103.
[10] Ivi, 100.
[11] The author understands conscience as “moral” conscience, conscience of sins. A broader conception of the same consciousness, as “spiritual”, is found in M. Á. Fiorito, Writingscit., IV, 337-368.
[12] Saint Ignatius restricts the object of the “relation of conscience” to loyalties or “thoughts”, excluding, during the exercises, sins. He affirms that it is “very advantageous that he who proposes the Exercises, without wishing to inquire into the personal thoughts and sins of the practitioner, should be informed with precision of the various agitations and thoughts which the different spirits arouse in him”. (Spiritual Exercises [ES], No. 17). This is why, in the autograph directory, he affirms that “it is better, if able, to confess to another, and not to the one who gives him the exercises” (no. 4).
[13] See GM Colombás, El monacato primitivecit., 253-255.
[14] Remember, as we have seen in the text, that “old” does not designate someone who is such by age, but someone who has the diakrisis.
[15] Saint Ignatius affirms that “when the enemy of human nature presents his wiles and his flattery to a just person, he wants and wishes that these be received and kept secret; but when she manifests them to a good confessor or to another spiritual person who knows the deceptions and malices of the devil, he is very upset; indeed, he understands that he will not be able to succeed in the malevolence begun, since his obvious deceptions have been discovered” (ES 326).
[16] All the texts that we quote from or about the monks, we understand them as testimonies of the spiritual life, and not of the monastic life in the desert.