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The word “spiritual” refers to the Holy Spirit and designates the level of being proper to “birth from on high”, to “the nuptial mystery”. It unveils the protophenomenon of every human person heedful of his heavenly origins.
Not only in history but also in the depths of the human soul Christ is born, dies and rises; baptism specifies this. It is in this inwardness that the bonds between God and man are forged and that the itinerary of the spiritual life is traced. The latter is always an encounter. God comes from himself toward man, and man leaves his solitude to meet his Other. “Never have you disdained anyone, and it is we, on the contrary, who hide ourselves, not wanting to go to you,” said St. Symeon.
Thus, the constitutive elements of the spiritual life go beyond the human. Dante speaks of the three partners in the divine game--God, man, and Satan. The ascetic specifies the three wills that confront one another: (1) that of God, salvific and working within man under the form of appeals and invitations, and this is theonomy; man may adhere to it and make it his own; (2) that of man, unstable and uncertain; it is his autonomy that encloses himself within himself; (3) finally there is that of Satan, hostile to man, and which makes him come out of himself without preparing any encounter for him; this is heteronomy--submission, slavery, perdition.
There is very little to say on the divine element in the spiritual life. It is more proper to be silent and to venerate it in silence. God is the initiator, and in his presence he is radically transcendent. “Flesh and blood have not revealed this to you, but my Father in heaven,”5.1 “and that not from yourselves, for it is a gift of God,”5.2 it is a gratuitous gift. By his love alone, God makes of man his trinitarian abode. “We will come to him and make our abode with him.”5.3 This act in its incomparable grandeur has no common measure with human effort; the three divine persons dwell in the soul according to man's capacity to receive them.
A contemporary spiritual writer admirably expresses this idea. “God gives himself to men according to their thirst; to certain ones, who could not drink any more, he gives only a drop; but he would love to give great draughts in order that Christians could in their turn quench the world's thirst.”5.4
It is evident that on this level of the divine initiative, there is no technique or method of the spiritual life. Grace grants its gifts and man is only a receptacle, though with the angels astounded and plunged in deep wonder.
The demoniac element represents the obstacle. “He was a murderer from the beginning, and has not stood in the truth.”5.5 “I This adversary wages an uninterrupted struggle. “Be watchful. For your adversary the devil, as a roaring lion, goes about seeking someone to devour.”5.6 “Put on the armor of God, that you may be able to stand against the wiles of the devil.”5.7
It is on this plane of struggle that man is an active agent. This technique, this very refined strategy of “the invisible fight” constitutes the ascesis.
Finally, there is the human element aspiring to lift itself beyond all struggle. It is expressed essentially in the liturgical attitude of adoration. “I will sing to the Lord all my life.”5.8
An anonymous mystic of the Middle Ages has expressed it in humble but beautiful words: “I am an ass, but I carry my Lord.”
“Behold, I stand at the door and knock. If any man listens to my voice and opens the door to me, I will come in to him and will sup with him, and he with me.”5.9 The initiative of God who knocks is answered by the eagerness of the human being who keeps himself in readiness for this event. He hears and opens the door of his soul, prostrates himself before his visitor, and sits down with him at the banquet. The Fathers loved to comment on the parable of the prodigal son, which puts into relief the decision, the act that places the human action within the divine action. “When he came to himself, he said... `I will get up and go to my father....' And he arose and went to his father.”5.10
According to St. Cyril, it is this decision that makes the man who is invited one of the chosen, and this is precisely the creative effort of positive asceticism. If it is not commenced at the very beginning, St. Macarius teaches, if it does not precede negative, normative and disciplinary asceticism, the latter is of no use.
On the eve of Lent, a wise saying warns: “The devil does not eat, he does not drink, and he does not marry, and this great ascetic formally is not less a devil... Let us always relate the nonessentials--fast, watchings, solitude--to the principal end, the purity of heart that is charity,”5.11 as Cassian teaches in quoting Abbot Moses.