Spirituality Is Reality

                Several years ago I was asked to preach at St. Gregory’s Roman Catholic Church in Hamilton Square. There were about 1,000 people there who had been invited to a special service for those who had lost loved ones throughout the year. Those who invited me to speak didn’t ask me what my sermon theme would be and left it up to me to decide how best to bring words of reassurance to the congregation.

            As a conclusion for my sermon I chose to use a story that I have used many times for occasions like that. It’s a metaphor that tells of a caterpillar’s metamorphosis into a butterfly, meaning, of course, that that’s the same as our transition from this life to the next. Again, neither I nor the people who invited me to speak consulted with each other about the particulars of the service. As it turned out, when the service was over, everyone was invited to go outside the church where they released hundreds of butterflies. To the delight of all, the butterflies landed on peoples’ shoulders and arms and flew off into the air right before the eyes of all of us watching in wonder and amazement.

            Sometimes that’s how things work. Moments like that are like a window into the spiritual realm of life. They are meant to point out the fact that what we experience in the physical realm isn’t all there is in the grander scheme of life. I believe they are intentionally provided for us as a source of reassurance and hope. The French philosopher and priest, Teilhard de Chardin said, “We are not human beings having a spiritual experience. We are spiritual beings having a human experience.”

            I don’t know why I thought about that this morning as the world around me is covered with snow. It’s certainly not the weather to bring butterflies to mind. Maybe it’s because winter sometimes seems like a chrysalis in which life seems to be in a dormant stage before it breaks open into the rebirth of nature. Yet that can’t really be it because the world seems very much alive at the moment. Or maybe it’s because next Wednesday is the beginning of the Lenten season which leads us through a period of self reflection in a kind of spiritual wilderness and ends with the celebration of Easter. I’m not sure.

               I guess in part I’m feeling a personal need to make sure that I don’t take things for granted spiritually—that I make the effort to deepen my sense of the truth that the spiritual life is real, not just some creation of the imagination of those who want it to be true. When I accept its reality, then I am able to more fully open myself to all it has to offer in hope, healing, joy, peace, and love in this life as well as in the next.