I am here concerned with the paschal mystery; so, first of all, a few words about mystery.

Mystery is a depth of meaning. There are two things to notice here. Firstly, mystery belongs to what has meaning, to the signs and symbols and gestures through which we understand. (If we see event as mystery it is because we see it as word.) Secondly, mystery always refers to the not-so-obvious, deeper meaning that is perhaps hidden at first. So mystery concerns what shows itself but does not show itself easily. Mysteries are not for concealment but for revelation; it is because the revelation is so important and so profound that we have to work to understand it.

This is not meant to be a very difficult idea. Take, for example, a play like Macbeth. It is quite clear that you can appreciate the meaning of this play at many levels. In the first place it is a good thriller about murder and intrigue at court. At another, slightly deeper, level it is a piece of English political propaganda slandering the memory of a perfectly decent king who was, however, Scottish. At a deeper level still it is a tragedy about a man over-reaching himself; about the relationship of human life with nature and especially with time. It is about how we belong to the cosmos and to the time that is given to us and yet seek to transcend this and to belong to ourselves, and it is about the revenge that time and nature take upon us.

In a recent stock-taking essay on the current state of the sociology of religion, Richard Fenn writes:

Later, Fenn goes on to assert that

Most of what I want to say accords with Fenn’s account of what has happened, but presents a case against the conclusions he draws.

Popular enthusiasm for spirituality has mushroomed in the past two decades. The analyses of the human sciences and the impact of secular self-help programs have challenged the religious basis of spiritual pursuit. The influence of gurus from the East has transformed the problematic. The need for a systematic spirituality that can sort out the issues and relate them insightfully grows more urgent. In different ways, the thought of Bernard Lonergan, summarized in Method in Theology, speaks to the present need. Here I shall suggest some of those ways.

Introduction: The Need for Theory

Spirituality is a broad field. It entails many practical issues. These include: prayer and how one does it, from vocal prayer and lectio divina to discursive meditation and contemplation and mysticism; the possible physiological correlates of religious experience: postures, breathing, fasting, sensory and sleep deprivation, sexual abstinence, anatomical and neuro-chemical bases, and even drug ingestion; spiritual direction and questions of discernment of spirits; the social dimensions of public prayer and liturgies, group prayer, and group psychic and religious experience; prescriptions for ‘holy’ living; and study of the various traditions, both Western and Eastern, and of modern psychology. These all have to do with practice, and they are not to be minimized. If spirituality has any real significance, it must be in the practice. This field can less tolerate mere thinking and talking about the subject than can other fields of theology as currently conceived.