What is spirituality, spirit, all other forms of the word?

spirit – energy.
to be spiritual – to be alive.

The word ‘spirit’ comes from the Latin word ‘spiritus’ which has two meanings. It can mean the movement of the wind, or it can mean the breath as it is exhaled from the human body.

The wind is dynamic; the wind is free, “it blows where it wills”, it moves things — the flowers, the trees, the plastic bags which adorn some neighbourhoods. It moves the sands of the deserts; it stirs up the waves of the sea. It blows different smells, sweet or unpleasant. It is used these days to generate electricity. The wind simply cannot be contained.

The breath of any living creature, as it is breathed out, might be sweet or sour, but it is bringing out into the open something of what a person is at any given moment. The spirit of a human being is what naturally comes from that person, whether it be good, bad or indifferent. A person’s spirit can be for others something that is life-giving, or something that leads to evil in some way. The spirit of a human being comes from the innermost part of a person and it has an effect on others.

A person’s spirit might be evil, as was the case with the great dictators who ruled many countries. Evil came from them quite naturally. They breathed it out; it came from deep within them, caused much suffering and took away from the poorest of people their fundamental human rights. There are people in our own society today whose deeds are evil, who spread evil wherever they are. Some of these are rapists, murderers, child molesters, those who make fortunes from the drug trade, and many, many others. Rather than our humanity being enhanced by their lives, the human race is degraded.

St Paul [Galatians 5:18] speaks of such people as producing bad temper and quarrels, antagonisms and rivalry, jealousy, factions and malice, drunkenness, sexual vice, and other things. Happiness and human dignity do not flow from any of these.

But there is also so much goodness breathed out into our world today. There are so many loving parents, so many beautiful children, so many people who go out of their way to serve those in need. There are carers in so many places, good people who spend their lives trying to bring meaning to young people and children who are abandoned, or who wander our streets, having nowhere they can call home. There are carers, too, who give their time and love to the elderly and those who are incapacitated. There are so many generous people. The spirits of such people are alive. They enhance human dignity.
The imperative for every Christian person is to be like Jesus. That is what we are called to be if we wish this world of ours to be a happy and peaceful place. Jesus is revealed to us as the ideal human being, the kind of person we can all be. Jesus certainly worked for the reign of God in the world of which he was a part. What was the spirituality of this man, Jesus?

Jesus ‘breathed out’ so much goodness. It came from him so naturally. He cared for the sick; his heart went out to widows and mothers in their bereavement; he found food to feed the hungry; he felt for those who were looking desperately for leadership and inspiration; he spent time forming leaders for their role; he loved children and urged everyone to become ‘like a little child’; he gave hope and meaning to the life of the woman at the well. One of the most important things he did was challenge the religious authorities of his day; he condemned the ‘money changers’ who made a mockery of religion; he condemned the priests for imposing impossible burdens on people; he condemned the hypocrisy which was rampant in the religious elders of his church. Jesus knew that religion was the binding of people together to form a community who cared about one another, a community of the family of God. One of the most important things that Jesus ‘breathed out’ was the importance of God in his life; he gave time to God, he knew his God in a familiar way; he went to the synagogue with other people every Sabbath, because it was there that God’s people came together to celebrate what they were, and to become what God was calling them to be. It was in his prayer that his awareness of God in the ordinary things of life developed. The ‘breathing out’ of Jesus was ‘the breathing out’ of God. All of that expresses the spirituality of Jesus.