Spirituality Segments (Moore, Shea, Winter)

Moore: A place for deep soul
Nearly 500 CTAers spent Friday in a seminar with "Care of the Soul" author Thomas Moore. He told them: "If our church becomes a group of people who have to think alike, it's dangerous. Better if it didn't exist. But if it can be a place where we can find inspiration, ritual, imagery, great story, great prayer, then we have that deep soul that is our salvation. I have great hope. That's why I'm here." Saturday's Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel ran a photo and lengthy quotes from Moore in its lead article about CTA. On the same page, a contrasting article about the Wanderer Forum, occurring in another Milwaukee hotel, ran a photo and lengthy quotes from Bishop Fabian Bruskewitz, who said his excommunication of CTA members in Lincoln, Neb. was still "in full force." "We have defined some very clear boundaries," he said.

Shea: The wine cellar within
"What we have today is not a secular culture for us to denounce," said John Shea, "but a spiritually interested culture for us to dialogue with." While many people are turned off by organized religion, they see themselves as spiritual beings and want to learn more. Medical journals carry many studies about spirituality enhancing both physical and mental health, and over half the medical schools now have courses in spirituality, Shea said. Management experts are showing companies how to make the workplace "spiritually friendly." By spirituality modern people mean searching for that something else, going deeper within in order to go without. Shea quoted Meister Eckhart: "Deep within, everyone has a a vintage wine cellar that they seldom drink from."

Winter: Small "e" eucharist
Miriam Therese Winter suggested that CTA-minded Catholics supplement the traditional sacramental Eucharist with another model, based on the many meals the disciples shared with Jesus, and the joyful "breaking of the bread" that went on in the early Jerusalem community of Acts 2. She said this "small e eucharist" is one that we should celebrate parallel to the official Eucharist, while we wait for the latter to become more inclusive. Winter has agreed to edit her talk for publication as a CTA Spirituality Justice Reprint after Jan. 1.