Over the last fifty years we have seen that spirituality has moved front and center as a popular and intriguing topic. Check out Amazon or Barnes and Noble--you’ll find hundreds of books with “spirituality” in their titles.  Not only the sheer volume, but books are put into different categories e.g., spirituality of gratitude, spirituality before religion, spirituality of the psalms, spirituality for dummies, spirituality workbook, spirituality of the cross, spirituality of imperfection, etc. With all these different takes on spirituality, what is it we mean by spirituality? 
   Simply put, spirituality is a conscious striving to integrate one’s life around one’s beliefs in God. Catholicism calls us to integrate our lives by becoming more and more converted to Jesus Christ. This invitation is accompanied by some suggested practices: prayer (in private and in the community),the Sacraments, service, fasting, and almsgiving.   Their aim is to come to know Jesus Christ more fully, following him more closely, and love him more deeply.
   How well do I know Jesus Christ? What helps me to know him? Is it possible to encounter him today? If so, where? Very good questions! Only you know the answer to the first. The Liturgy is the answer to the others. The third century Church Father, Origen, summed up a pertinent Catholic belief in saying that the Scriptures and the Liturgy are the privileged places for meeting, encountering Jesus Christ.
   Sometimes it is too easy to slip into a mentality that thinks about Jesus Christ alive and walking the roads of Galilee and Judea, but not alive in twenty-first century New York or Bangladesh. The risen Christ is alive and ready to meet us as we are in scripture, the Liturgy, and our daily lives. Jesus wants to show us the way to lasting happiness and to help us become our best self for others and for the world.
   Catholic spirituality, before it is Benedictine, Franciscan, Ignatian, Vincentian, etc. is Liturgical Spirituality. Each week we are gathered as a community, the body of Christ for Mass—Eucharistic Liturgy: liturgy of the Word and liturgy of the Eucharist.   Withe, we believe that this is a privileged, but not only, way to meet Jesus--in the doing of Liturgy whether it’s the Mass or any of the sacraments, that Christ meets us offering us love and new life.
    These reflections are just the tip of the proverbial iceberg. Future bulletin inserts will offer further input and reflections on Liturgical Spirituality and suggest ways that we can take what happens every Sunday and allow ourselves to become more like Jesus Christ in our daily lives.