Spiritual Practices

How does the Spirit move you?
(And how do you recognize when the Spirit is moving?)

These are among the questions with which we wrestle as we explore spiritual practices.

Seeking opportunities to engage with challenging questions about spirituality, St. John’s Exploring Spiritual Practices Ministry provides shared experiences, such as Compline and contemplative prayer, as well as guidance for enhancing individual spiritual practices, including prayer and meditation.

One aspect of this endeavor is that we aspire to nurture parishioners’ practice, in the common understanding of that word.

Spirituality—and seeds that help it grow, like meditations and devotions—flourish with routine practice, growing deeper and stronger with repetition. And such practice will bear fruit when it becomes a habit, transformed into a discipline—in the best sense of that word (not as punishment, as in, "I must sit 15 minutes a day alone to atone for my sins").  

As many teachers and theologians have asserted, we become disciples by making a commitment to a regular and ordinary practice of trying to grow spiritually.

Noted contemporary Franciscan friar and ecumenical teacher Richard Rohr says that "the early Christians emphasized . . . the prayer of quiet, divinization, universal restoration, and the importance of practice" but, he says, these "are some of the most neglected parts of the Western Church." (Wisdom of the Desert, April 6, 2025) Prayer and its practice are central to developing spiritual “chops.”

Civil-Rights Era theologian Howard Thurman wrote in Disciplines of the Spirit (1963): "The experience of prayer can be nurtured and cultivated. It can create a climate in which a man's life moves and functions. Indeed, it may become a way of living for the individual."

Adam Burko, an Episcopal priest leading renewal through Christian contemplative spirituality, including centering prayer, points out: "It may not be in our power to determine how things will unfold, but it is in our power to decide how we respond. It is in our power to hold on to the practices that nourish us, inform us, and give us courage."

And our own Rector, the Rev. Sari Ateek, asserted in his January 12 sermon, “The Voice of God,” that it is important to carve out time to hear God speaking to us—a practice that we miss too often, but would do well to renew with intention.

On Sunday, April 13, we begin Holy Week, ending the forty days of Lent and entering a period of even deeper introspection.  

Lent is often “compared to a desert, to wilderness, a hard place, reflective of all the challenges we all know in life. . . But Lent is also a season of preparation, as we get ready for . . . the new life that [is coming]," says Jay Sidebotham (Monday Matters, April 7, 2025). Sidebotham suggests that now is a time for planting seeds "in readiness for God's good growth" that we may anticipate in ourselves as we practice prayer and explore other means of understanding spirituality.

Come see how the ancient and meditative spiritual practice of Compline can help you prepare, spiritually, to experience the power of Resurrection and the joy of Easter!  Join us on Wednesday, April 16, for the last Compline of Lent, at 7:30 pm in our St. Mary’s Chapel. 

And more generally, anyone interested in deepening your spiritual practices is invited to connect with Cindy Anderson and the Exploring Spiritual Practices Ministry using the form below.