A Symbolic Life. The Diversity of Signs and Bodies of the Spirit

Abstract

Given the semantic haziness of the term “spirituality” as used in media and the public discourse, this article tries to develop a corresponding Christian term by referring to the loci proprii, namely the biblical scriptures and the liturgy. After a first exploration of the biblical spectrum of meanings, the structural momenta of continuity and discontinuity as well as of unity and multiplicity of Christian spirituality(ies) are defined. Following Pope Francis’ Apostolic Exhortation Desiderio desideravi, the celebration of the Christian liturgy as the “first wellspring of Christian spirituality” (DD 61) is then examined in order to define several characteristics of Christian spirituality in general with the help of the psychoanalytical perspective of Jacques Lacan, the work of the French Jesuit Michel de Certeau and the body-phenomenological studies of Maurice Merleau-Ponty.