Our pope has insisted that the church is alive. When he says that he really points out the reason is that Jesus is alive and that he has really risen. He= s implying without going into much detail that Jesus and the Church are one. At the same time the pope is aware of the fact that many Catholics live in the desert as he put it meaning that their vital vibrant life as a Christian lacks real contact with the life that= s within them.

So the real issue then is to make that contact. After all it is the whole purpose of the proclamation of the Word of God, the good news. The whole mission and obligation of priests and bishops is precisely to make people come into touch with Jesus. It= s only when Jesus is experienced that we really have vibrant living of the gospel. To know Jesus is the key question in any person= s spiritual life and that knowledge should be ongoing and deepening. Of course he uses the word that is really the word for grace he says, everybody should come into real friendship with Jesus. But that= s exactly the meaning of grace.

So the spiritual life, therefore, implies that we= re practicing virtues all the time. All the time. To practice virtues there= s plenty of them. It includes attitudes, because our thoughts are part of who we are, not just our will and our hearts. It= s important for us to look at what virtue the Lord is asking us to live. It really doesn’t matter which one you pick because the whole spiritual life is interconnected and if where ever you are you pick a particular virtue, and you work at it, truly, then you will include others and therefore you will grow.

For instance, just look at the first degree of humility its first real challenge is are you going to stand in your conscious and avoid evil and do good? That= s it= s first real thrust. But if you begin to do that you= re also beginning to practice obedience, you= re also beginning to practice humility, you= re also beginning to practice a certain amount of remembering what God is asking of you, so you are starting to practice a number of virtues. But if you stay only at that level then, of course, you= re in the desert, when are you going to meet Jesus?

Or look at what the Rule says about obedience. It gives many motives for obedience. If you are going to meet Jesus in friendship, that means that you= re living your life out of love. And even love has degrees and intensity and it has a goal, namely union. So you can= t rest on simply saying, A Well, I= m going to practice obedience out of love for Jesus and stay there.@ You have to also pursue it further until it comes to union which is what Jesus wants.

We have available to us all kinds of things to make the spiritual life vibrant and alive. In the Rule itself. All you have to do is go through Chapter IV and pick anything you want and start practicing it. First question to ask yourself is how is this in my life? Second question is what= s the shape of it in my life? Am I really living this out of love for Jesus? And how is it moving me to become freer? If you were to learn how to play the piano you have to go through all the notes, and practice speeds and rhythms, only when you master that can you really begin to start playing all kinds of songs and all kinds of modes. When you take a particular virtue you have to start at the beginning. At the beginning it= s imperfect.

In the life of Conchita for instance when she was about 28, the Lord said to her: A I demand that you obey me.@ That’s what he said. "But I want more. I want you to start obeying the inspirations of the Holy Spirit." He said to her, A you= re lousy at it!@ He told her straight out. Then he started teaching her how to listen to the movements of the Holy Spirit. By the time she was 44 she writes in her diary, A I spent the whole month and I didn't miss one of the inspirations of the Holy Spirit.@ In the middle of that year the Lord gave her tremendous grace of deep union with him.

So there= s the issue with us. We talk about renewal in the community, we talk about improving our spiritual life, it= s right there. There it is. To live the Spirit= s life you have to practice virtue. And you have to practice it on the level of love and perfection and on the level of moving toward union. You have to start where you are. Where you are is usually imperfect. It= s o.k. In fact Conchita wrote once in her diary, she says, "What do I really have in terms of virtues?" And she started listing. Well, I= m not too humble, I= m not too pure, I= m not this, I= m not this, I= m not this... But that didn’t discourage her which shows she was truly humble and so she began to do what the Lord asked and she began to be transformed.

It= s very important because Jesus says in the gospel that rather strong statement when he talks about the parable of the sower of the seed: A You have ears to hear, listen!@