4 Values Revisited: Spirituality

Last year, I talked about spirituality as “hanging out with God.” I still like that idea. It's still the core of my spirituality. This year my growth in spirituality has mostly been in learning new ways to pray. I've really got into the examen, a review of the day that I say almost every night. It keeps the experience of God grounded in daily life. It reminds me that sometimes God is like Waldo – he's there, you just have to look for him.

This is a real thing

But I would be remiss if I didn't talk about Andean Spirituality after a year of living in the Andes as a Catholic lay missionary. Andean Spirituality is not your grandmother's catholicism.* It's not a spirituality of rosaries or daily mass. It's not a spirituality of scriptural meditation and reflection. It's a prime example of syncretism – the blending of different beliefs. Andean culture is a mix of Incan and Spanish influences. Andean spirituality is a mix of Incan beliefs and Catholicism.

There's no better example of syncretism in Andean spirituality than the pilgrimage to Señor de Qolloritti, which ends in a celebration that looks a lot like worship to Apu Ausangate (the mountain God on whose slopes the image of Señor de Qolloritti is located) than any sort of "traditional" Catholic worship.

Many people, maybe your grandmother,** would look at Señor de Qolloritti in confusion. “This isn't Catholicism,” they might say. But I disagree. This is Catholicism. Catholicism has always been a syncretic religion. Ever since St. Boniface chopped down the thunder oak and told the German pagans to use a fir tree, thereby starting the tradition ofChristmas trees, catholicism has been bringing people to God by connecting to pre-existing cultural traditions. That's why Christmas is celebrated in December (light and hope at the darkest time of the year) and Easter is celebrated in the spring (everything is coming back to life in the spring) – because those time lined up with pagan festivals.

What you do, do it for God. For some people the pilgrimage to Señor de Qolloritti is probably just a chance to have a really intense experience and then booze it up with their buddies. But for some people Christmas is a time to make money and lavish gifts on loved ones in the selfish hope that they'll receive great gifts in return. Going to mass on Christmas Eve isn't any more Catholic than climbing Ausangate for Señor de Qolloritti. What matters is how and why you go. The men who spend 24 hours walking together and singing are as close to God as the grandmothers that go to daily mass are to Apu Jesucristo. If God is in all things, then God is these celebrations that can seem so foreign to the foreigner's eye."There are many gifts, but the same spirit." There are many ways to praise Him, but the same God.

*Unless your grandmother is from the Andes.

**Unless your grandmother really is from the Andes.