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¡ CHICAGO STUDIES
of spiritual theology or spirituality. For spirituality grapples with the question of discernment as a task of theological reflection which judges authentic movements of the Spirit or inspirations. Spirituality as a theological endeavor can speak generally. Spirituality as pastoral ministry must listen and speak to the specific situation. These theoretical reflections, then, must be taken up by pastoral ministers and applied. WORDS FOR SPIRITUAL EXPERIENCE
Spirituality has used three terms to describe the spiritual life, often in view of its progressive development. The terms are purgation or purification, illumination, and union." The words are said to apply to "stages" of spiritual life. A person begins by ferreting out those sins and roots of sin in the purgative stage of spiritual life. The soul thus prepared can receive illumination or enlightenment, the second stage of spiritual development. Finally, the grace of union, indeed, mystical union is given in the third and final stage of spiritual development. Characteristically, writers have portrayed the stages in a sequential order. Persons successfully complete one stage before progressing to the next. This kind of perspective of spiritual development holds an ascensional or ever-rising movement as typical of spiritual development. A more contemporary view which draws from many of the spiritual classics situates purification, illumination, and
union as special dimensions of Christian life throughout the whole Christian life cycle. There is growth and movement, but it is movement about a more clearly defined focus and growth in contact with a center. The visual image to which this pattern corresponds is no
longer a line ascending at an angle into infinity but a spiral which moves to a point. In Christian life, then, persons will experience purification or il.
lumination or union with greater intensity at various times. All three elements form significant cOmponents of Chrisians in movement.
When believers examine their lives and discern experiences and movements of purification, illumination, and union, they can recognize the effects of the Spirit at work in their lives and a process of spiritu'al growth taking place. When we apply the experiential components of purification, il-