Christian materialism

“We can therefore rightly speak of a Christian materialism, which is boldly opposed to those materialisms which are blind to the spirit.”

These were words of St. Josemaria Escriva, founder of Opus Dei, in a 1967 homily. They are most relevant today as more people ask if it’s possible for us to be “spiritual” in our material world.

In defending that point, St. Josemaria said:  “What are the sacraments, which people in early times described as the footprints of the Incarnate Word, if not the clearest expression of this way which God has chosen in order to sanctify us and to lead us to heaven?”

In Christian belief, the material and the spiritual are not incompatible and need not be in conflict, since both come from God. Whatever deformity matter has absorbed because of our sin, Christ has purified it with his

death and resurrection.

Besides, since the material world is part of man’s life, Christ has made it as man’s instrument not only for his human needs, but most especially for his spiritual needs and supernatural calling.

More from St. Josemaria:

“There is only one life, made of flesh and spirit. And it is that life which has to become, in both body and soul, holy and filled with God. We discover the invisible God in the most visible and material things…

“Our age needs to give back to matter and to the apparently trivial events of life their noble, original meaning…It needs to spiritualize them, turning them into a means and an occasion for a continuous meeting with Jesus Christ.”

With these words, millions of people all over the world have suddenly discovered a deeper meaning in their material, temporal affairs, including the little things of everyday. They are not just realities confined to a strictly material world.

St. Josemaria described it this way:

“When a Christian carries out with love the most insignificant everyday action, that action overflows with the transcendence of God…

“The Christian vocation consists in making heroic verse out of the prose of each day. Heaven and earth seem to merge on the horizon. But where they really meet is in your hearts, when you sanctify your everyday  live…”

We all need to develop an authentic spirituality that has a correct understanding of the material dimension of our life. It should be a spirituality that respects the nature and autonomous ways of the material world.

The dilemma faced by many before was either to be spiritual or to be material. The schools of spirituality in the past often had an exaggerated negative attitude towards the material world. These two aspects made war with each other.

History is witness to tendencies that erroneously veered toward one extreme to the other, toward being too spiritualistic or too materialistic.

Among the too spiritualistic are Manicheans who held matter to be intrinsically evil; the Puritans who practiced scrupulous moral rigor hostile to social pleasures; the Stoics who were indifferent to joy, grief, pleasure and pain. They lived much by themselves.

You also have the quietists who lived a mysticism involving passive contemplation and destruction of the will; the rationalists who used reason as prime source of knowledge, rejecting empirical data, authority and faith.

Among the too materialistic are the atheists, communists and socialists. They generally believe that reality is purely material. There’s nothing spiritual or supernatural.

You also have the hedonists and Epicureans who held that sensual pleasure is the greatest good. There’s also the naturalist who said everything can be explained by nature alone and nothing beyond that.

We have a crying need for a spirituality that embodies a sense of Christian materialism. It should be a spirituality that has a healthy love for the world and everything the world contains.

It should be a spirituality that gives Christian value to the different fields of work—intellectual or manual, in business, politics, academic, etc. It should incorporate properly the Church’s social doctrine.

It’s a spirituality that helps one live a greater unity of life, extending the coverage of his spiritual life to include everything.

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