Paths in Spirituality by John Macquarrie (review)

696 BOOK REVIEWS Paths in Spirituality. By JoHN MAcQUARRIE. New York: Harper & Row, 197~. Pp. 184. $4.95. A reader is rightly apprehensive about any volume in which seven of the twelve Chapters are based on materials published previously in disparate journals of spirituality. Given the theological profundity and deep personal holiness of the author of this book, such apprehension is quickly dispelled. The themes of this book-worship, prayer, and spirituality-are woven into an integral unity which should prove both insightful and inspiring to the serious Christian. Macquarrie clearly establishes how the proper use of divinely established or inspired means of growing to maturity in Jesu& Christ are perennially valuable despite the " slings and arrows " of the modern inconoclastic gnostics who would uproot these gifts of God from our Christian heritage. As the author states in Chapter I, homo sapiens is also homo religiosus. True religion and sound devotion springing from it are always humanizing, though sinful man can always pervert them into an escape from reality. Given the humanizing character of true religion, true Christian spirituality can never be self-centered but self giving. In the first half of this book, through Chapter VI, Macquarrie sets forth in detail the relation of worship, prayer, and spirituality. The central theme of this portion of the book is that worship is " the indispensable strand in the Christian religion, bringing together faith and action." (p. ~4) Chapter III is a profound elaboration of the simple catechism response that prayer is "the lifting up our hearts and minds to God." Chapter IV dispels the stigma attached to the term " spirituality " by a scriptural analysis of "spirit ": " a kind of being that is somehow shared by man with the Spirit in God. Spirit is present in and constitutive of man as well as God." (pp. ~8, ~4) It is the capacity for openness and self-transcendence. Indeed, Macquarrie teaches us the true meaning of being a" man for others." The fulness of the human person as well as the Christian Community is realized through the abiding presence of the Holy Spirit who endows both " with the capacity to go out from itself." (p. 5~) One hears the echo of St. Thomas in the author's insistence in Chapter V that the transcendent God lies beyond objectivity and subjectivity, though theological thinking, absorbing the cultural milieu, tends to swing between the pendulum of objectivism and subjectivism, the latter being in vogue today among "popular " theologies. Macquarrie describes how the liturgy might well preserve the balance between these two polarities. Lex orandi is lex credendi. Macquarrie is not unaware, however, that liturgical reformers are under the same cultural pressures as the theologians. The final Chapter (VII) in this half of the book describes the consequences of separating the pursuit of the acquired human wisdom of theology from a profound personal spirituality-prayer, worship, discipline; one without the other BOOK REVIEWS 697 can only result in a deadly schizophrenia. With this premise Macquarrie proceeds to the second half of the book which is avowedly and necessarily autobiographical. Continuing the theme of worship as unifying faith and action Macquarrie sees clearly the problem confronting liturgists, bringing together the transcendence and immanence of God in ritual. He is especially conscious of the pitfalls confronting the liturgists who attempt renewal without a true historical perspective. The great sadness of this volume is that in Chapter VIII, while confessing the unique presence of Jesus Christ in the Eucharist, Macquarrie's own theological ambiguities about the true doctrine of transubstantiation leave him naked about the central mystery of worship, the Mass. Given his doctrinal uncertainty, one can readily understand the distortion of a volume which, while emphasizing the centrality of worship, devotes one entire Chapter to Benediction of the Blessed Sacrament (IX), but none to the Mass! The final Chapters, X, XI, treat of the Office and Stations of the Cross. All Christians are grateful to Macquarrie for sharing his faith and worship with others. As a Roman Catholic who has the profoundest respect for him, I shall earnestly pray that his evident openness to the Holy Spirit will guide him to a deeper understanding of the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass...