As I have attempted to indicate, the Call to Holiness is a call to the Spiritual Journey wherein metanoia is a critical factor – that is wherein the changing of our hearts and minds to more closely imitate Jesus Christ is the goal. For the true goal of the spiritual journey is a deep and healthy relationship with God and neighbor. To achieve this goal a person has to give shape consciously to the pattern of his or her life and strive to transform that pattern with the help of the many obstacles that life presents. This means learning from the challenges of life. The only way that this is really accomplished is with personal discipline.
Personal discipline is the deliberate decision to employ certain patterns of action. All significant relationships require both spontaneous expressions of love and deliberate planning by the persons involved.
Throughout the history of Christianity, various practices or patterns of living have been recommended to people who have embarked on the spiritual journey. Jesus Himself practiced and suggested prayer, fasting and giving to the poor. Such learned practices, or disciplines, are intended to help people remember and reinforce the movements of God in their lives. They also help people to begin to think about their spiritual lives and their attempts at imitating Jesus Christ.
In most people’s minds, the meaning of the word discipline is negative: punishment in response to misbehavior. However, in its root meaning, it has the much more positive connotation of being an avenue of learning. In academic circles, people major in certain disciplines, that is certain branches of study. To learn a certain fields of knowledge, takes discipline. The call of John the Baptizer, which was taken up by Jesus after His Baptism, was a call to spiritual discipline: Change your hearts and minds.
Christian discipline is practiced attention to the management of our lives in light of the commitments we have made, especially the committed attachment to the Lord. We need to learn how to remember and enflesh that committed attachment, whether considering the simple routines of daily life or the more critical and dramatic decisions. Discipline gives rise to the particular practices by which we pay attention to our commitments. They are the means to an end on the spiritual journey. They should not be considered ends in themselves, nor are they a measure of spiritual growth. Love is the only measure of spiritual growth. When we can say that it is our intention to learn how to love all others unconditionally, we can say we are beginning to spiritually grow. It begins with our intentions!