A continuation of “When the Old System Collapses—Will the New One Appear?”
Jean Khoury
Summary: Vatican II was animated by four great theological intuitions: the universal call to holiness, the centrality of the Word of God, the integration of spiritual life in theological formation, and fruitful participation in the liturgy. These intuitions, examined in detail, generate at least eight concrete directives for the Church’s life. Yet the Council’s Fathers, however luminous in their perception, lacked a sufficiently developed spiritual theology to implement what they had rightly seen. This article argues that the gap between prophetic vision and practical realisation is not accidental but structural and that it remains unaddressed today.
Introduction: The Distance Between Vision and Realisation
The analysis begun in the preceding article—concerning the relationship between theology and Vatican II—demands further development. The Council did not emerge from a vacuum. It was prepared by decades of extraordinary theological renewal: the ressourcement of the Fathers of the Church, the liturgical movement, advances in Ecclesiology, Biblical scholarship, and Ecumenism. If one area lagged behind, it was Spiritual Theology, which, after a very promising renewal in the 1920s, became mired in a heated controversy over the nature of contemplation in the 1930s and 1940s, a debate that was never resolved.
The theologians who prepared Vatican II drew most deeply from the recovery of the patristic tradition. Their intuitions were genuinely prophetic. But there is a considerable distance between perceiving a need and possessing the theological instruments to meet it. This article examines four great intuitions of the Council, each generating concrete directives, and asks why, six decades later, these directives remain substantially unimplemented. The selection of these four intuitions reflects my own reading of the Council and my assessment of what may be considered some of its most significant and enduring insights. Other readers may identify different priorities or emphasise other aspects of the conciliar vision.
I. The Four Great Intuitions of Vatican II
The four intuitions selected here may appear, to some readers, neither exhaustive nor necessarily the most important. Their spiritual depth and transformative potential may not be immediately evident—a situation which itself reflects the relative weakness of spiritual theology, both in the past and in the present. Yet this very reaction points to a deeper structural problem. These four intuitions have been chosen not because they are the only important themes of the Council, but because they reveal dimensions of Vatican II whose significance has often been insufficiently recognised and whose implications for the Church’s life remain far from fully realised.
Still, I would like to suggest that the four intuitions of Vatican II which I have chosen are, in my view, its deepest intuitions, the ones with the greatest potential for the future of the Church. They are the most transformative in character and the most fruitful in their consequences. If they were genuinely received and implemented according to the living Tradition of the Church, they would constitute some of the most powerful steps the Church could take today and would greatly accelerate her spiritual renewal and growth. They are:
- The universal call to holiness
- Bringing the Word of God to the centre of the Church’s life
- The integration of spiritual life with theological studies in priestly formation
- Fruitful participation in the liturgy
1. The Universal Call to Holiness
It is important to note that this first intuition of Vatican II does not originate in spiritual theology, but in ecclesiology. The Church possesses four notes: she is one, holy, catholic, and apostolic. Because the Church is the Bride of the Lord, holy as He is holy, united to Him and grafted into His death and resurrection through Baptism, she is holy, and all her members are therefore called to become holy. This is not an optional aspiration but a constitutive dimension of ecclesial identity.
“all the faithful of Christ of whatever rank or status, are called to the fullness of the Christian life and to the perfection of charity” (LG 40) “All are called to holiness: “Be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect.”” (CCC 2013) This intuition carries three significant ramifications:
1- If the Church is holy, her mission prolongs the mission of the Lord; she is therefore herself a “sacrament of salvation” for the world. The Council’s primary aim was a profound renewal and return to the sources. The expression “sacrament of salvation” is a particularly bold one and risks being misunderstood if detached from the Church’s spiritual tradition. Spiritual theology helps to illuminate its meaning. The saints, through their progressive union with Christ, become transparent to His presence and action. Conformed to Him in love and self-gift, they continue His mission in the world and make His saving presence visible and effective in the lives of others. In this sense, they become living signs and instruments of Christ, prolongations of His humanity in history. Thus the Church can be called a “sacrament of salvation”, not because she possesses an independent saving power, but because the one Saviour, Jesus Christ, continues to act through His members united to Him. The expression therefore points to a profound mystery: the participation of the Church, and especially of the saints, in the saving mission of Christ, while preserving absolutely the truth that there is but one Redeemer and one source of salvation.
2- Moving beyond a reductive focus on “ex opere operato”, Vatican II teaches that the holiness of the priest is not merely a personal ideal but a pastoral necessity: the more closely a priest is united to Christ and docile to the Holy Spirit, the more fruitful his ministry becomes. “Holiness does much for priests in carrying on a fruitful ministry.” “Hence, this holy council, […] strongly urges all priests that they strive always for that growth in holiness by which they will become consistently better instruments in the service of the whole People of God […]” (Vat II, PO 12)
The holier the priest, the more fruitful his ministry. This insight touches upon a profound dimension of the Christian life that can only be fully appreciated through the lens of spiritual theology. Blessed Marie-Eugène of the Child Jesus devoted considerable attention to the relationship between growth in divine charity and apostolic fruitfulness. As union with Christ deepens, the apostle becomes increasingly available to the action of the Holy Spirit and more capable of transmitting divine life to others. Spiritual theology therefore reveals an intrinsic connection between sanctity and apostolate: fruitfulness in ministry is not merely a question of activity, organisation, or natural gifts, but is intimately linked to the degree of union with God. The Council’s affirmation thus points towards a vast theological horizon whose implications have perhaps not yet been fully explored. See: “Apostolate and Growth of Love” from “I Am A Daughter of the Church”.
3- The Council invited all religious orders to renew themselves according to specific criteria articulated in the conciliar documents (See Vat II, PC). This undertaking remains one of the most important tasks facing the Church. The renewal envisioned by the Council cannot be reduced to external adaptations, organisational reforms, or merely cosmetic changes in religious life. At its heart lies the question of spiritual formation: how persons are transformed by grace, conformed to Christ, and led by the Holy Spirit towards holiness and apostolic fruitfulness. For this reason, the renewal of religious life necessarily requires a renewed engagement with spiritual theology, the discipline that studies the action of the Holy Spirit in the soul and the laws governing spiritual growth. Without a clear understanding of how God sanctifies and transforms the human person, the deeper aims of conciliar renewal risk remaining elusive. The dramatic decline in religious life observed in many parts of the Church between 1965 and 2015 suggests that important aspects of this renewal have yet to be fully realised. Here again, spiritual theology appears not as a peripheral concern but as a key to understanding both the challenge identified by the Council and the path towards its fulfilment.
2. The Word of God at the Center of the Church’s Life
The second great intuition was to restore the Word of God to its rightful place at the heart of ecclesial life. This entailed a renewed lectionary (published December 1969) offering far broader access to Sacred Scripture in the liturgy, the fruit of decades of Biblical and theological deepening before the Council. The Dogmatic Constitution Dei Verbum gives this intuition its doctrinal expression and generates three further directives:
1- Dei Verbum teaches the prayerful reading of the Scriptures, what the tradition calls Lectio Divina, as a privileged form of encounter with the living God. In the period following the Council, from the late 1960s through to Verbum Domini (2010), one can observe a remarkable resurgence and wider diffusion of this practice within the life of the Church. What had largely remained associated with monastic contexts, and in some places had fallen into relative obscurity, gradually re-emerged in diverse forms among clergy and laity alike. This development was encouraged by a number of significant figures, including Enzo Bianchi and Cardinal Carlo Maria Martini, who helped to reintroduce and popularise the practice in different ecclesial settings. The Synod of Bishops on the Word of God (2008) explicitly acknowledged the importance of this renewed attention to Scripture and the growing practice of prayerful reading. This post-conciliar development may be interpreted as one of the most significant, if sometimes understated, fruits of the Council’s teaching on Revelation. Yet important questions remain open: what precisely is Lectio Divina, what is distinctive about its contemplative act, how does it operate in the economy of grace, and what are its characteristic spiritual fruits? To what extent can its dynamism be identified within the New Testament itself? In this sense, the anthropology underlying a “listening” form of theology remains insufficiently articulated. A more adequate theological account of how the human person receives and is formed by the Word of God still calls for deeper development within spiritual theology. It is the task of Spiritual Theology to explain Lectio Divina and a theology of listening! See here on Lectio Divina.
2- The Constitution insists that Scripture must be read “in the Spirit”, that is, with the same Spirit by whom it was written, requiring a deeply pneumatological and contemplative hermeneutic. To read Scripture “in the Spirit”, despite the teaching of the Catechism of the Catholic Church and major theological contributions such as Henri de Lubac’s Medieval Exegesis, remains an area in which further clarification is still required. In particular, the precise articulation of what constitutes a method or pedagogy of “reading in the Spirit” has not yet been fully systematised. The relationship between this mode of reading and the traditional practice of Lectio Divina also calls for deeper theological integration and a more explicit practical formulation. In this sense, there remains an ongoing task for spiritual theology: to make more explicit how the Holy Spirit forms the act of reading, and how this reading becomes a lived participation in the prayerful reception of the Word.
3- It recommends that exegetes seek the intention of the human author, a directive that calls for an integrated method binding historical-critical inquiry to theological and spiritual discernment. This task, however, is more complex than it might first appear, since within a sound theology of inspiration the intention of the human author cannot be adequately understood apart from the intention of the divine author, the Holy Spirit. The interpretative act therefore requires attention not only to historical and literary reconstruction, but also to the theological horizon within which Scripture is given as a unified divine-human word. In this perspective, there remains room for a further development of what might be called a specifically spiritual theology of Scripture, distinct from but complementary to biblical theology, which would more explicitly articulate how the Word is received, prayed, and interiorly understood within the life of faith.
Lectio Divina Theology, Restoring the Living Word to the Foundation of Theological Method
3. Spiritual life and Theological Studies Need to be Connected
The Church’s wish for the students of Theology is that they relate in-depth to what they are studying. As Vatican II says: “The theological disciplines […] should be so taught that the students will correctly draw out Catholic doctrine from divine revelation, profoundly penetrate it, make it the food of their own spiritual lives, and be enabled to proclaim, explain, and protect it in their priestly ministry.” (Vat II, OT 16) This too was the deep desire of Pope Benedict in his magisterium. He also reminded us of the existence in the past of a “Monastic Theology” (see here). Pope John Paul II used the expression “Sapiential Theology” (see here). It is vitally important for each student in Theology to see the connection between these more spiritual ways of theologising and the actual way now used. “Prophetic Theology” or “Integral Theology” or “Sapiential Theology” is the bridge between the two theologies and encompasses both of them.
The integration of spiritual life with theological studies in priestly formation can only be achieved with a properly developed Spiritual Theology, bringing in a renewed way of practising a Integral Theology. See here: Integral Theology
4. The Necessary Fruitful Participation in the Liturgy
“To ensure that the faithful take part fully in the liturgy, it is necessary that they come to it with proper dispositions, that their minds be attuned to their voices, and that they cooperate with divine grace lest they receive it in vain. Pastors of souls must therefore realise that, when the liturgy is celebrated, something more is required than the mere observation of the laws governing valid and licit celebration; it is their duty also to ensure that the faithful take part knowingly, actively, and fruitfully.” (scienter, actuose et fructuose) (Vat. II, SC 11) “Mother Church earnestly desires that all the faithful should be led to that fully conscious and active participation in liturgical celebrations which is demanded by the very nature of the liturgy.” “[This full and active participation by all the people] is the aim to be considered before all else; for it is the primary and indispensable source from which the faithful are to derive the true Christian spirit.” (SC 14)
Fruitful participation in the liturgy has also been a major concern for Cardinal Ratzinger, who returned to it repeatedly in his liturgical theology, particularly in The Spirit of the Liturgy, where he critically re-examines modern interpretations of “active participation” and insists on its deeper spiritual and ecclesial meaning.
Pope Francis has likewise underlined, in strong and sometimes vivid language, his desire for what he calls a “lived” liturgy, especially in Desiderio desideravi, where he calls for a renewed liturgical formation rooted in encounter with the mystery of Christ. At the same time, it is important not to forget the classical notion of ars celebrandi, which expresses the intrinsic link between the manner of celebration and the fruitfulness of participation.
However, it may now be time to recognise more explicitly that this profound conciliar desire can only be adequately received and implemented with the help of spiritual theology. In particular, a deeper exploration of the prayer of recollection is necessary if we are to understand in a more precise and experiential way what it means to participate fruitfully in the liturgy. See The Immersion in the Trinity / Liturgy as Prayer I / Liturgy as Prayer II (With St. Teresa of Avila)
II. Eight Directives and One Absent Instrument
Taking stock: the first two intuitions mentioned above have each yielded three concrete ramifications—six directives from the first two intuitions alone. Together with the third and fourth intuitions (connecting the study of theology with spiritual life and fruitful liturgical participation), we arrive at a minimum of eight concrete directives emanating from the Council’s most fundamental perceptions.
As a noticed above, a careful examination of each of these eight points reveals a striking convergence: every one of them requires, for its implementation, a renewed and adequately developed Spiritual Theology. Holiness cannot be universally pursued without a map of the spiritual journey. The Word of God cannot be read prayerfully “in the Spirit” without an understanding of contemplation. Theological formation cannot integrate studies and spiritual life without a coherent account of how theological knowledge relates to mystical transformation. Fruitful liturgical participation demands souls capable of interiority.
And here lies the structural fracture: this spiritual theology was not in place at the eve of the Council and has never been adequately developed since. Efforts have been made since 1965; they have not been sufficient. Without a solid, practical spiritual theology, it is impossible to implement these directives. The Council’s great intuitions remain, sixty years later, largely aspirational.
III. Practical Consequences
The gap between the prophetic vision of the Council and the practical implementation is not abstract. It manifests concretely in several areas of ecclesial life:
Liturgical formation remains shallow. Despite the renewed rites, many faithful participate externally without the interior life that would make liturgical participation truly fruitful. Formation in contemplative interiority is largely absent from parish life and seminary curricula.
Biblical formation lacks its spiritual dimension. While Biblical literacy has improved in some contexts, the Lectio Divina proposed by Dei Verbum—Scripture read “in the Spirit” as a transformative encounter—has not become the living practice of the ordinary faithful or of most seminarians. There is a great need for a Biblical Spiritual Theology.
Often holiness remains clericalised or exceptional. The universal call to holiness is proclaimed but the paths to holiness are not sufficiently taught, accompanied, or institutionally supported. A robust spiritual direction culture has not emerged in most dioceses.
Priestly and diaconal formation has not achieved integration. The Council’s vision of seminarians experiencing a living relationship between their studies and their spiritual life requires precisely the kind of integral, contemplative pedagogy that spiritual theology was supposed to provide—and did not.
The theological situation has deteriorated. As argued in the preceding article, the theological situation today is measurably worse than in 1965. The tools needed to implement the Council’s vision are less available now than at the moment the Council closed.
Conclusion: The Question Before the Church
The Bishops and theologians who shaped Vatican II were not wrong. Their vision was correct, pertinent, and necessary. The Holy Spirit was speaking to the Church through the Council’s great intuitions. There is no revisionism here.
But theology teaches, forms, and becomes our eyes—guiding us, shaping us, giving us the instruments to act. If spiritual theology, at the decisive juncture of the 1930s and 1940s, entered a controversy it never resolved; if it arrived at the Council underdeveloped; and if it has not been sufficiently renewed in the sixty years since—then the Church finds herself in a paradox: possessing the vision, but lacking the tools.
The question before us is therefore not merely academic. It is: Are we capable of facing the need for a true theological renewal, with proper and adapted methods? Are we capable of undertaking the renewal of spiritual theology that the Council’s own intuitions demand? What is ultimately at stake is the implementation of what the Holy Spirit said to the Church through Vatican II—not the letter of the documents, but the living transformation they were meant to initiate.
The old system has collapsed. The new one has not yet appeared. The work of building it remains before us.
Without spiritual life, without formation in spiritual life, and without a renewed spiritual theology, the salt cannot be “salted” — it loses its very capacity to be what it is called to be. “You are the salt of the earth.” (Matthew 5:13) “Salt is good; but if salt has lost its taste, how shall its saltiness be restored? Have salt in yourselves, and be at peace with one another.” (Mark 9:50) “For everyone will be salted with fire.” (Mark 9:49) Taken together, these sayings form a coherent spiritual dynamic: the disciple is called to be salt for the world, yet this identity depends on an inner transformation. Without it, even what is meant to preserve and give flavour becomes ineffective, because it is no longer interiorly renewed by the fire that purifies and configures the person to Christ.
This article is part of an ongoing series on Integral Theology and the renewal of Spiritual Theology. See also here