Human beings are spiritual beings because God is pure spirit. Human beings, made in the image of God, have an immortal soul, a spiritual dimension that will live on after the death of their physical bodies. Christians also believe, however, that the soul will be reunited with a glorified body. When we think about the meaning and purpose of life and about what is good and right we are asking questions that have spiritual implications. These are questions that address the core of our being, a being created for eternity. By creating us as free beings God has given us the power to choose the kind of beings we are made to be, the causes we wish to stand for and the values we want to hold dear. The choices we make will have implications forever since our spiritual selves will live forever. At a very basic level we are asked whether we want to stand up for Love and live forever in Heaven, in eternal happiness with God or whether we want to reject Love, to reject goodness, to reject community, to reject all that is good and true and beautiful. The consequences of this latter choice is eternal life without God in what the Catholic tradition calls Hell. The Catholic perspective affirms the spiritual dimension of the human person pointing to the importance of how our decisions and actions shape the kind of person we become. Common experience indicates the truth of the connection between decisions, actions and personhood whether one actually believes in the existence of Heaven and Hell or otherwise. Living wholeheartedly means taking the question of what kind of person you want to become seriously and seeking the resources to become such a person through the practice of a healthy spirituality, nourishing that timeless dimension at the core of your being.

We can find clues to our spiritual nature in the experience of transcendence. We are open to experiences in which we seem to transcend the limitations of our physical bodies and our individual egos. We have all had the experience of losing the awareness of ourselves as we become immersed in the sheer beauty of a sunset, the tragedy of young life cut short, the creation of the perfect meal or the exhilaration of being on the winning team. These and other experiences are places where we touch transcendence and where the Transcendent One, God, touches us. The ticking of time that characterizes so much of our daily lives gives way to experiences that are timeless, that seem to stand outside of time and space, that seem eternal. Often these experiences just happen to us. We do not seek them out and sometimes we can harden ourselves against them. We can teach ourselves, or allow ourselves to be taught not to experience wonder and awe, or peace and stillness, or beauty and the sublime. We are taught to be practical and serious, busy and productive, functional and realistic. But preoccupation with pragmatic, earthly concerns risk denying the spiritual dimension of our being as physical, spiritual and psychological unities. Given that this spiritual dimension is part of our being in the image of God, part of our dignity as human beings, the realization of the fullness of this dignity requires the exercise of our spiritual capacities. In other words, human flourishing presupposes a healthy spiritual life.

Based on the witness of Jesus and in the words of Ronald Rolheiser (1999, pp. 53-69), there are four elements that are essential for a healthy Christian spiritual life. All four elements must be present in our lives for Christian spirituality to be healthy. These elements are: personal prayer and living a good moral life; creating and doing justice for the poor; doing justice that is motivated by authentic compassion and not anger, guilt or self-service; concrete involvement in a real community of faith.

Conversion or metanoia means literally a turning around, a profound change of heart and mind at the deepest level of our being. In one sense, this conversion is a 'one-off'. A person decides to stop being one kind of being, living life in one particular way, believing a certain thing. A person decides to start being another kind of being, to start living life in a different way, or to start believing something else. But conversion can also be understood as an ongoing process, a constant recommitment of mind and heart to being the kind of person you want to be, to living the kind of life that you believe you ought to live, and to believing in the kinds of things that you feel and know it is right to believe in. A healthy spirituality is not one that is free of doubts, of failures, or of disappointments. In the same way living wholeheartedly does not mean a life free of doubt, failure or disappointment either. Rather a healthy spirituality takes such experiences seriously, examines them, feels them and allows them to challenge and to question what one believes about oneself, about living, and about God. Conversion in this context is about a living spirituality that constantly re-evaluates and reconfirms its commitment to the pursuit of truth and love.