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.

Forgiveness, healing and reconciliation are important features of the Catholic perspective on sexual and relationship health. This is so for two simple reasons: First, God is love and we are created and called to be images of God; and second, we are all sinners, and that means we all almost inevitably find ourselves doing things that we know are not good for our own flourishing, or that we know hamper the flourishing of others. Our sinful actions damage the high quality of relationships characterised by love, justice, and chastity that God intended for human beings and indeed for human beings' relationship with God. Since God is love and God loves us so much that Jesus was prepared to die for us and for the truth that God wants us to live in a world of justice, peace and joy, God will forgive our sins. But, as free and rational beings, this forgiveness requires that we take responsibility for our sinful actions by sincerely acknowledging that what we did was morally wrong. Moreover, because we are free and created in the image of God who is just and merciful, we are also called to seek forgiveness from those we have harmed and in our turn forgive those who have harmed us. This is why, in the prayer that Jesus teaches his disciples, 'the Lord's Prayer' or the 'Our Father', we ask God to forgive our sins (debts or trespasses) as we forgive those who sin against us (Matthew 6: 9-13). As Pope Francis has said, Listen carefully to this: each of us is capable of doing the same thing that that man or that woman in prison did. All of us have the capacity to sin and to do the same, to make mistakes in life... Mercy overcomes every wall, every barrier... And it is mercy which changes the heart and the life, which can regenerate a person and allow him or her to integrate into society in a new way (Pope Francis, 2014). The United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (1991) makes a similar point and contextualises it in the liturgical and sacramental life of the Church: 'We are aware of our own frailty and sin as well as God's abiding presence and promise of forgiveness. As members of the Church, we draw strength, comfort, and renewed challenge from the Word of God, the Eucharist, and the healing and strengthening power of the sacrament of reconciliation.' Central to Jesus' message was that God unconditionally loved every human being and that this love is not conditional on 'being good'. This love cannot be earned, and no matter what human beings do, they cannot prevent God's love being available to them. Jesus taught that God would unconditionally forgive anyone who showed any sign of wanting to come to him and that real love always forgives... In many cases, the weakest and most vulnerable human beings are those who have difficulty in accepting themselves and their sexuality, and these are the people to whom the Church, if it is following Christ, should show the most love, commitment and understanding... None of us can or should condemn others (Vardy 1998, pp. 224-225). Though we might help others to see the truth of the moral wrongness of their actions, we cannot condemn them as human beings, who, like us, are seeking to live a meaningful life in a morally complex world. If we condemned people as human beings because of their sinful actions then forgiveness would be impossible. Forgiveness and healing are possible precisely because the Catholic tradition emphasizes an essential difference between the person, eternally loved by God, and the moral behaviour of that person. Our moral behaviour may change the way we relate to God, but it never changes how God loves us. As Vardy (1998, p. 225) points out, our task is to strive daily to align our moral behaviour with the belief that we, all human beings, and all of creation, are created and loved by God, who desires only our flourishing and happiness. Our task is to progress on our life's journey and, as we do so, to help our fellow travellers with care, compassion and understanding.