Progress in the Spiritual Life

The spiritual life consists in cooperating with the Holy Spirit so that the graces and charisms offered by the Holy Spirit will pervade one's human acts. What this means is that virtues are established from within the situation one is in as long as one is seeking the glory of God in one's particular vocation. Yet another way of putting it conceptually is that spirituality means to seek and live by the grace of holiness offered to a person in any condition or state of life. As circumstances change, one must seek to please or glorify God in both the simplest and most sublime responsibilities of one's state in life. Moreover, what is absolutely essential for progress in the spiritual life is that one attempts to infuse into all intrinsically good and even indifferent acts (like barbecuing ribs) the spirit of charity in a conscious way as well as doing what is possible to eliminate grave or even deliberate venial sins.
--Fr. Basil Cole, OP