Daily Meditation: Sunday, August 23, 2026

Spiritual life - improving our ability to deal with our material problems

08/23/2026

Many people feel a need for spirituality, but they think that they must sort out their material affairs first, and then once these issues are settled, they will be free for the spiritual life. This is a mistake, because the problems of our material existence are never-ending: no sooner is one situation resolved than a new complication pops up in its place. The best way to solve our material problems is not by focusing on them exclusively, but by improving our ability to deal with them—in other words, by strengthening ourselves by means of light, love, faith, hope, generosity and selflessness; and these virtues can be acquired only by the practice of the spiritual life. I am not saying that you should neglect practical matters. No, those who neglect them in order to devote themselves exclusively to prayer and meditation end by finding themselves in deplorable conditions of filth, poverty and illness. The ideal is to reconcile the two, matter and the spirit, by keeping one’s feet firmly on the ground and one’s head in heaven.