At a time when there is a proliferation of new and very positive evangelization initiatives -many of them full of enthusiasm, creativity and capacity of convocation- the Church in Spain has considered it necessary to offer some criteria for discernment. Not to extinguish anything, but precisely to take care of what is most valuable: the authenticity of the Christian experience.
The risk that prelates are concerned about is that faith is reduced to an emotional, subjective experience, detached from the truth, from the community and from concrete life. In the face of this, the spanish bishops propose in its latest document, six keys that help to understand what it means to live a mature faith, so that the initiatives of first proclamation deepen faith experiences with more formation.
a) To know the divine persons
The heart of the Christian faith is not a vague spirituality or a mixture of tailor-made beliefs, but a real encounter with Jesus Christ. It is not about “feeling good” or accumulating intense emotional experiences, but about recognizing that God has revealed Himself concretely in Christ and that only through Him do we have access to the Father in the Spirit.
For this reason, the first proclamation cannot be diluted in generic discourses on well-being or interiority: it must lead to a living relationship with Jesus, unique and decisive. When this centrality is lost, faith is blurred in a diffuse syncretism that may be attractive, but lacks the transforming power of the Gospel.
b) Personal dimension
This encounter with Christ involves the whole person, including the affective world. But feelings alone are not a sufficient criterion for discerning God's action. The spiritual tradition of the Church has always insisted on the need to contrast them, to examine them with the help of those who have walked this path before. Authors such as Ignatius of Loyola taught us to distinguish between consolation and desolation, precisely so as not to confuse the voice of God with our own states of mind.
In the same line, masters such as John of the Cross or Teresa of Jesus showed that the spiritual life also passes through darkness and purification. Therefore, a mature faith does not absolutize what it feels, but submits it to serious discernment, in continuity with the accumulated experience of the Church.
c) Objectivity of faith
Christian faith is not born of a feeling, nor is it sustained by it. It does not depend on how one finds oneself interiorly, nor on the intensity of a concrete spiritual experience. It has an objective content: a truth that precedes the believer and is given to him.
In a culture marked by “I feel”, this statement is uncomfortable. However, it is decisive. It is not enough to perceive that “God loves me” to validate any decision or behavior. Faith implies recognizing that there is a revealed truth-about God, about man, about good and evil-that is not constructed according to one's own subjectivity.
One of the most revealing cases of this rupture occurred at the court of Louis XIV, where some ladies spent their nights with lovers in order to go to a quick confession the next morning so that they could receive communion at Mass. This cycle of nocturnal sin and express morning absolution, based on a superficial interpretation of religious law, transformed the sacraments into a mechanical procedure that did not require a true conversion of heart or a change of behavior.
Fed up with this «spectacle» of hypocrisy, the Jansenist current opposed it so strongly that it ended up falling into the opposite extreme. In trying to combat the moral laxity of the time, the Jansenists imposed a suffocating rigorism that presented a distant God and an almost unattainable Eucharist, reserved only for those who achieved heroic perfection.
The lesson is still relevant today. When emotions serve to justify objectively disordered behavior, we are not dealing with a well-integrated faith. The Christian life implies a unity between what we believe, what we feel and what we do.
d) Ecclesiality of faith
No one gives faith to himself. It is received. And it is received in the Church. This ecclesial dimension is constitutive of Christianity. Believing implies accepting that there are others - before and beside me - who transmit, guard and interpret the faith: the Pope, the bishops, the priests, the spiritual companions, the believing community.
This requires a concrete attitude: to allow oneself to be taught and to allow oneself to be corrected. Two attitudes that are little valued in a culture that identifies authenticity with self-sufficiency. However, without this openness, faith runs the risk of becoming an individual project, where each person decides what to accept and what to discard.
e) Social consequences of faith
Faith is not an idea or an emotion: it is a way of life. And, as such, it has concrete moral consequences. When faith is lived exclusively as a source of inner well-being, it can end up generating believers who are satisfied but indifferent to the needs of others.
However, Christianity has an essentially open dimension. The encounter with Christ impels us to reach out to others, especially to those most in need. This is not an optional add-on, but a criterion of authenticity. A faith that does not translate into concrete commitment - in the family, at work, in public life, in caring for the poor - remains incomplete. The Gospel is clear: love of God is verified in love of neighbor.
f) Celebrative dimension
The Christian faith is also celebrated. And it does so, in a privileged way, in the liturgy. But here too there is a risk: reducing the celebration to a space of intense emotions or subjective experiences. When the liturgy becomes an instrument for “feeling things”, it loses its center and its meaning.
The Christian celebration is neither a spectacle nor a spontaneous creation of the group. It has a form, a tradition, rules that guarantee its ecclesial character and its fidelity to the mystery it celebrates.
The Eucharist, in particular, occupies a central place. It is not only an emotional moment, but the event in which the community encounters Christ in a real and sacramental way. Hence the importance of taking care of its celebration, knowing that the Mass is far above blessings and adorations (however positive they may be).
These criteria are not intended to dampen enthusiasm or to mistrust new forms of evangelization. On the contrary, they seek to ensure that this impulse is rooted in the essentials.
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