I have just been rereading parts of Martin Thornton's excellent .  I had forgotten how dismissively Thornton had treated Franciscan spirituality in England.  His first complaint, and indeed his conclusion, is that Franciscan spirituality is simply "confusion"! 

He condemns Franciscan spirituality as schizoid, because it is sometimes affective, sometimes intellectual, emphasising both the Nativity (Francis inventing the Christmas creche) and also the Passion (Francis receiving the stigmata).  Such extremes, Thornton explains, are far from English sensitivities, which prefer the gentler via media. Maybe he is just jealous because he can't have his spiritual cake and contemplate it too!

Thornton's treatment of the Victorine school is far less controverted.  He reminds us of the stages in the spiritual journey, the so-called Three Ways; purgative, illuminative, and unitive. I wish, I wish that the journey of faith was better explained to pilgrims.  Christians seem not to know that there are stages.  They expect to stay in the same comfortable state, and grow gently, without violence.  But it's not the way. 

Jesus uses the image of wheat to explain spiritual growth.  A grain of wheat, he says, goes into the ground and is dead — without apparent growth.  But then there is a sudden and violent transformation.  A green shoot appears and pushes its way to the sun, elbowing aside heavy soil and rocks in its way.  Once its head is in the air, the green shoot grows gradually and gently.  Winter turns to spring, the warmth gradually dries the green sappy plant. Then, within days, the plant is transformed again into a gold snappy reed bulging fruit standing in its top.  Gentle slow growth, violent transformation.  Gradual, sudden. The rhythm of natural growth.

We do not, of course, cannot, know how a wheat plant feels.  But Jesus was talking not about grass, but about people.  If we haven't experienced it ourselves, we can imagine what it is like to change suddenly from gentle gradual growth to cataclysmic transformation.  Well, actually we do know from experience.  The sudden shocking arrival of puberty is one occasion that throws us into confusion by the changes in our bodies, emotions and spirits.

Yet again this week I met a genuine pilgrim who believes they have suddenly lost their faith, gone beyond the tenets of Christianity, and need to leave the Christian communities which have nurtured them, and which they have nurtured. 

Their faith was so neat, believing, for example, that the Bible contains literal truth about Christ and his world.  Maybe, they suddenly think, they have been thinking about it wrongly all their lives. Their faith, which was so gentle, dependent on a sense of interaction in their prayer life, is suddenly thrown into disarray by the thought that No One is listening.

These are not signs of loss of faith.  These are signs that the stepping stones have become slippery.  These are indications that God is calling the pilgrim further and deeper.  In adolescence, the reaction to this imbalance might be expressed in anger or acting out.  In the spiritual life in the reaction is expressed in a desire for flight; fleeing that is, not soaring. On these stepping stones, what is needed is yes, a steadying arm, but also information.  There is a map to the road ahead, and now is the time to learn to read it.

To use a self-conscious image, the spiritual body has changed.  The map that was suited for feet on a solid path must be exchanged for a map which describes the way through a different medium, swimming in water or in the ether.

There are maps; the teachings of Hugh and Richard of Saint Victor, for example, lead the Christian through the stages that lead to God.  The great Franciscan Bonaventure in many places, and especially in his Itinerarium, the Journey of the Human Person into God, provides sure directions to the way ahead.  I wish, I wish that those who know these things would listen for those slipping and hand them even a simple map.

Martin Thornton reminds us that some spiritual skills are "learned" and some "infused".  Skills that we cannot learn ourselves will be granted to us by our gracious God.  Our task is to step out into the water swirling around the slippery steppingstone.