Spirituality among the St. Thomas ChristiansIntroduction:Spirituality includes all means used by a particular Church or religious congregation for the sanctification ofits members. We use the Sanskrit term Margam, Way of life (of St. Thomas) to design the particular mannerin which the St. Thomas Christians live and express their faith in the divine Revelation, their spirituality.Christian faith is not only an assent to a collection of dogmas, but is essentially a life-style. This life-stylewill necessarily be influenced by the local language, culture and social customs. In this modest study we willconsider the basic elements of Eastern Spirituality and verify its realisation among the St. Thomas Christians.Evidently, some elements will be common to the different Oriental traditions. We will find the specific Indo-Chaldeans elements mainly in its liturgy, asceticism, writers and monasticism. The essential question is: Howdoes our Church provide for our salvation and sanctification?1. LiturgicalOur spirituality is first of all liturgical, t. i. based on the practice of worship. Liturgy is the principal source ofsanctification of a Church. It is the place where God and man meet each other, it is a dialogue between theFather and man through Christ in the Holy Spirit in the community of the Church under the veils of symbols.God descends to us in the proclamation of His Word and in the celebration of the Sacraments, and theChurch ascends to Him in its faith-response, its praising of His majesty, and its sacramental union to theSacrifice of Christ. The Liturgy constitutes the Church, since the Church is mainly a community of faith andworship. In the Sacraments, mainly in the Qurbana, Christ' saving action is renewed, remembered, appliedand anticipated. This is possible because the actions of a divine Person have no limitation in time. Thereforewe can celebrate all His past and future actions in the liturgy.Our earthly liturgy is only a weak reflection of the heavenly one, ...