The Understanding and Function of Spirituality in an Older Woman’s Life*

Abstract

This article deals with the understanding that older women in Cafam Day Center (Centro Dia Cafam) of Bogotá have of their spirituality and its function in their lives. It is the result of a field investigation in which theology and nursing teachers took part. The study’s purpose was to offer academic elements to improve the spiritual accompaniment of older women in the medical environment and in geriatric pastoral work. Studies of this nature underline the description of the spiritual experience of the older individual, but ignore the analysis of the spiritual quality that rules the lives of these persons. Our study analyzes the types of divine representation that support the spiritual universe of older women who attend the Cafam Day Center, the types of spirituality derived from such representations and the spiritual risks inherent to a situation in which gods and spirituality merge into a retributive dynamic of fear and obedience. The study bases itself on the theoretical dynamics of the transcendental anthropological method whose premise states that the human being is able to have a deep inner experience of God’s reality, a transcendental experience that takes place with no other mediation than ourselves, while God’s reality takes place in an act of self-communication. This paper is divided in three parts: first, it presents the research method, which is followed by the explanaition of its procedure (participants and procedure implemented in the construction of data); and it concludes with the presentation of the results and some conclusions drawn from the investigative process.