Catechesis really comes into its own as disciples become excited and eagerly want to learn more about the faith. They begin to grow in virtue as they integrate not only Catholic doctrine but also the basic disciplines of discipleship into their work, their relationships and family life, their recreation, and so on. Not only do their personal lives change, but they begin to actively cooperate with and be used by God for others. As disciples mature, they start to feel strong enough to go public with their faith, even in situations where people are indifferent or hostile to Christianity.
In a word, the Disciple stage is where people start to bear fruit because their priorities change from within. They want to worship, so they attend Mass regularly. They pray and ask to be taught how to pray. They are eager to serve. Many disciples become the backbone of their local parishes because they care so much about the well-being of the Church. They become good stewards of their finances out of a passion to see the Gospel advance and change other people’s lives. Evangelizing parishes regularly tell us that they have the highest per capita giving in their diocese.
Disciples will fill every class in your parish and diocese because they long to study and grow in the faith. They clamor to discern how God is calling them. Their charisms — special graces of the Holy Spirit that empower us to be a channel of God’s beauty, mercy, provision, truth, and healing for others — become manifest in their lives. They are eager to pass their faith on to their children and are no longer willing to just drop them off at sacramental prep before spending an hour killing time with their phone and a latte. Now they are serious, active collaborators who passionately embrace their roles as the primary catechists in the lives of their children.
All of this and so much more that we desperately want to see happen in our parishes starts to emerge, not out of guilt, but out of a living, growing relationship with God. It bursts out as naturally as apples on apple trees — and for the same reason: every one of these things is the fruit Jesus promises his disciples will bear: “fruit that will remain” (John 15:16).
The Apostle Stage
In Church teaching, there are important differences between what is called “objective” redemption and “subjective” redemption. By his life, death, and resurrection, Jesus has already reconciled us with the Father: this is objective redemption. Subjective redemption is the application of the saving gifts of Christ to individuals, the manifestation of salvific transformation in each of our lives. Human beings contribute nothing to the work of Christ in objective redemption, but the exercise of our free cooperation with God’s grace is central in the drama of subjective redemption.
As disciples mature, they reach a turning point where they take personal ownership and responsibility for the mission of the Church. They realize that they have also been anointed and sent by Christ on a mission, and that there is no such thing as missional unemployment for the baptized. They have entered the Apostle stage of development. Apostles know that they also are one of the Lord’s “sent ones” or in Pope Francis’ memorable phrase: “missionary disciples.”9 They grasp that every one of us has a vocation: a work of love to which we have been called by God, and through which he is going to change us and change the world around us.
The Apostle stage of spiritual development is where people discern their personal vocations and abundant fruit-bearing becomes the norm. This is where lay apostles engage in both challenging the societal structures of sin and helping to create new structures ordered toward redemption and the flourishing of human beings. This is the developmental stage where Catholics become passionate about the active evangelization of those who do not yet know Christ and his Church.
The End for Which We Labor
In the end, all our pastoral and catechetical work is not just for the child being baptized and catechized but for the adult that child is called by God to become. The end for which we labor is the mature Christian who is both (1) an immortal intended for eternal happiness with God and (2) an apostle in his or her particular sphere — an agent of subjective redemption and abundant fruit-bearing through his or her cooperation with grace. We glorify God by facilitating the salvation and eternal happiness of immortals and the continual emergence of new missionary disciples who are actively encouraged to grow into the fullness of their earthly influence and creativity. It is these two ends that we serve when we evangelize and make disciples.
A Famine of Fruit
I have not found any research in this area, but I would like to share a very rough practitioner’s working estimate. Based on our experience to date working with 140,000 Catholics in over 500 parishes in 150 dioceses in 12 countries, I estimate that perhaps 3 percent of all the individual charisms and individual vocations10 that we have been given by God are being manifested and lived.
Christian vocation is a mystery that emerges from a sustained encounter with Jesus Christ. Because we are not yet calling most of our people to discipleship, their charisms and vocations are not manifesting, being discerned, and lived. Indeed, our failure to evangelize actually suppresses the emergence of vocations because the desire to discern God’s call is one of the normal fruits of discipleship. As a result, both the Church and the world are starved for lack of the abundant fruit that the Body of Christ has been anointed to bear.
How this has complicated the discernment process can be seen in the way ordinary lay Catholics so often assume that the term “vocation” refers only to priestly or religious vocation and is rare rather than universal. We expect a few people will be drawn out of the parish to go to the diocese, the seminary, or religious community because they have a special call. In practice, the rest of the laity remaining in the parish is presumed by nearly everyone to have nothing to discern. Therefore, no serious discernment support is made available for those who are not called to one of the obvious ecclesial vocations.
Recently, I spoke to a national gathering of religious vocation directors. I asked them, “How many of you have inquirers come to you who are not ready to discern?” The response was unanimous, “We all do.” I responded that most Catholics assume that only very exceptional people embark on a personal spiritual quest. So, it is very easy for those who are just beginning to move into a new threshold like curiosity or openness to conclude that their new and apparently rare surge in spiritual interest must mean they are called to a rare vocation: priesthood or religious life.
My friend Janet is a good example. She was raised Catholic and experienced a serious conversion as a child. Growing up, she decided that she must be called to become a sister since religious life was the only place where she knew Catholics talked out loud about God.
Janet entered a women’s community but eventually discerned that she was not called to religious life and left, still seeking God. For a time, she “double-dipped,” dividing her time between attendance at Mass and participation in a small non-denominational evangelical church. Why? Because that little evangelical congregation strongly encouraged its members to lives of conscious discipleship, fostered the discernment of charisms, and surrounded her with love and support as she passionately sought to follow Jesus. Eventually, Jan married. When her husband became a fervent Catholic convert, she returned full-time to her life as a Catholic. Despite years of serious spiritual searching, Jan did not grasp — until she was in her thirties — that she could be a lay disciple in the Catholic Church.
No wonder the Church is struggling. The vast majority of those to whom the power of the Holy Spirit has been given are not yet manifesting that power. This is why what Pope St. John Paul II taught is so important:
Therefore, the Church fulfills her mission when she guides every member of the faithful to discover and live his or her own vocation in freedom and to bring it to fulfillment in charity.11
Missionary Disciple in the Muslim World
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