Tag Archives: fid

FID: Thresholds of Conversion

22 Thursday Aug 2013

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Rather than taking Chapters 5 to 8, as individual posts, I want to cluster these together and speak to Weddell’s overarching idea of the Thresholds of Conversion. Whatever I say here will need to be expanded on by your own reading of these chapters (which naturally contain a huge amount of further detail), but I think the presentation of a single concept is a useful starting point to understanding the point the author is making.

First we must recognise that a great deal of contemporary evangelisation is based on models of catechesis and formation. That is to say that there is an assumption that once a basic doctrine of the faith has been adequately explained or illustrated, the subject (person) will come to accept that point as true. This is a dangerous supposition. Whilst an intelligent and articulated adult may well understand a theological truth after proper catechesis, there is a significant difference between understanding the faith (alone) and making that knowledge of the faith the principle factor in making all the decisions in one’s life. Baptism – our incorporation into the mystical Body of Christ – is a fundamentally and deeply personal encounter with the person of Jesus Christ; not simply a theoretical or ethereal bonding, but a physical and tangible union with the life of the Blessed Trinity.

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FID: Grace and the Great Quest

14 Wednesday Aug 2013

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Holy Mass is offered in the presence of the relics of St Therese of Liseux (Photo: Marcin Mazur)

Mass in the presence of the relics of St Therese of Liseux (Photo: Marcin Mazur)

Chapter Four of Forming Intentional Disciples begins with a great quote: ‘Grace is grace, not magic’. In this chapter, Weddell seeks to underline the importance of what I described in the last post as an integrated Christian life. In other words, the importance of a life that does not stop with sacramental preparation and reception, but that begins there and is refreshed there, as a means to sanctification and salvation – as the means to becoming a saint.

I have often tried to reiterate the point made by Tertullian and others, that the sacrament of penance, for example, is not simply about the absolution of confessed sin, but also the means to the recovery of the grace given in baptism (cf. CCC §1446). Our reception of the sacraments effects the outcome of the sacrament, but it also pours into our hearts the grace we require for holiness. Making our confession and receiving absolution is not simply a matter of dealing with past sin, but an opportunity to grow in the life of grace in the future! Grace is given to us in order to strengthen us for the journey to heaven.

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FID: The Fruit of Discipleship

13 Tuesday Aug 2013

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Detail from the tabernacle of the church of Vår Frue, Ålesund, Norway

Detail from the tabernacle of the church of Vår Frue, Ålesund, Norway

With the significant emphasis that she places on discipleship, Sherry Weddell makes a convincing argument for such intentional Catholicism in Chapter Three of her book. She holds up a couple of parishes as examples of where a handful of ‘intentional Catholics’ have made a real impact on the wider life of the parish, and where this has spread within the parish context, setting aside the fable that some are called to sanctity, whilst others are called to be mere ordinary Christians.

Certainly in parishes where I’ve worked this has been the case. A small group of particularly committed Catholics – intentional, to use Weddell’s term – can make a difference to all areas of parish life, not least catechesis, faith formation, the witness of sacramental preparation and thanksgiving, family life, and sacrificial giving. The lay faithful expect their priest to be a man who leads the way, but when other laity do so too, it creates a healthy atmosphere of dedication to the faith and perseverance in the way of the Lord Jesus; an attractive path for others to follow.

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FID: We Don’t Know What Normal Is

09 Friday Aug 2013

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Detail from a church ceiling in Bologna, Italy

Detail from a church ceiling in Bologna, Italy

Chapter Two of Sherry Weddell’s book is entitled, We don’t know what normal is. Here she underlines the dramatic – but often unspoken – truth that a personal encounter with Jesus Christ is not the reserve of Protestant Evangelical language, but an authentic part of the Christian life as understood by the Church throughout the ages.

The writings of Blessed John Paul II and Benedict XVI are littered with quotations about this ‘friendship’ with the Lord Jesus, but it is nothing new. Pope Saint Pius X, as noted by Pope Benedict, ‘teaches all of us that a deeply personal relationship with Christ that we cultivate and grow day by day must always be at the foundation of our work to spread the faith, wherever it may be’ (BXVI, General Audience, 18 August 2010). Saint Philip Neri spoke to the Lord openly and personally in many of his spontaneous prayers – Jesus, be a Jesus to me. This is not the mutterings of a crazed Televangelist, but a child of God who lives the promises of his baptism – his incorporation into the mystical Body of Christ – and wishes to make make disciples of all the nations (Mt. 28:19).

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FID: God Has No Grandchildren

08 Thursday Aug 2013

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Over the next few posts I want to summarise some of the chapters of Sherry Weddell’s excellent and readable book, Forming Intentional Disciples (hence, FID). The book was initially recommended to me by Hannah Vaughan-Spruce (who writes at Transformed in Christ) and by Bishop Philip Egan on Twitter. Hannah was Catechetical Co-ordinator in Balham when I was there, and she now works with Bishop Egan in the Diocese of Portsmouth. It was a good recommendation and there is much to commend this timely and articulate work. I hope some of these personal reflections of mine might be helpful to others.

Although the first chapter – God has no Grandchildren – examines the state of religious life in the United States, it is far from irrelevant to the situation of the Church in Britain. The figures and statistics presented are (I would guess) vastly different from the UK where, for example, the number of defections from Catholicism to Evangelical Protestantism is much lower than the number of those who leave the Church and simply ‘give up’ any affiliation or faith practice. In the UK, there simply isn’t the same number of proselytising Protestants as in the US, and those Protestant Evangelical hubs that do exist are often ‘pockets’ of Evangelical religion in the wider mix and mess of the Anglican Communion. On top of that, secularism is far more ‘advanced’ in the UK than the US (where, across the board, Church attendance is considerably higher), and so the trend is towards defections to ‘The Land of None’, as Weddell terms anonymous, unaffiliated Christians.

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