Fruitful Discipleship. Sherry A. Weddell
Чтение книги онлайн.
Читать онлайн книгу Fruitful Discipleship - Sherry A. Weddell страница 10
There is someone out there right now who is waiting for what you have been given to give, and their life, their spiritual and personal destiny, hangs in the balance. You may not have met them yet. They may not even have been born yet, but in God’s providence, you are the one. It matters that you say “yes.”
So, what does this mean for those of us serving in some form of pastoral leadership? What does it mean to lead, to pastor, to govern a community of missionary disciples and fruit-bearers? Pope St. John Paul II describes it this way:
This munus regendi [governance] represents a very delicate and complex duty which, in addition to the attention which must be given to a variety of persons and their vocations, also involves the ability to coordinate all the gifts and charisms which the Spirit inspires in the community, to discern them and to put them to good use for the upbuilding of the Church in constant union with the bishops.15
All Catholic leaders — ordained or not — are, in a real way, called to be fruit-farmers, not just spiritual seed-scatterers. Everything we do is for the sake of producing an abundant harvest. Sustained, intentional evangelization changes everything by enriching the spiritual soil of individuals, families, and whole parish communities. Making disciples creates the conditions that will enable our sacramental seeds, which are filled with the life of God, to germinate, grow, and bear a rich harvest of fruit that will nourish the Church and bring Christ to the world.
1 2590 Karpos, Strong’s Concordance (online at http://biblehub.com/greek/2590.htm, as of May 5, 2017).
2 See Catechism of the Catholic Church (CCC), 1832.
3 Lewis, The Weight of Glory, p. 29.
4 See Pope St. John Paul II, Christifideles Laici (on the vocation and mission of the laity), 16 (online at http://w2.vatican.va/content/john-paul-ii/en/apost_exhortations/documents/hf_jp-ii_exh_30121988_christifideles-laici.html, as of May 5, 2017).
5 Carey Lodge, “John Wesley: 10 Quotes on Faith, Evangelism, and Putting God First,” Christian Today, June 28, 2016 (online at http://www.christiantoday.com/article/john.wesley.10.quotes.on.faith.evangelism.and.putting.god.first/89402.htm, as of May 5, 2017).
6 Pope St. John Paul II, Christifideles Laici, 32.
7 Ibid., 57.
8 Ludwig Ott, Fundamentals of Catholic Dogma (Charlotte, NC: TAN Books, 2009), p. 330.
9 Dom Anscar Vonier, A Key to the Doctrine of the Eucharist (Assumption Press, 2013), p. 3, emphasis added.
10 For more on the threshold of openness, read pp. 155-166 in Forming Intentional Disciples.
11 For more about how to have a threshold conversation, read pp. 191-199 in Forming Intentional Disciples.
12 St. Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologiae, III, q69, a8 (online at http://www.newadvent.org/summa/4069.htm#article8, as of May 5, 2017).
13 St. Francis de Sales, “To a Lady. On the Distractions of a Busy Life. May 19, 1609,” in A Selection from the Spiritual Letters of St. Francis de Sales, translated by H. L. Sidney Lear (New York: E. P. Dutton and Company, 1876), p. 122.
14 Pope Francis, Evangelii Gaudium, 259.
15 Pope St. John Paul II, Pastores Dabo Vobis, 26.
Chapter 3
The Undaunted Fruit-Farmer
He changed the desert into pools of water,
arid land into springs of water,
And settled the hungry there;
they built a city to live in.
They sowed fields and planted vineyards,
brought in an abundant harvest.
Psalm 107:35-37
Years ago, I moved from Seattle — locals call it “Rain City” — to Colorado Springs, 6,700 feet high in the Rockies and semi-arid. I bought a “fixer-upper” home filled with tons of potential and not much else. My first clue about how bad things had been was when total strangers thanked me the first time I mowed the dead stubble that passed for a lawn, saying, “Nobody has done that in years!” I watered for a year, but nothing grew except three-foot-high Canadian thistles.
Finally, I brought in a very savvy landscape designer. She took one look and summed up my yard with brisk precision: “There’s nothing here to save.” She was not saying “Abandon all hope, you can’t have a garden in Colorado.” She meant, “You are going to have to start from scratch. You can’t garden in Colorado the way you gardened in Seattle where rain regularly falls from the sky.” When I asked her how long it would take for a new garden to reach maturity, she calculated for a moment. “Eight years.”
So, I double-dug flower beds, hauled in good soil, planted, fertilized, and watered. I pruned and mulched, and replanted when things failed. I bribed male relatives, friends, and seminarians to tackle some of the toughest tasks and hired skilled help when I needed it. I beat off marauding deer and rabbits. Together, the garden and I survived blizzards and hail bombs. I would stalk around the garden on cool summer mornings, trowel in hand, rejoicing in the color and light. Eight years, fourteen water-wise trees, sixty-five hardy shrubs, and hundreds of tough-as-nails perennials later, I found out that my landscape designer was right. A lush, green, and undaunted garden with a view of Pikes Peak now completely fills what was once the neighborhood eyesore.
I have often used the story of my garden to illustrate the dramatic cultural shifts we have lived through over the past fifty years. Our “spiritual climate” has also changed dramatically, and so has the life of the Church. Our culture is now an arid spiritual place, a far more hostile and difficult place to make disciples and foster apostles. But that does not mean we cannot evangelize and bear abundant fruit in the twenty-first century. It just means we cannot do it the way we once did when the culture generally supported our faith and values.
Baptized Unbelievers
Pope