rather than a relationship to the person of Jesus, Lord of the Church, who came, lived, died, and rose again for us.
Openness. As that curiosity builds, the seeker becomes open to the possibility of personal and spiritual change, which is a big turning point. Openness is not a commitment to change, just the willingness to acknowledge to God and to yourself that you are open to the possibility of change. Since to do so involves giving up the sense of having absolute control over one’s own life and dropping one’s defenses, it can feel scary and even absolutely crazy. People typically need support from others as they move into openness.
Seeking. The next stage is spiritual seeking, where people are now actively grappling with whether or not they will choose to follow Jesus as his disciple in the midst of his Church. Consider this Gospel story:
As he was walking by the Sea of Galilee, he saw two brothers, Simon who is called Peter, and his brother Andrew, casting a net into the sea; they were fishermen. He said to them, “Come after me, and I will make you fishers of men.” At once they left their nets and followed him. (Matthew 4:18-20)
The spiritual seeker, like Peter and Andrew, is holding his or her nets — his or her entire life — and is steadily regarding Jesus and thinking about whether to drop those nets and follow him. The spiritual seeker has not yet dropped his or her net to follow Jesus but is grappling with whether to do so. It is a time of intense spiritual reflection that feels, for many, like a quest.
Intentional Disciple. Finally, we come to the moment that people do drop their nets and cross the last threshold to begin the life of an intentional disciple. Some are finally responding with faith to the baptismal graces they had received as an infant; others make this journey consciously as teens or adults before baptism. For instance, Cornelius the Centurion, seeking to know the way of salvation, sends for Peter to hear his message and experiences conversion before baptism (see Acts 10:44-48).
Missionary Disciple: Following Jesus and Being Sent by Jesus
The developmental stage of disciple corresponds to what the Catechism calls the “second conversion” (CCC 1428), a lifelong conversion. A man or woman who is now seeking to follow Jesus as a disciple grows spiritually and is transformed as he or she walks with Christ.
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
