still hold on to the name “Catholic” are functional agnostics or atheists — even if they occasionally drop by a parish. Catholic identity alone will not produce genuine fruit. Jews who presumed their spiritual status was assured because they were born to Jewish parents were schooled by John the Baptist in no uncertain terms — terms that apply just as much to us:
“Produce good fruits as evidence of your repentance; and do not begin to say to yourselves, ‘We have Abraham as our father,’ for I tell you, God can raise up children to Abraham from these stones. Even now the ax lies at the root of the trees. Therefore every tree that does not produce good fruit will be cut down and thrown into the fire.” (Luke 3:8-9)
Being active in your parish is not a guarantee either. You and I can be very active in our parish as catechists, musicians, members of the RCIA team, or the finance council. We can run capital campaigns, serve as ushers, and help with parish festivals. But all that activity is not necessarily fruit just because it takes place in a religious setting.
Fruit-bearing always emerges out of a growing relationship with God. Bearing spiritual fruit occurs when we act because we are seeking, however haltingly, to say “yes” to God’s love, grace, inspiration, or command. It can be difficult for devoted Catholics to believe that there are people who do not serve in church settings out of a personal faith. I was stunned when I first met active Catholics who told me they had no relationship with God.
For instance, I once attended an invitation-only national evangelization conference where a middle-aged man I didn’t know walked up to me at the first break. He startled me when he said “Until I read your book last month, I did not know it was possible to have a personal relationship with God.” That was not the sort of thing I expected to hear in a gathering like that!
This man was obviously a good guy and a highly committed Catholic. In fact, he was in full-time ministry forming clergy. So I asked him to help me understand why he thought he had not known that he could have a relationship with God. He said he was raised in a faithful, practicing Catholic family, but no one had ever talked about a relationship with God. He just had not known it was possible.
Since Forming Intentional Disciples was published, I have had similar conversations all over the world with bishops, seminary faculty, priests, religious, and lay leaders. They told me that when they were ordained or took final vows or began ministry, they had not been intentional disciples … but they were now. The fun part was hearing the amazing stories of encounter and how following Jesus had transformed their lives and ministries.
In every parish that is beginning to evangelize, the issue of leaders who are not yet disciples naturally emerges — as it should. One friend who is in parish ministry told me that staff members are coming to him acknowledging, “I am not a disciple yet.” What he reported and I have also witnessed is that most Catholics who come to this awareness don’t feel judged or a failure. They are just becoming aware of new spiritual possibilities. They are interested, open, and hungry, but they don’t know what to do.
When this happens, here are some suggestions that my friend and I have found useful:
1. Leave the conversation open-ended so that you can return to it. Offer to meet again if possible.
2. Pray right there and then if the individual is comfortable. I find that helping people to pray out loud and to acknowledge to God that they are open to spiritual and personal change and ready for more is very powerful. You are helping someone cross into the threshold of openness, a transition that can be very difficult.10 In my experience, God always answers that prayer in a powerful way.
3. If a solid trust exists between the two of you, and you have the time and privacy, consider having a threshold conversation. Threshold conversations are very simple, open-ended spiritual conversations — a kind of listening evangelization that helps you get a sense of where people have been in their spiritual journey and where they are now. You can have a meaningful threshold conversation in ten minutes — or much longer, depending upon what your friend has to say! A simple way to broach the topic is to say that if your friend feels comfortable, you would love to hear the story of his or her lived relationship or experience of God to this point in life. If people are willing to tell you their story, your job is to listen intently to understand what that journey has been like from their perspective.11 We have seen people move through whole thresholds just by telling their story to someone who really listened.
4. Look for individuals to whom the seeker is close and who are spiritually farther along and help those friends reach out to support this individual as he or she grows closer to Jesus.
5. Is this individual already involved with or attending existing evangelization experiences, retreats, courses, or other opportunities at the parish or local level? If so, ask how those experiences are affecting him or her. If your friend is not yet involved, help him or her get connected.
A World in Spiritual Motion
I find it enormously helpful to keep reminding myself that everyone I meet is in spiritual motion. A man could essentially sleepwalk through his baptism because he fell in love with a Catholic girl and was jumping through the hoops of the RCIA process just to please his future in-laws. Then ten years later, he can experience a massive conversion and awaken to the power of the Gospel in amazing ways. Meanwhile, one of his friends might go through a period of spiritual fervor in high school and then lose interest while in college and walk away from both Jesus and his Catholic identity. Both possibilities (and many, many others) are present throughout our lives. St. Thomas Aquinas describes it this way: One can seek intentionally to grow in grace after baptism while another, through postbaptismal negligence, “baffles grace.”12
It seems incredible that puny human beings can baffle the grace of God by our lack of cooperation, but it is true. And to the extent that we do, we will bear little or no fruit. A classic observation by St. Francis de Sales is an essential corrective if we are going to live the lifelong conversion known as discipleship:
I am glad that you make a daily new beginning; there is no better means of progress in the spiritual life than to be continually beginning afresh.13
Lack of Prayer Is an Obstacle
One very significant obstacle to fruit-bearing is lack of prayer, which is at the heart of a relationship with God. Without prayer, all of our activity risks being fruitless. Recall that the seed in the parable dies not only when the birds eat it or when it falls on barren soil, but when it is choked by thorns that are “worldly anxiety, the lure of riches, and the craving for other things” (Mark 4:19).
That is why Pope Francis urges:
Let us call upon him today, firmly rooted in prayer, for without prayer all our activity risks being fruitless and our message empty. Jesus wants evangelizers who proclaim the good news not only with words but above all by a life transfigured by God’s presence.14
Disciple-Makers as Fruit-Farmers
The Catechism tells us:
The fruit of sacramental life is both personal and ecclesial. For every one of the faithful on the one hand, this fruit is life for God in Christ Jesus; for the Church, on the other, it is an increase in charity and in her mission of witness. (CCC 1134)
For every one of us, the fruit we bear has a profound impact on our personal maturation and holiness as disciples in Christ. But your fruit also increases the evangelical capacity of the whole Church: her love and ability to bear witness to Christ. The mission and compassion of the whole Church is fueled by your
