Ephesians 2:10 (NKJV)
For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand that we should walk in them.
Acts 20:24 (CEB)
But nothing, not even my life, is more important than my completing my mission. This is nothing other than the ministry I received from the Lord Jesus: to testify about the good news of God’s grace.
O, Lord, that I may perceive, receive, and complete the good works You have prepared for me to walk in. Amen.
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Although my life’s priority is the Christian Gospel, I am convinced that I have a lay, not a Religious, vocation. My reading of Scripture gives me the understanding that one of the tasks of those with a calling of the ordained ministry is to equip the laity, whom Jesus has sent out as sheep among wolves (Matt. 10:16)to become transformative sacraments of Divine Love in secular society with the admontion to be as “wise as serpents” as well as “gentle as doves.”
My personal experience in all but one Church, and I have tried to find a supportive spiritual community in several denominations, has been that the theological/spiritual formation is woefully inadequaate as preparation for an effective lay ministry to the world. In fact the Church seems to recognize only supportive lay ministries in the ecclesiastical subculture as evidence of a genuine spiritual commitment. There is no way that I could give the time, talent and treasure expected of me in my local parish by both clergy and fellow laity and still have anything left over after I have fulfilled my personal responsibilities to be an effective witness to the transformative power of the Gospel in secular society.
Am I the only one who feels like delivering a “Do I look like God speech” at Church?
Like Zaccheus climbing the sycamore tree to get a better view of Jesus, we sometimes have to climb out of our schedules or circumstances to get a better view of Jesus. The kingdom of God can be advanced both in church work and in work not affiliated with a church. A silent retreat might well help you discern where God would have you spend your time and energy in this season of your life.
I have always known that I had a lay vocation to serve in the world, not the Church. For over 25 years I was in a Church under the pastoral care of a contemplative Order, the Congregation of the Most Holy Redeemer (Redemptorists), that was faithful to the vision of its Founder, St. Alphonsus Liguori who had a calling to serve the “poorest of the poor” in 18th century rural Italy. The priests were supportive of both lay vocations to assist the priests with the theological/spiritual formation of parishioners and lay vocations to serve as a uniquely Christian transformative presence in the world, which meant relying on the suasive power of love, not the coercive power of law to heal, (over time)minds, hearts and wills. We were reminded that we ourselves served as “wounded healers”, not yet perfected and therefor must be discerning, not judgmental. Theological formation taught us that our faith was an eschatological faith grounded in the Trinitarian and Christological Mysteries, our spirituality was a spirituality of imperfection centering on forgiveness, not perfection although there was to be no tolerance for predatory behavior, especially toward the more vulnerable and powerless people in our society. What I am experiencing in most Churches is not a uniquely Christian faith community; but middle class social clubs where the Galatian heresy of beginning with the Gospel; but returning to the Law is the norm for spiritual practice, that God, Church and Country have replaced Father, Son and Holy Spirit as the *Holy* Trinity and the civic virtues of the Protestant work ethic have replaced tge theological virtues of Faith, Hope and Love. Although there are individual parishioners with a deep faith, the parish communal life, apart from the liturgical celebrations, is more like a middle class social club than a uniquely Christian faith community. The corporal works of mercy are more a “reaching down to” than a “reaching out to” the poor. There is much condemnation of those whose lives do not reflect middle class values, with little understanding of the lack of options for those who live from paycheck to paycheck with little or no discretionary income for middle class pleasures or saving for the inevitable unexpected crises of life which are normative “responsible” behaviors for a more affluent middle class. I know the judgmentalism is more a result of unawareness than malice; but the affect on those who are subjected to it is no less hurtful for that.
If I were not a sacramentalist with a “high church” love of liturgical drama centering on the Mysteries of faith rather than human spiritual experience, I would probably join a black or hispanic church. The theological formation is still lacking in most of those communities; but the spirituality is more human. Of course, it is painful to confront one’s own daemons–much easier to fight the potential for evil in others than in oneself; but to be human is to be conflicted and a “wounded” humanity is better than no humanity at all. Grace may be free; but it isn’t cheap. If accepted, it will cost us everything that the narcissistic ego holds dear. As one person who dabbled in Hindu spirituality put it: “Enlightenment begins when your Third Eye is at one with your turd eye and you can clearly see all your own shit.” What I am finding in most formal Christian communities is profession of a belief in the universality of sin; but no recognition of it in oneself and a coercive fear-driven, law-centered spirituality rather than a suasive love-inspired, God-centered spirituality.
A moral theology built on the authentic Gospel will be a far cry from a stoical morality built on duty and obligation, both deduced from some cosmic law of nature.
–Fr. Joseph Oppitz, C.Ss.R, Autumn Memoirs of St. Alphonsus Liguori
The typical moralist sees grace as a means to fulfill a commandment. He puts the commandment in the first place and sees the difference of Old and New Testaments in the observance of the Decalogue. In the Old Testament they did not have the grace to keep the commandments; now in the New Testament they have sufficient grace if they use all the means, the sacraments, and so on. This is an anthropocentric, moralistic approach which makes the grace of Christ and finally Christ Himself only the means for the law, for the commandments . But primacy is not the law, the commandments “thou shalt” and “thou shalt not”; the primacy is our Lord, who in his grace, his tremendous love, comes to encounter us.
–Bernard Haering, C.Ss.R., Redemptorist Moral Theologian
“Core moral concepts, such as freedom, conscience, obedience, and fidelity, can have very different meanings and importance. These differing meanings depend on if our concern is with conformity, fulfilling norms, and subordination, or instead if our focus is radical thinking infused with the spirit of God blowing as it wills and marked by grown-up, freely affirmed responsibility.”
–Bernard Haering, The Virtues of an Authentic Life (1997), p. 53
“Alas for the blood of Jesus Christ, despised and trampled underfoot by Christians, nay by priests under the pretense of re-establishing the purity of doctrine and fervor of Apostolic times!”
–St. Alphonsus Liguori on the Jansenists
I am thankful for the role the Redemptorists had in your life. I don’t know if it is possible for you to retain some sort of affiliation with them or not, but perhaps you can carry those spiritual skills into a ministry among the poor (which may or may not be affiliated with a church). May God show you the next right step.
What I am finding is that people not born into an institutionalized christianity are more receptive to the Gospel when it is not expressed in “church speak” than most cradle Christians who think that they know the Gospel; but have not even begun to grasp the meaning of the Trinitarian and Christological Mysteries.
“Accept Jesus Christ as you personal Savior or you will go to Hell” is NOT the Gospel. The Gospel is about God’s gift of “new life” not “fire insurance.”
Below are the fundamentals of the Gospel message:
A Holy Saturday meditation on death and sin from Orthodox theologian John
Meyendorff:
Death and sin are inseparable cosmic realities in fallen creation, because “through one man sin entered into the world, and through sin death, and thus death passed unto all men” (Rom. 5:12). According to the prevailing patristic exegesis of that passage, then, it is this universal mortality that makes personal sinfulness inevitable. Dominated by suffering, fear of death, and insecurity, man came under the power of an instinct for SELF-protection and SELF-preservation. He began to struggle for his OWN survival, at the expense of his neighbor, even if this survival could be only temporary (and therefore illusory), since “death reigned from Adam to Moses, even upon those who did not sin as Adam did” (Rom. 5:14). Indeed, it still reigns, in spite of all human efforts to conquer it, except by Jesus, the Christ.
Mortality is, therefore, the ultimate condition of fallen man. It keeps him enslaved, dependent, and inevitably concerned about his threatened self, with a tendency to use others for his own selfish interests. The vicious circle of death and sin, however, was BROKEN by God Himself, who came “to serve, and not to be served,” who said that it is “better to give, than to receive,” and “who gave Himself for the salvation of many.” In a world where struggle for survival at the expense of others is the law, He showed that death for others is the ultimate act of love. And when this act was performed by God Himself, a new life indeed came into the
world.
This “redemption” brought by Christ defies rational explanation, yet its significance
is overwhelming. It is an event that took place in history, that, like all historical events, took time: the time of Jesus’ earthly life, and the three days of His burial.
–John Meyendorff, The Time of Holy Saturday, from ORTHODOX SYNTHESIS: The Unity of Theological Thought, edited by Joseph J. Allen
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At the moment of the crucifixion, God was not powerless but omnipotent in love, and so freely chose to be vulnerable and defenseless.[86] Having chosen to share our struggle in a transforming way, in and through Jesus, God faithfully preserved the freedom of creation, so that both Jesus and those who condemned him to death lived out their free choices. The loneliness and powerlessness of Jesus’ death by crucifixion were undeserved and absurd for one who had spent his life proclaiming God’s unconditional love and empowering the marginalized and powerless. Yet as he was dying defenseless upon the cross, that God had the last word about such seeming failure and absurdity.[87] The seeming failure of Jesus dying on a cross was not made into a success by the fact that God raised Jesus from the dead. Rather, the resurrection made clear the success that had already taken place on the cross, where the utterly defenseless and vulnerable Jesus reaffirmed his love for God and all humans, including those who were crucifying him. “God’s transcendent overcoming of human failure is historically incorporated in Jesus’ never-ceasing love for God and [humans], during and in the historical moment of his [seeming] failure on the cross.”[88] The fully human Jesus hanging on the cross was a success in the triumph of his love. His final and irrevocable decision transformed the absurdity he suffered into a victory, made clear in the Easter event. The resurrection revealed the salvific reality hidden within his dark night of faith on the cross. As the other side of the cross and the kind of life that led to it, Jesus’ resurrection was human and divine love’s triumph over destructive power. God’s trust in creation and human freedom were not in vain. In and through Jesus, compassionate love prevailed. “The God who personally died in Jesus Christ fulfilled the pattern of love beyond all expectation, and in so doing justified that human confidence which in the last resort is the only alternative to self-destruction.”[89]
Mary Magdalene came to the tomb “while it was still dark” and found it empty (John 20:1). Jesus was not among the dead, but living (Luke 24:5). Death and darkness had not overcome life and light (John 1:4-5). Jesus’ resurrection on the day we call Sunday marked a new “day one” (Greek text of Mark 16:2; Matt 28:1; Luke 24:1; John 20:1), like the “day one” (Hebrew text) at the beginning of creation when God said, “Let there be light” (Gen 1:3-5). In the dawn of that Sunday after Jesus’ death, the new “day one” of Jesus’ risen life initiated a renewed creation in which light would never be overcome by darkness, nor life by death (John 1:1-9; cf. Gen 1:3-5). Jesus was the new Adam, or the new human, of that renewed creation (Rom5:5-19). His resurrection irrevocably opened up the possibility of a qualitatively new future lived in the light of the Easter resurrection. In the light of the resurrection, Jesus’ disciples would be called to face the future with his creative fidelity.
During the time of his public ministry it seems clear that Jesus had most closely associated Twelve of his disciples with himself and his work toward a renewed Israel (Matt 19:28; Luke 22:28-30). Yet despite their sharing in his ministry and his Last Supper, Jesus’ arrest and crucifixion caused the Twelve, now become Eleven, to falter (Mark 14:27-30; Luke 22:31-34). Even the resurrection was something that they initially doubted and would not believe (Matt 28:17; Luke 24:11, 41: Mark 16:11, 13-14; John 20:9, 25-27). But as the Eleven searched for the meaning of Jesus’ death amid the events of Good Friday, the Church had begun to emerge in a more explicit way.[90] As the Eleven and the community gathered around them were reconstituted by their shared experience of Jesus as alive and by their Spirit-filled consensus in resurrection faith, the Church was definitively born.
~Bernard P. Prusak, The Church Unfinished: Ecclesiology Through the Centuries, Paulist Press, 2004
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[86] Kasper, The God of Jesus Christ, pp. 194-97
[87] Schillebeeckx, Christ, pp. 830 and 728-30; Church: The Human Story of God, pp. 120-29.
[88] Schillebeeckx, Christ, p. 830
[89] Ratzinger, Eschatology, p.97.
[90] Schillebeeckx, Jesus, pp. 344-45, 354-55, 382-90.
Four Walls Separating Us from the New Testament
Four crises separate Western Christians on the one hand from the New Testament writers and Eastern Christians on the other. If we understand these crises and the effects they had, we can attempt to “roll them back” in our minds and understand the New Testament more clearly.
The New Testament is in Greek, which has a large philosophical vocabulary that Latin lacks. Ecumenical councils used Greek as the working language; then they made an official translation into Latin for use in the West. Many of the most heated debates were about which Latin words best conveyed the meaning of the Greek resolution they had already agreed on. Because Greek philosophical concepts had to be translated into Latin legal concepts, theology in the West took on the character of codified law after the West lost Greek. To this day, Orthodox theologians reason like rabbis, while western theologians reason like lawyers.
Pelagianism
Augustine accused Pelagius of teaching salvation by works
· Western Christians are obsessed with not being saved by works
· Western Christians deemphasize ascetic disciplines and exercises
· Spirituality becomes a set of mental acts
· Salvation is rescue from hell, rather than transformation into glory
· Determinism enters some parts of western theology from Manichaeism through Augustine
Scholasticism
Theology moved from the monastery to the university
· Western theology is an intellectual discipline rather than a mystical pursuit
· Western theology is over-systematized
· Western Theology is systematized, based on a legal model rather than a philosophical model
· Western theologians debate like lawyers, not like rabbis
Reformation
Catholic reformers were excommunicated and formed Protestant churches
· Western churches become guarantors of theological schools of thought
· Western church membership is often contingent on fine points of doctrine
· Some western Christians believe that definite beliefs are incompatible with tolerance
· The atmosphere arose in which anyone could start a church
· The legal model for western theology intensifies despite the rediscovery of the East
Enlightenment
Philosophers founded empirical sciences
· Western theologians attempt to apply empiricism to theology
· Western theologians agonize over the existence of God
· Western theologians lose, deemphasize, neglect, marginalize, or explain away the supernatural
· Western theologians no longer have coherent answers for many practical religious questions
· Western churches outsource the treatment of religious problems to secular therapists
East and West
West East
· Western Christians are obsessed with not being saved by works
· Western Christians deemphasize ascetic disciplines and exercises
· Spirituality becomes a set of mental acts
· Salvation is rescue from hell
· The emphasis is on the cross
· Determinism enters some parts of western Christian theology
· Works express faith, faith gives birth to works
· Eastern Christians engage in fasting and other spiritual disciplines
· Spirituality involves both mind and body
· Salvation is transformation into glory
· The emphasis is on resurrection and transformation
· Determinism never entered Christian theology
· Western theology is primarily an intellectual discipline by professors
· Western theology is over-systematized
· Western theology is based on a legal model
· Western theologians debate like lawyers
· Eastern theology is primarily a mystical pursuit by monastics
· Eastern theology is not as strictly systematized; for example, the number of sacraments is not set and is not controversial
· Eastern theology is based on a philosophical model
· Eastern theologians debate like rabbis
· Western churches became guarantors of theological schools of thought
· Western church membership is often contingent on fine points of doctrine
· Some western Christians believe that definite beliefs are incompatible with tolerance
· The atmosphere arose in which anyone could start a church
· Eastern theology, while holding more strictly than western theology on basic dogmas, is tolerant of differences of opinions on finer points
· Eastern church membership is contingent on commitment and behavior
· Eastern Christians have no difficulty maintaining definite beliefs while remaining tolerant.
· There was nothing corresponding to the Protestant reformation and there is no proliferation of sects within the mainstream
· Western Christians see a dichotomy of spirit and matter
· Western theologians attempt to apply empiricism to theology
· Western theologians agonize over the existence of God
· Western theologians have lost, deemphasized, neglected, marginalized, or explained away the supernatural and miraculous
· Western theologians no longer have coherent answers for many practical religious questions (such as during bereavement)
· Western churches outsource the treatment of religious problems, such as bereavement, to secular therapists
· Eastern Christians see a dichotomy of God and creation
· Eastern theologians are largely unaffected by modernism
· Eastern theologians do not agonize over the existence of God
· Eastern theologians systematize the transcendent, the miraculous, and the mystical into their theology, without a concept of ‘supernatural’
· Eastern theologians have coherent and helpful answers for most practical spiritual problems (such as during bereavement)
· Eastern clergy, monastics, and lay experts have resources for spiritual direction, moral direction, and bereavement counseling; thus they do not outsource religious problems to secular experts,
ordination, catholic, orthodox, old catholic…
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