At the outset of this sacred season of Lent, I was privileged to celebrate the Rite of Election at which 106 catechumens and 188 candidates for full communion with the Church gathered at the Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception in Albany to begin their final period of preparation for membership in our Roman Catholic community (see photos on the front page of The Evangelist last week).
That period will culminate with the celebration of the Sacraments of Initiation -- Baptism, Confirmation and the Eucharist -- at the Easter Vigil.
The Rite of Election was very inspiring, not only because there are so many men and women committed to pursuing membership in our faith community but also because their commitment serves to remind the entire Church of the call to discipleship we have received.
Discipleship
It is unfortunate, I think, that many Catholics today have come to regard "discipleship" as a Protestant concept, because it is rooted in the Scriptures and has deep meaning. It has to do with listening and learning, with acquaintanceship and apprenticeship, and, therefore, with following or patterning oneself after a Master with whom we are on intimate terms.
Discipleship, first and foremost, is concerned about a relationship -- an intimate, personal interaction with God, who loves us passionately and whom we love in return.
That point, I believe, needs to be underscored and emphasized because for too long a time, far too many people have perceived Christianity not as a loving relationship but as a rather impersonal system of rules and regulations, of frustrating do's and don'ts, of laws to be kept and commandments to be obeyed -- in short, as a rather grim, cold, unattractive, lifeless venture of gaining merits so that maybe one day, if we persevere long enough and do what the law calls for, we might earn the right to enter heaven.
Relationships
Such a perception of the Christian life totally misses the point of what discipleship means. Let me try to explain a bit further.
I would suggest that there is a kind of Dan Rather, Peter Jennings or Tom Brokaw problem in our Church today. By that, I mean I consider Rather, Jennings and Brokaw to be competent newscasters; and I believe what they tell me on TV each evening to be a fairly objective reporting of the news.
I also believe that Mark McGwire is a great baseball player, that Doug Flutie is an exceptional quarterback and that my doctor knows what she is talking about when I go to her for my annual checkup.
That, however, is precisely the problem I am trying to highlight. Thousands of people who call themselves Catholics or Christians have gone no further with Jesus Christ than I have with Rather, Jennings and Brokaw, with Mark McGwire, Doug Flutie and my doctor. The problem is a problem of belief: I am willing to give intellectual assent to, and to acknowledge certain facts as true about these newscasters, sports figures or my doctor; but I surely haven't surrendered my whole life to them in a loving response to their call for total commitment. That is why my relationship with them is not one of discipleship.
Belief 'in'
Unfortunately, too often the same is true of our relationship with Jesus Christ. Samuel Taylor Coleridge, the noted 18th-century philosopher and poet stated that he believed Plato and Socrates, but that he believed in Jesus Christ.
The word "in" is the crucial one. It suggests a leap, a movement of confidence and abandonment, a personal commitment to the Lord who is calling us. Such a decision or commitment is meant to affect a person's entire life and will require that the person break with the past and adopt a whole new outlook and pattern of behavior.
Thus, the authentic believer, the true disciple, says: "Here I am; Lord, I am completely yours. Now what?"
Jesus is alive
That's a far cry from the somewhat typical attitude or response (albeit an unspoken one) of many Christians: "Sure, I believe; I believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of God, that He did all those things that the nuns used to tell us about or that we hear about from the pulpit. But I am not going to let it change my life; I am not really going to do anything about it."
Gerald Vann, the renowned writer and preacher, once shocked his audience when he said, "I don't believe in the dogmas, doctrines and teachings of the Catholic Church." Then, pausing, he added, "Rather, I believe through them in the living reality beyond, in the person of Jesus Christ."
That is the kind of shock I think we need today. For it is impossible to be a disciple, to give a loving response to Christ's invitation to come follow Him, if we have never truly met Christ and responded to His presence in a personal way.
Recently, 41 students in a Catholic high school were asked the question, "Is Jesus alive today?" Thirty-eight responded "no." That's the real problem. For many of us, Jesus is just a name, more of a something (a topic, a theme, a subject, a matter for discussion) rather than a someone -- a person who is to be known
and loved.
Knowing the Lord
And that is precisely the point I am trying to make: To be a disciple means to come to know the Lord. Discipleship is not about pursuing a goal or developing a philosophy or subscribing to an ideology; it is about coming to know a person, Jesus Christ, and about the conversion of one's entire life to Him and His plan of life.
In this relationship of discipleship, the invitation, the initiation of the call always comes from the Lord. However, we are free to respond to this call -- or not. And this consent on our part to God's desire to enter into our lives constitutes the second important component of discipleship: namely, our free choice to acquiesce, to say yes or no, to follow the Master and to walk in His ways.
This aspect of discipleship, I believe, is captured well in one of the Gospel scenes. John the Baptist, who was imprisoned, sent some of his disciples to Jesus to ask if He were the long-awaited Messiah. Jesus responded, "Go and tell John what you have seen and heard -- the blind see, the lame walk, the deaf hear, the lepers are cleansed, the dead are raised, and the poor have the good news preached to them."
In other words, Jesus was saying, "These are the prophecies, these are the predictions; I've fulfilled them; obviously, I'm the one." Then He added something, almost as though, when John's disciples had started to leave, Jesus thought of something else they should know. He told them, "And fortunate is the person whose faith is not shattered because of me."
Who Christ is
Now, that is an extremely important statement, and it holds the key to our response to Jesus' call to discipleship. In our idiom, Jesus is saying, "Lucky is the person who is not fooled because I seem so very ordinary."
Jesus realized that the people had not been content with the prophecies about the Messiah. They played down the disturbing ones, like that of the "suffering servant," and dreamed up additional ones of their own. In their minds, the Messiah had to be a great hero and warrior; he would organize an army to defeat their enemies and then establish a wonderful earthly kingdom.
The apostles were also infected with this fantasy; even after the Resurrection, they continued to ask, "Now, Lord, now are you going to establish your kingdom?" Naturally, they thought, if He had the power, He would use it when the occasion arose.
On His terms
This was the problem Jesus faced: He could not be the Messiah people wanted Him to be. They didn't understand the Father's strategy: namely, that they were to consent freely to Jesus out of love, not because He dazzled them with wonders or miraculous displays of might. There was to be no power play or pressure for commitment.
The signs were there, just as the prophets had predicted they would be; but discipleship was still to involve a gamble, a risk, a leap. Love always does.
And this is still the scandal for so many of us: God leaves us so utterly free. I often hear it said: "If God wants me to love Him, why doesn't He give me some kind of proof that I'd have to accept?" Things haven't changed much I guess; "These people," Jesus lamented, "are always asking for a sign."
But why should we want Christ to be less human than we are? No man or woman, for example, would want a spouse's love if it were not given freely, without manipulation and force, precisely because such a relationship would not be love at all. Why should God be different? God wants us to choose Him, but He makes it easy to refuse. Why? Because God wants our response to discipleship, if given, to be worthwhile.
Free decision
Discipleship, then, involves a relationship, a reaching out in love on the part of the Lord, and a free and deeply personal response on our part to God's caring embrace.
Furthermore, our response to discipleship is not a once-and-for-all thing made, for example, on the day of one's Baptism or Confirmation, or in some type of conversion or charismatic experience; rather, it is like any love relationship -- an ongoing and ever-unfolding process.
Since God's love is ever-present and ever-faithful, discipleship, then, involves our move, our willingness to respond daily to God's call to love by patterning our life after that of Jesus and by asking what following Him or walking in His path signifies for us here and now in this concrete human situation.
Patterning our life after that of Jesus, I would suggest, means striving to do in our world today what Jesus did for the people of His day: building up a community of faith and worship...reaching out to those in need...and sharing the Good News of God's love with all whom we encounter.
May this Lenten Season, then, deepen our awareness of our call to discipleship; and may we be inspired to respond to that call with a renewed openness to what discipleship means here and now, and with a renewed commitment to pattern our lives more fully after that of Jesus -- our Master, our brother, our loving friend.