Welby says it is 'wonderful' to convert to Catholicism

Welby says it is 'wonderful' to convert to Catholicism (The Tablet)

Archbishop of Canterbury: "What we need is for people to be disciples of Jesus Christ. I don’t really care whether it’s the Church of England or Rome or the Orthodox or Pentecostals or the Lutherans or Baptists. They are faithful disciples of Christ..."

I post this not out of Roman Catholic triumphalism but because I think it is a good ecumenical reflection, and also reflects a strand which has been prominent in my spiritual journey over the years that Christianity is not primarily about individual assent to a set of intellectual assertions (beliefs) but is a communal way of life (discipleship) modelled for us by Jesus the Christ. This is also a strong theme in the writings of Richard Rohr which I follow with great interest.

This is a fairly standard expression of Anglican Latitudinarianism, which was been fairly prominent in that community for quite some centuries now (including in Broad Church ideas about invisible Church unity, High Church branch theory and whatnot).

It is always a bit ironic when applied to the Catholic and Orthodox Churches, as those Churches quite rightly reject such ideas, knowing that Christian faith and discipleship of course requires all of orthodoxy (right belief vs heresy), orthopraxy (right conduct vs sin) and visible unity (communion vs schism).

Hello John - My concern/focus on your post are the definitions (?) implied in your phrases:
- individual assent to a set of intellectual assertions (beliefs), and
- a communal way of life (discipleship).

Are you saying "individual assent to a set of intellectual assertions" defines "beliefs", and "a communal way of life" is "discipleship"? Please explain. Since you say this distinction is "prominent in my spiritual journey over the years" it is clearly important to you, and so you must be speaking things carefully thought out.

>3 ThomasRichard:

Thanks, Thomas. I'm not sure that I'm trying to define anything. I'm also not trying to set one thing against another. I agree with >2 hf22: about orthodoxy, orthopraxy and unity - all play their part. I think there has been perhaps too much of a focus on orthodoxy and not enough on orthopraxy (and often not enough on unity), hence my use of the word "primarily" - I am not dismissing orthodoxy, but trying to set it in balance with the others.

I would not say that a communal way of life is discipleship, but I would say that discipleship necessarily includes a communal way of life, otherwise we would not need a Church.

I was left wondering where the spirit "fits in". One can be orthodox, free of grave sin and visibly "a good person", sociable, gregarious, all about everyone getting along, and yet something essential can be lacking. What about the interior life, the life of grace, the life of prayer - the spiritual dimension? Without the life of Christ in the man, is he a Christian? In one sense I suppose he can be. But in another....

The Church teaches, "All are called to holiness and to the perfection of charity." That phrase "used to be" commonly verbalized in churches I attended. These days, no. These days I hear of programs to get everyone into evangelizing, and programs to get everyone to discover and practice their "gifts" - charisms. Activity; activity. Considering Martha and Mary, much Martha, where's Mary? "One thing is needful. Mary has chosen the good portion, which shall not be taken away from her."

So - I realize this is off-topic in a sense. But - if the Bishop says, ""What we need is for people to be disciples of Jesus Christ," it seems the one thing needful ought to be on the table.

>5 ThomasRichard:

I just assume that life in the Spirit is part of discipleship, an unspoken assumption - I can't imagine being a disciple without it.

One of my favourite Catholic authors is the Jesuit Antony de Mello. In his book Awareness he effectively says that the interior life without action is empty, but activists without the interior life are loose cannons. Once again it is a question of balance rather than either/or.

John -
Concerning "an interior life" -
Fr. R. Garrigou-Lagrange, OP, in his book, Christian Perfection and Contemplation, describes a process in time, for an earnest disciple, in the beginning, of moving from (1) an interior life consisting of those times between times of activity, that are filled in with thinking or talking to oneself. A disciple begins to grow, in Christ (if he grows in Christ), toward (2) an interior life of communication with God. And in that "communication", a process of growing from monolog of one's self addressing God, to dialog with Him of increasingly intimate and personal communication, indeed toward and into communion with Him. (Much of that description was given in my words, some in Fr. G-L's.)

And to de Mello's point, "the interior life without action is empty," clever but I assume filled in with nuance somewhere in his writings: "an interior life" is a spectrum of mystery, often a mixture of the natural and the supernatural. A hermit, or a contemplative monk, can have a very fruitful life of prayer, of intercession, of reparation.

Although, positively and to his point, "activists without the interior life are loose cannons."

>7 ThomasRichard:

Thanks, Thomas. Yes indeed de Mello's work is more nuanced than the few lines I cited from memory (while typing in a temperature of 38C and trying not to let too much sweat drown the keyboard). Likewise I suspect that the good Fr Garrigou-Lagrange is also more nuanced. I'm not disagreeing with you on hermits and monks (nor even hermitesses and nuns - I once had an Anglican hermitess as my spiritual director, and have had a number of Catholic nuns over the years). As I said earlier it is both/and, not either/or, a question of balance.

From Richard Rohr's daily meditation a couple of days ago:

If we are humble and honest, Christians must acknowledge that most of our churches and leaders have not consistently read the Gospels in a contemplative way or with “the mind of Christ” (1 Corinthians 2:16). Without contemplative consciousness, we severely limit the Holy Spirit’s capacity for inspiration and guidance. We had arguments to win, logic to uphold, and denominational distinctions to maintain, after all. Without the contemplative mind, humans—even Christians—revel in dualisms and do not understand the dynamic unity between seeming opposites...

R. Rohr is a writer I cannot listen to for long. I agree with him the first couple of steps down that paragraph, but then the weirdness starts. Sorry. I don't hear "contemplation" the same way as he seems to, nor his opposing possibility (his "dualism") - that (ironically) if we don't have "the contemplative mind" (the good guys), then we fall into other polarity, the bad guys group, of those who revel in "dualisms". Does he see the dualism he lives in?

It reminds me of the old joke/contradiction, there are only two kinds of people: those who reduce everyone to two groups of people, and those who don't.

Have you read R. Garrigou-Lagrange? If you want to venture into a different perspective from (as I hear him, which is not well) R. Rohr, a short book that describes his sense of traditional Catholic spirituality in brief is here: The Three Ways of the Spiritual Life - https://www.ourladyswarriors.org/saints/3ways.htm.

>9 ThomasRichard:

Thanks, Thomas. I'm not sure whether Rohr is setting up a daulism as you intriguingly suggest, but I think embracing both and seeking a balance is not dualism. But we could slip into semantics.

No, I've never read Garrigou-Lagrange, but I have a whole bookshelf of different spiritual perspectives, and I did my MA in spirituality at a Jesuit university, so I am somewhat familiar with the literature. I wrote my dissertation on Thomas Berry, but I've found guidance in works from monks such as Thomas Merton, Bede Griffiths and David Steindl-Rast, from mystics such as Julian of Norwich, Meister Eckhart, Hildegaard of Bingen, John of the Cross and the author of The Cloud of Unknowing, as well as the likes of Antony de Mello, Richard Rohr, Pope Francis, Walter Kasper, Albert Nolan and many more, including many of the "anonymous" pastors, spiritual directors, mentors and others whom I've had the privilege of meeting and in some cases working with.

The dualism (to carry this theme a bit further) that Fr. G-L has helped me to see, most recently, is that of two infinitely different realities, the natural and the supernatural, in the field of theology and spirituality. That is concerning natural faith, and the radically different supernatural faith. Natural hope, and love, as opposed to supernatural hope and divine charity. I believe that many Christians live predominately natural lives, even while thinking and speaking in terms of the supernatural. Fr. G-L, in his many (He taught at the Angelicum in Rome from 1909 to 1960) years of study, teaching and writing - and he writes it seems with experience, in spiritual wisdom - he writes with great clarity concerning the supernatural communion and life we are called to in Christ.

And we can in one moment live in the supernatural, and the next, return to the natural. As Peter showed:
Mt 16:17 And Jesus answered him, "Blessed are you, Simon Bar-Jona! For flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but my Father who is in heaven.
But then,
Mt 16:23 But he turned and said to Peter, "Get behind me, Satan! You are a hindrance to me; for you are not on the side of God, but of men."

We journey to the supernatural, and we can taste it now - and we can reject it now, and we can pick and choose between them, as we choose, for now. But this is one duality that we ought not want to "balance", I would say. Rather, we ought to seek to be "all in" with Him, and to, as Jesus said "Remain in me!"

>11 ThomasRichard:

And yet in the incarnation of the Christ the natural and supernatural come together. There is no longer any duality.

The natural was for Him, and is for us, only for a brief while - it is transient, it is dying. In this brief time, we can begin even here and now, what is not passing: life eternal - the seed of which is given in sanctifying grace, the growth of which is ordered in its own supernatural essence, the maturity of which is our vocation, our duty, our privilege, our joy.

Right?