I.
A. The spirituality that the entire Church is called to is that of "witnessing",
bearing witness to the Good News of Jesus Christ.
1. In the Book of the Acts of the Apostles, chapter 1, verse 8,
Jesus says:
-"But you shall receive power when the Holy Spirit has come
upon you; and you shall be my witnesses in Jerusalem and in
all Judea and Samaria and to the end of the earth."
2. All of us are called to bear witness by our life, our deeds, and by
our words. To do this is to be an evangelizer.
B. Let us take some time now to look at what we mean by Christian
spirituality.
1. Christian spirituality is seeing our identity as rooted in Christ, and
therefore responding to life's situations and events with His mind
and values.
2. Spirituality doesn't tell us what to do; it tells us how to live so that
God Himself can show us what to do.
C. Everything in the Gospels is addressed to everyone of us who
hears them.
1. They are meant to teach us what Christianity is all about. They
are meant to teach us what is required of every person who
would be a follower of Jesus.
-They are meant to teach us what is promised to each one of us.
2. The advice Jesus gave to the rich young man in Mark, chapter
10, verse 21 to "go, sell what you have, and give to the poor,"
and then "come, follow me" (also in Luke 18:22) has frequently
been interpreted and preached --
-as if Jesus were calling the young man to be a priest or a
religious.
-And yet, what Jesus was asking him to be was His follower, to
become a Christian; nothing more, nothing less.
D. Most of us have grown up with the mistaken idea that to be a lay
person was somehow to be a second-rate Christian.
1. Those who "wanted to be perfect" were those who became
priests or religious. Religious followed the "way of the evangelical counsels," poverty, chastity, and obedience.
-They did the better thing. The laity only followed the commandments.
2. What brought about this way of thinking? It came about through a lot of historical situations and developments.
E. Let's begin by looking at two facts:
1. Everything in the Gospels was understood in the beginning to
apply to all Christians without distinction of categories.
2. All Christians did not in fact sell everything they owned and give
it to the poor. Yet they all knew they were called to "be perfect".
F. In the Book of the Acts of the Apostles, chapter 1, verse 8, Jesus, speaking to the apostles and to all who would follow Him says:
"You shall be my witnesses...to the end of the earth."
1. Witness must take a concrete form: the preaching of the Gospel.
Christians were to witness to Christ before all people.
a) If believers were persecuted, it was because of their witness
of Jesus.
b) Stephen was the first to seal his witness of Jesus with the
pouring out of his blood (Acts 22:20; Acts 7:59f).
2. The Greek word for "witness" is ____________ translated into
English "martyr".
a) By the second century, the word "martyr" was used to
designate the person who suffered death for the Christian
faith.
b) This use of the term "martyr" was established by Christian
tradition to apply exclusively to a person who gives witness
in blood. But originally, the Greek word _____________
meant "witness."
3. The life-style that the Apostles presented to believers was that of
witness to Jesus in this world.
II.
A. It didn't take very long before this new religion, Christianity, becomes
illegal.
1. Because of this, Christian spirituality goes underground to the catacombs.
It now becomes costly to be a member of Christianity, to
live the Christian life.
2. Martyrdom, being a witness for Jesus by shedding one's blood,
becomes a reality.
a) During this time, believers have to face the possibilities of martyrdom and to desire that rather than give up the faith.
b) During this period, then, martyrdom becomes the ideal.
3. Jesus, as the first martyr, becomes an inspiration for other martyrs.
-Martyrdom became the risk the early Christians lived with every
day.
4. To live with this risk of losing everything one holds dear, was no
easier for the early Church, than to renounce everything from the
beginning by actually giving it up.
-To live each day without knowing when one might be imprisoned
or put to death is in many ways harder than the sentence of death
itself.
B. To bear witness to Jesus by an uncompromising fidelity to the teachings
and values of Jesus that could endanger life, freedom, or the
normal pursuit of happiness in this world was the spirituality of the
early Church.
1. This way of life was held up as a model for the early Christians.
"To be perfect" was to live in this world without being attached to
it, to have one's treasure and one's heart in heaven.
-This did not require actually giving up possessions, spouse, or
the means of earning one's livelihood on this earth.
2. The first way of holiness held up to Christians was to live, as
Vatican II put it many centuries later, in the "ordinary circumstances
of family and social life, to live in the world, that is, in each and all of
the secular professions and occupations" (Constitution on the
Church, n. 31).
a) It was from these "ordinary circumstances" of family life, business
life, social and political life, that the very web of Christian
existence and of the spiritual life was to be woven.
b) Christians were to live in this world without compromising with
the values of this world. They were not to let anything in this
world, or the fear of its loss, keep them from "seeking first the
kingdom of God and its holiness."
c) To be a Christian was to have already radically relocated one's
hopes in heaven.
d) St. Paul puts it this way:
-"I tell you brothers, the time is short. From now on those with
wives should live as though they had none; those who weep
should live as though they were not weeping, and those who
rejoice as though they were not rejoicing; buyers should conduct
themselves as though they owned nothing, and those
who make use of the world as though they were not using it,
for the world as we know it is passing away" (1 Corinthians
7:29-31).
-In other words, enjoy what God gives you but hold it loosely.
C. The spirit of Christian witness as a way of life is to live for Jesus alone,
to live the Gospel without compromise, and to be unconcerned
about the consequences.
1. This spirit of Christian witness is the freedom of the children of
God. It is a spirit of radical freedom with regard to every threat on
earth.
a) Jesus has risen and triumphed over every threat to our existence. He has overcome sin and death and won for us the
kingdom of God.
b) Men and women are free now to live in uncompromising witness to Jesus alone, and not to fear the coming or going of
any value, person, event, or thing.
2. The "pearl of great price" is ours; other pearls are as precious as
they ever were, but henceforth inconsequential.
D. The first model of Christian holiness was not to actually give up the
world, to renounce marriage, give one's property away to the poor,
drop out of the affairs of this world, but to let go of the world, to stop
clinging.
1. During the time of persecutions in the early Church, just to be a
Christian was to be placed in a position of martyrdom.
2. A person risked everything just by being a member of this new
way.
III.
A. In 313 A.D., the persecutions ceased with the conversion to Christianity of the Emperor Constantine.
1. To be a Christian now was the acceptable thing, the "in" thing.
This is the time when confusion began to set in.
-When the Roman State accepted Christianity, it was thought that
Christianity had absorbed the State. Therefore, if the government
was now Christian, the logical thing for the Christian to do was to
be for the government.
2. Society now called itself "Christian". This caused Christians to
believe that their culture and their religion were one.
a) As a result, Christians began to believe that to call into question the
accepted policies, attitudes or values of their society,
now Christian, was to be a religious fanatic and not a Christian
witness.
b) The Christian thing was not to stand against, but to fit in with
the society, now Christian.
B. When religion and culture are identified, it is not culture that has been
converted but Christianity which has lost its identity.
1. Once a culture begins to think of itself as "Christian," the Good
News is no longer listened to as news.
2. Christianity settles down in the world and the inspiring challenge of
risking all in witness to Jesus becomes a thing of the past.
3. The ideal of martyrdom doesn't seem possible anymore. Everything becomes flat and
mediocre and the Christian heart grows
dissatisfied. Christianity becomes too easy.
-As a result, Christians will want to bring back the challenge of
Christianity. And this is what we see happen.
IV.
A. Since the city of man no longer offered Christians a challenge, a new
challenge for Christianity would be sought in the desert.
B. The first element of Monasticism was protest. They protested the
Church in its present state of worldliness and the evil they saw within
the Church.
C. The spirituality of risk of the early Church is succeeded by the spirituality of renunciation which was Monasticism.
1. The ideal now becomes death to the world and to self, a spiritual
martyrdom and flight from the world.
2. They went all the way with no compromise.
V.
A. At their core, both spiritualities, that of risk and that of renunciation,
are the same in that, the Christian takes a stance towards the world
that can only be explained by faith in Jesus Christ.
1. The lay Christian lives in the world risking daily the loss of everything (s)he has.
2. The monk leaves the world by giving up everything he has.
3. Both are a "stumbling block" to the society in which they live.
B. In each of these spiritualities, there is a radical renunciation of this
world and all of its promises in favor of the kingdom of God and the
promises of Jesus Christ.
1. The monk expresses this deep, interior "dying to the world" by
actually renouncing property, marriage, and life in the world.
2. The lay Christian expresses this "dying to the world" by remaining
in the world, by putting down roots in this world by actually
acquiring property, marrying, raising children, and taking part in the
world.
-Yet, at the same time, the lay Christian lives in such a way that
(s)he daily risks the loss of everything (s)he has.
3. Both the monk, who refuses to put down roots in the world and
the lay Christian who is ready at any moment to be uprooted,
are --
-expressing the same radical recentering of their hearts and
lives, in the truth of the Gospel and the promise of the king-
dom of God.
**All of the above has been taken from "His Way" by David Knight, pp. 181-192, with some minor adaptations.