Having a faith conversation with old and new friends is as easy as setting the table.
FAITH FEEDS GUIDE LAY VOCATIONS
Introduction to FAITH FEEDS 3
FAQ 4
Ready to Get Started 5
Conversation Starters 6
• The Lay Apostolate from the Second Vatican Council 7 Conversation Starters 9
• The Vocations of the Laity by Edward P. Hahnenberg 10 Conversation Starters 13
• Communities of Practice by Jane Regan 14 Conversation Starters 16
Gathering Prayer 17
The FAITH FEEDS program is designed for individuals who are hungry for opportunities to talk about their faith with others who share it. Participants gather over coffee or a potluck lunch or dinner, and a host facilitates conversation using resources from the C21 Center.
The FAITH FEEDS guide offers easy, step-by-step instructions for planning, as well as materials to guide the conversation. It’s as simple as deciding to host the gathering wherever your community is found and spreading the word.
All selected articles have been taken from material produced by the C21 Center.
The C21 Center Presents
FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS
Who should host a FAITH FEEDS?
Anyone who has a heart for facilitating conversations about faith is perfect to host a FAITH FEEDS.
Where do I host a FAITH FEEDS?
You can host a FAITH FEEDS in-person or virtually through video conference software. FAITH FEEDS conversations are meant for small groups of 10–12 people.
What is the host’s commitment?
The host is responsible for coordinating meeting times, sending out materials and video conference links, and facilitating conversation during the FAITH FEEDS.
What is the guest’s commitment?
Guests are asked to read the articles that will be discussed and be open to faith-filled conversation.
Still have more questions?
No problem! Email church21@bc.edu and we’ll help you get set up.
READY TO GET STARTED?
STEP ONE
Decide to host a FAITH FEEDS. Coordinate a date, time, location, and guest list. An hour is enough time to allocate for the virtual or in-person gathering.
STEP TWO
Interested participants are asked to RSVP directly to you, the host. Once you have your list of attendees, confirm with everyone via email. That would be the appropriate time to ask in-person guests to commit to bringing a potluck dish or drink to the gathering. For virtual FAITH FEEDS, send out your video conference link.
STEP THREE
Review the selected articles from your FAITH FEEDS guide and the questions that will serve as a starter for your FAITH FEEDS discussion. Hosts should send their guests a link to the guide, which can be found on bc.edu/FAITHFEEDS.
STEP FOUR
Send out a confirmation email a week before the FAITH FEEDS gathering. Hosts should arrive early for in-person or virtual set up. Begin with the Gathering Prayer found on the last page of this guide. Hosts can open the discussion by using the suggested questions. The conversation should grow organically from there. Enjoy this gathering of new friends, knowing the Lord is with YOU!
STEP FIVE
Make plans for another FAITH FEEDS. We would love to hear about your FAITH FEEDS experience. You can find contact information on the last page of this guide.
CONVERSATION STARTERS
Here are three articles to guide your FAITH FEEDS conversation. For each article you will find a relevant quotation, summary, and suggested questions for discussion. We offer these as tools for your use, but feel free to go where the Holy Spirit leads.
This guide’s theme is: Lay Vocations.
THE LAY APOSTOLATE
From the Second Vatican Council
PARTICIPATION OF LAITY IN THE CHURCH’S MISSION
The Church was founded for the purpose of spreading the kingdom of Christ throughout the earth for the glory of God the Father, to enable all men to share in His saving redemption, and that through them the whole world might enter into a relationship with Christ. All activity of the Mystical Body directed to the attainment of this goal is called the apostolate, which the Church carries on in various ways through all her members. For the Christian vocation by its very nature is also a vocation to the apostolate. No part of the structure of a living body is merely passive but has a share in the functions as well as life of the body: so, too, in the body of Christ, which is the Church, “the whole body...in keeping with the proper activity of each part, derives its increase from its own internal development” (Eph. 4:16).
Indeed, the organic union in this body and the structure of the members are so compact that the member who fails to make his proper contribution to the development of the Church must be said to be useful neither to the Church nor to himself.
In the Church there is a diversity of ministry but a oneness of mission. Christ conferred on the Apostles and their successors the duty of teaching, sanctifying, and ruling in His name and power. But the laity likewise share in the priestly, prophetic, and royal office of Christ and therefore have their own share in the mission of the whole people of God in the Church and in the world.
They exercise the apostolate in fact by their activity directed to the evangelization and sanctification of men and to the penetrating and perfecting of the tempo-
ral order through the spirit of the Gospel. In this way, their temporal activity openly bears witness to Christ and promotes the salvation of men. Since the laity, in accordance with their state of life, live in the midst of the world and its concerns, they are called by God to exercise their apostolate in the world like leaven, with the ardor of the spirit of Christ.
FOUNDATIONS OF THE LAY APOSTOLATE
The laity derive the right and duty to the apostolate from their union with Christ the head; incorporated into Christ’s Mystical Body through Baptism and strengthened by the power of the Holy Spirit through Confirmation, they are assigned to the apostolate by the Lord Himself. They are consecrated for the royal priesthood and the holy people (cf. 1 Peter 2:4–10) not only that they may offer spiritual sacrifices in everything they do but also that they may witness to Christ throughout the world. The sacraments, however, especially the most holy Eucharist, communicate and nourish that charity which is the soul of the entire apostolate.
One engages in the apostolate through the faith, hope, and charity which the Holy Spirit diffuses in the hearts of all members of the Church. Indeed, by the precept of charity, which is the Lord’s greatest commandment, all the faithful are impelled to promote the glory of God through the coming of His kingdom and to obtain eternal life for all men—that they may know the only true God and Him whom He sent, Jesus Christ (cf. John 17:3). On all Christians therefore is laid the preeminent responsibility of working to make the divine message of salvation known and accepted by all men throughout the world.
For the exercise of this apostolate, the Holy Spirit Who sanctifies the people of God through ministry and the sacraments gives the faithful special gifts also (cf. 1 Cor. 12:7), “allotting them to everyone according as He wills” (1 Cor. 12:11) in order that individuals, administering grace to others just as they have received it, may also be “good stewards of the manifold grace of God” (1 Peter 4:10), to build up the whole body in charity (cf. Eph. 4:16). From the acceptance of these charisms, including those which are more elementary, there arise for each believer the right and duty to use them in the Church and in the world for the good of men and the building up of the Church, in the freedom of the Holy Spirit who “breathes where He wills” (John 3:8). This should be done by the laity in communion with their brothers in Christ, especially with their pastors who must make a judgment about the true nature and proper use of these gifts not to extinguish the Spirit but to test all things and hold for what is good (cf. 1 Thess. 5:12,19,21).
Excerpted from the Second Vatican Council’s Apostolicam Actuositate (Decree on the Apostolate of the Laity). The Second Vatican Council was a meeting of Catholic bishops that took place over four sessions from 1962–64.
The council was a watershed moment for the church resulting in the publishing of 16 documents to guide the church’s engagement throughout the world. Four of the 16 documents (Lumen Gentium, Dei Verbum, Gaudium et spes, and Sacrosanctum Concilium) are apostolic constitutions—those documents that are the most solemn or authoritative doctrinal statements the church pronounces.
Published in C21 Resources, Fall 2010.
THE LAY APOSTOLATE
“The church is not just an institution but a holy community, the whole People of God, all the baptized together....The call and gift are there for all, an intrinsic part of Christian identity.”
—Elizabeth A. Johnson, “Your One Wild and Precious Life”
Summary
The Second Vatican Council centralized the role of mission for all Christians. By right and duty of baptism, all Christians participate in the mission of the church to proclaim and seek the Kingdom of God through our sharing in Christ’s priesthood, kingship, and prophetic ministry. As members of the church we realize this mission through our acceptance and employment of the different gifts of the Holy Spirit, which are to be like “leaven” that builds up the church and society through our different states in life, identities, and gifts.
Questions for Conversation
1. What do you think of the document’s language of a “right and duty” to participate in the mission of the church? What do both of these terms mean for you faith life?
2. What passages of Scripture remind you of our shared calling to imitate Christ in the world?
3. Drawing others into the church’s mission involves evangelization and discipleship. How do you understand evangelization and discipleship in your life?
THE VOCATIONS OF THE LAITY
by Edward P. Hahnenberg
When I was a graduate student at the University of Notre Dame, I had a small office on the 12th floor of the Theodore M. Hesburgh Memorial Library—better known as “Touchdown Jesus” for its huge mural of Christ looking out over te football stadium.
The office was small, just big enough for a desk. But it had a spectacular view of campus. It was the same view—I bragged to my friends—that Fr. Hesburgh had, whose much larger office was directly above my own.
Fr. Hesburgh had stepped down as university president several years earlier. During his 35-year tenure he had become a national leader in civil rights, public policy, and education. He had advised presidents and popes, served on countless commissions and boards, and even made it into The Guinness Book of World Records for “Most Honorary Degrees.” Thus retirement was something of a relative term for Fr. Hesburgh. Well into his eighties, he still went into the office every day.
And one of the best things about my time on the 12th floor was that I often got to share an elevator ride with Fr. Ted.
Fr. Hesburgh loved to talk to students. He’d ask whomever got on the elevator what they were studying. When they
said physics or history, he would share some anecdote about his work on the Atomic Energy Commission or the time he marched with Martin Luther King, Jr.
Over the months we rode the elevator together, I had the same conversation with Fr. Hesburgh three times.
Every time, the conversation began with his question, “What are you studying today?”
And every time, I responded, “I’m working on my dissertation in theology.”
“Really?” he said, clearly not remembering our previous elevator chats. “You know my doctorate was in theology. What’s the topic?”
“I’m writing on lay ministry in the Catholic Church,” I answered, knowing what would come next.
“Really?” Fr. Hesburgh said, as he looked up at me with new interest. “You know know my dissertation was about the laity in the church.”
“I know, Father,” I honestly answered, “I’ve read it. It’s very good.”
Photo by Dennis Schrader
And then Fr. Hesburgh launched into one of his favorite stories.
“Well, in those days, a dissertation on the laity was very controversial. This was the early 1940s, remember. My committee told me not to do it. They wanted me to pick another topic. But I knew it was too important. And so I pushed ahead.”
“That doesn’t surprise me, Father,” I said, smiling.
“I finished the dissertation and got it published. Soon after, I received a letter from the Holy Office in Rome. They wanted me to send them a copy of the dissertation for review. I thought for sure I was going to be censured. It used to be called the Holy Office of the Inquisition, you know. I sent the dissertation, but I never heard back.”
He continued, “Eventually the pope died, and the cardinals elected John XXIII, who surprised everybody by calling a Second Vatican Council. And what do you think was on the agenda? The laity! The council dedicated a whole document to the laity!”
Then came the punch line.
“I’ll never forget reading that document when it first came out,” Fr. Hesburgh deadpanned, “they stole all my ideas.”
THE VISION OF VATICAN II
This was a story Fr. Hesburgh obviously loved to tell. Since those elevator rides, I’ve heard a number of his friends share some version of it. The story illustrates something of the remarkable journey the Catholic laity have traveled over the past century—reminding us as a church how far we have come, and how far we still have to go.
...By the time the council opened in the fall of 1962, it was clear that it had to say something significant about the laity. The bishops assembled in St. Peter’s wanted to affirm Catholic Action. They wanted to acknowledge the many contributions the laity make to the life and mission of the church. They wanted to make up for centuries of official church teaching that had ignored, minimized, or even denigrated the life of the lay person.
...First, the council affirmed unambiguously that the mission of the laity is rooted in our shared baptism. Baptism (followed by confirmation and Eucharist) initiates us into a community. As members of this community, we all have an active role to play. We all share in this community’s mission to serve and celebrate the reign of God in our midst. Over the centuries, baptism
has been reduced to an almost magical rite, hastily administered after birth, whose sole purpose was to wipe away original sin. Vatican II recovered a more ancient vision: Baptism draws us into a community and sends us out—in a variety of ways, over the course of our lives— on a mission to share the Gospel with others.
Baptism brands everyone an apostle....Baptism calls all of us to spread the Good News. Thus the mission of the church does not trickle down from Christ to the hierarchy to the laity....Our Catholic leaders do not “own” Christ’s mission and then beneficently bestow it on the people in the pews. The laity do not “help out” with work that belongs to someone else. According to Vatican II, baptism brings us all into the Body of Christ and the People of God—a powerful image of church emphasized in the council texts. Through baptism, Christ himself calls each of us to serve.
As the Decree on the Lay Apostolate put it: “Lay people’s right and duty to be apostles derives from their union with Christ their head. Inserted as they are in the mystical body of Christ by baptism and strengthened by the power of the Holy Spirit in confirmation, it is by the Lord himself that they are assigned to the apostolate” (n. 3).
Second, the council offered a more positive theology by describing the secular world as the graced context that gives distinctive shape to the lay apostolate. The laity are secular—and that is not a slur. For the secular is understood here not as some Godforsaken wasteland separate from the church. Instead, the bishops at Vatican II used that word to talk about ordinary life. In the world of family and friends, work and recreation, politics and culture, God must be present.
[The laity] live in the world, in each and every one of the world’s occupations and callings and in the ordinary circumstances of social and family life which, as it were, form the context of their existence. There they are called by God to contribute to the sanctification of the world from within, like leaven, in the spirit of the Gospel, by fulfilling their own particular duties (Constitution on the Church, n. 31).
Overcoming centuries of Christian spirituality that had reduced “the world” to a site of sin and temptation, Vatican II saw it as the positive context that both informs the life of the laity and is itself transformed by their Christian witness. But even as the council described the “secular characteristic” of the laity, it did not insist on a rigid dichotomy between clergy in the church and laity in the world. The documents easily admit that priests
sometimes hold secular jobs. And the council affirms the many contributions that the laity were just beginning to make to important ministries within the church.
THE VOCATIONS OF THE LAITY TODAY
Following Vatican II, theological interest in the laity reached a kind of plateau, even as the activity of the laity skyrocketed—exploding across the Catholic world, and transforming the experience of church in the United States.
...[E]ven given the constraints of this category, there is a way in which the word “laity” has gathered a more positive aura in the post-conciliar church—thanks to the phenomenal contributions of active lay women and lay men both in the church and in the world. They have made what is a negative English word into a positive Catholic one.
When I think about my own local context—teaching theology at a Catholic university—it is hard to overstate the transformations brought about by the rise of the laity. Fifty years ago, most Catholic colleges and universities were led by a small group of priests and women religious. Today, this leadership has been totally transformed, as boards of trustees are now regularly comprised of mostly lay men and women, professionals who bring their “secular” expertise to serve the Catholic educational enterprise....As the number of priests and religious decline, a variety of programs have been built up to help draw lay administrators, faculty, and staff into the charism of these Catholic institutions. The goal is to encourage lay people to take ownership of the Catholic mission of these schools....In light of the multiple crises facing the Catholic Church today, in light of scandal and disillusionment, apathy, and anger, in light of the institutional reforms that are so desperately needed but that seem to be going nowhere, it is good to keep this broader ecclesiological vision in mind: We are all the church.
Yves Congar, whose early research on the laity was so influential at Vatican II, recognized that thinking about the laity forces us to think about the church itself, the whole people of God, a pilgrim people on the way to the reign of God. It is not just a matter of adding a paragraph or a chapter on the laity to a narrative about the church that revolves around the hierarchy. “At bottom,” Congar concluded, “there can be only one sound and sufficient theology of the laity, and that is a ‘total ecclesiology.’”
Almost 50 years after the council, we still face the challenge of living out that total vision of the church, that total ecclesiology. We are still working to embody that vision concretely in the structures of our church and in the rhythms of our lives. The following essays are a small sample of attempts to do this—to live out the grace and commitment that mark the vocation of the laity.
EDWARD P. HAHNENBERG is associate professor of theology at Xavier University, Cincinnati. His most recent book is Awakening Vocation: A Theology of Christian Call. He consulted the U.S. Bishops’ Subcommittee on Lay Ministry in its preparation of the document Co-Workers in the Vineyard of the Lord. Hahnenberg was the guest editor of C21 Resources’ Fall 2010 issue.
Published in C21 Resources, Fall 2010.
THE VOCATIONS OF THE LAITY
“Life according to the Spirit...stirs up every baptized person...to follow and imitate Jesus Christ: in embracing the Beatitudes, in listening and meditating on the Word of God...in the practice of the commandment of love in all circumstances of life and service to the brethren, especially the least—the poor and the suffering.”
—Saint John Paul II
Summary
Edward Hahnenberg relates his interactions with Fr. Ted Hesburgh, the former president of the University of Notre Dame, whose academic work in the 1940s exemplified the shift among Catholic thinkers regarding the role of the laity in the church’s mission. Hahnenberg describes the Second Vatican Council’s teaching that baptism incorporates all believers into the Body of Christ as agents of the church’s mission. The secular world, moreover, is not simply a den of sin and distraction, but a world that can, like all things, be set aside for holy purposes.
Questions for Conversation
1. The Second Vatican Council, like Scripture, teaches that every Christian receives a call to follow Christ. How would you describe your calling?
2. Who God calls you to become grows out of who God created you to be. How has your sense of calling developed as you’ve grown in self-awareness?
3. How are you participating in the church’s mission to seek and proclaim the Kingdom of Heaven?
COMMUNITIES OF PRACTICE
by Jane Regan
Let me tell you about three interesting gatherings of people.
Mike’s Muffins: A few year’ back, a parish liturgist named Mike had an idea: the second Tuesday of the month, a group of parish liturgists meet for about an hour and a half at a local diner for conversation and coffee. The routine is generally the same: some time of check-in, followed by conversation about a book or document on liturgy they read over the course of the month, and a discussion about its implications for their own parishes. At the end, they name new prayer requests and share updates on older ones. Ann, one of the members of the group, said it well: “This is one commitment a month that I take seriously. It is important to me as a liturgist and as a person of faith.”
Care for the Caregivers: Twice a month, 8 to 10 people gather in the church hall after the morning Mass. Each person is responsible for the care of some loved one—a parent, spouse, sibling, or friend. Most of them are caring for someone at home; several have loved ones in a nursing home or hospice. The meetings are organized and facilitated by the parish nurse. They begin with coffee and socializing, followed by a reflective experience of prayer. This is followed by a speaker—sometimes live, sometimes on video—and then some time for conversation and a closing prayer. Some people come regularly, others come for a few sessions; there is a core consistent group of about 6 who are there every time. For participants, this is an important part of their own self-care.
Faithful Finance Committee: The Finance Committee of St. Odo the Good meets each month to provide guidance to the pastor on the budget, expenditures, and stewardship. They used to have meetings that lasted exactly an hour, at which time everyone left fairly quickly. Now the meeting lasts exactly one hour and 15 minutes, at which time many people stay around to chat and check in. The change happened gradually. First, the pastoral staff had decided to a couple years back to recommend that each parish committee spend the beginning of each meeting in prayer and faith sharing. As people became more comfortable with this activity, the amount of time that the members of the Finance Committee spent reflecting on the Gospel or talking about how they live their faith each day expanded. And relationships were built. So they added 15 minutes to the meeting and enjoy one another’s company more.
Three different groups, with varying reasons for gathering, ways of relating, and patterns of meeting. Yet they share three things in common. First, each group has its own reason for gathering, an enterprise or set of goals that the members all share. Secondly, the members of each group engage with one another in a way that supports their reason for gathering, marked by mutual respect and a willingness to engage in the common enterprise. Thirdly, each group interacts and expresses itself through established patterns of behavior, styles of conversation, vocabulary, and resources.
Each of them, I would propose, is an example of a community of practice (CoP), defined as “a sustained gathering of people whose interactions are marked by mutual engagement, shared enterprise, and common repertoire, and where the collective learning involved in surviving/thriving as a community leads to practices that enhance group identity and further group goals.” This concept provides an important resource for rethinking the life and vitality of our parishes.
Within a moderate-sized parish there are a number of contexts in which adults gather, such as: the parish council, youth ministry team, catechetical team, Bible study group, social justice committee, finance committee, or pastoral staff. Each of these groups has the potential to be an effective CoP if they are intentional about their shared enterprise, mutual engagement, and common repertoire. As communities of practice, these committees and working groups have the potential to enliven the faith of the members and further the parish’s mission.
SITUATED LEARNING
Before looking a bit more closely at this, let me make a comment about how we learn the important things of life. Do you know how to make lasagna? Play bridge? Use a new software program? Do you understand hockey? Have you come to recognize the complexity and challenges of finding a career? Being a parent? Caring for an elderly relative? Living with teenagers? All of those things we learn primarily through “situated learning,” or learning that takes place in the doing of an activity, in real-life situations.
The same thing is true of faith. We learn what it means to live our Christian faith in real-life situations. I learned
what it meant to parent my daughters as a Christian by watching, being with, and talking to other Christians as they parented their own kids. While adult education, Bible studies, and homilies are helpful, we learn best how to live our faith by being with others who are doing the same; that is, by being in communities of people who share our commitment to live lives that are marked by the values and beliefs of faith—communities of practice.
PARISH AS COMMUNITY OF COMMUNITIES OF PRACTICE
While we speak of the parish as a community of faith, it might be more appropriate to say that it is a community of communities. I have heard people say, “I had been a member of St. Odo the Good for several years, but I came to feel like I was really a part of the parish when I became involved with the choir.” Or, “A big change in my faith came when my kids started faith formation and I volunteered to be a catechist’s aide. Then I felt like I wasn’t just a member of the parish, but that I really belonged.” While the whole parish has the shared enterprise to evangelize by putting faith into action, it does this and expresses it most effectively in smaller CoPs.
...CoPs are also communities in which “the collective learning involved in surviving/thriving as a community leads to practices that enhance group identity and further group goals.” Since the learning that takes place within a CoP is situated learning, it takes on certain characteristics.
First, learning within a CoP is about gaining the competencies to engage effectively as a member of a particular community. The knowledge, skills, and perspective one gains as a member of a CoP are specific to that group and rooted in the relationships among the members. Here’s an example: Maria is a new member of the advisory team for the parish’s youth ministry. She brings a good deal of insights and ideas: she is the parent of two young adult children and had been active in youth ministry in her prior parish. At the same time, she has a good deal to learn: What does youth ministry mean to this group? How does youth ministry relate to other ministries within the parish? How do the members relate to one another? What are the relationships of authority and power within the group? What are the “war stories” of the group (great achievements and less-than-successful endeavors)? Who has a key to the parish center? Who knows how to fix the copier when it gets jammed?
Second, even as a newcomer to the youth ministry advisory team gaining knowledge and skills, Maria will influence the CoP. Her membership, over time, contributes to the transformation of the team. As she strives to understand the repertoire of the CoP, she asks questions about perspectives or positions that had been unexamined for some time. Or she makes an inquiry that causes others
to ask questions that lead to change. As she moves into ever fuller participation, Maria’s own ideas and insights naturally become part of the community’s understanding of its shared enterprise and common repertoire. This mutual learning is part of what strengthens the group and enhances the vitality of the parish.
FOSTERING COMMUNITIES OF PRACTICE
Within a parish are gatherings of people who do the work that gibes expression to the parish’s vision and and goals. The question remains: how do we begin the process of shifting parish committees or interest groups into effective CoPs so that they not only address their specific tasks but become a source of vitality for the parish and strengthen their members’ commitment to the parish and to each other? Groups and committees can start by reflecting on their identity and goals. The following questions can serve as a guide in that process:
SHARED ENTERPRISE
• How does the community recognize that its role goes beyond the tasks of a particular meeting to a broader goal of participating in the parish’s role of evangelization?
• Does the description of the community’s charge include the call to be evangelizers and foster the faith of its members?
• To what extent does the community integrate prayer, reflection, and faith conversations into its regular work, making them more than simply add-ons to a busy agenda?
• How is the faith life of the members of the community intentionally enhanced through participating in the community’s gathering and engaging in the community’s work?
MUTUAL ENGAGEMENT
• How do people treat one another, those with whom they agree and those who hold a differing position?
• Does the community welcome new members and provide mentoring so they understand the community’s shared enterprise?
COMMON REPERTOIRE
• How attentive are the community members to recognizing the ways in which they convey (or fail to convey) the message of the Gospel?
• Does the community reflect a consciousness that the various modes of communication convey a spirit of hospitality?
JANE E. REGAN is Associate Professor Emerita at the Boston College Clough School of Theology and Ministry.
Published in C21 Resources, Spring 2020.
COMMUNITIES OF PRACTICE
“What does love look like? It has the hands to help others. It has the feet to hasten to the poor and needy. It has eyes to see misery and want. It has the ears to hear the sighs and sorrows of men. That is what love looks like.”
—Saint Augustine
Summary
Jane Regan describes how “communities of action” help lay Christians participate in the church’s mission within their own context. Communities of action are characterized by mutual engagement, shared enterprise, a common repertoire, and collective learning, which lead to practices that enhance group identity and further group goals. These communities can be parish councils, financial advisory committees, support groups, Bible studies, etc. In each, the fundamental priority is further formation as disciples of Christ, involving our personal transformation interaction with our larger world.
Questions for Conversation
1. No one’s vocation is contained within a church building, yet our calling is the voice of Christ, uniquely heard through the church. How has your vocation been rooted in the church while sending you beyond the church?
2. What communities of practice have you been a part of? How could Regan’s advice help this community grow?
3. What are the essential ingredients of Christian community? What’s the relationship between Christian community and lay vocations?
GATHERING PRAYER
Be With Us Today
St. Thomas More (1478–1535)
Father in heaven, you have given us a mind to know you, a will to serve you, and a heart to love you. Be with us today in all that we do, so that your light may shine out in our lives.
