Intentional Disciples

I know you are all shocked.  A new post?  Yes, I am going to do my best to get back into the swing of things.

However, for the moment, I want to direct your attention to Intentional Disciples, a blog sponsored by the Catherine of Siena Institute.  I've long had links to their work on the sidebar.  You should check out both the blog and their website.  The Catherine of Siena Institute is dedicated to helping Catholic laity recognize their true nature and live it out in all of its fullness.  This has been the mission of Integrity, even as it has evolved away from a paragraph by paragraph study of Christifideles Laici to a more personal account of my own experience in trying to live the Christian life and my experience in the Communion and Liberation lay ecclesial movement.  I always wanted to have a lively discussion on Integrity about Christifideles Laici.  It was my original desire for this blog, all the way back in 2002.  But the conversation never quite developed.

Well, it is happening over at Intentional Disciples.  And I'm blessed to have been invited to participate. 

So, although I do plan to get back to posting regularly here, if you don't see something new from me when you visit, swing by Intentional Disciples.

And, John F., thanks for the reminder.  I do owe you a reply.  I will email you this weekend.

Comments

[Freder1ck]

Jack,

I hope that you are well. Your question of parish vs. movment has intrigued me for some time.

It surfaced again when I was reading Fr. Giussani's Journey to Truth...", pages 110-121. He starts exactly where you do in your post today, with the person of the bishop, but also noting that the parish structure was a late and resisted development and an istrument with certain limitations. Because of the work that bishops give to dioceses and parishes, we must be absolutely loyal to them. Parishes are valuable because they bring the Church close to the family. Because the life of teenagers and young adults don't orbit around the parish (as families do), the Church needs a way of meeting them in their own environment: school and work. The movmement, then, asks for a certain flexibility from the parish because the work of the movement builds on parish work of early catechesis: "it is meant to be the instrument that saves the Christian seed the parish germinates through a vital rediscovery of Christianity" (121).

Two points occur to me as I think about these passages.
1. the experience of American adults is remarkably similar to that of the young people Fr. Giussani wrote about - which explains the appeal of CL to older people in the US. I don't live at the parish: I live at work.

2. the origin of CL is the task of educating the young. This would seem to be the way to propose CL to the parish: as a way of helping young people to live their faith in school or the workplace.

Fred