A couple of weeks ago, in discussing what it means to be a disciple, I mentioned that there are three journeys of a normative Catholic. Before reflecting on the first journey, I want to remind us what is meant by “normative Catholic.” By that phrase, I do not mean what most Catholics or even what most Catholics in the United States do. The crisis that the Church is facing today is that most Catholics are not normative, but rather have become “cultural Catholics.” Less than 20% of Catholics go to Mass on Sunday. Nearly two-thirds of American Catholics say that the Eucharist is only a symbol, not actually the Body and Blood, Soul and Divinity of Jesus Christ. Over 60% of Catholics say that they do not have a personal relationship with Jesus, and half of those say that God is not “personal” but just an abstraction.
When we talk about “normative Catholic” we are talking about how things ought to be, even if they are not that way right now. It is the way that people’s spiritual life should unfold as they become and live lives of discipleship. For the normative Catholic, discipleship entails three, hopefully simultaneous journeys: the ecclesial journey, the journey of active practice, and the personal interior journey.
Since most of us were baptized as infants, we could say that they first journey of our discipleship is the ecclesial. This is the journey of entering into the Church through the sacraments of initiation, and of continuing to be sustained by the sacraments. Pop quiz -- what are the three sacraments of initiation? Hopefully most of you said Baptism, Confirmation, and the Eucharist.
Through the sacrament of Baptism we are made members of the Church and part of God’s family. God always intended for us to live in communion with Him. Sadly, because of our first parents’ distrust and disobedience, we lost that communion with God which we were created for through Original Sin. While we are born as God’s creatures, due to Original Sin, we are not born with the Divine life within us. Through the sacrament of Baptism, Original Sin is wiped away and the Divine life is given us as one of God’s sons or daughters. This begins our journey of becoming a disciple.
The sacrament of Confirmation continues our initiation into the Church. Through Confirmation, the gift of the Holy Spirit -- first received at Baptism -- is deepened so that we can now participate in the mission of the Church; to proclaim the Gospel and make disciples of all the earth. God is love, and in Baptism we are incorporated into that Divine Love. But love is always given away -- if we try to selfishly keep love to ourselves it stops being love. So as in Baptism we are drawn into God’s Love, so in Confirmation we are empowered to given His love away, to those around us.
Finally, the Eucharist is the summit of our initiation into the Church for in Holy Communion we receive Christ Himself, becoming one with Him, the oneness with God which was always the plan, but which we lost through Original Sin.
The other sacraments also aid us in living our lives as disciples. There are the two sacraments of healing -- Reconciliation and Anointing -- which forgives our sins after Baptism and help us unite our suffering with Christ’s redemptive Cross. The two sacraments for the service of the Church -- marriage and holy orders -- sanctify our vocations for building up the Church.
Frequent reception of the sacraments, especially the Eucharist and Reconciliation, help us grow as disciples, but we have to do our part. They are gifts given to us by God, but like any gift, they only unfold and reach their fullest potential when we cooperate with the grace given to us by God through them. God gives the grace when we receive the sacraments, but if we just put them on a shelf by not cooperating with them, then they will not bear fruit in our lives.