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Disciples: Embracing the Call to Holiness
One cannot give what one does not have. Disciples are living the call to holiness and striving for sainthood. Disciples will make every sacrifice necessary to grow in relationship with God as well as make every sacrifice to help another embrace a or grow further in relationship with God. This presentation focus on intentional discipleship, personal relationship with God lived in the context of the Church, in order to be able to go out and make disciples (Mt 28).
"There is only one sadness, it is to not be a saint." - Leon Bloy, The Woman Who Was Poor
"The tragedy of not being a saint is both global and personal, temporal and eternal. A saint's life sends out ripples of grace that bless many within the Church and outside of it. When the fruit of a saint's life is missing, all of us are impoverished." - Sherry Weddell, Forming Intentional Disciples
"All the faithful of Christ are invited to strive for the holiness and perfection of their own proper state. Indeed they have an obligation so to strive." - Dogmatic Constitution on the Church, Lumen Gentium (Light of the Nations)
"Being a Christian is not the result of an ethical choice or a lofty idea, but the encounter with an event, a person, which gives life a new horizon and decisive direction." - Pope Benedict XVI, Deus Caritas Est (God Is Love)
"Grounded in the center who is Jesus Christ, [disciples] are detached from even those things that strike most of us as indispensable, even from physical life itself. Centered, they are free...Only the person who has attained such freedom, the capacity to move wherever the Spirit prompts, is ready for the mission of Christ." - Fr. Robert Barron, The Strangest Way: Walking the Christian Path
"The presence of a significant number of disciples changes everything: a parish's spiritual tone, energy level, attendance, bottom line, and what parishioners ask of their leaders. Disciples pray with passion. Disciples worship. Disciples love the Church and serve her with energy and joy. Disciples give lavishly. Disciples hunger to learn more about their faith. Disciples fill every formation class in a parish or diocese. Disciples manifest charisms and discern vocations. They clamor to discern God's call because they long to live it. Disciples evangelize because they have really good news to share. Disciples share their faith with their children. Disciples care about the poor and about issues of justice. Disciples take risks for the Kingdom of God." - Sherry Weddell, Forming Intentional Disciples