Communicating Faith

15. Charism and Context

233 15 Charism and Context Frances Orchard, CJ Communicating faith, as stated in the 1990 encyclical letter Redemptoris Missio , requires a diversity of activities arising from the variety of circumstances in which that mission is carried out. First, there is the mission Ad Gentes , where “missionary activity addresses peoples, groups and socio-cultural contexts in which Christ and the Gospel is not known.”1 Secondly there are established Christian communities, fervent in their faith, where the church is active in pastoral care. Thirdly, there are societies with ancient Christian roots that have lost a sense of living the faith and where a “new evangelization ” is needed. Communicating faith is therefore much more than a classroom activity. The religious congregations, which operate at the sharp end of the church’s mission, came into existence to meet a variety of different needs, and have adopted a variety of different strategies. Before exploring some of these strategies it is good to be reminded of the words of Pope John Paul II: “people today put more trust in witnesses than in teachers, in experience than in teaching, and in life and action than in theories.”2 It is for this 1. John Paul II, Redemptoris Missio (Rome: Libreria Editrice Vaticana, 1990), 33. 2. Ibid., 42. 234 Frances Orchard reason that religious congregations, the main focus of this chapter, see all their members as “missionaries,” in the contemporary sense of “those who are sent,” the elderly or sick members, those whose ministries are primarily administrative or domestic, as well as those more evidently in the church’s missionary activity. In order to focus on the more formal aspects of communicating faith, this chapter will limit its scope to the actual apostolic works of religious congregations on an international level, the importance of witness being a given. It will also focus on communicating the Catholic faith, as this is the ecclesial task of religious congregations, always bearing in mind the significance of multiculturalism and the interreligious dimension. The nature and meaning of charism will be explored in some detail, so as to give an understanding of what it is that gives variety to religious congregations, which in turn characterizes their mission. Strategies for conveying that charism to the laity who now play a major role in the educational mission of the religious congregations will also be covered. To fit this all into an international, global context, the chapter has been divided into three sections: Understanding the Charism, Living the Charism, and Sharing the Charism. Understanding the Charism The context within which religious congregations operate has changed radically over the past half century. We now live in a rapidly globalizing, pluralist , secular, multicultural, environmentally fragile, polarized, postmodern world characterized by a widening gap between rich and poor and challenged by a resurgence of fundamentalism. There are also huge paradigm shifts taking place in the world as the economic hegemony shows signs of shifting from West to East, and in the ecclesial sphere church membership shifts from North to South. The Constantianian model of a westernized Latin Church proclaiming one true faith to so-called unbelievers is giving way to a church that respects the religious beliefs and traditional cultures of other non-Christian faith groups. The church sees the need to teach not only ad gentes, but also to be present inter gentes. The religious congregations have always been at the forefront of the church’s missionary activity, but they should not be regarded as agents of the church. They were not founded by the hierarchical church, but by men and women called by God, whose new foundations may or may not have Charism and Context 235 been initially welcomed and approved by the church. Ignatius of Loyola was not at all sure that his new “company,” the Jesuits, would receive ecclesiastical approval; and Mary Ward, the seventeenth-century pioneer of apostolic women’s religious congregations using the Ignatian model, was imprisoned by the church for her efforts and her congregation suppressed. The charism given to these founders, as to others, although a gift to the church, may not always be recognized as such initially. Antonio Romano maintains that foundations happen at “critical periods of history . . . a sort of shock therapy for the Church . . . and often emerge at a time of disorientation and insecurity for the Church.”3 However, “shock” can either galvanize or paralyze, and it took three hundred years and the apostolic letter...