Personal introduction:
Understanding of ‘apostolic body’ could differ from one’s own social, cultural and religious background – the vocabulary we use differs – and our own experiences are often quite diverse and deeply rooted in the reality of each person’s country and region (see our discussions on the World ExCo when we tried to formulate the theme of the Nairobi Assembly)

Thus: some words on my personal background
Background: CLC Germany – Europe – in the reality of our cultural diversity
Many contacts world-wide – not only CLC
Special influence of Latin America…

So, what I share with you is based on my personal experience – of the life of our world community – which is quite broad but nevertheless limited

These thoughts are an effort to translate my ideas into your own life and reality

What does it mean to be and to act as an “Apostolic Body”?

The question is historically nothing new, but deeply rooted in the process lived as a world community. This fact reminds me of a word of St. Augustine: Become what you are: body of Christ! So: (let’s) become (more and more) what we already are… an apostolic community

Let’s have a short look on our roots, our history.
Briefly, Ignatius founded the Jesuits in 1540 and the Jesuit, Jean Leunis, founded the Marian Congregation in 1563. Right from the beginning, the community was apostolic – made of members called to serve the world, deeply rooted in a personal relationship with our Lord. In 1967, the name of Marian Congregation was changed to Christian Life Communities.

If we review previous World Assemblies we understand more fully the call of Nairobi’s Assembly. In 1973, in Augsburg, for example, the theme of the Assembly was: “The Liberation of All Men and Women.” In 1976, in Manila, the theme was: “Poor with Christ for a Better Service” and in 1979, in Rome, “At the Service of One World.” In 1982, in Providence, the theme was: “The Challenge to be One World Community on Mission to Bring about Justice.” In 1986, in Loyola, the delegates reflected on “Mary – Model of Our Mission in the World and in the Church.” In 1990, Guadalajara, the theme was, “An International Community at the Service of the Kingdom, to Go Out and Bear Fruit.” In 1994, in Hong Kong, the theme was, “CLC Community in Mission” and in 1998, in Itaici, “Deepening Our Identity as an Apostolic Community, Clarifying our Common Mission.”

Clearly, the Lord has led us on the way, helping us to understand the importance of apostolic community and its focus on mission, that is, reaching out to a world in need.

The recommendations of Nairobi are centered around this specific focus in response to our “internal situation” and the “external environment” in which we are living and acting.

What does it mean to live as apostolic community?

Let’s have a look at our General Principles:

8. As members of the pilgrim People of God, we have received from Christ the mission of being his witnesses before all people by our attitudes, words and actions, becoming identified with his mission of bringing the good news to the poor, proclaiming liberty to captives and to the blind new sight, setting the downtrodden free and proclaiming the Lord’s year of favour.

Our life is essentially apostolic. The field of CLC mission knows no limits: it extends both to the Church and the world, in order to bring the gospel of salvation to all people and to serve individual persons and society by opening hearts to conversion and struggling to change oppressive structures.

An apostolic community is a community in mission. And to be community in mission means to live mission in community. This is more than a play on words. The relationship between mission and community expresses an important and essential characteristic of our Ignatian Identity. With the help of the community, we discern the mission which God entrusts to us. Based on the process of communal discernment and the decision taken, the community sends us, supports us to live this mission, accompanies us and evaluates with us what we live. Thus, we become more and more a community in mission because in and as community, we discover, accept and put our mission into concrete form. Through this process, CLC becomes an apostolic body, which responds to God´s call and participates in the mission of Jesus Christ in our world – sharing responsibility.

A cornerstone basis and frame work of this communal discernment at all levels is what we received as a World Community in “Our Common Mission” – the document of our World Assembly in Itaici in 1998. Whereas the Itaici assembly reflected about the WHAT of our mission, Nairobi put the focus in the HOW: What does it mean to be and act as an apostolic community?

Some key aspects: (which are all somehow interrelated!)

1. We are called to live in and as community

To walk in community is a must for our being Christians. As Christians, we are members of one body, the body of Christ – the Church.
We live as a community in this Church. So, what is the specific, the more, the MAGIS we are called to in CLC?

CLC happens in the tension between the individual – his/her personal way with God – and the community. In our Western cultures, often the focus is laid on the individual – in other cultures, evidently the community has priority. CLC means trying to live the balance between the individual and the community – both are poles or focus which need the other to live the specific vocation of CLC.

We can’t live CLC without community – even if we – for whatever reason – might have actually no chance to be in a small local group. But CLC is not limited to those small groups – they form one element – and a crucial one – in our way of life. But CLC as community includes all level of community – in my place, my region or diocese, in my country – and the world community.

This community lives in the attitude of shared responsibility. And this community supports the clarification of our personal vocation and living it out in daily life. Both sides accept the co-responsibility for another – the community for the individual and the individual for the others in the community and for the whole of the community [see e.g. the discernment of somebody wanting to express his/her temporary and permanent commitment in CLC]. There is a binding force, which links the individual with the local, the national and the world community.

Each one of us receives a call, which includes the call towards the other(s):
away from the individual to the community, integrating with dimensions of our way of life… that moves us forward – urges us to share with others – “outreaching” – a community that motivates and encourages us.

2. We are called as we are - in our brokenness – with confidence

The call to be an apostolic community is not primarily a ‘you must do’, but a challenge to be.

The first and fundamental dimension of mission is the lived testimony of our personal encounter with/of God. And that’s something we can trust in. The General Principles describes it as follows:

8 a) Each of us receives from God a call to make Christ and his saving action present to our surroundings.

Thus, questions like ‘Are we able? Do we fulfill this high “demand” of becoming an apostolic body?’ might be more a temptation than guided by the Spirit. It’s not a “we must,” but an invitation to try it – united with Our Lord – participate in His mission, as community and supported by our community. We are called as “loved sinners” (see Sp.Ex. – First Week) aware that we depend on HIM – but also that we can trust HIM that HE is with us.

Thus, is this call a burden – or is it a “promise”, which tempts me to follow this call? What will bear fruit is not so much what we do, but what we are – the how – the attitude behind – and it’s a process, a way to go… which includes the way from the I of the individual to the WE of the community. God is calling us as we are – not as we would like to be. God’s image of us might be very different from the one we are dreaming of. God wants to make use of us - as we are - inviting us to acknowledge our own weakness, powerlessness, foolishness so that they may become milestones on our way to and with Him. The apostolic community is a community of loved sinners where we also can share our brokenness, our failure – our dependence of God – our “security”, being safe and sound in HIS mercy. Apostolic community is – being and not just acting – happens/ occurs when we try to live it.

3. With open hearts and minds and eyes

The Itaici Document reflects a great variety of urgent needs of our world and the possibilities of responding to them according to the desire of our Lord. There is no doubt that none of us will ever be able to live the whole range of possible answers. Exactly because of that, on local, national and regional levels, we are continuously in a common process of discernment and decision making to let God show us how we can participate in “Our Common Mission” in our specific context and live it in our daily lives.

In our communities we share about our world how it is – and not as we would like it to be, and we help one another to open our eyes and hearts. Looking at our world we are confronted with injustice, violence and war – with sin, and we can’t and need not to get ourselves to safety. God opens us to the weak and the powerless in our world so that they might become the gifts that help to transform our hearts towards God and God’s love for the world.
We are a part of this sinful world… we form part as sinners – but as loved sinners – that’s how we are called. We are called with open hearts for the brokenness – in ourselves and in the world. We are called to be apostolic — called to change the world in HIS spirit – another world is possible – and we are invited to contribute to more justice, human dignity and peace.
The continuous challenge is to respond more openly and generously to the mission of Jesus and offer ourselves to live with HIM HIS mission

4. Sharing HIS mission

It is not the action as such which is our final aim. It is our deep desire to participate in HIS mission – to respond to HIS invitation to join HIM in HIS service and mission.

• What does HE want us to do?
• How does HE want us to respond to the needs of our world?
• What are the specific tasks which HE wants to entrust us here and now? With all our possibilities and with all our limitations – as we are.

This requires a process of discernment – not only individually, but in and as community - to listen and respond to HIS call.

It’s not for us to select what we would like to do… It’s HIM calling us – as HE wants – to participate in HIS mission in this world [The Two Standards]. HIS promise: you are never alone

5. The mutual support within the community

Again a look at the General Principles, #8:

c) The Community helps us to live this apostolic commitment in its different dimensions, and to be always open to what is more urgent and universal, particularly through the “Review of life” and through personal and communal discernment. We try to give an apostolic sense to even the most humble realities of daily life.

d) The Community urges us to proclaim the Word of God and to work for the reform of structures of society, participating in efforts to liberate the victims from all sort of discrimination and especially to abolish differences between rich and poor. We wish to contribute to the evangelisation of cultures from within. We desire to do all this in an ecumenical spirit, ready to collaborate with those initiatives that bring about unity among Christians.
Our life finds its permanent inspiration in the Gospel of the poor and humble Christ.

We need the support of the others – first of all in our small groups on local level:

• discernment as a mutual commitment to support one another
• co-responsibility of the community for me – my co-responsibility for the others.

This process of discernment also needs humility – the humility of accepting our limitations, our weaknesses, our fears – and offering them so that they can be used, formed and transformed into instruments at God’s service.

The individual in his/her group… opens up to the others, trusting that they are able to support him/her.

We have ideals about how our community should be and, because of the discrepancy between our ideals and the daily reality, we are at risk to mistrust the ideal and restrict our expectations. But it is God who placed us in this community. The continuous contact between the ideal and the reality (accepting our meagerness), helps us to bring our ideals and plans down to the earth of our daily lives. Our community provides us with a forum from which we can dare to be as we are, as God is present among us. We are invited to learn to let the others be as they are, to trust one another and to trust that God has plans for us. Our community is the place where we listen together, discern God’s will and receive the call offered to us. Through the community, God can open us towards the world and to the way of looking at it so ‘that the same mind grows in us that was in Christ Jesus’ (Phil 1:5). It is the community that sends us to live this mission.

We all know very well that it’s not at all easy to live as community in mission. But again and again, we are invited to trust God, to trust one another and to try to take further steps.

As apostolic body… in which all of us form a part (see the image of the human body as Church in 1 Cor.) all of us have a specific role to play… we are called to accept and live the responsibility of this body, the world community of CLC and only together can we move forward
Our shared responsibility is expressed in the four steps of discerning, sending, supporting and evaluating – at all levels:

• It calls for an opening of the local group towards the broader community on regional and national level, the opening up of the national community to the world community – whose life comes from all the individual members forming a part of the whole
• Together we respond as an apostolic body and each one of us contributes – the global perspective

And we do so on collaboration with others:

• with the Society of Jesus
• with other Church-related groups
• with women and men of good will – networks, NGOs etc. This includes making use of our opportunities of being a body: as NGO at the UN, at the World Social Forum, for example
• we are free and able to join all those who are working with the same vision – and we are urged to do so to work together for another world – proclaiming the Good News of God for all people

What we live as a World Community, our maturity and our faithfulness to God’s will strongly depends on all of us, individually and as local and national groups. Accordingly, our half-heartedness and fear will affect us as community. We are called to live as an apostolic body at God’s service and this call is for all of us. To grow in this awareness, we do not depend only on our own strength and wisdom but God counts on our generosity and confidence: “Do not be afraid, for I am with you and bless you.” (Gen 26:24)

This process – in community – helps and supports one another to be more faithful to this call to BE – and to become more and more – and to act as an apostolic body.

HOW are we called? By HIM – by the world which needs our service – by the Church that counts on us – as part of the Body of Christ!

Daniela Frank
23-07-04

To return to the Assembly 2004 Home Page

Copyright 2004 NCLC-USA. All rights reserved.
3601 Lindell Blvd., St. Louis, MO 63108
314-977-7370, Fax: 314-977-7211
www.clc-usa.org

Please contact our Webmaster with questions or comments about the site.