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 * Green, M. (2009) Lay Spirituality and Charisms. //Keynote address delivered at ‘Light for the Journey’ Experience//, //Townsville Catholic Education Office, July.// **[Reading Four^] ^Updated copy as of 20 July 2009 attached**

Each of us, as a Christian, is called to be a disciple of Jesus. There are no grades of discipleship, no first-class and second-class Christians, no full members and associate members of the Church. (p1)

...when we are talking about spirituality we are dealing with something that is largely embraced at the intuitive level, not the logical. Even we practically-minded schoolies know well enough what the ‘feel’ of a school is like, or the ‘spirit’ of a place. We pick up on these things quickly as soon as we come into a school for the first time. (p5)

People’s responses to the universal call to holiness may vary, according to the late Pope, as a result of differences in their concrete situations, their living and working conditions, their abilities and inclinations, their personal preferences for a particular spiritual or apostolic director, or for a specific founder or religious order, but finally an authentic Christian spirituality will lead to and from Jesus. (p6)

...all Christian spiritual traditions have grown out of particular social, cultural, ecclesial and historical contexts. (p6)

A person must feel at home in a spirituality if it is going to lead that person to a genuine experience of Christian discipleship. It has to feel right; it has to fit who that person is, and where, when and how he or she lives. That is not to suggest that it might not be a challenging experience, or have its demanding aspects, as the Spirit takes the initiative. It has to be able, however, to bring the person’s faith, culture and life into harmony, to give his or her life an integrity and a unity. (p7)

...a grace of the Holy Spirit, freely given to a member or members of the Christian community, to enable them to receive and preach the gospel of Jesus in a particular way, and that every charism enhances the Church’s shared capacity for the service of the Gospel. (p9)

The schools are serviced by Catholic Education Offices and Catholic Education Commissions that provide high level curricular, financial, legal and personnel support for policies, programs and governance...But to what extent is it still a //Catholic// education that we are offering? Or, to put it more pointedly, to what extent are our schools communities where the gospel of Christ is proclaimed unambiguously and received openly, where Jesus is known and loved personally, where the reign of God pervades all that is done there and how it is done? (p13)

The degree to which it is the case in a school will largely be a function of the depth to which the staff who lead it can personally answer yes to each of those questions posed. (p13)

For a spirituality to be one that will serve the Church of the third millennium, and particularly one that is going to be embraced by a contemporary Catholic school, it will need to be one that allows for an expression of //communio// in the sense that Vatican II has proposed it: it must be inclusive of lay people as its main constituent group. (p15)

The Second Vatican Council… saw that the Church needed both its structures of authority, teaching and organization, as well as ways that fostered its being open to the movement of the Spirit in fresh and compelling ways, even in ways that were unsettling...Without the former, the Church would lack direction and surety, without the latter it could lack vitality and relevance. For the Church to proceed with both integrity and inspiration, it needs both. (p17)

One of the characteristics of the contemporary Catholic education scene in this country is the ascendancy of the Catholic education bureaucracy over the more charismic dimensions of the life of the Church. (p18)

To be inspired by one of the great charisms of the Church, is something that affects a person’s heart and defines person’s self-understanding… Membership of a spiritual family brings a person into community with fellow disciples, people who become not only colleagues but spiritual companions. (p20)

While, in the final analysis, they all lead to discipleship of the one Lord, and communion with the one Church, and while there is a natural ‘simpatico’ among some charisms because of their bloodlines, it is a diminished understanding of the way they work incarnationally to presume that an educator, and most especially a school leader, can become something of a charism chameleon (p20). //Maybe not a chameleon, but many of us have lives that have been affected by several charisms; it takes effort to understand a charism and then some inpsiration to change one's life in some way because of it. Some schools have several charsims - one in Hobart has five charisms. The taks in such schools is more complex, but it becomes clearer once you bcemome immersed in the charsims. I was at Catholic College Bendigo - a school with Mercy and Marist charisms. I found after some formation in each charism, some personal reflection and some discussion and prayer that I viewed charisms as different strands woven into a cloth. That image works for me with one place, like a school, or the Church itself, with its vast array of fabrics and colours that are being added to and repaired and sometimes frayed. (Peter Griffin)//

__The “Seven ‘C’s of charism” pp21 - 24 __ **Coherence **: to what extent is this played out in the school’s daily life?
 * Critical Mass: ** for a school to be a genuine community of mission with one of the spiritual traditions of the Church there needs to be a critical mass of people at the strongly-identifying end of the spectrum. Whoever they are, these are the people who need to know the story of the spirituality, to own it, to be able to share it with others, to feel it in their bones, and to inspire others in their appropriation of it.
 * Christian discipleship **: At its best, all Christian spirituality leads to and from an encounter with Jesus. For a spirituality to be Catholic, this encounter will be significantly found in the Sacramental life of the Church, and within its shared pastoral mission.
 * Constancy of orientation **: it takes time to embed a particular spirituality into a school community…a congruence between what the school claims and what its members actually are and do, where there is an active critical mass of lay people who have a self-identity defined by that spirituality, and where a disctinctive form of Christian discipleship is at the heart of it all – then a school is likely to have something powerful at work. If the leader of the community of mission is not able, willing or naturally disposed to do this, or to do it with sufficient credibility, then it is unlikely that the spirituality will grace the mission of the school in the way it could otherwise do.
 * Continuing formation **: in the Church, it is usually associated with guided personal and spiritual development. If the lay members of a spiritual tradition are to develop in their embrace of that tradition, and allow it to develop in their discipleship, they need formation opportunities. It will only ever be as vital and convincing as are the people within it.
 * Church connection **: charism and institution are always complementary for the Church; it needs both.
 * Community of mission **<span style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">: all charisms are about empowering the Church for bringing people into discipleship with Jesus and associating them together as community. <span style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif';">

//What I have taken away from this reading are the ideas that: (1) charism is not the 'property' of a particular order, and that all charisms serve the greater Church and lead to Jesus Christ; (2) it is not really possible or ideal to go "charism shopping" or to move randomly between charisms, which has implications for educators and education leaders who are more transient; and (3) the spirituality of staff is probably the most important factor in establishing, maintaining and animating charism and gospel values in all schools. (**Melissa Roth**)//