The Jeff Cavins Show (Your Catholic Bible Study Podcast) - Activated Disciple Series Part 4: Going All In

Episode Date: March 25, 2022

How does someone come into the Church? Jeff outlines the process of a person coming into the Church and how you can be a part of that process. He also discusses what it means to put on Christ and be a part of the Body of Christ. Snippet from the Show “For as many of you as were baptized into Christ have put on Christ.” Galatians 3:27 Email us with comments or questions at [e-mail]. Text “jeffcavins” to 33-777 to subscribe and get Jeff’s shownotes delivered straight to your email! Or visit ascensionpress.com/thejeffcavinsshow for full shownotes!

Welcome to the Jeff Kaven show, where we talk about the Bible, discipleship, and evangelization, putting it all together in living as activated disciples. This is episode 263, the activated disciple retreat, going all in. Welcome back to the retreat over Lent, my friend. It's good to have you. We are doing something so different with the show. during Lent this year, we are focusing on becoming activated disciples, becoming disciples who are really, really going to that next level with the Lord. And we're going to get into it today, and this one's called Going All In. We're going to look at the process that we go through, or others would go through, to become part of the bride of Christ. I think you'll find it

enlightening, and perhaps you can get involved, and you can get involved in not only in your R-CIA program at your church, but you can be a sponsor of somebody coming in to the church. Hey, before we get going today, just a quick reminder, there's still places open on my June trip to the Holy Land. You can go to my website, jeffcavens.com. I'll put it in the show notes. We have some room there. And we also have room in the fall in October when we go to Turkey and Greece, and we're

going to look at the footsteps of Paul, you know, and see what he did. and walk those steps. It's going to be a lot of fun. I'm really looking forward to it. And those are the two trips coming up this year. I'll put that in the show note. Hey, the book that I'm taking this retreat from is a book that I wrote for Ascension Press, and it's called The Activated Disciple, taking your faith to the next level. You can get that at ascensionpress.com. For those of you that already got it, you're going to see that I'm following that book pretty well and trying to cover at least the important points for this particular retreat. You know, it's important to remember what a retreat really is. A retreat really is

about going to the next level. You know, taking a good look at where you're at and your walk with God right now and then making the changes that are necessary to go to that new level. And that's what we're trying to do. By the way, we do have an outline for this entire retreat and you can get that in the show notes. Put that in the show notes. I think it's on Ascension's website as well. And then every lesson I give you three things to think about as you prepare for the next lesson.

You kind of go over some of the material that I've been discussing and then prepare yourself for the next lesson. But the goal, the whole thing, is that you would become like Christ and that your whole life would change as a result of that. And you would really live the life that you kind of dream. of, you know, walking with the Lord on a daily basis. And I can tell you, in complete and utter transparency, honesty, I am having the time of my life right now, just being in God's word every day and teaching you and spending the time together.

I'm enjoying this so much. I enjoy your company so much. And I would just encourage you, kind of thought about this at the last second here, you know, share it with your friends. tell your friends about this. They can go back and listen to the earlier ones, but let your friends know about a retreat and as well as the other 262 shows that cover a lot of material over the last few years. And I've enjoyed every single, every single megabyte of it. Okay, so this one's called Going All In, Going All In. And this one really deals with this whole process of coming into the church after you have made the decision, yes, I want to be a member of the church. I want to be a follower of Jesus. It's not just a matter of going, you know, snapping your fingers together and, you know, it's done. It's not that easy. Some people do make it that easy, but there's more to it. And we're going to take a look at that. In light of the ancient process of becoming a disciple that I spoke about last time, the process is actually outlined in the catechism in its paragraph

1229. I'll put that in the show notes for you. It says from the time of the apostles becoming a Christian has been accomplished by a journey and initiated in several stages. This journey can be covered rapidly or slowly, but certain elements, these essential elements will always have to be present. And that is a proclamation of the Word, Word of God, acceptance of the gospel entailing conversion. Number three, profession of faith, and then baptism itself and the outpouring of the Holy Spirit, and then admission to the Eucharistic Communion. So those are the parts that are always present in conversion. And quite a few years ago, it's not available anymore, but quite a few years ago, I wrote a small book with Scott Hahn called First Comes Love, not to be mistaken for

his current book with the same title. But it was comparing the process that a couple, a man and a woman, goes through as they fall in love and then become engaged. And then they enter into marriage to the process of becoming, we equated that with the process of becoming closer to Christ and the process of coming into the church. So you have those three different phases. You have the dating phase, which we could call courtship, which could be a long period of time. And or a very short period of time. And then after dating, it's engagement. If the first stage is courtship, the second would be commitment.

That's engagement. You go from dating to engagement. And then the third step, of course, is marriage. It's the actual marriage ceremony and the consummation of the relationship. And we would call that communion. So it's courtship, commitment, and communion, dating, engagement, marriage. See how they correlate there. courtship, commitment, and communion correlate with dating engagement and marriage.

And looking at discipleship in Jesus' time, that was fascinating. I like that. I like your feedback on that. That was wonderful. But we want to take a look at how the process has taken place over the years and how it takes place today. Today in the church, and by the way, let me just slip this in. This is one of the areas, to be honest with you, which I think we've got a lot of trouble.

a lot of problems, and that is that a lot of people don't know how people become a part of our church. I'm talking about the people in the pews. They know that on the Easter vigil, there's three, four people that are coming in, but they don't know when it began, and they don't, they don't know what was happening with them when they snuck off in mass to their own meeting, and they don't know when they're going to come in. You know, there's a lot of people that really don't know what happens on the Easter vigil. And that is very, very important. If we don't know how to make spiritual babies and we're losing people, then what's our future? You know, our future in the church, if we're going to be a growing church and a fruitful church, is that we have to, as a laity, learn how people come into the church.

And one of the things that I recommend is that a pastor, this is for you pastors, is that a month or so before people are enrolled in the catacuminant, we'll get to that in a minute, that you make some kind of announcement before mass or after mass or mix it into with your homily to let people know, hey, in about a month from now, something big is going to take place. And if you know of anybody that you think may want to come into the church or you've been witnessing to them, this is the process and then explain the process. That my father friend would be really, really good in the church. Those churches that know how this all works, they flourish.

the churches that do not, they continue to lose people. So get that nursery ready for new life. Now, the typical avenue that moves people from courtship to commitment is to be enrolled in the catechuminant, which is the beginning of the initiation into the sacramental and liturgical life of the church. Now, this process is usually conducted in what the church calls the R-C-I-A experience. and that is R-C-I-A is the right of Christian initiation for adults, okay? So that's called the R-C-I-A.

We should all learn that and become familiar with it. An important point to remember is that this step is not a mere formality, but really a critical process to become a disciple of the Lord, one who will not only love and serve the Lord, but will imitate God in the world. It's serious business. Once enrolled in the catechuminant at your local church, the catechumans, those are the people going through, are already joined to the church. Did you know that? That once they join the catecuminant and say, I want to be part of this church.

And that first step of being enrolled, the church looks at them as they're part of us. They are already part of the household of God and are frequently already living. a life of faith, hope and charity, with love and solitude. Mother Church already embraces them as their own. You can read about that in the catechism in paragraph 1249. I'll put that in the show notes. Paragraph 1249. Now, we're big into words, aren't we in the church? My goodness, we have so many meta words that we have to learn, but we have to learn them. It's worth it. Catecuminate. Catecumans. lot of terminology around this process. So let me break it down. Make it clear for you. Catechesis is the process of passing on the faith. The one who does this catechesis is the catechist. The catechized,

the catechumin. The catechesis involves the catechism, which can be taught at a catechetical institute, like the one I teach at at the St. Paul Seminary in St. Paul, Minneapolis. Is that catecatically correct? Is that clear? Or has this now become a cataclysmic mess? The catechuminant process, it comes to a culmination in the tritum. After this extended period of time of learning, and in the early church, this could be a long, long time. But today, it's just a matter of months in that catechuminant, the one who's enrolled, they go through the process to a culmination, and that culmination is the trituum. The tritum. The tritum are the three days that focus on Easter.

That's the Easter Vigil Mass and Holy Saturday. It is amazing. It's an amazing mass. And my wife and I, we never miss it because it's just so fun to be a part of something historic, you know, in the church. But on that Triduum, the Easter Vigil Saturday night, these catacuminate, the people who have been prepared, what do they do?

they are publicly proclaiming and what are they proclaiming they're proclaiming i'm all in i'm all in that's what they're saying baptism confirmation and the eucharist these are the sacraments that they're going to receive they're called the sacraments of initiation the easter vigil is the witness of the body of Christ, expanding and growing. That's what you're witnessing when you go to the Easter vigil. Publicly claim, I'm all in. I'm all in. So to be an activated disciple, and I hope you start using that term, because it doesn't it differentiate us from somebody who says, well, yeah, I'm Christian, but they're not active. They're not doing what a disciple does, but an activated disciple is. So to be an activated disciple, one,

must walk in and rely on the power of the Holy Spirit. Now, one area here that is really important, and you can play a role in, and during this retreat, you might start thinking about next year in your parish who you could sponsor, the need to become a sponsor. My friend, we are really in need of sponsors. I mean it, we are really in need of sponsors. But if you're going to be a sponsor, it is sort of presumes that you are out there talking to people and sharing with them the good news of the

gospel. And I hope you, I hope you are. So what is the role of a sponsor? Well, the role of a sponsor is to walk with that person through the process and to add additional teaching and clarification to the teaching that they're getting in the catacuminant. And that happens. You know, afterwards they may say, well, what did Mr. So-and-so mean by that? Or what did the deacon? He mentioned this word, what was he talking about? And you can assist them in that. One thing needs to change, and that is that everyone in the parish should be clear about the process. Most don't know how people got up there, and they should be looking out for new people. And I've got a plan that I've been sharing with churches around the country recently, and it's a plan on how your parish can double.

It can double in size in five years. I have a plan. Sounds like, I have a dream, doesn't, but I have a plan, and it will work. It works, it will work 100% of the time, a plan to double your church size in five years. I'll mention that at the end of this podcast. So we are all the body of Christ. This is not just a theological concept. When people come into the church, as you have, if you are, you're a member of the household of God, you're a Catholic right now. And if we have non-Catholics listening, you're the bride as well. You are, you belong to Christ. We are separated, brethren, and we're separated over the Eucharist, and for that we're sad, and we hope that there's some coming together in the future. But we are all the body of

Christ. But the important thing to remember is that this is not just a theological concept at all. To be a member of the body of Christ is not simply theological, but the body of Christ is literally the body of Christ. He is the head. We are the body. We're the body. We're the arms, the legs, the mouth, we are his body. We carry out what the head wants. We carry out the will of Jesus. So being the body of Christ, as far as being an activated disciple, being the body of Christ is the all-encompassing imitation of Jesus. Jesus could have said, you are my memo pad to the world. You are my post-it note to the world. You are my press conference, but he didn't. What did he say? He said, you are my body. That is all-encompassing. You are my body. And if we're

talking about all-encompassing imitation, it must be in everything. When we watch media, the way we spend our money, how we treat others in traffic, you will be judged on how you acted. like the body of Christ in everything that you do. And if this can get through to our thinking, then I am the body of Christ. That means that I don't miss a week or a month at a time. Every day, I'm the body of Christ. If we can get that into our thinking,

then man, oh man, can we have an impact on the world? I'm going to take a break when I come back. I want to go further into this putting on of Christ as activated disciples after we have come into the church. and what that looks like in your day-to-day life. I love it. I appreciate you being with me, and I'll be right back. You're listening to The Jeff Kaven Show. Every one of us is made in the image of God.

We are unique, worthy of love, and called to greatness. In this world, though, we can be distracted from that truth and begin to doubt God's love is real. You see, we live in a world that tells us we are not smart, attractive, thin, or rich enough. It is easy to focus on the ways we fall short of worldly perfection and forget that we are already made perfect. We are already enough. I'm Danielle Bean, author of You Are Enough,

what women of the Bible teach you about your mission and worth. You Are Enough dives into the stories of women in the Bible so that you can fully see God's plan for your life. To order, visit ascensionpress.com or Amazon. All right, so we are activated disciples, and those who come into the church, they have received the sacraments of initiation. Isn't it beautiful? They've been baptized, and they receive the Holy Spirit, and they have actually received Jesus into their body in the U.S. We are the church. It's not a theological point. It's not just something in a theology book. We are the body of Christ. We're not like the body of Christ. We're not similar to the body of Christ. We are not the metaphor being the body of Christ. We are the body of Christ. That means when I walk into Walmart, the body of Christ walks into Walmart. When you go into a McDonald's, the body of

body of Christ went into McDonald's when you go to a ball game so say you're going to go to the uh to the to the Detroit Tigers football game the body of Christ just went into the stadium Paul put it this way in Romans 13 14 I'll give you these scriptures I'll give you a few here and I'll put them in the notes for you by the way if you don't get the show notes all you got to do is text my name one word Jeff Kavens and text it to the number 3377 and before you know it, they'll be in your inbox, and we'll keep them coming to you. And for some reason, they have stopped, go ahead and do it again. So Paul said concerning this putting on of Christ, we put on Christ.

He says in Romans 1314, but put on the Lord Jesus Christ and make no provision for the flesh to gratify its desires. He also said to the Galatians, chapter 3, for as many of you as were baptized, into Christ, get this, have put on Christ. So when you see those people, and I'm hoping that I'd love to prophesy and say those six, seven dozen people in your church next year that are coming in, they, when they're baptized, are putting on Christ. They are becoming the body of Christ. So what is the body of Christ? Well, it's the result of a covenant that was made. the new covenant between Jesus and his bride, and we now are the body.

So from the beginning, and I love this, the catechism mentions this in paragraph 787, that from the beginning Jesus associated his disciples with his own life, revealed the mystery of the kingdom to them, and gave them a share in his mission, his joy, and his sufferings. Jesus spoke of a still more intimate communion between him and those who would follow him, and that was, abide in me and I in you. Isn't that great? And it goes on and says, I am the vine, you are the branches. And he proclaimed a mysterious and real communion between his own body and ours.

He said, he who eats in my flesh and drinks my blood abides in me, and I in him. So there's two ways of looking at the relationship with Jesus in terms of his mission in being the body of Christ. You can see these two pretty easily out there. One is a Catholic view, a scriptural view, of what it means to be the body of Christ. Now, there's another view out there, and I'm just going to call it the mystery view. And you can do your own thinking about what church, what denomination, what group subscribes to this. But this is a very popular view of the body of Christ. One is Catholic and scriptural, one is not scriptural, and it's not Catholic.

And you can fill in the blank. I don't want to be the bad guy here and get the email about it. But the first one is this. Okay, let's look at this. The first one is the mystery view that is out there in the world. And on this view, now this is in relation to the body of Christ in terms of our mission, what we do with Jesus. okay. And this one is basically receive, receive, receive the benefits of Christ. It's like, it's like looking up into heaven and bringing it down with our hands, you know, a waving motion

towards ourselves. Bring it, bring it. Receive, receive, receive. And that's what our view is. Because if we look at Jesus as a mission, in his mission, he is the healer. Amen? He is the great counselor, amen. He is the builder, amen. He is the great shepherd, the good shepherd, no doubt about it. He suffered for the sins of the world, and he died for the sins of the world. He did these and so much more. And as we look at that, this one view, the mystery view, is I receive, receive, receive all of the benefits. all the benefits I just receive and that's what I'm here for I'm a king's kid I'm the head and not the tail I can have what I say and that's kind of the view of it receive receive receive

receive well that's nice in America but it isn't in the Bible now yes certainly we receive the benefits of Christ absolutely we receive the benefits of Christ but listen being the member of the body of Christ, is not all about receiving benefits. It's about participation. So as one view would say receive, receive, receive, period. The Catholic view and the biblical view is participate, participate, participate. In every aspect of Christ's mission, he is the shepherd, but he shares that role of shepherds with us and gives us priests. He's the one intercessor between God and man, yet he shares that intercessory obligation that role with us pray in his name he's the great counselor and he shares that among us with great great counselors he is the one who judges and he even says in scripture that one

we will be joining him in that and he's the one who suffered for the sins of the world and guess what we get to do that too i didn't make this stuff up you can read peter peter talk about it. Paul talks about it consistently. If you want to share in his glory, you have to share in his suffering. And Paul said in Colossians, I rejoice in my suffering for your sake and I fill up in my body, that which is lacking in the sufferings of Christ. What could be lacking? Well, nothing. But as St. Augustine said, what's lacking is the participation of the body of Christ. In other words, we get to do every aspect of his messionic mission, everything, everything. And that's what it means to be the body of Christ.

Participate, participate, participate. Every aspect of Christ's mission is accomplished by him and shared with us to continue to accomplish his mission. What happens when you participate with him? What happens? Get this, you become like him. That's right. become like him. I'll give you a quick little story. I remember this not too long ago.

It was my friends and I were on a long, long motorcycle trip. I had my Harley Davidson Road Glide Ultra and some other other guys had Harleys and Kawasaki Victory. And we were riding, we were taking long rides about 400 miles a day and then I would speak at a church about every other night. And it was about a 4,000 or 5,000 mile trip. And I remember going to one game. gas station and we were all fueling up. We had leather coats on, leather chaps, boots. We looked like a motorcycle gang, basically. Little did anyone know there were two or three priests the deacon and the rest of us, laity that loved God. But we pulled into the gas station and we're filling up and then this lady comes over to me. I don't know if I look like the most approachable

or what or or sucker and she comes up to me and she said hi guys um are you any of you interested in buying another motorcycle and you know harley davidson writers are a little proud i'll say and i'm like well what kind of bike do you have and she goes well i got a gold wing a honda gold wing and i'm thinking i don't want a honda gold wing i got a harley davidson but i said to her why are you selling it and here was her answer. She said, well, I have fourth stage cancer, breast cancer, and spread. And my husband and I used to ride all around the country, but I can't anymore because of my health, and we think it would just be better to get rid of it. Wow, I thought, oh, my gosh. Now, I could go one of two ways with this. One is the typical, and that is, oh, I'm really sorry to hear that.

well we have to keep you in our prayers and then leave enough of that enough of that my friend let's take action let's pray with people fooey with that and i'll keep in my prayers and then go away and to be honest many times we forget so i don't want to do that anymore i want to actually pray so i said to her well we are all in this gang here we're all christians that guy's a priest that guy's a priest over there and i've got a deacon and i'm a bible teacher we're Christians. We are disciples. In fact, that's what I told her, that we're disciples. And she said, oh, wow. And I said, do you mind if we pray for you? She said, I would love that. So about seven of us in leathers are surrounding her, and we prayed for her. And one of the priests put a blessing on her.

She was so touched. Her eyes filled with tears. She was so touched. When she came to the gas station and found these activated disciples in leathers on Harley Davidson's loved her and prayed for her. We ended up having to take off, and we went about another hour and a half and pulled into rest areas on the side of the road. We were getting off our bike, and all of a sudden, this lady pulls in to the rest area. She gets out of her car and thought, maybe we left something back there. She walked up to us, and she had tears in her eyes, and she said, I've been following you for the last hour and a half.

I just wanted you guys to know how much that meant to me. It just meant everything to me with what I'm going through right now. And I thought, wow, wow, to be the body of Christ. Jesus did more than just say, I'll pray for you. Did it. Did it. And that was the key. And so to be the body of Christ is what we become activated disciples once we come

into the church. And one of the things that I've encouraged people to do is don't do this on your own. Develop a posse. In the old west, if a sheriff needed help enforcing the law or forming a search party, he would call on a group of people to assist him. They were the posse. And this group who shared a common characteristic or purpose was called a posse back then and today. Today you may call them your crew, your squad, your peeps. I call them my saint posse. And I've got five in my posse and I ride with them every day. And they are an inspiration to me and I ask them to pray for me every day because I know I cannot do this myself. That's my saint posse, St. Augustine, St. Francis, Mother Teresa, St. Joseph, and St. John Paul II, my posse. I ride with them every day. I get up in the

morning. It's one of the first things I think about. Pray for me. Pray for me. I want to be an activated disciple. My friend, it's so good to spend this time with you, and I do pray that you will walk up to your potential and walk in your potential as an activated disciple. It's very, very important. Next week, we're going to go deeper into the skills of a disciple as far as prayer and study and knowing the mind of God and knowing how to hear the voice of Jesus as a disciple. That's what we're going to be going through next week. Again, if you don't have the show notes go with my name Jeff Kaven's one word to 33777 my friend father's son and the holy spirit lord we love you and we love this whole beautiful mission of being an activated

disciple help us as we continue in the name of the father and the son and the holy spirit amen love you Thank you.