A reason to belong

Spiritual self-sufficiency is acquired through experience.
It matters not what form that experience may take, as any, from the most beautiful to the most horrific, the most exceptional to the most ordinary and apparently insignificant, has its place in the moulding process which accompanies our spiritual journeying. Without this process our journey would become a repetitive circle of routine or an unaccompanied and futile wandering far from the path prepared for us; in effect it would be no journey at all. Our steps would fade into a blurred greyness to compliment or replace the familiar gloom of uninspired daily living or the hollow echoes of a habitual church attendance devoid of any real spiritual life.

In F. F. Bruce’s words, being ‘self-sufficient in (one’s) religious life, or at least ... self-sufficient when circumstances require’, is not possible without the capacity for being content in any situation. The total ‘dependence on the Christ who lives within’ that powered and empowered St Paul is conceived in faith and born of the experience which grows from that faith. In Paul’s own case it was an experience that brought about the initial change: sudden, overwhelming, transforming; the change irreversible. It brought the knowledge of who Jesus was: belief in Him but not the total dependence on Him. That grew as the heart of the moulding process that followed the opening of Paul's eyes to the truth; his experience of God’s ongoing work in and through him led him to that dependence, not as any form of sacrifice or challenge or obligation - though it was to involve all three - but as the most ‘natural’ and complete relationship in the world.

It is our openness to the Holy Spirit that will draw us towards and into the experiences that will transform us into our own self-sufficient and content selves. It is the ability to leave all else behind without any lessening of peace, and hope, and faith, which can lift us from the greyness of mediocrity; we remain within our normal spheres of work and social interaction, and church or other religious contact, but if we acquire or develop this ability we have already separated ourselves from the majority of people. We have yielded to the call to become more deeply spiritual men and women, and in that compliance our journey comes to life with an increasing awareness of who we are meant to be. Our self-sufficiency, our being content, far from leading to isolation or a selfish distancing of ourselves from the world around us, grounds us more firmly in the community. This, whether we enter a church building or not, plants us undeniably in Christ’s Church: we are confirmed as Christians, both in our consciences and in our consciousness. It plants us, but to receive the food and water required for growth and for eventual fruitfulness, we need to bring our Christianity (whether recognised as being such or not) to a place of acknowledgement, for the community in which we are now more firmly grounded, and also for ourselves. Our inner conviction should lead us to a need for confirmation from others: confirmation that we belong to and are part of the community of Christians which is Christ’s Church.

The welcoming in and confirmation are formalized through Baptism, the Eucharist and Confirmation, either as distinct stages or together, depending on whether a person be young child or adult. These rites are three facets of the same involvement and call to unity which expresses and satisfies our mutual needs for affirmation and belonging. We are baptised as Jesus was baptised by John the Baptist, but also with the gifts of the Holy Spirit; we share in the bread and wine as Jesus shared with His Apostles at the Last Supper; we are Confirmed as an awakening of our gifts and of our Spirit led witness to a maturing faith. We should long for the Holy Spirit to be manifested in our lives in ways that empower us just as the believers in the gathered community were empowered at Pentecost. This, above all, is why we should each find our way of truly becoming a living part of Christ’s Church; there is no genuine Christian life outside it.
We cannot be Christians and remain forever beyond reach, aloof and alone.
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