CLC Models: Grassroots Spirituality Movement
Grassroots Spiritual Movement Model
Commonweal Local Communities (CLCs) started as a grassroots movement. Commonweal provided readers with a webpage to link up with established CLCs, or to initiate a new one for their area. Most of our members were Commonweal subscribers generated by the web site; only a few knew each other beforehand, and only a few were recruited by members. Religious movements grow through the personal relationships of social networks (family, friends, neighbors, coworkers, etc.) not through mailing lists of unrelated consumers of products and services.
According to the website, “Commonweal fosters rigorous and reflective discussions about faith, public affairs, and the arts, centered on belief in the common good.” CLCs “gather in their local communities for critical conversation on the issues that matter most. Each community determines their goals, set-up, meeting times, and the readings best suited for them. As for the conversation itself, many use Commonweal's Conversation Starter Series while others discuss readings from the pages of the magazine or set their own agenda entirely."
Therefore, Commonweal Local Communities may be seen as a spiritual movement of persons and communities engaged in the practice of reading Commonweal or other materials on issues that matter most in the light of faith centered on belief in the common good. Pope Francis’s vision in the Joy of the Gospel of “an ecclesial renewal which cannot be deferred” can be applied CLCs.
“I dream of a ‘missionary option’, that is, a missionary impulse capable of transforming everything, so that the Church’s customs, ways of doing things, times and schedules, language and structures can be suitably channeled for the evangelization of today’s world rather than for her self-preservation.”
Francis claims that “The parish is not an outdated institution; precisely because it possesses great flexibility, it can assume quite different contours depending on the openness and missionary creativity of the pastor and the community. It is a community of communities." He also says: “other Church institutions, basic communities and small communities, movements, and forms of association are a source of enrichment for the Church, raised up by the Spirit for evangelizing different areas and sectors.” What Francis says about the flexibility of parishes as networks of communities and the multiplicity of forms of association within dioceses and the universal church should be applied to creating CLCs
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Discussion Questions: What are we interested in transforming? Ourselves? Our households? families? parishes? friendships? workplaces? professions? neighborhoods? cities? counties? diocese? customs? ways of doing things? structures? cultures? What are the “issues that matter most” in each of our local social networks? With whom might we want to begin discussions? What Commonweal articles might facilitate transformations of our ways of thinking and doing? How might focusing upon the common good lead to transformations of thinking and doing without creating us vs. them divisions? |
COMMENTARY
Although Francis focuses upon the Church in this section of the Joy of the Gospel, it is clear that he is also talking about the transformation of society, indeed he has a whole section upon the topic
Pope Francis claims that true peace comes only when the common good is pursued. Domination of one portion of society over others, a consensus on paper silencing the poor create only a transient peace that allows a wealthy to pursue their lifestyle while others suffer.
The dignity of the human person and the common good rank higher than the comfort of those who refuse to renounce their privileges. When these values are threatened, a prophetic voice must be raised.
People in every nation enhance the social dimension of their lives by acting as committed and responsible citizens, not as a mob swayed by the powers that be. Participation in political life is a moral obligation
Yet becoming a people demands something more. It is an ongoing process in which every new generation must take part: a slow and arduous effort calling for a desire for integration and a willingness to achieve this through the growth of a peaceful and multifaceted culture of encounter.