Overview

Ongoing Community and the Propagation of New Leaven

" ensure that this dynamic community life continues after a group emerges from New Leaven transformation, there will be a need to pastor the ongoing vital communion of the small groups. The training of new leaders should draw upon the pastoral experience of Catholic charismatic renewal and covenant communities. Instead of imposing a strict or directive type of pastoral authority, everyone is encouraged to see that a share in the group's courage for authentically-Catholic living is "theirs for the taking", even when getting from here to there doesn't turn out to be easy.

The need for personal freedom, of course, more or less ensures that not everyone will embrace everything…at least not right away. Although a wide treasure of Catholic teaching is proposed, no uniform response will be imposed. Nevertheless, the intent in "remaking the Christian fabric…", as John Paul taught, is to seek that authentic Catholic fabric whose joyful, fruitful life in Christ is its own invitation before the world. Its members will share in a great new zeal for the Mission of Christ, the propagation of the Gospel. This reality, then, will proceed from the nurturance of its own members to a naturally-outward orientation toward the rest of the world. Clearly, an evangelistic posture is the ultimate key to the vitality of the parish, itself.

New Leaven will attract participants by the movement of the Holy Spirit that prepares some persons with a deep desire for spiritual maturity, Catholic orthodoxy, and a formative process in vital communion with others in Christ. Just as some were first drawn toward personal conversion and baptism in the Holy Spirit by visiting charismatic prayer meetings in the sixties and seventies, so also are guests to New Leaven likely to gain a deep desire to appropriate what they see, once they have witnessed the obvious joy that prevails when transformation is boldly underway.