Our Spirituality
Every community of people called together by the Lord will find that he has fairly specific instructions as to how he wants the members to respond to him. This will comprise and define their spirituality.
The Companions of the Cross believe the Lord gave us his basic directions in this regard as we persevered in meeting together in our early days. Though our spirituality is continuing to evolve, we feel the principal elements are already in place.
As we were faithful to the weekly gatherings, as we prayed and listened to the Lord, and as we responded to what we thought he might be saying to us by making commitments to him and to one another, we believe he gently revealed to us the kind of body we were to be. In the light of how God has thus dealt with us, we consider it of vital importance to continue to pray, listen, and respond, and to do it together. We want to be fully available to the Lord for whatever his purposes may be.
It is our deep conviction that God continually looks for individuals and groups of people who are willing to put themselves entirely at his disposal. A Scripture verse that speaks very powerfully to us is 2 Chronicles 16: 9. The sacred writer says: "The eyes of the Lord range constantly across the entire breadth of the earth to search out those who are wholehearted for him so that he might encourage them." It is evident, then, that our spirituality is based upon a firm belief that God wishes to be active in the lives of his people, that he is eager to be a participant as his people pilgrim forward, that he languishes unwillingly in the spectator's role to which he is so commonly relegated.
Our spirituality will manifest itself in three principal ways: how we pray, how we live together, and how we attempt to do the Lord's work.
1. How we pray
Our commitment is to pray both in private and together. Privately, we will, each of us, spend an extended time every day alone with the Lord. We will not be satisfied with our response to God until we have come to the point of giving him a minimum of one hour daily. As well, we will come together each day, in our particular houses, for a time of praise and listening to the Lord. We will proceed on the assumption that God has particular directions for us that he is more than willing to convey. Our common prayer time will include both spontaneous prayer and parts of the Liturgy of the Hours. We will be continually open to all the gifts of the Holy Spirit.
We will also, on a regular basis, pray for needs, both those of others and our own. We will address these directly as they become evident, We will lay hands on those in need if they are present. In any case, we will pray with expectancy and not be surprised if the Lord provides very direct answers to our requests.
2. How we live together
Our spirituality necessarily includes a shared life. We are to make ourselves available, not only to God, but to one another. Our community living situations will be the main forum in which the Lord will deal with us. While we are to be an active community, not contemplative, we will place great emphasis on how we live together. While we will be a ministry-oriented body, our prior focus will be on our shared life. We strongly believe that, before we can do anything worthwhile for God, we first have to be something together. The Lord will bless our desire to share our lives with one another, but he wants us to know that we will have to work at it.
We will share time together. We will share our goods with one another. We will share our struggles and our joys. This will mean, for each of us, allowing all the others to be who they are. While we will strive to be of one mind and heart around the community's vision, we will recognize that we are all unique, all different in many ways. We will respect each brother's need for personal space and yet, at the same time, be willing to give up our own privacy for the sake of those with whom we share our lives. We will be committed to working out our differences in open and honest dialogue and learn how to ask for and grant forgiveness. We believe the Companions of the Cross are to be principally defined by the quality of our life together.
3. How we work
We will be a community totally committed to the active ministry of the Church. Our call will be principally to our cities, especially to their inner cores. We will undertake the works assigned to us by the bishops of the dioceses to which we are invited. We are to have a special care for the poor, the Lord's little ones, his "anawim". We see ourselves pastoring parishes to revival and discipline people to the Lord, to his Church, and to its ministry, and sending them out to bear witness to the gospel in the marketplace. We will support the Church's commitment to the social gospel and search out the marginalized that we might serve them, meet them at their points of need, whether these be food, shelter, employment, healing, or self-respect. But, we will keep foremost in mind the deepest need that all human beings have: their need for God. Our principal and over-riding emphasis in ministry, therefore, will be evangelization. We will not, however, stop there. Evangelization, we recognize, is not enough. But we will see it as the first of the Church's tasks, the one without which none of the other ministries will work very well, will not have the effect the Lord wishes them to have.
We will have a special place in our hearts, as well, for alienated Catholics and for youth. But we will be open to taking on any responsibility that the Lord might indicate to us through the bishops of the Church.
We believe the Lord has given us our name, Companions of the Cross, for a reason. The words of Jesus to his disciples strike a responsive chord in our hearts. He said: "Anyone who does not take up his cross and follow me, cannot be my disciple" (Luke 14:27). We will not have to search out the cross. It will find us. And, we believe, we are not to fight it, but to embrace it. It is to be through our embracing of the daily cross that the Lord will best be able to accomplish through us the purposes he has in mind.
There are many authentic spiritualities within the Church. Its history and experience are rich and varied. There are monastic, contemplative, ministry-oriented spiritualities of all kinds. Our particular way of life fits somewhere in the broad spectrum of Church life. We continue to consult the Lord, recognizing that, although he has already set us upon the path he has chosen for us, he undoubtedly has much more to say.
