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Deepening Your Friendship with Christ: The Four Steps

Developing a profound and personal relationship with Jesus Christ is at the very heart of the Catholic faith, and the teaching of the Second Vatican Council (Vatican II) provides a clear pathway for this spiritual journey. This path is often understood through a four-step pattern for Christian life: Encounter, Conversion, Communion, and Mission. It begins with a personal encounter with Jesus, meeting Him in a real and transformative way. This leads to conversion, the crucial process of becoming more like Christ by turning away from sin and striving for holiness. While this relationship is intensely personal, it is also fundamentally communal—an encounter that happens through the Church and draws us into the Church. This uniquely Catholic approach ensures that our personal relationship with Christ is nurtured within the body of believers.

The subsequent steps of Communion and Mission are notably prominent in the documents of Vatican II, particularly in Lumen gentium. Communion is the life of shared love and deep friendship with Jesus, a state of oneness with Him that we experience most perfectly in the Eucharist, but also in the daily life of the Church. This deep, relational life is not meant to be static; it encourages us outward into the Mission of sharing the Good News and living the Gospel. Mission is the fourth and climactic step, where we go out as co-workers with Christ to invite others into this same transformative relationship. As a diocese, we are all invited to join in this final, vital stage. By embracing this four-fold pattern—moving from a personal encounter to communal mission—we fulfill the Catholic understanding of a vibrant spiritual life and deepen our essential relationship with our Savior. We also are fulfilling our call to evangelization.

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