Our People

A Radical Way of Love

Book Launch

By Most Rev. Julian Porteous
Auxiliary Bishop of Sydney
28/11/2007

It is a great joy for me to present this latest book by Fr Ken Barker. Fr Ken and I were classmates in the seminary, and have maintained a close friendship over the years since. He even gives me the honour of a mention in his book!

This is the second book by Fr Ken. I believe it must be seen within the context of his previous work, Becoming Fire.

Becoming Fire was published in 2001. Fr Ken explained that this work was “to give the beginner in the spiritual life a vision and framework for an on-going life in the Spirit”. This new work, A Radical Way of Love, is designed for a more particular audience, for it has to do with new forms of consecrated life in the Church.

Both books are grounded in the experience of the outpouring of (or Baptism in) the Holy Spirit and the subsequent journey in the spiritual life expressed in a new ecclesial community and more particularly in a new expression of consecrated brotherhood and sisterhood. This is Fr Ken’s journey, and his gift to the Church.

The first book charts how the original experience of grace is effectively nurtured within the framework of the spiritual tradition of the Catholic Church. This is a significant contribution that Fr Ken offers us. It still is the case that some Catholics who experience the Baptism in the Spirit are drawn into a more Protestant spirituality and fail to relate their experience to their Catholic faith. Yet it is abundantly clear, as Fr Ken establishes, that the Grace of the Renewal accords with the spiritual tradition of the Church. The book is rich in references to the great spiritual teachers, the saints of the Church. The Grace of the Renewal in fact is nurtured and deepened by a person looking to the wisdom and sound guidance that this Tradition offers.

There is in this book a sound integration of the Charismatic experience and the accumulated wisdom of the Church as to how to grow in the spiritual life. Fr Ken does a great service to the Charismatic Renewal in providing a schema for ongoing spiritual growth. The Grace of the outpouring of the Spirit is but the beginning of the living of an interior spiritual life, which is nurtured in prayer, and realised in the practice of virtue. All of this is richly outlined in his first book.

The book is a significant contribution to an understanding of the place of Charismatic Renewal in Catholic spiritual tradition. Showing clearly that it is not alien to the best of what is Catholic.

But to his new book! Fr Ken shares some of his own journey of faith within the stream of the Charismatic Renewal in the Catholic Church. This is the grace that has profoundly touched and fashioned his spiritual path. The book becomes a reflection on how this grace outworked itself in his life and the ways he was led to contribute to the life and mission of the Church, particularly, but not exclusively, in this country.

One particular expression of the Charismatic Renewal over the past forty years has been the emergence of ecclesial communities. The emergence of communities of various kinds, which incorporated all the states of life, lay, consecrated and priestly, came to be designated as ecclesial communities. They are a particular feature of the Church in the latter part of the twentieth century and continue to be a significant presence in the Church as we move into this new millennium.

This phenomenon has become something of real significance to the Church. Pope John Paul II realised early how important this was and began in the early 1990s to establish firm links between the Church and these communities. In 1999 he called together a gathering of the major new movements in Rome for the feast of Pentecost and spoke directly to the new movements affirming them and inviting them to positively contribute to the life and mission of the Church.

Fr Ken outlines how he had to find his way as a diocesan priest into a new way of being, that of a priest in a predominantly lay community, the Disciples of Jesus. His journey did not stop there. More than being a member of a community, he experienced a call to a path into consecrated life. This was a radical moment for his life. He must in a way dispossess himself of many things associated with his identity and status as a diocesan priest. It was an abandonment and a great act of trust. It was fuelled by a radical way of love.

The book then proceeds to outline the character of this new way of being for Fr Ken and those who chose to join him. He articulates the key elements of living a fresh and new expression of consecrated life. The material is sound and rich in its reliance upon the Scriptural vision of the Christian life. He draws, too, upon the teaching of the saints as he had done in his previous book.

This book presents a new expression of consecrated life that is fresh in its vision and yet profoundly traditional in its underpinning spirituality. Fr Ken is one of those “wise stewards” who is able to bring out of his storehouse “things both new and old”. Fr Ken has a “new wine” and it is put into “fresh skins”, but these are skins proven as enduring from the age long experience of the Church.

Religious life in the Church is going through a difficult phase. Over the years since the Vatican Council many religious communities have attempted to refashion themselves, often discarding much of their tradition and practice. They have lost something in this process and many are now a shadow of their former selves. Fr Ken shows clearly that the traditional virtues and ways of being consecrated are not in fact outmoded, but simply need to be invested with new life, with a renewed spiritual vision.

This book is important for several reasons.

Firstly, it chronicles the history and spirit of the Missionaries of God’s Love (MGL). This will be more significant as men and women in the future join this expression of consecrated life and are able to appreciate its origins and launching charism.

Secondly, it provides a testament to what the Spirit is doing in the Church today. The MGLs are a manifestation of a renewal of consecrated life. They are a sign of hope and a promise of a “new springtime” of which Pope John Paul II spoke.

Thirdly, the book gives us in Australia a record of the way the Spirit is moving among us. God is at work today, among us! Australia, this “great south land of the Holy Spirit”, is a recipient of the movement of the Holy Spirit in the Church today.

I congratulate and thank Fr Ken for this book and pray that it will be a source of hope and inspiration to many.