Christmas celebrates a love so amazing it is beyond imagination and words. But what can this feast tell us about who the Catholic faith community is called to become, especially in times of such uncertainty and anxiety?

I offer some insight from a presentation I once gave at the Los Angeles Religious Education Congress—one of the largest Catholic gatherings in the United States and perhaps the world. The topic was “Jesus and the Virtuous Life.” We gathered when the church was buffeted by waves of scandalous headlines: the Pennsylvania grand jury report detailing decades of horrific violations of and official indifference toward sexual abuse victims and survivors. The unprecedented demotion of a high-ranking churchman, stripping him of his position as a cardinal. The historic meeting of the world’s church leaders at the Vatican to address the global reality of clergy sexual abuse. All of this swirled around us, and an atmosphere of crisis engulfed the catechists and youth leaders in attendance.

In this heavy moment, the thesis of my presentation was simple and direct: “The credibility and integrity of the church will rise or fall upon its ability to lead people to a life-changing encounter and relationship with Jesus.” I argued that one reason for the crisis in the Catholic Church is that it—institutionally and collectively—has lost its way. It has made itself— its clergy, institutional standing, social influence, and self-preservation—the focus of its mission. What is needed, I suggested, is a refounding of the church. Just as religious orders were mandated by the Second Vatican Council to recover the original inspirations of their founders and update their missions in light of changing circumstances, so the Catholic Church now has to retrieve the original inspiration of its founder, Jesus.

Doing this changes the focus of our preaching and teaching. Instead of starting with the truths of a catechism, religious education becomes an invitation to a life of discipleship. The church would be a faith community that makes the life of Jesus the pattern for its own. The church’s mission becomes helping people to “let the same mind be in [them] that was in Christ Jesus” (Phil. 2:5) and become models of Jesus in the contemporary world.