Welcome to On Being a Christ Catholic, a ministry of the Sacramental Community of the Coworkers of Christ.
This website exists as a place of reflection, teaching, memory, and invitation. It is not the beginning of a new jurisdiction. It is not a recruitment page for another ecclesiastical structure. It is not an attempt to add one more denomination, communion, synod, or religious brand to an already crowded Christian landscape.
It is something simpler, and perhaps more difficult.
It is an invitation to ask what it means to be Christ Catholic.
Not Roman Catholic first.
Not Anglo-Catholic first.
Not Orthodox Catholic first.
Not Old Catholic first.
Not Celtic Catholic first.
Not Independent Catholic first.
Christ Catholic.
That does not mean we reject the gifts of those traditions. Far from it. We honor the ancient streams of Christian faith, the sacraments, the saints, the councils, the Scriptures, the liturgy, the monastic witness, the mystics, the martyrs, the prophets, and the long memory of the Church. We stand within the great catholic river.
But the river has a source.
Christ is the source.
Christ is the center.
Christ is the measure by which all our religion must be judged.
The phrase Christ Catholic carries historical meaning for us. It reaches back through the witness of Christ Catholic Church, the Old Catholic and Free Catholic movements, and the ministry of Archbishop Karl Prüter, whose life and work helped keep alive a sacramental, independent, Christ-centered Catholic witness. But the name is more than history. At its best, it is a confession of faith.
To be Christ Catholic is to say that the Church belongs to Jesus Christ before it belongs to any institution. It is to say that catholicity without Christ at the center becomes hollow. It is to say that sacraments without mercy, doctrine without love, and tradition without Gospel fire are not enough.
The purpose of this website is to explore that way.
A Ministry of the Coworkers of Christ
On Being a Christ Catholic is offered by the Sacramental Community of the Coworkers of Christ, a new-monastic, sacramental, ecumenical Christian community rooted in prayer, mercy, justice, contemplation, and the healing work of Christ.
The Coworkers of Christ are not trying to rebuild the Church as an empire. We are not interested in religious triumphalism. We are not trying to become impressive. The world has had enough impressive religion with very little mercy.
We are trying to follow Jesus.
That may sound simple, but it is the work of a lifetime.
The Coworkers of Christ exist for those who feel called to a Christ-centered life shaped by the Gospel, sustained by sacramental grace, and expressed through practical acts of compassion. Some of us are clergy. Some are laypeople. Some are monastics in spirit. Some are artists, chaplains, caregivers, teachers, writers, activists, hermits, wanderers, wounded healers, and ordinary people trying to live faithfully in an unsteady world.
We are a small community, but small things have always mattered in the Kingdom of God.
A mustard seed.
A cup of cold water.
A widow’s mite.
A little child.
A few loaves and fishes.
A borrowed upper room.
A stone rolled away.
The Coworkers of Christ seek to live a sacramental and contemplative Christian life that does not retreat from the suffering of the world. Prayer must become mercy. Worship must become service. The Eucharist must become a way of seeing. If we receive Christ at the altar and then fail to recognize Christ in the hungry, the stranger, the grieving, the poor, the prisoner, the rejected, and the wounded, then we have not yet understood the sacrament.
The Coworkers of Christ are rooted in what we call a generous orthodoxy: a faith that honors the ancient Christian tradition while refusing to weaponize it against those Christ calls us to love. We believe in the sacraments, the historic faith, the ministry of the Church, the holy Scriptures, and the life of prayer. We also believe that mercy is not optional, inclusion is not a fad, and justice is not a political accessory pasted onto the Gospel.
Jesus cared for the whole person.
So must we.
Our Common Rule
At the heart of the Sacramental Community of the Coworkers of Christ is our Common Rule.
A rule of life is not a cage. It is a trellis. It gives shape to growth. It helps the vine reach toward the light.
The Common Rule is a shared pattern of Christian life meant to help us become more faithful, more prayerful, more merciful, and more deeply rooted in Christ. It does not exist to crush the soul with religious perfectionism. It exists to help us return, again and again, to the way of Jesus.
The Common Rule calls us toward a life of prayer. We seek to keep a rhythm of daily prayer, what we sometimes call the Daily Round: morning, noonday, evening, and nightly prayer. Not everyone can pray every office every day. Life is real. Work, illness, caregiving, grief, exhaustion, and human limitation all have to be honored. But the rhythm remains before us as an invitation: begin the day with God, pause in the light of noon, return at evening, and surrender the night into mercy.
The Common Rule calls us toward worship. We gather around the Eucharist as the central act of Christian life. In the breaking of bread and sharing of the cup, we encounter Christ not as an idea, but as living presence and holy nourishment. The table teaches us who we are: hungry people fed by grace, broken people gathered into communion, ordinary people sent to become the Body of Christ in the world.
The Common Rule calls us toward the Cure of Souls. This ancient Christian discipline reminds us that ministry is not merely administration, preaching, or public religious activity. It is the healing care of the human soul. We seek to be people who listen deeply, speak truth gently, practice confession and forgiveness, and make room for the slow work of grace.
The Common Rule calls us toward almsgiving and service. We are not allowed to spiritualize our way around human suffering. Christ has already told us where he will be found: among the hungry, thirsty, stranger, naked, sick, and imprisoned. A Christ Catholic life must become visible in acts of mercy. We give what we can. We serve where we are. We practice kindness not as sentiment, but as discipline.
The Common Rule calls us toward study. We read Scripture, especially the words and way of Jesus. We study the sacraments, the mystics, liberation theology, the saints, church history, and the living tradition of Christian wisdom. Study is not about becoming clever. It is about becoming faithful. It helps us tell the difference between the voice of Christ and the noise of the age.
The Common Rule calls us toward simplicity, contemplation, and peace. We are learning to live with less fear, less ego, less grasping, and less need to dominate. We seek the peace of Christ, not as passivity, but as active reconciliation, truth-telling, and holy courage.
Above all, the Common Rule calls us back to Jesus.
Again and again.
When we forget, we return.
When we fail, we return.
When we become proud, weary, angry, distracted, or afraid, we return.
That is the mercy of a rule of life. It does not pretend we will never wander. It simply marks the road home.
The Way Before Us
This website is a doorway into that road.
Here we will explore what it means to be Christ Catholic in belief, practice, history, prayer, and public witness. We will reflect on the words of Jesus. We will remember the Christ Catholic legacy entrusted to us. We will listen to the wisdom of the saints, mystics, monastics, prophets, and peacemakers. We will ask what sacramental Christianity looks like when it is freed from institutional vanity and returned to the Gospel.
We will not always have easy answers.
That is all right.
The Christian life is not a possession. It is a pilgrimage.
The Coworkers of Christ offer this ministry in humility, not as those who have arrived, but as fellow travelers on the Way. We are still learning. Still praying. Still repenting. Still making sanctuary. Still seeking the sacred in all things. Still trying to become the mercy we proclaim.
So welcome.
Whether you are deeply rooted in the Church, wounded by the Church, wandering near the edge of faith, seeking a more generous catholicity, longing for sacramental depth, or simply trying to follow Jesus without losing your soul, there is room here.
Come and listen.
Come and question.
Come and pray.
Come and walk with us.
Jesus cares. Christ is the center. The Gospel is the way.