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INTENTION : |
That the lay faithful may fulfil their specific mission, by responding with creativity to the challenges that face the world today.
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The Laity's Role in God's Plan
Each Christian has a particular part to play in fulfilling God's plan for the world. Yet "God's plan for the world" can appear to be an ambiguous phrase, easily open to misinterpretation. How do we discover what God wishes us to do in order to carry out that plan? God's plan and the responsibility that he asks of us in enacting it is not a prescribed set of rules but is revealed to us through our vocation as baptized Christians. God makes clear what he wants of us in a concrete way, in the history of our lives. This requires that we live with an awareness of belonging to the Church, for it is in the life of the Church that God makes his intentions clear to us. In this way, "the Lord entrusts a great part of the responsibility to the lay faithful, in communion with all members of the People of God." (Christifideles Laici, #32)
For this reason, our responsibility is indeed a co-responsibility. We live it not only by cooperating with others, but with the deep consciousness that each baptized person, no matter the state of life, enjoys a weighty responsibility for the life of the Church.
Co-responsibility, then, concerns the mission of the Church in the world and is not primarily a role a person plays. In that sense we are called to take seriously the teachings of the Second Vatican Council on the significance of the laity in the Church and in the world. (Lumen Gentium #30-42).
The laity exercises co-responsibility in the Church not by following a predetermined program but by a response within a relationship. The lay faithful are called to participate in the life of the Church and the world. In the Church they have responsibilities at the family, parish and diocesan levels and beyond, such as exercising particular liturgical roles (e.g., reader, altar server, choir member, extraordinary minister of Holy Communion), providing catechesis, consulting in financial matters, participating in pastoral councils, working in ecclesiastical offices, or holding positions in a diocese. These are a few examples of the many responsibilities the laity might have within the Church. However, co-responsibility is not identified so much with these functions or roles themselves, but rather with the concern that we have for the entire mission of the Church in exercising them.
The Dignity of the Lay Vocation and the Danger of Clericalism
At times we confuse taking on various functions and roles in the Church with exercising co-responsibility. This kind of confusion can be demeaning to the laity in that it reduces the vast playing field of the lay person, which is the world. This in fact is a form of clericalism, because it is based on the assumption that the roles of the clergy are something to which laity should aspire. Pope Francis has spoken out forcefully against this phenomenon, calling it "a double sin" because both laity and clergy are often complicit in it: the priests tend to clericalize the laity, and the laity ask to be clericalized. It is one of the evils, one of the evils of the Church. But it is a 'complicit' evil, because priests take pleasure in the temptation to clericalize the laity, but many of the laity are on their knees asking to be clericalized, because it is more comfortable, it is more comfortable! This is a double sin!
The truth is there is authentic dignity to each vocation: lay, holy orders, and consecrated life. Clericalism denies the universal call to holiness so clearly taught by Vatican II, (Cf. Lumen Gentium #40)
The lay vocation is always devalued when this clericalisation takes place, whether by treating lay people as inferior (a problem more common several generations ago) or by charging them with tasks and characteristics proper to the clergy (something more common in our day). The great call of the laity, however, is fundamental to the Church's mission and cannot be abrogated: it is to bring Christ to the world from within; to evangelise it from the inside out.
Just as yeast leavens bread from within, so the laity are called to be a leaven in the world. 9 This is not accomplished primarily by expounding on particular doctrines or speaking about Christian values. Rather, the Christian himself or herself is the leaven. Lay people live in families and in communities. They work or study and are involved in the social and political life of their communities at the local, national, and international levels. They become a leaven through the unique way they approach work and study, live in society, and participate in politics. This is another way of saying that the true vocation of a lay person is, in a sense, outside the Church, as opposed to that of the clergy and religious. Pope Francis explains: "Even if many [laity] are now involved in the lay ministries, this involvement is not reflected in a greater penetration of Christian values in the social, political and economic sectors. It often remains tied to tasks within the Church, without a real commitment to applying the Gospel to the transformation of society. The formation of the laity and the evangelization of professional and intellectual life represent a significant pastoral challenge."
If the laity is to exercise co-responsibility in the Church and the world by virtue of its Baptism, then it needs to nurture itself and to be nurtured. It is important "that a mature and committed laity be consolidated, which can make its own specific contribution to the ecclesial mission with respect for the ministries and tasks that each one has in the life of the Church and always in cordial communion with the Bishops."
Going to the Peripheries
The whole Church must always strive to go out to the extremities, the peripheries. These farthest reaches are not merely geographical or social. As the laity participate in social and political life, their motivating factor must be love, above all a love for Christ that grows ever deeper in a relationship with him. In this love is nurtured an affection for all human beings, and a desire that all might find the ultimate meaning of their lives, which is Christ. What drives any Christian in work, study, social and political life is not worldly success but the desire that the world be transformed by Christ. This demands that each Christian remain in that loving relationship with Jesus Christ, through the sacraments and the life of the Church. Only in this way is it possible to be co-responsible for the life of the Church. Otherwise we lose sight of our ultimate destination.
Source: Canadian Conference of Catholic Bishops
Feast of the Nativity of the Blessed Virgin Mary, September 8, 2016
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