The Vocation Of Lay People

By DON FIER

Part 2

A basic unity and equality characterizes all the members of the People of God — clergy, religious, and laity — in that each is incorporated in Christ through Baptism. For as Lumen Gentium (LG) teaches, “There is…in Christ and in the Church no inequality on the basis of race or nationality, social condition, or sex, because ‘there is neither Jew nor Greek: there is neither bond nor free: there is neither male nor female. For you are all “one” in Christ Jesus’ (Gal. 3:28; cf. Col. 3:11)” (n. 32 § 1).
In virtue of baptismal rebirth, each person is a son or daughter of God and all share in the priestly, prophetic, and kingly office of Christ. Moreover, each person is called to an apostolic mission in the Church and in the world.
As has been emphasized repeatedly in the Catechism of the Catholic Church (CCC) and in these weekly columns, a wonderful, diverse assortment of gifts, talents, and charisms has been distributed by the Holy Spirit among Christ’s faithful. Corresponding to one’s talents, all have been given a unique and unrepeatable mission by the Lord to discover and accomplish, a mission that will otherwise go undone.
Moreover, each and every person, “whether belonging to the hierarchy, or being cared for by it, is called to holiness, according to the saying of the Apostle: ‘For this is the will of God, your sanctification’ (1 Thess. 4:3; cf. Eph. 1:4)” (LG, n. 39).
As we saw last week, this applies in a special way to the laity in the temporal affairs of life where they are called to be “salt, light, and leaven” in the world. “The lay faithful have as their own vocation,” teaches the Compendium of the Catechism of the Catholic Church, “to seek the Kingdom of God by illuminating and ordering temporal affairs according to the plan of God” (n. 188).
Whether individually and/or as members of approved lay associations, “this duty is the more pressing when it is only through them that men can hear the Gospel and know Christ…[and] is so necessary that, for the most part, the apostolate of the pastors cannot be fully effective without it” (CCC, n. 900).
It is the laity who are called to influence the social, professional, political, and economic affairs of the world in accordance with Christian doctrine.
Especially important for effective apostolic activity by the lay faithful is that they integrate the spiritual and secular dimensions of their lives, that they integrate faith and life. As pointed out by Pope St. John Paul II in Christifideles Laici (CL), “There cannot be two parallel lives in their existence: on the one hand, the so-called ‘spiritual’ life, with its values and demands; and on the other, the so-called ‘secular’ life, that is, life in a family, at work, in social relationships, in the responsibilities of public life and in culture” (n. 59, § 2).
In other words, one cannot profess one set of values at Sunday Mass and then live according to an opposing set of worldly values throughout the week.
A clever Irish lyric is quite apropos here: “Paddy Murphy went to Mass — never missed a Sunday. Paddy Murphy went to Hell for what he did on Monday.”
The Vatican II fathers likewise emphasize this very point: “In both orders the layman, being simultaneously a believer and a citizen, should be continuously led by the same Christian conscience” (Apostolicam Actuositatem [AA], n. 5).
An especially egregious affront to this principle was highlighted by Archbishop Anthony Bevilacqua in his 1989 address to the Newark Archdiocesan Pastoral Assembly entitled, “The Laity’s Role in Today’s Church — Pope John Paul II’s Christifideles Laici.” His Excellency poignantly observed: “The oft-repeated response of some political leaders on the issue of abortion, ‘I am personally against abortion but…,’ is perhaps the most notorious violation of this single conscience and the most public illustration of the pernicious dualism of faith and life” (Booklet #183, Scepter Publishers, 1989).
Vatican II tells us that “the Christian vocation by its very nature is also a vocation to the apostolate” (AA, n. 2). But precisely what is meant by the word apostolate? As defined by the Catechism, it is “the activity of the Christian which fulfills the apostolic nature of the whole Church by working to extend the reign of Christ to the entire world” (CCC, Glossary).
Fr. John A. Hardon, SJ, elaborates further in his Modern Catholic Dictionary by stating that “the apostolate belongs essentially to the order of grace. Its purpose is not temporal welfare, however noble, but to bring people to the knowledge and love of Christ and, through obedience to his teaching, help them attain life everlasting” (p. 35).
What is this telling us? Basically, it means that though we are citizens of this world for a time as we sojourn through this life, our true home — that which corresponds to the desire that is built into the inmost recesses of our being — is Heaven, to spend eternity in loving contemplation of God in the beatific vision.
Yet it would be a serious error to not take seriously our duties on earth, for “Christ’s redemptive work, while essentially concerned with the salvation of men, includes also the renewal of the whole temporal order. Hence the mission of the Church is not only to bring the message and grace of Christ to men but also to penetrate and perfect the temporal order with the spirit of the Gospel” (AA, n. 5).
As put by the council fathers, “They are mistaken who, knowing that we have here no abiding city but seek one which is to come, think that they may therefore shirk their earthly responsibilities. . . . The Christian who neglects his temporal duties, neglects his duties toward his neighbor and even God, and jeopardizes his eternal salvation” (Gaudium et Spes, n. 43 § 1).
The lay apostolate can be engaged in “either as individuals or together as members of various groups or associations” (AA, n. 15). The individual apostolate, however, is “the origin and condition of the whole lay apostolate . . . [and] admits of no substitute” (AA, n. 16 § 1). All members of the lay faithful are obliged to witness to the Christian life in all aspects of their life, including competence in their chosen profession.
As Pope Benedict XVI states in his 2011 apostolic exhortation Africae Munus (AF), “Lay men and women, in fact, are ‘ambassadors of Christ’ (2 Cor. 5:20) in the public sphere, in the heart of the world! Their Christian witness will be credible only if they are competent and honest professional people” (n. 128).
There are times, however, when the problems and challenges facing nations and societies surpass the ability of individual persons to address adequately. In such circumstances, organized actions are called for and encouraged by the Church. “It can be helpful,” states Pope Benedict, “…to form associations in order to continue shaping your Christian conscience and supporting one another in the struggle for justice and peace” (AF, n. 131).
Moreover, man is naturally a social being and thus, Christian group apostolates correspond to a natural human need while at the same time signifying the communion and unity of the Church in Christ (cf. AA, n. 18 § 1). Lay apostolates such as the Knights of Columbus, the Legion of Mary, and the World Apostolate of Fatima have done much praiseworthy work for the Church at the grassroots level.

The Vine And The Branches

Central to any effective lay apostolate is holiness of life. The faithful, no matter what state of life, can bear fruit in the apostolate only to the extent that they are holy men and women, that their spirituality or interior life “is the living reflection of the face of Christ” (Pope John Paul II, Novo Millennio Ineunte, n. 7 § 1).
So true is this that St. John Paul had no hesitation in writing: “Holiness, then, must be called a fundamental presupposition and an irreplaceable condition for everyone in fulfilling the mission of salvation within the Church” (CL, n. 17 § 3).
To better understand this, one must acknowledge that Jesus Christ is the fountain and source of all apostolic activity in the Church. The success of any person in the apostolate, no matter what his state of life, depends on his living union with Christ. For as Jesus revealed, “I am the vine, you are the branches. He who abides in me, and I in him, he it is that bears much fruit, for apart from me you can do nothing” (John 15:5).
As expressed by Dom Jean-Baptiste Chautard in his spiritual classic, The Soul of the Apostolate, “Good works should be nothing but an overflow from the inner life” (p. 50). In other words, if one is united with Christ through an intense interior life, good fruit will naturally flow from his apostolic activities. And as St. Francis de Sales explains in another marvelous spiritual classic, An Introduction to the Devout Life, “Devotion [holiness] is suitable to all sorts of vocations and professions” (book I, chapter III).
It logically follows that there are no stations in life to which these spiritual principles do not apply — all are called to holiness and to the apostolate.

+ + +

(Don Fier serves on the board of directors for The Catholic Servant, a Minneapolis-based monthly publication. He and his wife are the parents of seven children. Fier is a 2009 graduate of Ave Maria University’s Institute for Pastoral Theology. He is doing research for writing a definitive biography of Fr. John A. Hardon, SJ.)