The Vocation Of Lay People

By DON FIER

The People of God should be so closely attached to their bishops that the Catechism of the Catholic Church (CCC) closes its instruction on the hierarchical constitution of the Church with an urgent appeal by St. Ignatius of Antioch, who was martyred in early post-apostolic times (~AD 107) during the reign of the brutal Roman Emperor Trajan. “Let all follow the bishop, as Jesus Christ follows his Father,” entreats the Early Church father. “Let no one do anything concerning the Church in separation from the bishop” (Letter to the Smyrnaeans 8, 1; as cited in CCC, n. 896).
For it is precisely to bishops, as successors of the apostles, that Christ “entrusted the office of teaching, sanctifying, and governing in his name and by his power” (CCC, n. 873).
Invested with sacred power through the fullness of the Sacrament of Orders, bishops receive the grace of the Holy Spirit which enables them to fulfill their threefold mission. The ordinary and extraordinary Magisterium (the Pope and college of bishops in union with him) receive the charism to proclaim the Gospel faithfully and authoritatively and to teach infallibly on matters of faith and morals. Bishops sanctify the Church by dispensing Christ’s grace by their ministry of the word and the sacraments, and by their prayers, example, and work.
Finally, they govern the particular Church (i.e., diocese) entrusted to them with authority that is ordinary, immediate, and exercised in the name of Christ, in communion with the entire Church and under the guidance of the Vicar of Christ (cf. Compendium of the Catechism of the Catholic Church, nn. 184-187).
The Catechism now focuses its attention for a full 17 paragraphs on the lay faithful, or the laity, who comprise the vast majority (well over 99 percent) of the Body of Christ. The fathers of Second Vatican Council specifically address the role of the laity in chapter IV of the Dogmatic Constitution on the Church (Lumen Gentium [LG], nn. 30-38), which is closely linked to another Vatican II document, the Decree on the Apostolate of the Laity (Apostolicam Actuositatem [AA]).
Moreover, the vocation and mission of the laity in the Church and in the world was the subject of the 1987 Synod of Bishops, a fruit of which was Pope St. John Paul II’s post-synodal apostolic exhortation Christifideles Laici (CL). In addition, St. John Paul gave a series of 17 general audiences on the laity’s role in the Church and the world from October 27, 1993 to September 21, 1994. Much of the content for the next few columns will be drawn from these sources.
Let us first examine the etymology of the word “laity.” It comes from the Greek laikos (of the people), which in turn derives from laos (people). In the context of Lumen Gentium and the Catechism, the laity is understood to mean “all the faithful except those in holy orders and those in the state of religious life specially approved by the Church” (LG, n. 31 § 1; CCC, n. 897). But of utmost importance to remember, as was discussed in an earlier column, is that lay persons enjoy an equal dignity to members of the clergy and religious in the eyes of God by virtue of their baptismal rebirth (see volume 147, n. 45; October 30, 2014).
What is the vocation of lay people? “The laity, by their very vocation,” explain the Vatican II fathers, are called to “seek the kingdom of God by engaging in temporal affairs and by ordering them according to the plan of God” (LG, n. 31 § 2).
Unlike the clergy who have received Holy Orders and whose role it is to draw together the People of God and sanctify them by preaching His word and administering the sacraments, and consecrated religious who are called to the evangelical counsels of chastity, poverty, and obedience so as to witness to the world the ultimate superiority of heavenly considerations over the things of this earth, the laity are called to witness to Christ in the secular sphere of life.
Practically speaking, what does this mean? It infers that faithful laymen and women are to bring Christ to the world in all the various circumstances of life — in the family, in the workplace and at social events, in the political sphere and in government, in culture and in science, in the mass media — in a word, in all the occupations in which they engage in daily life.
Commissioned to the lay apostolate through Baptism and Confirmation by the Lord Himself, the laity “are called in a special way to make the Church present and operative in those places and circumstances where only through them can it become the salt of the earth” (LG, n. 33 § 2). They are called to bring Christ to locations and settings which clergy and religious do not normally have access and thus “work for the sanctification of the world from within as a leaven” (LG, n. 31 § 2).
Pope Pius XII, in a discourse to new cardinals in 1946, acknowledged the incalculable importance of the laity in the Church’s life: “The Faithful, more precisely the lay faithful, find themselves on the front lines of the Church’s life; for them the Church is the animating principle for human society. Therefore, they in particular, ought to have an ever-clearer consciousness not only of belonging to the Church, but of being the Church, that is to say, the community of the faithful on earth under the leadership of the Pope, the head of all, and of the Bishops in communion with him. These are the Church” (cited in CL, n. 9 § 4 and CCC, n. 899)
Yet much confusion persists among many regarding the role of the laity in the Church, who equate it only with service in the Church’s visible structure. Indeed, there has been tremendous growth since Vatican II in the number of lay people serving parishes and dioceses in various capacities, oftentimes in paid positions. Many parishes have directors for religious education and youth programs as well as other positions important to vibrant life in the parish community. Still others volunteer their time to serve on pastoral and finance councils, as lectors and extraordinary ministers of the Eucharist, and in countless other ways that are indispensable to the parish.
But as pointed out by Douglas Bushman, STL, in The Sixteen Documents of Vatican II, “as important, useful, and irreplaceable as such services are, it would be contrary to the mind of the Council to define the lay apostolate primarily with respect to them” (p. 437). He astutely goes on to warn that adopting such an attitude could very easily result in “a kind of two-class laity: those who are truly active and involved in the Church, and those who are not” (ibid.).
This is certainly not what the council fathers had in mind, for the opportunity to serve in such positions does not avail itself to most of the lay faithful. Rather, they are called to “consecrate the world itself to God” (LG, n. 34 § 2) by infusing “a Christian spirit into the mentality, customs, laws, and structures of the community” (AA, n. 9 § 1). This is a mission the laity fulfills “especially by conforming their lives to their faith so that they become the light of the world” (AA, n. 9 § 2), and this is accomplished not so much by words as by deeds.

Perfecting The
Temporal Order

Therefore, all faithful lay Christians “have the right and duty, individually or grouped in associations, to work so that the divine message of salvation may be known and accepted by all men throughout the earth” (CCC, n. 900).
As St. Paul writes, “God our Savior . . . desires all men to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth” (1 Tim. 2:4), and it only through lay members of the Church that many have exposure to the Gospel message. For how are those ignorant of the Gospel to come to know it other than through the witness of faithful Christians?
Gaudium et Spes (GS), the Pastoral Constitution on the Church, underscores the importance of the connection of the Catholic layperson’s life in the world and his eternal destination. It issues a stern warning that a “split between the faith which many profess and their daily lives deserves to be counted among the more serious errors of our age” (GS, n. 43 § 1). Too many have bought into a false notion, prevalent in so much of modern society, which insists that religious beliefs are private and cannot be “imposed” on others.
Nothing could be further from the truth. Having been given a “share in the priestly, prophetic, and royal office of Christ” (AA, n. 2 § 3), the lay faithful are called to exercise the apostolate by directing their vocation in the world toward the “sanctification of men and to the penetrating and perfecting of the temporal order through the spirit of the Gospel. . . . Since [they] . . . live in the midst of the world and its concerns, they are called by God to exercise their apostolate in the world like leaven, with the ardor of the spirit of Christ” (AA, n. 2 § 4).

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(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.)