EVERYBODY WEARS A HABIT OF SOME KIND

I was reading a fictional book the other day and it concerned a notorious criminal who went about in disguise.  In one location, the book said, he went about dressed as a Catholic priest.  This part of the book did not ring true to me and here is why:

When I go about town in my collar, people wave, say hello, and in general notice that a priest is in their midst.  I can take the same path 10 minutes later, be around people I know, and they don’t so much as smile at me.  I might wave and they will shyly raise their hand until it dawns on them who I am. 

“Oh Father!  I didn’t know it was you!  Are you incognito?”  And these are people who stare at my face every Sunday.  Nobody notices me - at least not at first, they notice the collar.  So for a criminal to go “unnoticed” by wearing a Roman collar just seems unrealistic to me.

It is why I am such a proponent for wearing religious garb in public.

EVERYBODY wears a habit.  If you want proof, go to a Rubber Ducks or any professional sports game and see how many habits you will come across.  You know who the hipsters are, you know who corporate America is, you know the Goths (are they still around?), you know who supports you team and you know who supports the competition.  

I understand that we want to blend in so that we are not “put apart from” the rest of the world.  I get that thought.  But gone too far to an extreme we blend in so well that we disappear.  

FRIDAY POTPOURRI: IN GLADNESS YOU SAY?

So this morning I come downstairs to see that the water reservoir in the coffee machine is almost empty.  I’m tempted to walk away and let the next guy deal with it like whoever it is that leaves half a paper towel on the roll and on quarter of a pat of butter on the butter dish.  But I swallow whatever it is that I’m feeling and do it.

It just makes life easier.

Don’t you wish people just pitched in and did stuff?

Take the laundry upstairs.

Change the toilet paper.

Empty the dishwasher.

Take the gifts up at Mass.

Yes, your ushers wish that when they ask a couple of people to take up the gifts at offertory that they said, “Yes.  Sure!  Anything to help out around here.”

But often, such is not the case.  Actually I understand.  It’s difficult to stand up in front of people.  And for some people it is stressful to pay attention and hope you’ll know when and how to do things.  But please consider being more open to the idea of stepping up.

In paragraph 97 of the GIRM it says, “The faithful, moreover, should not refuse to serve the People of God in gladness whenever they are asked to perform a particular service or function in the celebration.”  So if there is help needed taking up the collection, the reader didn’t make it, or they are short a server and you receive a tap on the shoulder, remember that this serves as a great act of charity for the community and consider putting on a strained smile and in gladness saying, “Of course,” even as your brain screams, “Nooooooooooooo!”

FRIDAY POTPOURRI: WHEN MORE IS LESS

80% of holiness is presence.

That is what one of my spiritual directors in the past said.  I suppose that I cannot refute that statement.  But I might add that prayer is a lot like exercise.  The first 80% might be good for you, but it is the last 20% that really is the most beneficial.

Showing up as a warm body for Mass may be 80% of holiness, but the last 20% is what pushes everything over the top.  Moving into Chapter III of the GIRM (and skipping over paragraphs until we get to ‘THE FUNCTIONS OF THE PEOPLE” para 95.  When we celebrate the Mass, the congregation forms the People of God, “a royal nation, a holy priesthood, a people set apart” as the preface goes.  During the Mass, all are to participate in the offering of the Holy Sacrifice.  In this way, we offer our very selves as part of the sacrifice.

Pope Benedict, much vilified in certain circles, was a HUGE proponent of this.  Forget having 5 people read the petitions, three lectors, 500 EMHC in order that people might be “more involved.”  In fact, those persons are LESS involved because they are being taken away from their primary and earth shattering duty of offering the Mass by virtue of their anointing at their baptism into the priesthood of the people.  (We do a huge disservice in grade schoolers by making up ministries in order to get the children to feel more active.  We should be promoting their primary role and building that up!)  Being in an extra ministry is not part of that extra 20%.  It is more like being a dishwasher in the kitchen.  You are still at the party, but you are not celebrating, you are performing a service so that others may more fully participate.  (That may be a bit extreme but . . . you know.)

The true extra 20% is listening, growing, participating, and praying; thanking, worshipping, petitioning, and asking for forgiveness for yourself, your loved ones, for the world, and those who have gone before us marked with the sign of faith. 

FRIDAY POTPOURRI: MEMBERSHIP HAS ITS PRIVILEGES

Paragraph 78 of the GIRM

When I lived in Cleveland I had a membership for the Cleveland Museum of Art.  During this time the Vatican Exhibit came to town and I went with a bunch of family to see it.  Being a member of the museum, I could have gone in the VERY short line to get in.  But since my relatives were not members, we walked the end of the three mile long queue to wait our turn.  It was worse than waiting in line for a new roller coaster at Cedar Point.

I lady with a clipboard came walking past us asking, “Members?  Are there any members here?”  

“I’m a member,” I said.

“Well sir, you may go to the front of the line.”

With my most dejected face I said, “No I can’t.  I’m here with family and they are not members.  I have to stay here with them.”

“No you don’t!” she said in a most cheery manner, “Because they are with you, you ALL can come to the front of the line!”  To my family I was a hero, to the others in line; the new enemy.

Anyway, because they were associated with me, my family received the benefits.  Now it wasn’t me, I wasn't any more special than they were, but I was associated with the museum.  THAT was what was special, and we all benefited, I as much as they

Okay - bearing in mind all analogies limp, that is what is going on as we begin the Eucharistic Prayer, the source and summit of our lives, or as this paragraph states it, “the center and high point of the celebration.”  The priest, as a man, does not associated himself with the gathered people.  He associates himself with Jesus and is acting in personal Christi or “in the person of Christ.”  And in persona Christi, he associates the people with himself.  

“Pray my brothers and sisters that my sacrifice and yours may be acceptable to God the Almighty Father.”

It seems as though it is a subtle distinction and semantics, but it is the difference to waiting at the end of the three mile long line or going right in.  We are not just a bunch of really good average Joes getting together to worship our great God.  We are, rather, A royal people, a holy nation, a people set apart acting as the Body of Christ.  The priest isn’t any more special as a man than any other person present, it is Christ Who is the special One and with Whom, through the priest, we all associate.  We are a community of priests coming together with the ordained priest to offer sacrifice and praise.  We are performing a supreme act, the crowning achievement of a worthy life, reaching our highest dignity, grasping at our ideal and potential, capping of our identities gained at our baptism off priests, prophets, and kings!

FRIDAY POTPOURRI: ASK NOT AT WHOM THE FINGER POINTS, IT POINTS AT THEE

Wherever you are reading this, consider the people who surround you.  If you are at home, consider the people in your house (or who will be in your house,) your neighbors, the people walking down the street, maybe the people doing work on your road or the mail courier making a stop.

 

If you are at work, there are your co-workers, customers, and the people making deliveries.  At the coffee house there are all of the other patrons and the barista.  At school (I’m sure that you are not reading his during class) there are your fellow students, teachers, and support staff.  Well, you get the idea.

 

So here is a question for you:  Of all the people you considered, how many were Catholic priests, deacons, or religious?  My guess for most of you the number would be: NONE.  For some, it might be one but probably in passing.  So how does the Gospel spread in these areas? 

 

Here is the answer:  You.  The last of the Precepts of the Church (I know, it’s been awhile hasn’t it?) is “Joining in the missionary spirit and apostolate of the Church.”  It’s the only this thing works.  Because, if not you, then who?

 

It doesn’t mean you have to carry a sign and mention Jesus’ name in every other sentence.  That tends to drive more people away than attract.  99% of it is striving to be a good Christian – trying to set a good example.  The rest is taking advantage of opportunities afforded you. 

 

Here is an example.  My Father was a confirmed Catholic but had become a Non-botherist.  He didn’t necessarily believe or not believe in God – the question wasn’t even on his radar though he was generally opposed to any organized religion.  (That made for interesting conversations with his priest son.)  Toward the end of his life he would ask me to help him – inferring helping him get over his illness – and I would say, “Dad, all I got is sacraments and prayer,” to which he would make a sour face that said, “as if that would help.”

 

One day after saying, “All I got is sacrament and prayer,” he said, “Okay.”  It took a while for that to register.  After clarifying that he actually meant it I told him to hold on to that thought as I RAN out to my car to get my oils (I’d long stopped bothering to carrying them in) and anointed him.

 

Missionary spirit – taking God where He is not found – giving example, having patience, an attitude of invitation, and keeping an eye and ear open for an opportunity.

PRIDAY POTPOURRI - PRAY PRIEST

Second precept of the Church.

 

There are two categories of priests in the Catholic Church.  The first is the ordained priesthood.  These are the men who are trained and ordained by their bishop for service to the Church.  It is, admittedly, a rather small group.  But there is a second category of priesthood and it is the office into which you were anointed at your baptism.  You were anointed prophet, king, and PREIST.  This office has real and serious responsibilities.  It aligns with one of the precepts of the Church which requires us to live a sacramental life.

 

Minimally it means to go to Mass on Sunday and holy days of obligation and to receive Communion at least once in a year between the first Sunday of Lent and Trinity Sunday.  It also means that you the priest will go to confession at least once a year if there is any serious sin.  This is the bare minimum – the scraping of the bottom of the barrel.

 

Showing up at Mass is not enough.  A priest participates in the Mass.  The priest prays the prayers and offers them for himself, for the needs of the world, and for the praise of God.  For example, when the ordained priest says, “Let us pray,” that is not a signal for the Missal to be brought to him.  It is not “dead space.”  It is the time for the priesthood (the Church – you) to call to mind things that need to be prayed for and then the celebrant collects those prayers in a  prayer called appropriately enough the Collect and presents them to the Father.  For someone not to pray during this time is for the Church to be less, for prayers to be less encompassing, for someone to miss out on the benefits of the Mass.

 

If the Mass is to transform you and the world, it must soak into your skin, radiate your marrow, and marinate your mind.  Only the engaged priest, the pray-er, the one that is THERE in mind as well as body is fulfilling this.  This is true if you are at a Mass in the ordinary form or the extraordinary form.  Being involved does not mean you get to read, or serve, or bring up the gifts, or sing (all important and wonderful) but that you do what is primary: PRAY.

FRIDAY POTPOURRI: CAN'T RUN ON EMPTY

Dei Verbum first part of paragraph 25

 

Very often people who have cooled to the faith return when they have children.  This is a good thing and a bad thing.  It’s good in that they return because they see value in the faith and want to pass it on.  It is a bad thing in that they missed years of growing in the faith and won’t have those years of developed relationship and understanding of God to pass on.  You can’t give what you don’t have.

 

In a similar manner, the Council Fathers exhort especially priests, deacons, and catechists to immerse themselves in Sacred Scripture; to draw ever more deeply from the well to nourish the faithful.  You can’t give what you don’t have – and ignorance of Scripture is ignorance of Christ – and what do we have to offer if we don’t know Christ?

 

But clerics and catechists are not the only game in the sites of the Council’s gun.  If someone is under the impression that dust is considered a good, Catholic, protective covering for a Bible, the Fathers wish to relieve them of that misconception.  They “forcefully and specifically exhort all the Christian people . . . to learn ‘the surpassing knowledge of Jesus Christ.’ . . . Therefore let them go gladly to the sacred text itself.”  They don’t use much more clearer language than that.

 

We are all encouraged to engage the Scriptures at Mass, in Bible studies, and in other forms of prayer and formation.  But in a special way we are encouraged to use Scripture in prayer.  When we pray we speak, when we read the Scriptures, we listen.

 

Read the Bible.  If you think you do not have time, be creative.  Buy a read version for your car ride and play it on the car stereo system.  Keep a Bible open in your bathroom and read one paragraph a day while you brush your teeth.  Have a service send you a verse a day on your computer.  Do something. 

 

This year the Church will be exploring the Gospel of Mark in particular.  Maybe for Lent take a day and read through his Gospel.  Get to know his style, his emphasis, and his personality. 

 

In any event, engage this ancient writing that formed our culture and changed the face of the earth.  (I'm not recommending the book shown to the right - I don;t even know it - just liked the cover.)

FRIDAY POTPOURRI: FOR WHAT ARE YOU WAITING? GO! MAKE DISCIPLES

“DON’T – JUST DON’T!”  It is one of the great failings of the teachers and catechists of the Church that much of our teaching is conveyed via negativa.  In this way it seems much more like we are a faith of limiting, stifling, of making life boring.  What a tragic and huge mistake!  The purpose of the faith is to do exactly the opposite!  As these last two paragraphs of Lumen Gentium make clear that we are “constituted to live in royal liberty and, by self abnegation of a holy life, overcome the reign of sin in (our)selves.”  Where most of the world desires license to do as one wants, the faith desires that you have the liberty to thrive, physically, mentally, and spiritually in joy – now and for all eternity – in the way that you were created to be!

 

I went to the doctor and he gave me a long list of foods that he said I had to give up.  It was the most depressing meeting.  And fish, of course, was not his negative menu.   What would have been better was a course on great food and encouragement on how great it would be for me.  Instead it was, “Olives will kill you.   Do not eat olives.”  I’ll get right on that.”

Summing up this section, every Catholic lay person is anointed priest, prophet, and king and is responsible for the spreading of the kingdom.  As you do this, bear in mind the goal: to bring people to life, joy, and true freedom.  This is a much better line than, “Stop that or you’re going to hell.”  It may be true, but does living with such negative people sound any more appealing?

 

To this end, the laity has the right to ask from the Church what it needs to accomplish these goals.  The laity also has the right to express their opinions to the institutional Church as it pertains toward these goals.  There is a certain amount of obedience that is called for then.  Not a happy topic.  But somehow a decision must be made concerning which direction we will head because until that is done, we can’t really move forward.  So pray for those acting on behalf of the institutional Church that they may be wise, active, and full of the Holy Spirit that we may accomplish all of these lofty goals.

 

Pastors must recognize the rights of the laity and foster their works.  Not everything can be or should be done by the ordained or even necessarily controlled by the ordained.  Go!  Spread the Good News without me!  There is more than enough work for everybody! 

 

Next time:  Call to Holiness

FRIDAY POTPOURI: ITS GOOD TO BE THE KING

There s a saying that goes like this, “He who is polite to you but rude to the waiter is not a polite person.”  Manners cannot be a veneer.  You are either a person of manners or not.  One is to be solid mahogany or be considered a charlatan. 

 

So it is with faith as we see today in paragraph 36 of Lumen Gentium, bringing us dangerously close to the end of this chapter.  The Catholic way of living the Christian life cannot be something we wear when convenient.  The Church is not something one joins, it is something one becomes.  Just signing up at the local Catholic parish does not make one a Catholic anymore than does an Italian become Irish because he wears a “Kiss Me I’m Irish” T-shirt.  There is a life to be lived.

 

Christ was exalted by God because of His obedience to the will of the Father and the extreme living out of that life in a world hostile to it.  He handed on that life to the Apostles and, in turn, to each of us.  So we cannot think that faith is something to do for an hour on Sunday, before meals, and for a few seconds before going to bed at night, it is who we are to be.

 

And like Christ and apostles we are not just to live it for ourselves.  Among the offices into which we were anointed at our baptism is that of the kingly office.  It gives us mandate to involve ourselves into the temporal workings of this world when they do not serve the proper means and ends of the human person.  We are to steer our homes, schools, communities, governments, workplaces, our very world into the right order before God.

 

There are two pitfalls here.  The first is the thought that the goal is just to win and turn everyone into Catholics.  The point is not to be on the winning side but to bring true joy and freedom to all.  It is like debating.  If your goal is just to be right, even if you are you will not win friends.  If your goal is to bring someone to truth, then you have a much better chance of winning over your opponent. 

 

The other side of the coin are those who think you simply want to ram your religion down their throats.  (Of course what nobody sees is that they too want to ram their beliefs – even secular as they may be – down your throat.  There is the mistaken idea that there is some sort of neutral position.  There is not.  Every belief, even atheism comes with presuppositions that cannot be scientifically proven.  Hence Atheism is a belief.)  Never think because your position happens to be Catholic that you have no right to share it and to try to imbue your nation with its ideas.  EVERYONE has that right and you are not a second class citizen.  Youy voice is just as important and civilly valid as anyone else’s trying to sway the nation.

 

There is a way in which we were designed to live.  And it is living that life that gives us the best chance at joy.  It is our mission to do what we can to establish true justice, love, and peace.  “The laity enjoy a principal role in the universal fulfillment of this task.  Therefore, by their competence in secular disciplines, and by their activity, interiorly raised up by grace, let them work earnestly in order that created goods through human labor, technical skill and civil culture may serve the utility of all men according to the plan of the Creator and the light of His Word. . . and in their own way may be conductive to universal progress in human and Christian liberty.”

FRIDAY POTPOURRI: WHOSE SIDE ARE YOU ON AND WOULD ANYBODY KNOW IT?

The gist of my homily last weekend was: “This ain’t heaven.”  Which is why, according to Michner, God gave us mosquitoes.  No matter how great life here may be, those little buggers remind us that there’s got to be something better.

 

In the mean time, that does not stop us from doing our best to make this life a blessing.  We live in a state that some refer to as, “Already/Not Yet.”  Jesus Christ has come and in reality, death and sin have already been defeated – the end is clear – the battle is won.  It is like the mathematical certainty of the population of the United States and Europe is headed for a sharp decline due to smaller families, contraception, and abortion.  At this point there is nothing to be done except try to minimize the damage.  The Kingdom of Heaven is at hand.  We can either participate in it or, for some strange reason, choose to join those who have already lost.

 

That being said, His Kingdom is not yet fully established here on earth.  It won’t be until He comes again.  We are living in the aftermath of war waiting for our cities to be rebuilt.  The government is not yet fully established, order does not yet reign supreme.  (This may be overstating the case a bit, but I think it helps one imagine the state we are in.  We are rejoicing, but not yet fully.)

 

So in this next uber long paragraph of Lumen Gentium (35), the laity, in particular, are given their marching orders toward the building up of the Kingdom.  To aid us until the King comes to fully establish his rule, he sent us not only a hierarchy but the laity.  Interestingly the document says that he gave us “not only the hierarchy” but also the laity to fulfill the prophetic office to the world.  Once again the documents call the Church’s people to their proper roles.  There are no passive members of the Catholic Church and in this role, hierarchy and laity alike are held to the same level of responsibility. 

 

Once again, whatever you are doing today, wherever you go, whomever you meet all can be used to advance the Kingdom of God, bringing people over to the side of life, freedom, and dignity.  In fact, the laity can do this more effectively because their efforts are, “accomplished in the ordinary circumstances of the world.” 

 

Of high importance is married and family life.  (Today more than ever!)  More often than not at the end of a wedding homily I remind a couple that their marriage is not just for them.  It is for me, the servers, the people attending the ceremony, their future children, and all those with whom they will come in contact throughout their married life.  They are going to live the inner life of the Trinity – love between two persons that is fruitful and becomes a third person, a community of love that spills over and nourishes the community now and in the future.  “Hence by their example and testimony, they convict the world of sin and give light to those who seek truth.”

 

WOW!  Think of that today as you are taking the trash out, mowing the lawn, driving to work, loving your family, or going over to the neighbors for beers and brats.  THIS IS YOUR CALLING and the purpose of marriage.

 

FURTHERMORE, the Church foresees times when there will not be clergy present.  For example, in times of persecution the laity are called to supply sacred functions to the best of their abilities.  (Now that doesn’t mean trying to consecrate bread or forgiving sins, but the door, in emergencies, is open wider than most people think.)

 

“Let the laity, therefore, diligently apply themselves to a more profound knowledge of revealed truth and earnestly beg of God the gift of wisdom.”

 

Again I say, “Wow.”

FRIDAY POTPOURRI: EVERYTHING MATTERS

St. Therese was all about doing every little thing with love and for the glory of God.  If she washed floors, she gave thanks that she was able to do this for someone and did the work with great care because she did it for God.  That way every action we perform – every action we perform – can become a greater connection to God.

 

I try to remember that as I wash dishes while our machine is down.

 

“Try” is the operative word.

 

The next paragraph of Lumen Gentium (34) reminds us that God wishes to give His Spirit to every person in order that they may perform these “good and perfect works.”  Julian of Norwich fans might see a little of her theology reflected here.  All things given to God can be made good and for the glory of God and our benefit.

 

At your baptism, Sacred Chrism was put on your head and (among other roles) you were anointed priest.  For a priest to fulfill his duties he must offer sacrifice.  (That is the definition of a priest – one who responsible for the sacrifice.)  There are many chances to offer sacrifices in daily life – “in family and married life, daily work, relaxation of mind and body” and even hardships, if they are accomplished in the Spirit and through Christ are sacrifices acceptable to God. 

 

Personally I find it very cool that relaxation was included.  Not only do we have a great God who is almost like a doting grandmother, “You need your rest!  You will take it easy today!” we also have a Church that says the same.  When possible, as a priority, we are to rest.  But not simply rest, but rest in God.  Even rest can be for our sanctification.  (So be careful about going to see that R rated film for your rest.)

 

Of course this culminates in the Eucharist, our source and summit.  After have received God’s gifts, we are sent out into the world to be priests, prophets, and kings, living the life, transforming our world, and offering sacrifices.  But then we are to return to the Eucharist and offer all that we have done with the Eucharistic sacrifice.  That is why we must have full, conscious, and active participation at the Mass.  We must actively offer our sacrifice.  Remember the new translation, “Pray my (brothers and sisters) that my sacrifice and yours may be acceptable to God the Almighty Father.”  What a monumental missed opportunity Mass is when we go through it brain dead not offering our own sacrifice and relying on the priest to keep us entertained.  We are not there to be entertained.  Hopefully we are given the environment to do what we are supposed to be there to do, to offer ourselves and our sacrifices as the priesthood of the laity.

FRIDAY POTPOURRI: MAY YOU BE THE SPILLED TOMATO JUICE OF LIFE

Continuing our look at Lumen Gentium

 

Wow, wow, wow!  The pope just told a million youth at World Youth Day that he wants them to go home and make a mess of their dioceses!  He wants to set them on fire and then send them home drifting on the winds like sparks to land where the wood and grass of faith is dry and set those places on fire.  Luke 12:49, “"I have come to bring fire on the earth, and how I wish it were already kindled!”

 

Gads, I hope they have the energy to keep burning when they hit barriers to this missioning.  What I wouldn’t give to have the resources to hire a team of ministers (and send them for schooling) at the parish just so that we might implement all of the great ideas that come our way.  I imagine more than a few of these firebrands coming home and finding overworked, over harried, (or lazy) pastors and their sparks growing dim – or worse yet – finding a mega-church that will say, “We’ll take your energy and ideas and help them grow.”

 

But it need not be so, even if you have such a pastor.  Somewhere along the line we got the idea that in order to be Church, we have to do EVERYTHING through the parish.  Granted, there are a lot of advantages not the least of which include a common space, perhaps a budget, and some legitimacy.  But if we focus everything we do at the parish, then we become a Catholic ghetto and those places that most need exposure to the Word will never get it.  The faith needs to seep into the fabric of our society if it is to have any effect at all.

 

Not too long ago I spilled tomato sauce in the refrigerator.  Before I caught it, sauce had dripped down behind shelves and under drawers – it was a mess.  I had to take the refrigerator apart to clean everywhere that needed cleaning.  Places that come in regular contact get cleaned now and then, but these hidden spaces almost never.  (It is an old bachelor house.)  If it hadn’t been for the sauce reaching those hidden spots, they would have never been cleaned.

 

That is where to focus attention!  Not only these youth, but all the People of God need to soak in to those areas that “hierarchical Church,” or “parish,” or “diocesan programs” don’t reach, which, quite frankly, is most of the world.  According to paragraph 33, “The laity . . . are given the special vocation: to make the Church present and fruitful in those places and circumstances where it is only through them that she can become the salt of the earth. . . All the laity, then, have the exalted duty of working for the ever greater spread of the divine plan of salvation to all men, of every epoch and all over the earth.”

FRIDAY POTPOURRI: ONE SINGULAR SENSATION EVERY LITTLE STEP SHE TAKES

Continuing our look at Lumen Gentium . . .

 

Let’s say you belong to a club – say the Slovenian Beneficent Society.  They purpose of the club is to raise funds and then give them to worthy causes.  Sounds simple enough.  There is a president, and the usual suspect of leaders – VP, secretary, treasurer, etc . . . and then there is the main body of the club.  It could be that the president and one of his cohorts starts making a lot of decisions concerning funds that the rest of the group has no say in.  The feel that they do not have power.  They come then to lose interest unless the president starts giving some if his power to the stake holders of the society.

 

That is understandable and is the type of view people have about the Church.

 

There was an article in the paper yesterday about a “controversial priest” who is coming to Cleveland to speak.  An equally controversial nun said of him, “he is about empowering the laity.”  This comes from the idea the “Church” is nothing but the local parish, diocese, and Rome.  But this is only a small part of “Church.”  Church is everything: it is you at your job, it is literature, it is movies, it is science, it is the billboard at the end of the block, it is your home, it is what’s playing on your TV, it is what you spend your spare time doing and your spare resources supporting.  Church is society – Church is culture – Church is everywhere we bring it.  Hierarchical Church is really a very small part of this.  Faith may inform what one should do in their bedroom, or at work, or when paying bills, but there is no priest standing over your shoulder telling you what to do.  He could tell you what perhaps you should be doing, but he has no power.  That the laity’s freedom, the arena in which they act as priest, prophet, and king. 

 

The point is this: unlike the Slovenian Beneficent Society, the totality of the society consists within the meeting of the society and the officers have usurped the power.  The rest of the group is powerless.  That a clergyman would run a parish and pray the sacraments does not make the laity powerless outside of that realm.  The Church is much bigger than that.  There is far too much to do.  It is really a very small part that clergy have any kind of control over if Church is properly understood.

 

By empowering the laity, what many people want is the clericalization of the laity and the laicizing of the clergy.  There is not to be a distinction in roles.  Neither should there seem to be more perceived “power” at the parish by the clergy than by anybody else.  (Of course NOBODY is suggesting the clergy then should share more in the direct “power” of determining what you do with you day . . .

 

Granted . . . clergy has, at time, overstepped their boundaries and have been too dictatorial at the parish to the parish’s harm.  Conversely, parishes have been declericalized at times to the opposite problem.  But what paragraph 32 of Lumen Gentium is trying to say is that we are all one.  Nobody is more powerful in the Church (meaning the whole Church – not just institutional Church) than the other.  We are equals but with different roles and each of us are endowed with roles and responsibilities in each.  We are each equally gifted with grace toward salvation.  There is only one People of God springing from one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one common dignity, one common vocation toward sanctity, one salvation, one hope, one call to charity.

 

True, when human beings enter the equation, this delicate balance can and does go out of whack, sometimes terribly so, but it the calling – what Christ gave us to work with.  It is our goal and our ideal.  It is what it is to be Catholic, Christian, and a part of the One, Holy, and Apostolic Church.

FRIDAY POTPOURRI: MANY HANDS MAKE LIGHT WORK

Happy belated Independence Day!

 

Continuing our look at Lumen Gentium

 

You might remember last week’s challenge to come with a definition of “laity” within the Church that is not defined through the negative such as “. . . who are not . . .”  It is difficult.  And though I’ve come across great attempts, this document falters in that respect (if it is, in fact, an undesirable thing.)  Paragraph 31 defines “laity” as, “all the faithful except those in Holy Orders and those who belong to a religious state approved by the Church.”  This being said, the laity still shares in the priestly, prophetic, and kingly offices of the Church in their “proper and peculiar” (in the very best sense of the term) way to carry on the mission of Christ to the whole world.  In other words, the mission of the Church only succeeds if everyone in their particular state of life carries out their unique duties.

 

A nun before the Blessed Sacrament most of the day, though this is vital, will not complete the entire scope of the mission of the Church.  A priest celebrating sacraments and teaching, though he do it 24 hours a day and captivates millions by his homilies will only do so much toward the healing of the nations.  The biggest, most complicated, harrowing, and difficult job belongs to those whose share in the mission is to take Christ to where the priests and religious are not and cannot reach.  It is, by and large, the laity (by the power of the Holy Spirit) that converts the nations, calls Christians back to Christianity, and causes Jesus’ name to be spoken where otherwise it would not. 

 

As our nations seems to be becoming hostile toward faith, how might we discern what happened?  Certainly part of the blame falls on those whose job it is to teach.  For a couple of generations, in general, the Church didn’t catechize well in our nation.  But there was also a loss of nerve for the entire Body of Christ to speak out when confronted with views contrary to the faith.  We have been very polite, listened, and said nothing (or worse, supported ideas) because it was the “loving,” nice thing to do, not necessarily the Good, or truthful thing to do.  And now the job is that much more difficult.  But we are not excused from it because of its difficulty.