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.
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