A Catholic teacher looked at the reading book that her school district gave her for her second grade students. It told stories of children living in garbage pails and using disrespectful language. Facing great resistance and jeopardizing her job, she had the book replaced with one that expressed the beauty and wonder of life for youngsters.
A Catholic member of Congress was told by his party to vote for a particular bill that would help ensure his party’s power but harm poor people. When he hesitated, he was told that his committee assignments and donations depended on voting the party line. He voted against the bill, and then appeared on TV to explain his commitment to the poor.
A Catholic contractor was repairing a house and realized that he had underbid the job. He was tempted to use inferior materials. He took the loss.
These Catholics could have refused to be expressions of Christ and thereby spiritually diminished themselves and the everyday world. Instead they proclaimed Christ and spiritually elevated themselves and the world. In the process they even helped spiritually correct what is wrong with today’s society and culture. Acting the way they did, they fulfilled their spiritual responsibility as members of the People of God and lay participants in the priesthood of Christ.
Every Catholic is baptized into the priesthood of Christ (Catechism Nos. 1546, 901). In the church, along with the priesthood of the ordained, there is the priesthood of the laity. Too often the laity see themselves as second class citizens in the church. While the clergy and bishops have hierarchical authority in the church, all Catholics, clergy and lay, enjoy equal baptismal dignity. So the laity, as Catholic members of the People of God and sharers in the priesthood of Christ, should appreciate the great dignity that their baptism has bestowed upon them.
God gives both the laity and the ordained their particular roles in building up the Kingdom of God on earth. Through baptism — later strengthened by confirmation — every Catholic, as sharer in Christ’s priestly office, is spiritually called, empowered and responsible to proclaim the Gospel by being the clearest possible expression of Christ in today’s world Thus the laity and ordained, working in concert, enrich the Kingdom of God on earth in the grace of Christ.
Within the one priesthood of Christ, the laity and the ordained stand between the world and God, each in their own way working to bring the world to God and God to the world. The laity’s particular vocation is to bring Christ’s spiritual riches directly to today’s society and culture, “to make the church present and operative in those places and circumstances where it is only through them that she can become the salt of the earth” (Vat. II, The Church, No. 33).
Christ is God who became human, while remaining God. Christ’s humanity embraces everything we are and do, except sin. Christ therefore is present and active in the world in and through parents, students, teachers, government officials, contractors, secretaries. He is absent in lies, hypocrisy, hatred, prejudice, selfishness, greed, unjust wars. The laity fulfill their priestly vocations, e.g., by making their marriages, families, education, their work, and their meaningful and effective participation in today’s society and culture, as Christ-like as possible — acting always with prayerful discernment. And if necessary, as our examples above show, they offer themselves as a sacrifice, jeopardizing and even losing something of their life in order to gain greater and fuller life for themselves and the world, and thus participating in Christ’s saving sacrifice.
Our baptism and confirmation call us to look deeply into ourselves to become sensitively aware of the gifts, talents, opportunities and possibilities that God is giving us. We understand, interpret and act upon all these according to our age, gender, culture, language, personal history and personality. For example, the spiritual experiences of the young, the old, women, men, the various ethnic groups, the rich and the poor, engender different spiritual discernment and actions, within the one Catholic faith. Whatever their particular vocation, all must take care to grow, mature and evolve insightfully, responsibly and gratefully.
Through their particular participation in Christ’s priesthood, the laity move the creation of the world forward in space/time and thereby participate in the eternal salvation of the world in the grace of Christ.
Anthony T. Massimini of Woolwich holds a doctorate in spiritual theology. He can be reached at massimini7@gmail.com
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