In the field of Catholic education,
there is great necessity and opportunity to deepen the sense of shared mission
especially among the lay, religious, and clerical educators. For their “shared mission” as “builders of
communion,” all educators in Catholic schools ought to undergo “shared
formation” (Congregation for Catholic Education [2007]).
In shared
formation, “the lay faithful themselves can and should help priests and
religious in the course of their spiritual and pastoral journey” (Vocation
and Mission of the Lay Faithful 61). “Communion and
mutuality in the Church are never one-way streets” (CICLSAL [2002],“Starting
Afresh from Christ,” 31).
Wise pastors
and religious seek and welcome relevant feedback from lay persons as regards
the outcomes of pastoral programs, the quality of the preaching and worship
activities, and the personal conduct of pastoral agents.
The formation of the laity is a
requirement for the work of evangelization by both the younger and older
churches:
“The Gospel cannot become deeply
rooted in the mentality, life and work of a people without the active presence
of lay people. Thus, from the foundation
of a church very special care must be taken to form a mature Christian laity.”
(Church’s Missionary Activity 21)
The catechetical and theological
formation of the laity strengthens the prophetic ministry of the whole Church
and helps the laity to proclaim in word and deed the Gospel in day-to-day life and
in particular contexts. Lay persons as catechists,
Catholic school teachers, married theologians, and faith-inspired politicians and
public servants have many opportunities to exercise their prophetic ministry.
Church leaders can strengthen the prophetic
ministry of the laity in the following ways:
1. Support the theological
education of lay people.
2. Include lay (single and married)
theologians in seminaries (especially to teach sexual ethics, the sacrament of
matrimony, Church history, Scripture).
3. Discover and develop gifted lay
preachers in parishes and communities.
In countries of the Two-Thirds
World, where many families of the lay faithful experience hunger and
deprivation of basic needs from time to time, the prophetic ministry of the
poor has to be recognized and developed.
The poor have to be empowered to tell their stories and to retell them
from a faith perspective. As the Second
Plenary Council of the Philippines put it in 1991:
“The ‘Church of the Poor’ will also
mean that the Church will not only evangelize the poor, but that the poor in
the Church will themselves become evangelizers.
Pastors will learn to be with, work with and learn from the poor. A ‘Church of the Poor’ will not only render
preferential service to the poor but will practice preferential reliance on the
poor in the work of evangelization.” (PCP
II, 132)
The pervasiveness and persistence
of dehumanizing poverty and unnecessary violence in our contemporary world
makes it imperative for the whole Church, and for every believer, to exercise
better the kingly ministry by paying attention to the wisdom and folly, the
fairness and unfairness, of the formulation and implementation of policies of
the State and the Church.
A major branch
of the kingly ministry is the ministry of social action whose guiding
principles include justice, peace, and the integrity of creation.
Church leaders can strengthen the
kingly ministry of the laity in the following ways:
1. Intensify education on the Catholic
Social Teachings especially on the rights and responsibilities of lay people in
the worlds of politics and economics.
2. Ensure that the Parish Pastoral
Council is fully functional in terms of personnel, resources,and
responsibilities.
3. Open the membership of
policy-making councils and boards (of trustees) of Catholic schools, hospitals and
institutions to competent laity.
4. Make the Ministry of Financial
Management in parishes and ecclesial communities fully functional, transparent
and accountable especially when it comes to budgeting and resource mobilization.
Despite the grief and anguish of
many people, especially the poor and the sick, throughout history down to our
times, the faithful and merciful presence of the Spirit of Christ animates the
priestly ministry of the whole Church of which every member constitutes “a
royal priesthood, a holy nation” (1 Peter 2:9).
God’s people offer a sacrifice of praise day and night in liturgies and
prayers and in the upliftment of hearts and minds to the Lord in the midst of
day-to-day activities and struggles.
In the royal priesthood, there is basic
equality in dignity of all the members, whether they happen to be ordained or
not. “The ordination of one should not
become the subordination of another” (Peter Neuner). The ordained priesthood and the common
priesthood are meant to enhance their communion and to preserve both their distinction
and their equal dignity.
One way Church leaders can strengthen the priesthood
of the majority faithful is by inviting and involving them, especially those
with musical and artistic talents, in the making of creative worship activities
like children’s liturgies.
“When
the lay faithful discover and live more and more their vocation and mission in the
Church and in the world, the ordained will likewise discover the meaning of
their own vocation and mission.Such a discovery on the part of both the clergy
and the laity who were called not to compete but to complement each other will
result in a deeper realization of the ministry and spirituality of all the
baptized.” (PCP II, 417)
The Church is a mystery of communion and shared mission to
make the open communion of the Holy Trinity more visible and tangible
throughout the earth. It is timely,
first, to deepen understanding of the shared mission of all the disciples, both
the majority and the minority faithful; second, to improve their
co-responsibility and co-operation; third, to empower the laity especially
through theological and professional formation.
The laity are secular because they are called to
contribute to the sanctification of the world often in implicit ways especially
in multireligious, multicultural, or pluralistic contexts.
No comments:
Post a Comment