Cardinal Leon Joseph Suenens, that great Archbishop of Mechelen-Brussel, who was a chief voice at the Second Vatican Council which bravely and urgently promoted the ever needed aggiornamento in
the Church, said: “Happy are those who dream dreams and are ready to pay the price to make them come true.”
For a long time the Church was clericalised, thereby negating itself from the powerful impetus of the common priesthood which is universally received by the lay faithful on the day they are baptised.
Fortunately, the Church gradually realised that the baptismal calling is the backbone of being a Christian. Hence, the need is all the more pressing to promulgate its ever telling relevance.
In the post-synodal apostolic exhortation on the vocation and the mission of the lay faithful, Christifideles laici, Blessed Pope John Paul II taught that “through Baptism the lay faithful are made one body with Christ and are established among the People of God. They are, in their own way, made sharers in the priestly, prophetic and kingly office of Christ. They carry out their own part in the mission of the whole Christian people with respect to the Church and the world…
Incorporation into Christ through faith and Baptism is the source of being a Christian in the mystery of the Church. This mystery constitutes the Christian’s most basic ‘features’ and serves as the basis for all the vocations and dynamism of the Christian life of the lay faithful (cf. Jn 3:5). … Therefore, only through accepting the richness in mystery that God gives to the Christian in Baptism is it possible to come to a basic description of the lay faithful” (§ 9).
In his message to the 6th assembly of the International Catholic Action Forum, which took place in Romania, Pope Benedict XVI said that the laity are “co-responsible” for the Church and not merely passive “collaborators” with the ordained ministers.
The Holy Father said that “co-responsibility requires a change in mentality, particularly with regard to the role of the laity in the Church… It is important, therefore, that a mature and committed laity be united, who are able to make their own specific contribution to the Church’s mission, in accordance with the ministries and tasks each one has in the life of the Church, and always in cordial communion with
the bishops”.
The German Pontiff stressed the fact that it is “important to deepen and to live out this spirit of profound communion in the Church, which characterised the early Christian community, as the book of the Acts of the Apostles attests”. Moreover, the Pope said that every baptised person should feel the commitment to toil for the Church’s mission as his and her personal vocation. This can be done, Pope Benedict XVI added, “through prayer, through study, through active participation in ecclesial life, through an attentive and positive gaze at the world, in the continual search for the signs of the times”.
The post-modern lay faithful are called to lead others to meet Christ by disseminating his message of salvation by means of a kind of language and modes that are comprehensible to our time, which is deeply characterised by rapidly changing social and cultural developments. The Pope proposed that “at this stage in history, work in the light of the Church’s social teaching to become a laboratory of ‘globalisation of solidarity and charity,’ in order to grow with the entire Church in the co-responsibility of offering a future of hope to humanity, by having the courage to make even demanding proposals” is the only way forward.
Are we bold enough as Church to undertake this painful yet beneficial journey?
Fr Mario Attard OFM Cap