by Lucas Pollice
The lay members of Christ’s faithful people or the laity are those who are baptized members of the Church who are not ordained through the sacrament of Holy Orders or have taken religious vows as a nun or brother. Thus, the laity makes up a vast percentage of the members of the Church and serves a very important role in her life and mission. They are called by Christ himself to continue to be his witnesses and instruments in the world. The role of the laity is of such importance in the mission of the Church that Vatican II devoted an entire chapter on the laity in the Dogmatic Constitution on the Church Lumen Gentium which states:
The term laity is here understood to mean all the faithful except those in holy orders and those in the state of religious life specially approved by the Church. These faithful are by baptism made one body with Christ and are constituted among the People of God; they are in their own way made sharers in the priestly, prophetical, and kingly functions of Christ; and they carry out for their own part the mission of the whole Christian people in the Church and in the world (LG, 31).
Due to the secular character of the laity, the fact that they live and work in the ordinary places and circumstance of the world, their role is of particular importance in the life and mission of the Church. They have the ability to bring the witness of the good news of Christ to every corner of the world. Through their holiness and apostolate, they act like a leaven within the very fabric of society. They have the ability to immerse the culture and various aspects of social and community life in the richness of the truth of Christ. As Lumen Gentium again states:
But the laity, by their very vocation, seek the kingdom of God by engaging in temporal affairs and by ordering them according to the plan of God. They live in the world, that is, in each and in all of the secular professions and occupations. They live in the ordinary circumstances of family and social life, from which the very web of their existence is woven. They are called there by God that by exercising their proper function and led by the spirit of the Gospel they may work for the sanctification of the world from within as a leaven. In this way they may make Christ known to others, especially by the testimony of a life resplendent in faith, hope and charity. Therefore, since they are tightly bound up in all types of temporal affairs it is their special task to order and to throw light upon these affairs in such a way that they may come into being and then continually increase according to Christ to the praise of the Creator and the Redeemer (LG, 31).
Thus, the role of the laity in building up the Kingdom of God is indispensable and a crucial one if the mission of the Church in bringing about the sanctification of the world is to be at all effective. There is a well-known story of a conversation between Pope John Paul II and a group of American bishops that so perfectly illustrates the importance of the laity. The bishops were meeting with the Pope and were telling him about the many concerns that they had about the culture and moral decline in the United States. After patiently listening to the bishops the Pope paused for a moment and then asked them, “Are not the Catholics the largest religious denomination in the United Sates?” “Yes, Holy Father,” the bishops replied. The Pope then said, “Then why are not the Catholics setting the example and being more of an influence on the culture?” The Pope was reiterating to the bishops the importance of the role of the laity in influencing and making incarnate the Gospel of Christ within the culture.
The stark reality is that no matter what the Pope, the bishops, or the parish priest does, they are not going reach the ordinary places of the world without the laity doing their job as well. That job is to be the witnesses and instruments of Christ in the workplace, schools, soccer games, grocery store, and especially in the family. We must be the leaven which gives rise to a culture that is truly a reflection of the truth and saving power of Christ!
