When laity lead:
Figueroa, John
WHEN LAITY LEAD PUTTING THE PRIEST IN CONTEXT JOHN FIGUEROA After hours of being lost in the rush hour traffic, we got to the apartment on the Seine overlooking Notre Dame. "We must attend Mass...
...The service began: "Let us join together as one people...
...And in some cases when they appear to show no interest, it is because they know that if their opinion or expertise runs counter to that of the parish priest, they are likely to be told that "the church is not a democracy...
...Can we do without women priests...
...This Sunday, Mass would be celebrated at Ecauville, some ten minutes away...
...and the much more difficult idea: Le manage est un symbole privilegie de Valliance etablie entre Dieu et I'humanite...
...Let us accept into each heart the very Word of God, a Word of Love, a Word of Togetherness which will enlighten for us the question of confidence...and may each word find in each one of us a responsive heart...
...The animateur was a smartly dressed and handsome young woman...
...a strikingly good-looking organist with long black hair, who could have graced any Paris fashion...
...I am not asking whether these things must change completely, but whether they can remain absolutely unchanged when the priest is no longer the only literate, educated person in the community, when celibacy in the modern world is not what it was a hundred years ago...
...There was a double theme enlightening this part of the liturgy: the need for real choice and commitment in Christianity...
...Would that insight be so strong if parish priests were not so busy and if general education and literacy had not improved...
...We then asked pardon for our sins and celebrated the Liturgy of the Word, with a brief commentary by the animateur...
...The issue is not whether we should deny the existence of the deposit of faith or whether we should adopt an every thing-goes attitude...
...His broadcasts on liturgy are aired on the BBC...
...Perhaps we are all too lazy or too preoccupied with trying to make an honest living, being solicitous over many things...
...some lively young children...
...Do we need them...
...When we got to the church, however, we realized from the French handout that we were not about to join in the celebration of Mass, but were going to "make" a "Sunday assembly in the absence of a priest...
...One could still hold the traditional view of the priest as the icon of Christ offering up the unbloody sacrifice and officiating at the sacraments as his main role, without denying that there could well be, and no doubt are, women and men in the parish who could preach and teach and counsel and lead prayer as well as any priest...
...Hardly ever do we concentrate on making palpable the people of God in the act which we do "in memory of Jesus"-confessing our sins, actively praising God, listening to and reciting words from Scripture, being overcome again and again by those shaking words: Take and eat...
...a priest visited each of the many country churches once a month...
...this is my blood...
...Why hasn't the kind of edifying assembly we experienced in Ecauville been more widely organized and encouraged...
...After the Gospel, we recited the Creed and Bidding Prayers, and, gathering around the altar in a large circle, we shared Communion that had been consecrated in this very church the previous Sunday...
...JOHN FIGUEROA, a Jamaican and former president of the Caribbean Studies Association, is a published poet and author of books on third-world literature...
...It is now quite common, for example, for priests to say that it is the responsibility of parents to instruct their children in the faith...
...But there is no need to be too narrow...
...Why don't lay women and men stop acting as if they can't pray in their houses, or together in a church, or read the Scriptures, or study their faith, or preach to each other...
...So many more laity now would like to have some real say, rather than rubber stamp the running and financing of parishes...
...We must attend Mass one afternoon," we agreed...
...It is whether we should try to test a matter like the traditional perception of the priest's role against the context in which it grew up, with respect to today's context...
...and about five black people, four of them quite young, one an older woman...
...Do we need married priests...
...The key question is: what do we need priests for...
...What the service did for me, besides shoring up a very weak spirituality, was to raise some questions: Will we ever have the number of priests we used to have...
...There was a time when one was taught that a priest is essentially one who offers sacrifice...
...Can the roles of the laity-women and men-in worship, intercession, in parish decision making remain unchanged...
...We pray regularly for "vocations," but we also know that unless we pray for the right things our prayers will not be answered...
...Perhaps because all of us are expecting too many different things from Sunday Mass: contemplation, enjoyment of the kind of music we like, instruction in the faith, meeting with friends, news about neighbors, opportunity for finding fault with the church or the travels of the pope...
...With all the changes in the roles of women and men in families, politics, universities, and in business, can the role of priest be what it used to be...
...Might it not be considered a sin of omission that such persons are not always trained, used, or even encouraged...
...The small, rough-hewn church with wooden benches, enclosed as if against winter winds, was nearly full, and the variety within the congregation took me by surprise: older farming men with windblown faces and ladies not built for modern Paris fashions...
...Why don't lay people make more assemblies for themselves...
...Are they waiting for Mother or Father to tell them that it is all right...
...I had been missing the Sunday rite, the habitual gathering with the hopeful: "Lord, I am not worthy, but only say the word and I shall be healed...
...This is my body...
...Must not the context of self-government and self-determination as an ideal that has grown in this century affect the presupposition that the only one in a parish who can lead in all matters is the priest...
...The following Saturday afternoon in the quiet wooded countryside of Feuguerolles, we learned that there were few priests here these days...
Vol. 116 • September 1989 • No. 15
