The Layman in the Church

...There is nothing farther from the Catholic conception than that the ordinary Catholic be only a blind follower or an unintelligent believer in the Church...

...With this stirring is naturally connected a growing understanding and increasing zeal...

...For the Church is not made up of those who do only the giving on the one hand, and those who do only the receiving on the other...

...The latter field by itself is large and admits of many degrees...

...As Christ is the Way and the Truth and the Life, King and Teacher and Priest, so is every member, as an "other Christ," in some degree king, teacher and priest unto himself and unto others...

...Something of this kind is occurring in the Church today under the leadership of recent Popes...

...The Protestants of the religious revolt stressed the priesthood of the Christian people, quoting Saint Peter in order to justify their abolition of the ordained ministry in the Church...

...But there are also other points that have suffered from a similar neglect...

...As a result, it became almost an inherited attitude to emphasize rather the minimum requirements of what must be believed and what must be done in order to come in contact with the sacramental life of the Church, than to bring out more definitely the inspirational richness of meaning contained in that sacramental life...

...In the gifts they saw themselves...

...We were ready to understand better...

...and such a change may be of considerable influence on the inspiration for life derived out of one's understanding of the Catholic scheme of life...

...they could not offer up the holy sacrifice with the priest as could the faithful, and as all present at the sacrifice should do and did in early times...

...Now the time seems to have come for a greater manifestation of that which is eternal in her...

...Each individual by himself can exercise various kinds of apostleship among those with whom he comes in contact...

...Yet the members share in different degrees according to the sacramental character they have received...

...Yet there can be a change of emphasis, of popular emphasis on various doctrines...

...in the offering of them, the offering of their whole selves to the service of God...

...He is now a soldier of Christ in the sense in which the Apostles and early Christians were also soldiers...

...Their everyday careers were but a further unfolding of what they did in their eucharistic gatherings...

...But they were also inclined to omit mention of the general priesthood of the faithful...

...Their scope embraces all the members of the Church as so many active sharers in the organic activity that is the life of the Church...

...For, to repeat, all members share in the whole of Christ insofar as they are living members of the mystic body of which He is the Head...

...Thus in the Christian renewal of our own day, every member of Christ has his active part to play, a part that derives directly from his position in the organic fellowship of souls in Christ that is the Church...

...If in past centuries men of the Church failed in this charity, as did all the world of the time, it was a temporal manifestation of what is human in the Church...

...that is, such as are officially Catholic and perform their apostolic work under auspices of existing Church organizations...

...When the ideas of the Liturgical Movement were first sown abroad, many of the clergy and laity shook their heads at the proposal of lay participation in public worship of the Church...

...Yet we were ready to comprehend better when Pius XI exhorted in his Apostolic Constitution ("Divini cultus sanctitatem") : It is quite necessary that the faithful, not as visitors or mute spectators, but as worshipers thoroughly imbued with the beauty of the liturgy, should take part in the sacred ceremonies...

...The rite of baptism, with its repeated significant questionings, shows the contrary...

...Saint Thomas calls it a participation in the priesthood of Christ...

...These works have ever been a part of the entire program of the Church's life...

...Similarly, the early Christians were known for the fraternal love they bore toward one another, in fact, toward all mankind...

...And so, through the character of holy orders, are the ordained ministers of the Church in a special degree possessors of Christ under this threefold aspect...

...Far from having merely a negative attitude, the Catholic must ever exercise guidance over himself and seek to inform himself as to the grounds of his belief...

...The Catholics in turn stressed all the more the divine institution of an ordained priesthood as the depository of the priestly mediatorship of Christ...

...Because they did not have that share in Christ which every baptized Christian officially has...

...It means, as the baptismal rite phrases it, "to have part with Christ," and to have part here and now...

...Placing their gifts on the altar was only the beginning of their communion with God...

...First of all he can be to them a sign of the Way and the Truth and the Life that is Christ by the very example of his general conduct, his personal actions and his actions toward all those with whom he has any contact...

...even ordinarily the priest's judgment is dependent on the state of mind of the penitent as the penitent himself has judged and declared it to be...

...The supreme need of activity in these two fields meant that attention was less concentrated on a better understanding of the other and greater office of the Church, her sanctifying power...

...To him the word of Saint James now applies in a special way: "Be ye doers of the word, not hearers only...

...We simply did not advert to the fuller value of the old truths we have always known...

...Certainly not, if we mean a change of doctrine...

...Over against this dogmatic and disciplinary break-off, the Catholic Church naturally emphasized her rightful possession of the teaching and guiding offices of Christ...

...The lay faithful share in these ministrations, as coofferers and covictims in the holy sacrifice, and as recipients in the sacraments, but even here with a part of their own to perform...

...Many Catholics, in fact, seemed to have forgotten it altogether...

...It is a participation by which the faithful have not only the duty but the high privilege in their own right of a share in the sacramental life of the Church, particularly the right of actively entering into the sacrificial offering as enacted by the Church...

...a participator in the priesthood of Christ—not a full and unlimited participator, yet a participator in the whole Christ...

...It is initiation into membership of the mystic body, of that living spiritual organism of which Christ Himself is the Head...

...If rightly entered upon, they may be one of the most effective forms of lay apostleship...

...The sacramental character received by all in Baptism is but vaguely denned in many of our books...

...to those who could understand, it was also an inspiring sermon of the impelling truth of the Christian ideal...

...124 THE COMMONWEAL June 4, 1930 Baptism for the early Christians, as for us, means much more than a forgiveness of sin, or the performance of a ceremonial rite that gives title to a future eternal life on the fulfilment of certain precepts...

...Such is the stage at which we had arrived, after centuries of effort, when the clarion calls of papal pronouncements declared the time ripe and the need urgent for a greater renewal in Christ, for inaugurating a greater reign of the Kingship of Christ in the hearts of men...

...It means being a living temple of the Holy Ghost, of the Spirit of Christ...

...Lay apostleship goes still farther because the member of the Church never ceases to be an individual member...

...That brings us more directly to Catholic Action...

...All the wide field of the corporal and spiritual works of mercy presents opportunities also for individual Catholic Action...

...Their offering was an open sign of such reconciliation and charity, for most of their gifts, far too numerous to be used only for the sacrifice in question, were destined also for the relief of the needy and poor...

...Then he can exercise his apostleship by opportunely answering questions, discussing prob-, lems in the light of Catholic truth, or, on occasion, by correcting prevalent false impressions...

...June 4, 1930 THE COMMONWEAL 123 THE LAYMAN IN THE CHURCH BY VIRGIL MICHEL FOREMOST among the signs of renewing life in all Catholic countries are the phenomena that go by the name of the Liturgical Movement (or liturgical apostolate) and Catholic Action (or lay apostolate...

...Not only must the average layman exercise these powers in regard to himself, he must also, in his own degree, exercise them toward his fellow-men...

...For this reason the renewal of life is of utmost significance for the Catholic layman...

...Of that again, or of lay apostleship, there are different degrees and forms...

...And it is the role of each member of the Church, not only to let the grace in him develop unto greater growth, but to cooperate more directly and more consciously in the great work of the renewal of all things in Christ our King...

...It is a general exercise of Christ's office of King and Prophet in regard to his own self, just as his private prayer and his participation in the public worship are an exercise of his part in the Priesthood of Christ...

...In the Church, as opposed to the exaggerated individualism of past and present, all members are spiritually welded together into one living organism and find their full life in promoting the life of the whole...

...And a sublimely stirring inspiration breathes in the true conception thus had of the part every faithful member has above all in the Christian sacrifice...

...There is a sublime spiritual reality contained in this active sharing of all members in the life of Christ...

...And therewith came more light on many points that the early Christians, the Church Fathers, theologians and councils had always taught...

...Its import will be better understood in the light of historical developments...

...Why could they not do so...

...The catechumens were not yet baptized...

...Because of the many misrepresentations of Christian truth and life by the "reformers," the subsequent time became one of emphasis on dogmatic definitions and disciplinary regulations...

...But the Angelic Doctor also pointed out the analogous case of the character conferred in confirmation...

...This sublime and fundamental truth has not always received the full emphasis it deserves among us...

...Yet, as opposed to the exaggerated socialism of present and future, each member retains his individuality and his personal responsibility for the promotion of the life of Christ in himself and in present and prospective fellow-members...

...The teaching of the Summa Theologica of Saint Thomas was emphatic on this point...

...It is an engrafting of a human branch on the living Vine, Christ...

...In the very confessional itself—the stock example of blind submission according to non-Catholic attacks—the penitent must not only make his own personal examination and acts of sorrow and resolution...

...Any sort of renewal, in the Church or elsewhere, implies a change of some kind...

...Thus the active role the layman has in the sacrificial worship should also ever be the inspiration for active life in Christ throughout the day...

...They are the apostolic societies centering in the parishes, or in the dioceses...

...He is ever personally a lay apostle...

...Or they may be nationally organized under the hierarchy, like the N. C. W. C, or again internationally under some appointed directorship...

...Thereafter they could not but go out into the day breathing everywhere the inspiration of Christ...

...In the Consecration they saw enacted their mystic union with Christ and His redemptive act, and in the sacramental Communion their fuller participation in the whole being and life of Christ...

...And they are done in the fullest imitation of Christ when done by Catholic societies...

...They shared in the dialogue parts of the Mass now recited by server or sung by general choirs...

...Each in his own degree, all Christians have share in Christ as Priest, King and Prophet...

...This sermon in turn depends on his drinking of the Spirit of Christ at its primary and indispensable source, his active participation, with intelligent mind and willing heart, "in the most sacred mysteries and in public and solemn worship of the Church...

...It goes without saying that the spirit of the work must be the spirit of unity expressed in the two great commandments of the love of God and of neighbor, neither of which is complete without the other, while both together give the whole spirit of Christ...

...It was an action by which they gave themselves to God, and in which they were fully conscious of the meaning of Christ's words about not bringing a gift to the altar without complete reconciliation and peace with one's brethren...

...The Church is the mystic body of Christ in which all members live the life of Christ, in which all members have a share in the whole Christ, though in different degrees...

...The catechumens in early Christianity were dismissed when the sacrifice proper, the Mass of the Faithful as it is significantly called, commenced...

...It was here they gave themselves over most intensely to the Christ in Whose sacrificial worship they knew so well how to take their part...

...It was anything but a dead theory for them...

...Their very act of worship was an act also of fraternal help...

...The possibilities are endless, and not without many precedents...

...They ranged close around the officiating priests and the altar, so that our present Mass prayers and rubrical prescriptions still use the word "circumstantes," those standing around the altar...

...He has a rightful part in it...

...And we understood almost as with a new light, when the Holy Father so emphatically mentioned the priesthood of the people and their right to offer with the celebrating priest (Encyclical Miserentissimus Redemptor...

...or rather their action in favor of their brethren was made part and parcel of their act of divine worship, of giving themselves to God...

...Through the full share in Christ conferred in the sacramental character of holy orders, they are empowered to enact the official life of the Church primarily through their sacramental ministrations to others...

...We have mentioned the sacramental character of baptism as a first participation in the priesthood of Christ...

...But can we properly speak of change in the Church...

...Had not the tradition of centuries confirmed the habit of private recitation of prayers by the laity at public functions, even at Mass —of prayers that had no inner connection with the official services of the Church...

...While this seems to be the scope of Catholic Action in the stricter sense of the word, it by no means limits the apostolic efforts and opportunities of the Catholic layman...

...But in all cases, his apostolic activities must be rooted in and supported by the sermon he ever preaches through the detailed example of his own life...

...The Protestant revolt was a revolt against the teaching and guiding powers of the Church...

...As distinct from the above societies there is further room for apostolic work by organizations not directly connected with specific centres of Church organizations...

...Their lives breathed forth this atmosphere of charity in Christ, so that the very example of their lives was not only an indication of their being Christians...

...As the term Catholic Action is understood in the stricter sense, it refers to lay cooperation with the hierarchy in the wider fields of labor that the Church has ever exercised, and that are enumerated comprehensively in the spiritual and the corporal works of mercy...

...They are eminently a part of the work Christ did here on earth...

...But the grace of God continued to stir unto greater life...

...There the Christian receives a further participation in the priesthood of Christ, which makes him "quasi ex officio" a defender, in all charity, of the truths of Christ against the attacks of the world about him...

...It has become his special profession as a confirmed Catholic to let the light of Christ in him shine before the world...

...Sacramenta propter homines" is a proverb among us...

...Above all they offered, each his own specific gift, at the Offertory, the beginning of the Mass of the Faithful...

...It is not that these things had been really unknown...

...Yet what an awakening it was, when a mere glance at the unknown prayers recited by the priest at Mass pointed to the people as coofferers with the ordained priest and official delegates of the Church I What a new meaning in the action of the priest as he turns about and asks those present to pray " that my sacrifice and yours may be acceptable to God I" Or again, when he prays in the Canon for "all here present . . . on whose behalf we offer unto Thee, and who themselves offer unto Thee this sacrifice of praise for themselves and all who are theirs...

...And when up to recent years some Catholics spoke of this general priesthood of all the members of the Church, they were almost accused of Protestantism...

...The layman is not to be a "mere visitor or mute spectator" in the worship of the Church...

...Both of these are specially significant in our day because they both tend toward a unification, but not centralization, of life in the Church...

...All this follows naturally from the status of Christians as participators in the undivided Christ, from their being other Christs...