Many will say that Vatican II brought the idea of the “universal call to holiness.” Of course, the universal call to holiness is not new: it is written on human nature and made explicit by our Lord himself, who said “be perfect as your heavenly Father is perfect.” The Vatican II Council, however, beautifully re-emphasized against certain errors the dignity of the lay vocation.
There had been and is still a dangerous tendency in the Church to speak of a “vocation” only to the priesthood or religious life. What a pity! It’s as if God only has a plan for certain of his children, and the others belong to a catch-all category of “lay people.” How far from the truth!
There is an unfortunate coincidence from the beginning with the word ‘lay,’ which means in a secular sense “someone who is not an expert,” but it is not used this way by the Church. Lay people must be experts in holiness.
A lay person is someone who fulfills the call of his baptism by sanctifying the temporal order. Christifideles Laici says, “The vocation of the lay faithful to holiness implies that life according to the Spirit expresses itself in a particular way in their involvement in temporal affairs and in their participation in earthly activities” (17).
The laity can help evangelize the world in a way that priests and religious cannot do.
In fact, given that the New Evangelization recognizes that the Church herself is the first object of evangelization, that is, that the Church herself must always grow more faithful to Christ even as she preaches him to others, it might be appropriate to express the complementarity of the priesthood, religious life, and lay state in terms of evangelization. The priesthood exists to support the lay state through: teaching, the sacraments, and shepherding. The religious life provides an example of radically living the Beatitudes. These two vocations evangelize, by all means, but they express in a certain way the eternal order. This is why celibacy is very fitting for the priesthood and religious life: they witness before the Church and the world the reality of Heaven “where they neither marry nor are given in marriage.”
The lay state, on the other hand, can sanctify the temporal order of the world. I imagine that it says something about the difficulty of this task that God gives more people the lay vocation than any other vocation.
There are a few tendencies, which exist today, that undermine the dignity of the lay state. Christifideles Laici points out two, especially: the tendency to be over-involved in “Church work” and the tendency to separate faith and everyday life (CL, 2).
We all see these tendencies crop up in various ways.
For example, I read the other day in a vocations discernment guide, the following statement, “Some [vocations] are more important for the work of the Church, but all lead to personal sanctity.” The work of the Church is sanctity, the “salvation of souls” (Code of Canon Law, 1752).
Another example. I was talking with a priest awhile ago. The subject of the purification of sacred vessels at Mass came up since this was not too long after many parishes had begun to have only priests, deacons, and acolytes purify the vessels after Holy Communion. He explained to me the difficulty in implementing this particular change at his parish, telling me that it hurt people’s feelings because they felt like Rome was telling them that they were not holy enough to touch the vessels.
How sad! I wonder whether the people at that parish are ever told about the purpose of the lay vocation? It’s a tragedy that people think that holiness comes from doing the things that priests do. For priests it does, but not for others. What an insult to the faithful, to let them think that they’re not participating at Mass or that they’re not active in the Church if they don’t perform a specific function like proclaiming the readings or acting as an extraordinary minister of Holy Communion.
Especially in certain liturgical matters, such as when extraordinary ministers of Holy Communion are needlessly multiplied–as if this is a way to participate more at Mass–the universal call to holiness is being presented as a “universal call to priestly ministry.”
Redemptionis Sacramentum says:
[12.] On the contrary, it is the right of all of Christ’s faithful that the Liturgy, and in particular the celebration of Holy Mass, should truly be as the Church wishes, according to her stipulations as prescribed in the liturgical books and in the other laws and norms. Likewise, the Catholic people have the right that the Sacrifice of the Holy Mass should be celebrated for them in an integral manner, according to the entire doctrine of the Church’s Magisterium. Finally, it is the Catholic community’s right that the celebration of the Most Holy Eucharist should be carried out for it in such a manner that it truly stands out as a sacrament of unity, to the exclusion of all blemishes and actions that might engender divisions and factions in the Church.
Personally, although I do not believe that I have the lay vocation, at this time in my life I am in the lay state, and I find it insulting when lay people are treated as second-class members of the Church, when their rights are trampled on by priests who refuse to celebrate the liturgy according to the liturgical norms. Priests are supposed to support the lay faithful, exercising Christ’s priestly office in the celebration of the liturgy. Is it any wonder that there is such a crisis of family life, then? The vocations of the Church are complementary. There is, indeed, a “vocations crisis,” not only a crisis of vocations to the priesthood and religious life.