Every year at Pentecost, we ask the Lord to send forth His Spirit and renew the face of the earth; we offer this prayer similarly every time we celebrate the Sacrament of Confirmation, which is like a new Pentecost for those who are called to that great Sacrament. But what does it mean to ask the Lord to send forth His Spirit to renew the face of the earth? We imagine it as a strong driving wind or a consuming fire, purifying all everything in its path. As powerful as that seems, renewal is a far more ordinary thing than that, and involves us far more intimately and directly than we may usually imagine. The Lord sends forth His Spirit by means of those whom He has chosen and called. His plan to renew the face of the earth is in some way, shape, or form, contingent upon the renewal of each life into which He breathes His Holy Spirit, and through these lives He then catches the world on fire, renewing and enlivening it by His own life at work in the hearts of those who believe. This is what it means for Jesus to call us to a life of being salt, light, and leaven – through us, He wants to transform the world.
It’s incredibly important for lay men and women – those members of the Church who do not take on a religious or clerical vocation, but who are called to serve God in the midst of secular society. Pope St. John Paul II offered profound instruction on this topic in Christifideles Laici, an exhortation on the mission and role of lay people in the world. It’s a lengthy piece, but worth reading for anyone wanting to take their vocation as a lay person seriously. It can be hard to live in the world, but God has enriched lay people for this very task, and He provides them every tool necessary to fulfil their mission to sanctify the world. You are called by God to live in the midst of the world. Lay people “live in the ordinary circumstances of family and social life, from which the very fabric of their existence is woven…They are persons who live an ordinary life in the world: they study, they work, they form relationships as friends, professionals, members of society, cultures, etc.… [their condition is] a reality destined to find in Jesus Christ the fullness of its meaning. Indeed, it leads to the affirmation that ‘the Word made flesh willed to share in human fellowship ... He sanctified those human ties, especially family ones, from which social relationships arise, willingly submitting himself to the laws of his country. He chose to lead the life of an ordinary craftsman of his own time and place’”.
In other words, lay people have the mission of engaging in society in such a way that the Gospel takes deeper root in every facet of social life; because Christians are teachers, education is sanctified; because Christians are doctors, medicine is sanctified; because Christians work in factories and industries, factories and industries are sanctified; because Christians are farmers, agriculture is sanctified; because Christians are business owners and involved in finance, business and finance is sanctified. And if Christians are involved in any of these fields and they are not sanctified, it is because those Christians are not doing their jobs. This extends even into private leisure and social life – if Christians are striving to be Christians in the midst of the world, the world necessarily becomes sanctified by their presence. From the intimacy of the marriage bed – which forms the cradle of society – to the grand scale of entire nations, Christians are called to live out their fidelity to the Gospel and the call of God to become “salt, light, and leaven” for the salvation of the world; nothing falls outside the scope of this call, nothing can be withheld. “The images taken from the gospel of salt, light and leaven, although indiscriminately applicable to all Jesus' disciples, are specifically applied to the lay faithful…because they speak not only of the deep involvement and the full participation of the lay faithful in the affairs of the earth…but also and above all, they tell of the radical newness and unique character of an involvement and participation which has as its purpose the spreading of the Gospel that brings salvation.” What a beautiful and challenging thing to consider that the whole of the lay person’s life is to be taken up in the saving mission for which Christ came into the world.
If the world is going to be holy, if the face of the earth is going to be renewed, it will take all of us; not just priests, not just nuns, not just the pope or His brother bishops – we are all responsible in our own sphere of influence, and the world belongs to the laity. The clergy are here to serve you, the religious sustain all of us by their prayers, but only those who are intimately mingled in every layer and fiber of society have the influence and power to make transformations there. We must each take our call to love God above all else and our neighbor as ourselves more seriously; we must look into our hearts and see where the Lord has not yet been given freedom to renew our own lives; we must courageously give Him full reign, and then offer ourselves for His purposes. May God bless you in the week ahead and may Mother Mary lead you more deeply into the Sacred and Merciful Heart of Jesus. I remain,
Affectionately Yours in Christ,
Fr. Hess
