Speaking Notes on the Role of the Laity

The Role of the Laity
Pobal Conference, March 7th 2009, Speaking Notes  

The role  of every Christian is rooted in the Baptismal call.  It is a call that draws us into communion with God; unites us in communion with our fellow baptised and propels us out on mission to all peoples.  If we don’t get the first bit right, communion with God, then our mission will be diminished accordingly and may even be destructive.

I would propose addressed today’s theme under three headings:  The personal call;  the structured way it is being explored in the Dublin Archdiocese; and how we can be on mission in the wider community.

The Personal Call
At baptism we are born into the body of Christ, with a role yet to be unfolded.  When we admire a new born babe in her or his minute perfection at some stage we wonder, we wonder what lies ahead.  At baptism the same wondering and questioning is legitimately present.  What role will this newly-baptised baby play as a member of the Body of Christ.  Who will guide and direct this baby through childhood and the early years?  What people and circumstances will shape him or her in the future?  Will they be aware that they are called to be ‘priests, prophet and king’?  Who will tell them, encourage and lead by example.

Will anyone whisper into their ear the invitation of Matthew 5:48
“Be perfect as your heavenly Father is perfect”.
The two by Two:
It’s a useful exercise for each one of us from time to time, to reflect back on the people and events which influenced you and I in bringing us to where we are today on our baptismal journey?  Jesus sent his disciples out two by two.  Who were the ‘two by two’ back then? Who are the two by two now?
 Be my witnesses, go out two by two, and let your light shine; and bring the Good News to all peoples. 

You and I are the two by two; you and I are called to let our light shine; you and I are entrusted with the task of brining the Good News to the whole world.

You and I are here this morning because others went out two by two to us.  .
 Who were the ‘two by two’ who influenced you and I?  If I speak for a few minutes on the ‘two by two’ who shaped my life to date it may strike a chord or jog a memory.

I grew up in Celbridge in a traditional family of the time, where I was taught how to bless myself, pray, visit the Church and was brought to Mass.  We moaned and groaned silently about the trimmings of the family rosary.  My parents were the two by two who went out to me as a child, to bring me the Good News.  They did it naturally and their conviction was how they let their light shine.

When I was seven, Sister Carmel introduced me to the Bible stories.  I was deeply impressed by the conversion of St. Paul – especially his being thrown off the horse.  Sister spotted my liking for stories and to impress the Parish Priest asked me to tell it to him in first class.  He was not impressed.  He was later to throw my brother and myself off the altar – so we went home, two by two.

An old gardener, Jack Brien, where the Orchard Garden Centre is now, used to cycle up the Main Street to the Church and sit in contemplative prayer for what seemed to me as a child, hours.  He communicated to me the sense of someone talking to God.  I was in aw of him.

Father Terry gave the same sense of God being present at Benediction and in the way he genuflected.  Now, I ask myself, was it reverence or arthritis.  It does not matter – they were both witnesses to me.

Father Jimmy was an alcoholic, but overflowing with kindness and joy and naturally humble.  He was the one who inspired me towards priesthood without asking.  God writes in crooked lines.

Later as a Prison Chaplain, I witnessed that the darkness could not overcome the light.  I experienced the greatest generosity among those who had least.  They were my witnesses that God’s goodness is to be found among those on the edge.  I also met great evil that corrupted the most vulnerable.  I learned that we all influence someone by what we do – we are never in the neutral corner, much and all as we might wish to retreat there.

The late Archbishop Kevin McNamara was a witness to me too.  One day I plucked up courage and said to him:  ‘Your public pronouncements are rigid and uncompromising and as a person you are so good humoured and full of compassion.’  His response has stayed with me and has influenced me greatly.  He said:  ‘It is my duty to present the full message of Jesus;  it is not for me to dilute it.  Neither is it for me to judge anyone, that is for God alone.  I give the full message and leave the judgment and mercy to God who alone can see into the heart of each person and understand their struggles and unique circumstances.  He was the witness to me of truth with compassion.

In recent years my meetings with those who were sexually abused as children, were robbed of their innocence, made feel dirty, even guilty although totally innocent, made live for years in a prison of secrecy and fear; robbed of their ability to trust and often driven away from God where the abuser was a priest.  I learned and continue to learn from those whom I have been privileged to experience their hurt, anger and longing for wholeness with peace.

‘To him or her to whom much has been given much will be expected in return;  To him/her to whom much has been given in trust, even more will be expected.

Our faith, the depth of the meaning of the Word of God is shaped by those whom we meet along the journey of life.

A witness is never off duty because we are always influencing someone.  Times and circumstances have changed but not the call to be witnesses and to go out two by two.

Who do we go out to and with what?  We go out with what we have.  We can’t give what we haven’t got.  We believe that Jesus is God:    We believe that we are loved individually by God;  We believe that through the Holy Spirit at baptism God is within us.  We believe that anything we let God touch is changed for the better;  We let God touch our minds and hearts in listening to his Word and letting it be the springboard of our actions.  God calls out to us in the person of each person we meet every day.  Jesus is the Word made flesh.  Each time we let that word ooze out through our words, deeds, the word is becoming flesh in us and being witnessed to the world.

The Early Church was out-going, it did not form into a cosy, exclusive Club.  We can see from the Acts of the Apostles and the early letters how they set up local communities of faith; trained leaders but always checking back to keep them faithful to the Word of God in deed and teaching.

In this year of St. Paul it is good to focus on his mission.  He was born in Tarsus, present day Turkey;  educated in Jerusalem, had one sister and a nephew; from a wealthy family. A tent-maker by trade; a very poor speaker but an effective community builder.

His conversion occurred as he was on his way to persecute the Christians.  He saw his role as a conscientious Pharisee and Jew who had to get rid of the Christians.  He stood by as a witness to Stephen’s stoning to death.

After his conversion, his mission brought him over 10,000 miles but not as a tourist. He travelled on the dangerous trade routes on land and on sea.  He travelled in Israel, Syria, Turkey, Greece and ended up in Rome where he was a prisoner for two years.  He was shipwrecked three times, on one occasion he was in the water for over 24 hours; he was flogged, attacked and went hungry.  It is fair to say that his mission was no picnic.  He had something profound to say to each one of us, the baptised.  This was his prayer for each one of us, inviting us to explore our deep gift at the root of our call.

“This then is what I pray, kneeling before the Father….
May he give you the power through his Spirit
For your hidden self to grow strong, so that Christ may live in your hearts through faith, and then, planted in love and built on love, you will be with all the ‘saints’ (the baptised) have strength to grasp the breath and length, the height and depth, until knowing the love of Christ, which is beyond all knowledge, you are filled with the utter fullness of God.

Glory to him whose power, working in us, can do infinitely more than we can ask or imagine!
(Eph 3:14-21)

We are well equipped with the gifts of the Holy Spirit, for our personal call to be perfect, to go out two by two and bear witness to the Gospel wherever we go.  If we do this then we will live the call of Matthew 25, and may even given holiness a ‘good name’.

The Structure Call/Role in the Dublin Archdiocese.

Vatican II re-awakened the call of the early Church, in remind us that the Church is the People of God.

“Christifideles Laici” reminds us that the world is the vineyard and we are the labourers in the vineyard.  The Scripture calls us to be ‘the salt of the earth’; ‘the light of the world’; ‘leaven’.

At the Chrism Mass in 2008, Archbishop Martin stated:

If “We look at lay involvement as a stop gap solution, (due to the shortage of priests) it will fizzle out. 

Our plans for working together in mission will only work when they are rooted in the understanding of the calling of all Christians to the Ministry of witness to their faith within the ecclesial community and in the world”.

The present circumstances may create the urgency to implement the call of the lay faithful which was revived in Vatican II and implemented in an ad hoc way.  By insisting by Decree that every parish must have a Parish Pastoral Council, he provided a parish structure to ensure the involvement of the laity in the mission of the parish and wider Church.

In April 2008 there was a gathering of the PPC of the Dublin Archdiocese at which an evaluation of the working of the PPC was presented.  These findings were to inform the second phase of PPC which has commenced in most parishes.

In his address the Archbishop emphasised ;
“The Spirit never abandons the Church.  He has not got a dimmer to tone down his light at any moment in history.  He is present in our times with the same vigour and the same brilliance as with the early Church”.

At that meeting the establishment of the Office for Evangelisation was announced.  It was to continue the work of the previous body, Parish Development and Renewal, which was the office that promoted PPC and provided the training and resources.  Subsuming PDR into the Office for Evangelisation emphasised the clear missionary purpose of a PPC, namely, to encourage, enable and guide parishes into becoming local faith communities working together on mission.

Parishes have welcomed this development and have expressed a need for training of PPC in how to work effectively as well as an induction into the mission/evangelisation purpose of the PPC.

Training has been provided, for example, for:

1. Role of PPC and respective roles of office holders.
2. Guidance in forming a Mission Statement; auditing parish needs; setting goals and evaluation of achievements.
3. Training for Baptismal Teams; ‘Do this in Memory of Me’; Confirmation preparation; “Called to be Witnesses”;
4.  Funeral teams.
5. Liturgical workshops
6. Reader of the Word; Lectio Divina; Eucharistic Ministers; Justice Teams
7. Requests that come from individual PPC or from the Area Gatherings of PPC and at Deanery Meetings.

Parishes Working Together on Mission

This is at various stages of development across the five areas at present.  The purpose behind it is to ensure that

1. each faith community has a strong local team that forms part of the Parish Pastoral Council e.g. some rural parishes have three Churches, each with a local faith community.Faith Communities within a parish form an attitude of mind that their mission spreads wider than their own geographical area and parish but to designated neighbouring parishes and the wider Church.

If I illustrate what is happening in the area that I am responsible for as Area Bishop.  All the parishes are identified with a neighbouring group of parishes.  There were stages in arriving at these groupings:

1. Meeting with the priests at deanery level
2. Meeting with PPC individually
3. Meeting with PPC at deanery gatherings
4. Members of PPC address people at masses and explain the consultation form on preferences re working with neighbouring parishes.
5. Communicating the provisional groups based on the Chruch Consultation Forms and PPC views

Second Phase
Parishes have been meeting in groups of PPC and setting each other two tasks that they will work on together in 2009.

These gatherings have a social element so that people can get to know each other and the parish resources and needs.

These provisional groups have been modified on request from PPC’s.  The emphasis is on working together and sharing pastoral and physical and personal resources.

In June the provisional groups will be presented via the Boundaries Commission to the Archbishop for formal structural approval.

The aim is to ensure that each faith community is equipped to meet all the parish needs e.g. liturgical, religious formation, pastoral outreach.  The priests who are in the area of the groupings will service the faith communities; the Parish Pastoral Worker will be appointed to the group of parishes – (I will expand on this later).  Parishes will synchronise their Masses, times of baptisms etc. and provide a group timetable in each faith community.

Depending on the training required it may be at small group gatherings or at deanery or area gatherings.

The aim is to train volunteers up to professional standards in various skills so that each community will be properly equipped to serve its spiritual, pastoral, liturgical and faith formation needs, with the combined services of trained volunteers and shared fulltime personnel.

Parish Pastoral Workers

The first group of 16 Parish Pastoral Workers candidates will complete their Formation Programme.  The successful candidates will be offered a three year contract as a Diocesan Pastoral Worker and will be assigned an appointment to a particular parish with responsibilities in the parishes of its grouping.

The second year of this initiative is being advertised at present.

The wording in the brochure is worth quoting:

“The lay pastoral workers will collaborate in close partnership with the priests of the parish and the Parish Pastoral Council in the service of the Gospel and the mission of the Church at local level.

That mission involves a programme of evangelisation and catechesis, the promotion of life-long Christian learning, attention to  the social teaching of the Church, the celebration of the sacraments, with particular reference to the Sunday Eucharist, the building up of community life within parishes, with special emphasis on families, young people and marginalised groups”

It is a call and not just a job.  The applicant will have a commitment to Jesus Christ in his Church and a strong sense of discipleship.

 Evangelisation – The Office of Evangelisation:

The Church exists in order to evangelise. (Evangelii Nuntiandi, Pope Paul VI) 

The very word ‘evangelisation’ presents a challenge to many.  To define it is a challenge. What is evangelisation? Evangelisation is at its heart the proclamation of the good news – the good news of Christ’s victory over sin and death, setting us free…liberating us.  The newly established Office of Evangelisation has as one of its goals the promotion of  an understanding of  evangelisation.  It will provide education, strategies and resources to implement a diocesan vision of evangelisation. That vision is focusing on a year of evangelisation due to commence on 29th June this year and continue till Advent 2010

Evangelisation calls for personal conversion.  Any such conversion is not a once-and-for-all, instantaneous experience but rather a life long process. The hope is that this year of Evangelisation will support the process of living the faith. All Christians are called to witness, and in this way can be real evangelisers.”
(Evangelii Nuntiandi, Pope Paul VI)

Evangelisation reaches its full development when it becomes manifest by a visible entry into a community of believers. The year will open with a Conference entitled ‘Becoming the Body of Christ’ exploring the Rite of Christian Initiation of Adults. This five-day conference will provide an opportunity to explore the implications of our Baptismal call and renew our Christian commitment.  It will also familiarise participants with the stages of the journey to full membership of the faith community. Through Liturgy, input and reflection, the conference will enrich the faith of those present and at the same time enhance their ability to journey with people seeking to become full members of the Body of Christ.  The Rite of Christian Initiation of Adults is a model for faith formation and evangelisation in parishes.  It has the potential to revitalise and transform parish faith communities.

Worship and the act of worship is an act of evangelisation.  We, as a faith community evangelise when we celebrate Christ’s birth, death and resurrection and the gift of the Holy Spirit - when we celebrate the sacraments which nourish and strengthen, unite and heal us. If we believe, then we will celebrate what we believe. The liturgy office will continue to promote the importance of good liturgy and provide liturgical and musical resources for parishes and groups throughout the diocese in the Year of evangelisation.

True evangelisation concerns not only individual human beings, but human society. The good news needs to be brought to all layers of society.  Catholic social teaching has as part of its purpose the transformation of society according to gospel principles. In Dublin we as a faith community are challenged to receive and implement effectively the social teaching of the Church. The essential nature of the Church at both the universal and particular level is mission.  The Church’s mission as the People of God in parish, prayer group or organisation, is to be God’s loving outreach to the world. Agencies such as Crosscare in Dublin and Trocaire, in its outreach to those in need in the world, are a concrete manifestation of the Churchs response for social action.  In these straightened economic times we are challenged to bring the social message of the Gospel and the values of the Gospel to society through the way we live our lives.  Afterall a commitment to peace, justice, and human social development is also a witness to Gospel values. 

Irish people today put more trust in witnesses than in teachers, in life and action than in theories. All the baptised – the pobal dei – the people of God have a mission and a task whereby we are all invited to contribute to the Church’s mission. We are all invited to witness in our daily lives the faith we profess.  Baptism is not only a single never-to-be-repeated event; it is also a process. It marks the beginning of a journey of faith.  Ministry, once the domain of ordained clergy, is now framed within the baptismal call of all Christians.

Mission of the Laity in the Wider Community

The Good News of Jesus Christ has something to say to every aspect of life.  It is the laity who are best positioned to bring this about in places of business, education, healthcare, social justice issues, recreation, every place where people interact.

A well-informed, committed lay person can give witness and challenge in a most authentic way.  It can be far more effective than volumes of sermons and pronouncements.  Gordon Wilson gave one of the most profound witness to Christian forgiveness in the 1900s.  President McAleese in her inclusiveness is a powerful witness.  The person who hands in the lost purse; goes on the Simon soup run; visits the families of the bereaved; the mentally ill, the families of those in prison; are all doing God’s work and challenging the attitudes that neglect or exclude.

The role of the laity must not succumb to the temptation to becoming ‘sanctuary bound’ ‘Christifideles Laici put it this way:
“The temptation of being so strongly interested in Church Services and tasks that some fail to become actively engaged in their responsibilities in the professional, social, cultural and political world” (CF,2). It is the temptation of “legitimising the unwarranted separation of faith from life”. (CF,2)

At the Ad Limina Visit of the Irish Bishops’ in 2007, Pope Benedict asked Archbishop Martin,
“Where are the points of contact between the Church in Ireland and those areas where the culture of Ireland is being forged”.

That is where the voice of the informed lay Catholic has a powerful place of influence.

I can make a statement about the economy, but if there is a Catholic Guild of Economists who speak out they do so with peer credibility.  The same applies to the medical profession; industrial relations; housing planning, amenities and financing.

A well-informed laity that fuses their professional expertise with their faith is the sleeping giant that could awaken the Christian conscience of our country.

In conclusion, I will illustrate two areas that I am familiar with where a professional varies with economic professional allies could improve our economy and health and civic attitude of our citizens.
The challenge for each generation is to be more civilized than previous generations in the way that we  deal with challenges that are part of the complexities of living in society.

Example 1: Psychiatric Care in the Community:

In Ireland we have moved on from putting people away for life in mental asylums because of a mental breakdown that could have been treated in a more humane and inclusive way.

Progress has been made but there is a lot more that needs to be done through resourcing community care.  The hidden resources are volunteers who can be trained to provide a professional standard of care.  Every community resource need not involve prohibitive costs.  Trained volunteers can do so much;  we experience this every day in the GAA and other sporting organisations.
I am my brothers and sisters keeper and that at some stage in life I can make the time to do voluntary work at a professional level that will assist the more vulnerable.

The asylum walls have come down but many have become homeless or part of the prison population.  We are all part of the solution.  Ownership of the challenge is the attitude of mind which will make the difference.

People who have time for people are a great resource and are central to what Jesus has asked us to become.  At the height of the economic boom the phrase was coined that we had become ‘time poor’.  Everyone was so busy that ‘spending time with people had become a luxury item’.

Alongside the ‘time poor’ ears was the belief that there is a pill to cure every ill.  So stress, worry, loneliness, had medication thrown at it instead of people to listen and genuinely care.  We have not made it easier for each other through a culture of independent living, security gates and coded apartment blocks.  Couple those with the attitude of being vulnerable as been seen as failure or being a loser.  Everyone is born vulnerable and will grow old vulnerable and many times in between.

The pill for every ill has at times found institutional and health policy in what I call chemical control instead of maximising self and community help.

I have the greatest respect for the nursing staff especially in psychiatric institutions.  They work in the most trying and sometimes dangerous situations.  Lack of fulltime staff and skilled volunteers results in heavy medication being the only safe work environment.  I have seen patients becoming chemically induced human rocking chairs and walking reduced to a  slipper shuffle.  I have experienced the same patients in a new environment with reduced supervised medication, live fulfilling lives out and about in the community.

Drug Treatment:

Talk to anyone involved in drug rehabilitation and they will concur on the dearth of adequate detoxification units and treatment centres.  The defeatist attitude prominent in the 90s and alive and well today was that the best we can do it is methadone maintenance for life for some.

This quickly translated into people being kept on high doses of methadone for years.  Instead of being used as part of a gradual weaning off drugs it became another form of chemical control with side effects of reducing drug related crime.  The public were happy, the drug habit crime went off the public screen and ‘normal life’ could go on.  We are settling for second best with chemical control using a substitute drug methadone, which is more addictive than heroin and in the long term more destructive to the vital organs.

It is another example of where throwing medication at a problem will not work on its own.  The alternative ultimately is providing healthy alternatives to chemical entertainment for our young people.  That means your time and mine, where each community provides healthy recreation; where there is  support rather than stigma for the families affected by drugs, and included in this is alcohol.

I have just scratched the surface in outlining areas where we can actively become our sisters and brothers keeper.
The laity can contribute both with their time and with their professional voice. Those with professional competence in this area can witness to the gospel by addressing these issues. They will be listened to in a way that others with less professional experience and expertise in the area will not. To speak out is part of their call to be witnesses. 

 Example 2: Restorative Justice – Penal Reform:

* Restorative Justice is a most welcome development in providing a constructive way of dealing with the horror of crime. It gives the victims of crime an opportunity to communicate the continuing damage that has been visited on them; to be believed and heard; while at the same time giving the offender an un-sanitised  realisation of what he or she has done to an innocent party.

Not all criminals will initially be suitable for the restorative justice process. For example, the professional criminal who sees the profits as great and the risks as high. Such people are not suitable for alternatives to imprisonment but at the same time, their time in prison ought to be used to make them stand in the shoes of their victims. They ought not to be allowed to live within their own comfort zone forever. The constructive use of time in prison ought, in some way to be linked to either remission or the review of sentencing. The focus ought to be on the use of time in prison and not just the length of time to be served. Mandatory sentencing can severely stunt motivation within prison.

Public opinion is understandably not in a forgiving mode and tends to go with more severe and lengthy sentencing. Unless there is research to back up the theory that the restorative model will ultimately be more effective and financially efficient, the public will have little reason to change their attitude. A public education programme will have to accompany any reform proposals.

 The old Christian idea of penance is similar to restorative justice. There was a public admission by the offender of wrongdoing, since it affected the public as well as the individual. This was followed by acts of repairing, compensation and or public penance. It was only after the public were satisfied that the person was repentant and the reparative works completed, that forgiveness was administered.      
The Christian view of the dignity of the human person no matter what they may have done means that no one is ever seen as hopeless. The lost sheep, the widow’s mite and the prodigal son are illustrations of this view. It’s difficult to retain this attitude amidst the most horrific crimes, particularly where the offender is totally remorseless and even sneering at the victim.
The voice of the laity with professional competence in this area need to be heard loud and clear. Others who may make the same points can easily be dismissed as “do gooders”. Those within the related professions can speak with authority.

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