A Light to the World
Posted by Arwen Mosher in Faith on Wednesday, October 22, 2008 6:07 PM
This past weekend we celebrated World Mission Sunday.
Our pastor, whom I’ve never seen beat around the bush on any occasion, put it to us straight.
“Half a century ago, ‘supporting missions’ meant giving money to those who work to evangelize overseas,” he said. “It should still mean that, but especially in light of the wisdom of the Dogmatic Constitution on the Church we should be aware that for us it means so much more.”
He went on to talk about how, as Lumen Gentium outlines, it is the duty of all the faithful to evangelize. He mentioned Pope John Paul II’s emphasis on the “New Evangelization,” and the fact that as most of us are not called to be clergy or to serve in missions overseas, our part of that duty lies in being in the world and evangelizing the culture around us, a culture which is mostly tragically post-Christian. He also talked in a pastoral way about particular ways we can live our lives in order to be this light to the world.
It was a great homily, and it inspired me to do some follow-up on my own. I remembered reading Lumen Gentium for my ecclesiology class in college; I also knew that, sadly, I hadn’t touched it since then. I pulled it up on the Vatican website (here) and was soon immersed.
Lumen Gentium is a long document and covers a lot of material, so I couldn’t possibly outline it all here. In response to the problem my pastor addressed on Sunday - laity mistakenly believing that it is not their responsibility to safeguard and spread the light of Christ - I found this excellent quotation:
These faithful are by baptism made one body with Christ and are constituted among the People of God; they are in their own way made sharers in the priestly, prophetical, and kingly functions of Christ; and they carry out for their own part the mission of the whole Christian people in the Church and in the world. -Lumen Gentium, 31
A few pages later, the document speaks directly of the responsibility of the laity to evangelize:
[Christ] continually fulfills His prophetic office until the complete manifestation of glory. He does this not only through the hierarchy who teach in His name and with His authority, but also through the laity whom He made His witnesses and to whom He gave understanding of the faith (sensu fidei) and an attractiveness in speech so that the power of the Gospel might shine forth in their daily social and family life… Let them not, then, hide this hope in the depths of their hearts, but even in the program of their secular life let them express it by a continual conversion and by wrestling ‘against the world-rulers of this darkness, against the spiritual forces of wickedness.’ -Lumen Gentium, 35
For where Christianity pervades the entire mode of family life, ala gradually transforms it, one will find there both the practice and an excellent school of the lay apostolate. In such a home husbands and wives find their proper vocation in being witnesses of the faith and love of Christ to one another and to their children. The Christian family loudly proclaims both the present virtues of the Kingdom of God and the hope of a blessed life to come. Thus by its example and its witness it accuses the world of sin and enlightens those who seek the truth. -Lumen Gentium, 35
Consequently, even when preoccupied with temporal cares, the laity can and must perform a work of great value for the evangelization of the world… it remains for each one of them to cooperate in the external spread and the dynamic growth of the Kingdom of Christ in the world. Therefore, let the laity devotedly strive to acquire a more profound grasp of revealed truth, and let them insistently beg of God the gift of wisdom. -Lumen Gentium, 35
There’s more, of course, but I don’t have room to reproduce the whole document here! Re-reading it has inspired me to think and pray about ways to do more evangelizing in my own life. And, as has happened many times before, it’s inspired me to say a prayer of thanksgiving for my pastor (and our wonderful pope, and our previous pope, and the guidance the Holy Spirit gives to Christ’s Church…). It’s so good to be Catholic!
Links for this article:
The Vatican website: Lumen Gentium, the Dogmatic Constitution on the Church
EWTN: The New Evangelization
The Vatican website: Novo Millenio Ineunte (JPII’s apostolic letter on the new evangelization)
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