8 PRINCIPLES OF THE WORD ON FIRE MOVEMENT

[Pages:3]8 PRINCIPLES OF THE WORD ON FIRE MOVEMENT

LESSON SEVEN

Collaborative Apostolate The Word on Fire Movement will join efforts between clergy and laity in conformity to the challenge of the Second Vatican Council, without distorting the particular role and charism of each vocation. Clergy and laity have distinct vocations and roles, but they are meant to be complementary and collaborative. This collaboration calls all the baptized to holiness and to mission. We'll consider, then, the roles of clergy and laity and how they might work together in mission. The Second Vatican Council discusses the priesthood in terms of "priest, prophet, and king," those who sanctify, teach, and govern. ? PRIEST: Priests make holy the people of God. Indeed, grace builds on nature; however, we

need a sanctified people to carry out the work of the church. How do you get sanctified? Through the sacraments. The sacraments--the means of sanctification--are administered by the bishops and priests. ? PROPHET: The priest is also a prophet, meaning he's a teacher--not just through natural intellectual perceptions, nor as some form of fortune-telling, but through a heightened

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perception of reality based upon proper instruction in the faith. The priest fulfills his role as prophet through his preaching and teaching.

? KING: The priest is also kingly. From the Pope, down to the archbishops and bishops around the world, and down to each of our priests, this kingly inheritance of Christ's authority through Apostolic Succession gives authority to the missionary work of the Church.

The laity, then, are called to go out into their natural habitat, which is the world--to the arenas of government, journalism, communication, business, finance, economy, sports, entertainment. The laity naturally inhabit all of these different arenas, but now they've been sanctified and instructed and given kingly direction. Now, off they go to sanctify the world.

We have to be careful then of the question: "which of those two is more important?" This question is a non-starter because without the laity, as Newman said, the Church would look pretty funny. If the clergy were sanctifying, governing, and teaching without the laity, who would go out and transform the world in that unique way? Also, a laity that's improperly instructed, not sanctified, and not governed won't know how to sanctify the world. And so, it's the two in this very tight mutually influential collaboration that will bring about what Christ wants: the spreading of the Kingdom of God.

Apostolicam Actuositatem, the Second Vatican Council's decree on the laity, states it this way:

The Church was founded for the purpose of spreading the kingdom of Christ throughout the earth for the glory of God the Father, to enable all men to share in His saving redemption, and that through them the whole world might enter into a relationship with Christ. All activity of the Mystical Body directed to the attainment of this goal is called the apostolate, which the Church carries on in various ways through all her members. For the Christian vocation by its very nature is also a vocation to the apostolate. No part of the structure of a living body is merely passive but has a share in the functions as well as life of the body: so, too, in the body of Christ, which is the Church, "the whole body . . . in keeping with the proper activity of each part, derives its increase from its own internal development" (Eph. 4.16). AA no. 2.

The collaborative apostolate is one in which the clergy and the laity aim toward the Christification of the world, while respecting the offices, charisms, and roles of each state in life.

Consider for a moment the image of the Church as a field hospital. I'm reminded of the story of Bl. Miguel Pro. Upon returning to Mexico in 1926, Bl. Miguel found a vastly persecuted

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Church and felt called to the nonviolent path of revolution by giving the people the sacraments of the Church, which were actually illegal to administer in the country at the time. He gathered a small force of young men--teaching them, forming them, and giving them the strength of the sacraments--who would then go into the villages and seek out new babies to be baptized, couples who desired a sacramental marriage, and communities that desired the Eucharist. These young men would bring reports back to Fr. Pro, who would then run directly to those in need of the sacraments and risk his life to bring Christ to the people. The laity, working in the secular world, proclaim Christ after having been taught the faith by the clergy, sanctified by the grace they confer through the sacraments, and sent out to bring that grace to all of those they meet. The Word on Fire Movement aims to show how effective collaboration between the two states of life, clergy and laity, can ultimately lead toward an apostolate that is both effective and far-reaching.

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