The New Laity – A Sign of our Times
The emergence of the layperson has been and continues to be one of the most important and the most visible characteristics of the post-Vatican II Church. The phrase “the emerging layman” has been with us since the early sixties — even the sexist language (layman) smacks of that period. The notion is intimately connected with that of church: the Church is essentially composed of lay people.
Laity and the Church
Lay men and lay women now share in the liturgy of the word from the sanctuary. They distribute the bread of the Eucharist, they serve on
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Fr. Ron Beauchemin, M.S., Superior of the Attleboro House, congratulates laity for giving their commitment for another year as La Salette Associates |
parish councils and on archdiocesan and diocesan committees and they teach in our seminaries. This is not token improvement. This is not a paper-clip change; this is ongoing reconciliation. We remember when the priest called his people “the populo.” This may sound strange today but, at the time it was said, such a remark was symptomatic. It took for granted a clear separation between Church and laity, or between clergy and laity. The communion rail was more than a symbolic table. It was a fence.
The assimilation of the laity into the life of the Church will take years to run its course. This is probably just as well. The slow pace and the gradualness will solidify change, deepen it, and ward off tokenism. But reconciliation is very present, and we are all aware of the process nature of reconciliation. Wherever we have spoken of the laity above, we have understood both men and women. Women, religious sisters are speaking at conferences, teaching in seminaries, preaching and directing retreats and spiritual exercises. All of this was inconceivable fifty years ago.
We see here how the concept of reconciliation does not deal only with what is sinful and what alienates people from God. It also deals with situations and conditions of social and cultural alienation and helps change them in order to bring people together to work and pray together. Reconciliation changes the Church, both local and universal, into a true gathering of gifts.
Laity and the La Salette Apparition
Maximin and Mélanie were laypeople. The farm of Coin episode dealt with laypeople. The Lady said “You will make this known to all my people”, that is, the whole world, no mention of the hierarchy.
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Thousands gather on the Holy Mountain of La Salette in France for a pilgrimage. |
Another factor accounting for the emergence of laypeople is the dearth of vocations to the priesthood. Laypeople will of necessity be brought into the active, ministerial, liturgical and administrative life of the Church in ever greater numbers. These people will bring their professional competence as well as their spiritual gifts and the reconciliation will deepen and continue to enrich and sanctify the Church.
The strongest and most profound basis for the emergence of the layperson lies less in social factors than in the Gospel call to follow Christ. The pursuit of spiritual perfection is no longer the exclusive domain of the religious or the priest but the duty of everyone. Not just the privilege, but the duty--a duty originating in Baptism--of all men and women in the Church.
Clearly, Christ was addressing the crowds in the Sermon on the Mount of the gospel of Matthew. “When he saw the crowds, he went up the mountain, and after he had sat down, his disciples came to him. He began to teach them, saying....” (Mt. 5, 1-2). In the same Sermon Christ, addressing the same people, said: “You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’ But I say to you, love your enemies, and pray for those who persecute you, that you may be children of your heavenly Father... For if you love those who love you, what recompense will you have?... So be perfect, just as your heavenly Father is perfect (Matt 5:43-46,48).”
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The two children, Maximin and Melanie, to whom Our Lady of La Salette apeeared on Sept.19, 1846. |
The presence of the crowds makes it plain that the ideal of Christian perfection as described and commanded in the Gospel of Matthew belongs to everyone. (see the conciliar document on the Laity.)
Our Lady of La Salette appeared to two peasant children — working children, “lay children,” children of the people. Her discourse was a message to her people. “You will make this known to all my people,” she said and repeated to Maximin and Mélanie. Nowhere in her discourse is there any allusion to clergy or hierarchy. During her assumption she turned in the direction of Rome, but this was a symbolic gesture and she did not include it in her discourse.
This same discourse was a clear appeal to the perfection of the Christian life addressed to lay people. There was a call to the Eucharist, to prayer, penance, conversion and to suffering. In addition she gave a call to honor the name of Jesus and a call to the observance of Sunday as a day to be offered to God (Giraud, Exercices Spirituels, pp. 294-345).
The concerns she addressed in her discourse were laypeople's concerns: the harvest; decaying wheat, rotting nuts and raisins. She jogged Maximin's memory relative to a long-forgotten conversation with his father at the farm of Coin. This father and son conversation was a layperson's dialogue. Maximin reminded his discontented father that the Lady had spoken of him in her discourse. The next day, Monsieur Giraud was healed of a sickness and returned to the practice of religion.
The Beautiful Lady excludes no one from the concern of her tears and her suffering. She is speaking to all her people. But an overview of the La Salette event quickly establishes it as strongly directed toward the laity in particular.