On Canon Law with Father Crane: Engaging the laity to change the world

When I hear that we “must engage the laity,” I heartily agree, but I often find I am not imagining what my interlocutor intends by that phrase. Often, my conversation partner means we need to get lay people more involved in parochial liturgical ministries (lector, server, extraordinary minister of holy Communion), or more parochial education programs (OCIA, religious education, baptism preparation, marriage preparation), or more purely communal activities (volunteering in the kitchen, in a booth at the parish festival, in the rotation of church cleaners), but I am imagining engaging all laity in “the Mission.” Canon 225, though lengthy, captures what I have in mind:

c 225 §1 Since, like all the Christian faithful, lay persons are designated by God for the apostolate through baptism and confirmation, they are bound by the general obligation and possess the right as individuals,
or joined in associations, to work so that the divine message of salvation
is made known and accepted by all persons everywhere in the world.
This obligation is even more compelling in those circumstances in
which only through them can people hear the gospel and know Christ.

§2 According to each one’s own condition, they are also bound by a particular duty to imbue and perfect the order of temporal affairs with the spirit of the gospel and thus to give witness to Christ, especially in carrying out these same affairs and in exercising secular functions.

Even a very limited imagination can pretty quickly find a whole host of ways individuals and groups of laity may “work so that the divine message of salvation is made known and accepted by all persons everywhere in the world,” but they are often quite subtle, unofficial and conducted through personal accompaniment, simple encounters between friends, coworkers or neighbors.

Yet, the canon continues by imposing the obligation to engage in this mission especially when a lay person finds that he or she is the only means by which certain other persons might hear the Gospel and know Christ. The world, as it stands now, is planted thick with situations to which a cleric may never gain access and the Gospel can only be brought by a lay Catholic. Imagine how quickly the world would be a different place if all lay Catholics, in every walk of life, were ordering the world to the Gospel!

At this point in the conversation, however, my interlocutor is often a bit disappointed, as the hope was that I would endorse this or that systemic change to the life of the Church throughout the entire Catholic world, and such changes do not easily connect, usually, to bringing the Gospel to one’s friend, neighbor or co-worker. While the fact that a pastor must be a priest, or that a priest must be the one to consecrate the Eucharist, might prevent a lay person from taking on such roles, does either fact truly prevent that same lay person from speaking to her co-worker about Jesus, or ensuring that the corporate board approves policies which are mindful of the poor, or writing a column that correctly describes eucharistic theology?

So, there it is: if the laity are better engaged in the mission of the Church, it is easy to imagine the world looking very different … but also, in many ways, the same.

Father Matthew Crane is the vicar of canonical affairs for the Diocese of St. Cloud.

Father Crane suggests reflecting on this  poem as you consider your calling.

“As Kingfishers Catch Fire”  |  By Gerard Manley Hopkins

As kingfishers catch fire, dragonflies draw flame;
As tumbled over rim in roundy wells
Stones ring; like each tucked string tells, each hung bell’s
Bow swung finds tongue to fling out broad its name;
Each mortal thing does one thing and the same:
Deals out that being indoors each one dwells;
Selves — goes itself; myself it speaks and spells,
Crying What I do is me: for that I came.

I say more: the just man justices;
Keeps grace: that keeps all his goings graces;
Acts in God’s eye what in God’s eye he is —
Christ — for Christ plays in ten thousand places,
Lovely in limbs, and lovely in eyes not his
To the Father through the features of men’s faces.