Pavlína Čančarová
Recently, the document of Pope Francis, Evangelii gaudium, on the joyful handing over of the gospel has generated great enthusiasm. On this occasion, we browsed through the thesis of Pavlína Čančarová, from which we published several paragraphs a year and a half ago about the history of the third order of Carmel. Now we can recall what the Church's teaching documents say about the apostolate of the laity after the Second Vatican Council. These ideas are worth revisiting repeatedly. Especially for us in connection with the Carmelite third order. To this, let us add one article from the aforementioned document of Pope Francis.
In the pre-conciliar Catholic understanding of the Church, an emphasis was placed on a concept of the Church that focused exclusively on its external, organizational manifestations, on hierarchy. This led to a tacit presumption of the identification of the Church and the clergy. The Council responded to this understanding by declaring that the Church is not primarily an institution with a precisely defined structure, but is primarily a mystery. All who belong to Christ through baptism are the Church, including the laity. Thus, the basic equality of all members of God's people is emphasized in the Council documents, and only subsequently are the various states, offices, and tasks distinguished. This constitutes a significant contribution of the Second Vatican Council regarding the overall concept of the Church, which is primarily developed in the constitution on the Church Lumen gentium (LG).
The Council's documents contain invaluable passages about the essence, dignity, spirituality, mission, and responsibility of the laity. Further thoughts are developed in the post-conciliar documents: Christifideles laici (ChL) and Novo millenio ineunte.
For the apostolate of the laity, the basic and most significant conciliar documents are Lumen gentium and the decree on the apostolate of the laity Apostolicam actuositatem (AA).
Lumen gentium for the first time positively defines and delineates the term "layperson" in the history of the Church, formulates the mission of the layperson in the Church very generally, and for the first time openly speaks about the apostolate of the laity. From the perspective of Lumen gentium, a layperson is not primarily understood as a "non-cleric" or someone who only needs to be led, but as one who, based on initiation sacraments, is entrusted with the threefold office of Christ and thus equally belongs to God's people. This sacramental fact is the foundation for the deep unity and equality of all members of God's people, and from this fundamental equality arises the common calling of all to the apostolate. By mere belonging to God's people, laypeople are granted their right, as well as the task to co-participate in the apostolate of the whole Church and to carry it out according to their capabilities. Thus, laypersons do not need to be delegated or appointed by the hierarchy for their apostolate. Their apostolate derives directly from membership in the Church. Laypeople receive their rights and empowerment directly from Christ and the Holy Spirit, not from the hierarchy. Therefore, by their apostolate, laypersons do not merely have a kind of participation in the apostolate of the hierarchy.
This new understanding of laypersons becomes the starting point for every subsequent consideration and development of the concept of the lay apostolate. In summary, Lumen gentium points to the dignity of laypeople and their responsibility for the saving mission of the Church.
The decree Apostolicam actuositatem is primarily intended for laypeople, and therefore deals with them and their apostolate in more detail. The decree confirms, deepens, and elaborates on the idea of the call of laypeople to the apostolate, specifies the goals of the lay apostolate (i.e., evangelization and sanctification, Christian renewal of the temporal order, and charitable activity), delineates different fields of the lay apostolate, which include church communities, family, youth, and the social environment in national and international contexts. It outlines two different forms of the apostolate of laypeople: the apostolate of the individual or the apostolate of the entire community. Finally, it addresses the necessity of educating all laypeople for the apostolate.
By using the name “decree on the lay apostolate,” the Council also wanted to indicate, in the spirit of Lumen gentium, that the Church is apostolic as a whole, as the people of God, and not just the hierarchy. In various mission areas of the world, the Church’s mission can only be fulfilled through the apostolate of the laity.
The pastoral constitution of the Second Vatican Council on the Church in the modern world Gaudium et spes mentions the apostolate of the laity only briefly, as it was written with a different focus than the lay apostolate itself.1 The main contribution of the document Gaudium et spes to the apostolate of the laity is that it places the reality of the lay apostolate in the overall context of the current situation of the world and the Church and their mutual relationship, and that the central theme of the constitution – “the human being” – then becomes a very important perspective for the lay apostolate.
In 1988, the letter Christifideles laici was published, resulting from the bishops' synod dedicated to the vocation and mission of laypeople in the Church and in the world. This apostolic letter of John Paul II is conceptually based on the documents of the Second Vatican Council, builds upon them, deepens and develops them. The purpose of the document is to reaffirm the own responsibility of laypeople in the Church and the awareness that their participation in the Church's apostolate is irreplaceable, and therefore highly desirable.
The apostolic letter Christifideles laici was written with a certain time lag from the Second Vatican Council so that all participants in this bishops' synod had the opportunity to reflect back on the overall post-conciliar development and the direction of laypeople in the Church. The synodal fathers recognized that many laypeople, in the strength of the Holy Spirit, follow the path of holiness and community, that many laypeople actively participate in the liturgy, in the proclamation of God's word and in catechesis, that they accept and perform many services and tasks; that there is a development of many spiritual associations and movements, whose members are also laypeople (cf. art. 2 of the document).
The letter also does not conceal that the path which lay people embarked on after the Council has not been entirely without difficulties and dangers for them and their apostolate in the Church and in the world. It mentions two temptations that laypeople faced after the Second Vatican Council and from which they did not always manage to avoid. The first temptation for laypeople and their apostolate became that they focused very strongly on church services and tasks, to the extent that they relinquished their own responsibility in their professions, in society, and in the world of economics, culture, and politics. The second temptation was the improper separation of faith and life and the separation of receiving the gospel from concrete activity in various matters of today's world and current time.
In any apostolate, including that conducted by laypeople, the irreplaceable role of the Holy Spirit cannot be overlooked. Even the aforementioned documents speak about the Holy Spirit as the vital principle of the Church and that it is the Holy Spirit who supports the Church, including laypeople, in fulfilling their mission.
The last document I will mention is the apostolic letter of John Paul II, Novo millenio ineunte, from 2001. The Pope came forth with his apostolic letter to direct the Church at the beginning of the new millennium, following the experiences of the Jubilee year 2000. To delineate specific tasks, a concrete program. Thus, the Church was tasked with creating an effective pastoral program and then deeply rooting it in contemplation and prayer with God's help. A significant contribution of this apostolic letter is primarily the emphasis on the fact that every pastoral care and evangelization, every apostolate must be based on a personal relationship of friendship with Christ, that it is necessary to build and deepen in prayer and contemplation one’s personal relationship with Jesus. Only laypeople, ignited by God's love and illuminated by the light of Christ, which they will perceive, accept, and read in His face, will be prepared and empowered to effectively implement the ideas of the Second Vatican Council on the vocation of laypeople and their apostolate into life.
And let us not overlook that in the aforementioned documents we also find mentions of the spirituality of community (AA, art. 4; ChL, art. 29).
Evangelii gaudium:
102. Laity are simply the immeasurable majority of God's people. They are served by a minority composed of ordained ministers. The awareness of the identity and missionary mission of laypeople has grown. We have a large, albeit insufficient number of laypeople with a rooted sense of community and an enormous fidelity to the commitment to active love, to catechesis, and to the celebration of faith.
The awareness of this responsibility of laypeople, arising from baptism and confirmation, is not the same everywhere. In some cases, because laypeople have not been formed to accept responsibility, in others because due to overbearing clericalism, which keeps them away from decision-making, they have not found space in their local Churches to express themselves and act.
Although the participation of many in lay ministries is growing, this engagement does not reflect the penetration of Christian values into the social, political, and economic sphere. It is often limited to intra-church tasks without a real commitment to utilize the gospel to transform society. The formation of laypeople and the evangelization of professional and intellectual categories represent an important pastoral challenge.
(The full text of the apostolic exhortation Evangelii gaudium is available on the website of Vatican Radio.)
