Episode 089: The Lay Vocation

[Music] welcome to godsplaining contemplative preachers contemporary age each week join the dominican friars as they consider all things catholic [Music] welcome to godsplaining this is father jacob virgin janzik today i am here with our very own father gregory pine father gregory how you doing i'm doing well thanks um what's up i mean this week we celebrated divine mercy sunday which was exciting i was at the the aforementioned english-speaking paris in paris definitely wasn't in paris because that border's closed um i was at the english speaking parish just struggling over here uh in bern and it was great people were pumped about praying the divine mercy chaplet as was i together we were pumped although we had some time constraints because they were having first holy communion afterwards um which was sweet there was like a a big squad of kids who were just uh yeah they're really pumped to receive our lord and they're wearing like regalia that i have not seen in the united states so what does that mean local customs man just just picking them up how about you what regalia what do you what does that mean regalia i mean they had like crowns like woven out of mountain flowers so it was like it was like a scene out of the sound of music although i don't really recall there being a scene like that in the sound of music but it's something that you could picture being in the sound of music so it seemed very like edelweissy and i was like wow look at these guys they've all got you know white outfits but they also have some serious local flair going on in a way that's it's very cool so yeah and then there's one little girl who was blind who had her um her seeing eye dog so the procession was like i was like this procession is ready to go um do my mercy sunday baby let's get it very cool yeah yeah we had let's see this past weekend we had our last vocation weekend here at the house of studies for for the academic year there was no edelweiss wreaths thank god that would have been a bit of an issue for like men in their early 20s wearing flower wreaths on their head that would have uh would have been a nice little conversation that i would have had to have with you know that's not gonna fly but uh yeah so we had that and now that it's like mid-april i guess we're starting to think about the end of the semester and ordination and summer and all of that so that's kind of it it's gotten warm here there have been some days like in the mid 80s already here in dc so it's nice and balmy already so the swamp is back and uh yeah it's it's snowed here this morning um it's cooler here in the 60s today i think but we had we had a few days it was like oh it is warm so uh but yeah that's that father patrick actually was in town for this vocation weekend so it was good to to see him we we uh recorded an episode of godsplaining i forgot which one oh it was a upcoming guest blaming episode and uh because of the new setup here in my office he was using my office my other desk in my office so he was sitting where i usually sit and i was sitting here and we were just because again we can't work a mixer so we can record in the same room you know so that's what's he being blinded uh so the train no no he he was spared such a angelic fate so um yeah god bless but less about us more about not us yeah so today exactly back we're out of i guess we're selling the east we are still in the easter season but out of the octave and all of that so we finished with our back to virtue series through lunch so we're back to just normal rando episodes and the first normal rando episode i think right the first one that we're back to where we we're going to talk today about the laity the lay vocation what does the lay person um who is the lay who is the lady who are the laity can we talk about is in the singular sense we can i think who is the lady what is the laity we've talked about the priesthood we've had episodes on the priesthood on the male priesthood we talk about religious life um in various contexts i don't know if we've had just an episode devoted to that but being really just that something that comes up but something that we really haven't spoken about in a sort of exclusive way or given attention to is the role of the laity in the church so we thought that would be something good for us to cover because i think the majority of our listeners are neither priests nor religious but the laity so here's to you guys uh yeah that's right so uh question i guess that that should be posed uh is what is the lady how does the church understand the laity and then we'll talk about that and then also how does the lady pursue their the christian life the life of holiness the pursuit of holiness where does this kind of come from so father gregory set us up here um what i guess what is it what is the laity by definition we know it's the people that make up the church but how does the church actually view and talk about talk about the the lay state yeah i think um so the class that we took that reflected most or most deeply on the late state was ecclesiology which is the study of the life of the church so that'd be the place where you would typically kind of make some distinctions and formulate some definitions and the document of the second vatican council that we read lumen gentium certainly does just that and the document actually gets into it pretty shortly after it begins so you have like some opening paragraphs about the most blessed trinity and then you talk about some images of the church like the bride of christ and things like that and then you go into this question of like what is the church or where is the church or how do you identify the church and then you start talking about the priesthood but it's fascinating that it doesn't go straight for like the ministerial priesthood it actually starts with the common priesthood which which we might otherwise say is the priesthood of all believers and sometimes people hear that they're like wow are those guys talking about lutheranism it's like no it's actually you know very much catholic teaching it's something that's rooted in our tradition that all of us have a share in christ's priesthood or all of us participate uh his his priestly character in some way and this happens you know just by baptism so i think like when we talk about the late state we're talking about the simply baptized oftentimes when you define the lady you define it by you know opposition to something else like they're not priests um i think i like i like the term simply baptized so so all of us are baptized into the lay state and um out of that lay state or out of the the state of the simply baptized you know priests are called and religious are called though they remain in a certain sense like persons um so when we're talking about the lady we're talking about those who are members of the church who have been incorporated in the church by baptism and have baptism you have a baptismal character or that that indelible mark on your heart and that makes you a sharer in the priesthood of christ and basically as a share in the priesthood of christ you can offer up the sacrifice of your life to god you are a worshiper you are a christian and as a result you can receive those divine gifts which the lord the great high priest mediates to his church you know foremost which are the sacraments so i think that like yeah maybe rather than starting with a negative definition laity are not priests uh that we talk about the laity are those who are called by baptism or in baptism or to participate in the fullness of the life of the church of christ which church subsists in the catholic church to use some sneaky language there from that same document lumengencium so yeah i think that's that's a basic or maybe rough house yeah i think in comparing or in talking about the vocations of of and perhaps this is a different question but related all the same but in talking about the vocations or states of life in the church if we're talking about priesthood religious life married life um all of those it's important to realize that that um the the sort of origin or genesis is not from sort of as father gregory was saying that like you have the priesthood and then you have other things that aren't the priesthood it's kind of just the opposite that you have the baptized the laity and from the baptized people are called to specific vocations in the church so that commonality that is that that is um that is there is even shared by priests religious married and and the rest in the church and that commonality is is that um is that baptism is that uh we are yet baptized into one church and then we serve different functions or that sort of thing in the church not just in a sort of different not just in a way that's different by function there are things that are ontologically different things you know a priest is has a character that's bestowed out holy orders but he's called from um from amongst the baptized so i think that's yeah that's an important important point to make so if we have this this sense of the lady lumen gensium as father gregory was saying if you're looking if you want to look it up lumen gensium is the document in the the pair the chapter on the ladies the chapter four in that document from the second vatican council um lumen gentium characterizes the the the lady or defines the laity um by their by their secular nature um it says that that lady live a secular nature into life and and live a life in what it calls ordinary circumstances of of family and social life so according to the church according to the second vatican council the laity are those um those christian faithful who don't live or who live lives in the world and i think this is an important reality because it if we compare it to uh if we compare the life of the lady to that of the pre of priests and of religious we can see kind of the fullness of the evangelical power of the church and uh the evangelical um i don't know reach i guess of the church and i think that as father gregory was saying those those characteristics that we all share in virtue of our baptism of of christ's priesthood as priest prophet and king the three moonera or the three gifts we'll talk about that in just a second but we can see how those gifts those priests christ priest prophet and king that all of us baptized share in those offices but the laity do so in a particular way so let's let's talk about those i think let's because i think that's right you know the crux of the delay the lay vocation is is still built around these so let's talk about those and then in themselves with respect to christ and then maybe with respect to to how how we live them in the church yeah and we start with just priesthood so we gave that kind of rough sketch or rough introduction at the outset but i think that just on a practical level sometimes it just doesn't make a whole lot of sense what it means to offer up your life as a sacrifice you know certainly when when bad things happen to you and people tell you to offer it up your first explanation isn't so much to be like yeah that's a great idea all offered up your first inclination is like number one what does that mean and number two why do i want to punch you so much um so i think just to kind of have a better sense of what it means to make a sacrifice of one's life so first what is a sacrifice uh the way the same time talks about sacrifice he says you got a victim right like a host something that you're gonna offer and then you change it all right maybe uh you change it to such an extent that it no longer exists right so in the case of a holocaust offering that whole host that whole victim is burned up on the altar so that'd be you know everything you know flesh blood fat yada yada so it all goes to god and i think um when we talk about offering up our lives we mean referring ourselves to god you know you think about the double love commandment um to love god with one's whole heart mind soul and strength and to love one's neighbor as himself um so like when we talk about offering up the sacrifice of our lives we're talking about offering up all of our acts of intellect and will all of our passions all of our thoughts words and deeds offering them to the lord as their end um because that's what it means to be perfect as our heavenly father perfect is perfect as we hear in you know matthew 5. um but but that has like a a specifically christian character in the midst of the world so for a lay person okay um a lay person is consecrated by baptism but consecrated in a different way than priests and religious so a priest by virtue of his ordination is kind of set apart in the sense that like uh when you consecrate a chalice right you wouldn't use it for ordinary meals you would only ever use it for the practice of the sacred liturgy so too with a priest in a certain sense he's become like a liturgical man and so he's supposed to live in that register all right so he's supposed to kind of like be close to the altar and then you can make a similar kind of description with respect to religious life but we don't need to tarry over that when we talk about um you know the consecration of a of a baptized person a lay person we're talking about a consecration it's actually intended for making holiness manifest in the world so it's like you said like that that word secular i think we have negative associations with secular for good reasons because we think about secularization or secularism which is kind of um pushing back against religiosity it's saying like there's no room for faith in the public square there's no room for faith in these kind of matters of private practice but what the baptized person does by making a sacrifice of his or her life is make manifest their baptismal graces in such a way as to transform the world so you have the sense that like okay we are made for the offering of our lives and in offering our lives we actually make the world holy that's true of laypersons um so what does that mean in like a really really practical way well it means that like um yeah if something bad happens to you you you suffer in a different way than an ordinary person all right so like you're caught in traffic i mean there's no real traffic in covated but say theoretically you're caught in traffic or you're in a line all right or you're waiting on the phone which does happen in coveted um and you have to endure like terrible hold music you know it's like the same little smooth jazz hymn from like xm watercolor station and you're like i am angry right but in that moment you can actually be in love with in friendship with in intimacy with the lord jesus christ that moment can be shared with him and born by him and borne by him in you in such a way as to like make the world holy so that when the other person actually picks up you're not like i'm going to find you and i'm going to make your life painful instead you're like hey what a delight i get to talk to somebody on the phone and maybe we can have a cheer a cheerful encounter i mean it's not just about like put on a happy face and be annoying right all right i should probably reel in the images but that's the basic idea that you're offering um the sacrifice of your life in the world so as to make this age holy yep and it's not just the the sort of sufferings that we offer either um though those are perhaps more ready examples that we can um unite our sufferings to to that of christ on the cross but even even the sort of routine um the routine and normal day in and day out of our family life of our social life of our work life um and even the good things to do you know to be offered to to redown to the glory of god in a sort of priestly way because the the christian people are a priestly people as father gregory was saying we're baptized into christ himself who is the great high priest so in virtue of that we're able to were able to unite the sufferings the humdrum the daily drudgery routine and also the good and beautiful things of our lives i think that's a good place to take a break because we're coming up to break time and we have two more to look at we looked at priests of the priestly nature but also we'll look at the prophetic and the kingly kingly i think that's the word that i want to use and uh gifts that we're baptized into that the ladies share in and then perhaps we'll look at a little bit of father gregory gave some concrete examples but i think the the idea of you know that secular nature that living in the world we relate that to the church towards the end and more more practical advice of how do we live out those priestly prophetic and kingly roles of of the baptized so we'll look at those when we come back so stay tuned for just a minute and we will return you are listening to god's planning visit us at godsplaining.org to listen to our episodes shop our store and donate to our podcast all gifts go to improving the podcast and bringing the gospel to more listeners thanks for your support welcome back to godsplating this is father jacob bertrand and i'm with father gregory today we're talking about the lay vocation and at the for the first half of the episode we talked a bit about uh how the the laity are situated in the church uh the foundational reality of our baptism uh from which uh from the lady from which uh the other vocations are are called but um giving we've given attention to those to those gifts uh we call them the moonera of christ his his priestly prophetic and kingly roles and identity that we share in um in virtue of our baptism so just before the break we were talking about the priestly role our ability to to offer sacrifice which is the primary duty of the priest in the old covenant and in the new covenant to offer sacrifice on behalf of the people to god and how the lady how you all are able to participate in that so we'll look at the prophetic and the kingly roles of christ and and then our ability to do that and um we we may think prophetic what does that mean are we all prophets well in a sense yes when we talk about the prophetic role of of christ and the prophetic uh gift that we share then in virtue of our baptism we're talking about a sort of teaching role a teaching of the truths of the faith um so we we sort of i wouldn't say prophesy in the sense of we don't want to think prophecy prophecy here in the sense of like telling the future but in the sense of teaching the truth and the you know the good news of the gospel um in as much as christ is the fulfillment of all prophecy and the the great teacher of of himself and revelator i like that word the revelator of the father that we in virtue of our baptism participate in that so father gregory as far as you know living out that for for the in in the lives of the believers of believers um how does that work what does that mean do we all have to like have teaching jobs and like teach theology in scripture maybe maybe yeah no certainly not um yeah i think that those basic ideas like you know you yourself are um are made to have a contemplative life not to say that like you should be like saint theresa vavala getting transverberated that's a sweet word um you know just kind of getting like shot through the heart with arrows of divine love on a daily basis as as pictured by bernini and that kind of wild statue in rome um but it's to say that you know we should be on the lookout for the lord so we should have these contemplative habits of mind and hearts so that we can attend to him well in prayer and in study that doesn't mean you have to be smart to be christian you certainly don't and oftentimes smarts can be a stumbling block right they can be an occasion of pride but we we all have to have the desire to learn right to be disciples because disciple comes from discipline and discipline comes from teaching so we need to be taught um so yeah that's that's kind of what's at stake in our prayer lives and our lives of sacramental grace and our lives of you know studying the faith and that equips us right it empowers us and emboldens us to go forth and make manifest the lord um so in you know one of peter's letters we hear that we're to to give a reason for our hope right there's a kind of expectation that you should testify so when somebody asks you like why do you live as you live the reason should be i have all my eggs in the jesus basket and um if this basket doesn't hold eggs then we've got ourselves a serious problem you know like my faith is in vain and my preaching is in vain so with the kind of character of our lives we testify to the fact that we live differently and this can be like simple silly stuff you know we're like um yeah like the friend who uses websites to watch free movies rather than pay for them and um yeah you could be like over that friend's house and he's like scrolling through different things and just trying to find a free way to watch a movie and you're like oh it's no big deal you can sign into my amazon account and i'll pay for it and it's not like a judgy thing it's just like yeah i'll just pay for it it's not a big deal you know because as a christian you're like i would i would rather buy a thing than sin but it doesn't have to be like you saying to the other person like how dare you pirate material from the internet you know especially since you would sound then like a 19th century novel character um but yeah it's this idea that like because we are who we are we live differently and we make that manifest we make that known such that the world remarks whoa you know like what exactly is going on here so that may be you know like kind of formalish preaching or teaching but oftentimes it's just it's just the simple witness of a christian life yeah i think that's right i think that um one of the uh one of the ways in which um i i kind of think of those who have influenced my life or those who have um yeah bore witness to the gospel in my life and hopefully have contributed to like the good things that um that are part of me and not the bad things that are part of me but is often is has less to do often with the words that you know i don't with the words that they've said i i don't have like a list of confusion kind of sayings from the important people in my life i remember things i said but you know it's more about the way in which they lived and um how they yeah bore witness to a life of virtue in a life after christ and these kind of things so i think that's that's something that we all can can take up and be mindful of that what we do often redounds um in ways that we are can be unaware of um but that the christian witness and in the way in which we live can be can be quite powerful can we can have some pretty serious effects in our little niche of the world in which we find ourselves so we have the priest offer sacrifices we have the prophet witness to to christ but we also have the king christ the king and this is something that this image i really i don't know of the three i guess i'm a priest so like priestly might speak up but priests kind of live all the same but the kingly kingly one is is the kingly gift i think is one that that really gets me i like it i don't know um and not because i want like a you know a big like crown and like a scepter but because if we think about our lives in relation to um in relation to dominion versus slavery i think the kingly role ought to in some ways kind of be one that we strive to live for better because we're not talking about kingship as something that we get to lord over somebody but kingship over our over ourselves over you know the mastery overs over over ourselves growth and virtue and these sort of things but also kingship over our over our kingdom as it were whether that be um you know the father of a family or the mother of a family over her children over his children over the family union whether that be over a job that we have um to to rule well to live well to exercise our responsibilities well or whether that be just within our very own kind of makeup to to exercise the virtues well and to be a good gentleman or a good woman and and these sort of things so um christ obviously is the great the great king king of the universe um he's also king of our hearts and kings king of our lives so i'll throw it back to father gregory for the third and final time here with the third and final these gifts of to flesh that out a little bit to give a little a little more to that yeah yeah i think like yeah just that idea that or the notion that you mentioned of ordering um you know god made things in an orderly way when you think about the first creation account in genesis 1 and certainly the first man and woman were made in an orderly fashion with their minds subordinated to god and with their you know lower powers subordinated to their higher powers you know their passion subordinated to intellect and will their bodies subordinated to their soul and then when one sins right one introduces disorder into that arrangement um and part of our you know like ordering of our lives like you said is living a life of virtue which which re-integrates the human person and reinstates that order but that order resonates uh you know beyond the individual like you said especially in family life um but beyond that you know like you can think about how it works and other intermediate institutions like in the state um it matters you know that a politician or a legislator or judge is christian you know in a certain sense we have these very um stayed sensibilities as americans regarding separation of church and state but that what one does even in secular affairs like one's baptism is operative in that and you give glory to god by the way in which you order those mundane or maybe you know exalted tasks at hand um so i think that uh yeah that's it's a partaking that we have in god's creative act and in christ's recreative act that we can you know bring all things as it were restore all things in christ unto the glory of god which is yeah like you said it's it's a cool thing it's a thing that merits merits ah merits consideration yeah one of the i think that idea of all things restoring all things bringing all things living all things such that they were down to the glory of god and to our own sanctification is is um is a great i don't know point fundamental reality of the church and one of the problems one of the issues that the church has experienced over i don't know we can always it's like the the second vatican council is a great you know whipping boy of all problems in the church and perhaps maybe there are some issues that have arisen for from that and other sort of factors over the last 50 years but one of the things that has um i think in the quote unquote spirit of vatican ii been sort of abused is is the sort of clericalization we could say of the laity that the lady has has been given or yeah has been given in roles in the church that kind of um pertain to the religious or to the priest uh and there's there's been confusion and conflation there um and what that really you know that that whole reality kind of those politics and and sort of historical facts set aside that we can just look at one one downside of that in in this conversation and the downside of that is that as um the laity as the church expresses in lumen gentium it there they have these roles you all have these roles of of these priestly prophetic and kingly roles that are supposed to be working for the for the sanctification of the world but in in a secular realm where clerics aren't you know we're i as a priest i don't go out into the world every day into a job i don't have a family i don't i'm not in charge of a household and these sorts of things and when we i think when the when the sort of proper division and attention is not given to these things suffer so when when you know the if it were the case that the laity were taking over you know the worship and the sanctuary well who is who is sanctifying the world out there you know who is stepping in to sanctify the workplace to sanctify to bring christ into the family so there's i think there's we were talking about order right with the kingly kingly dimension i think there's a great beauty and wisdom to the ordering of these things for the proclamation of the gospel that each as saint paul talks about each having their own role that the head can't do what the hand does and the hands can't do what the feet does but one there's this beautiful ordering to the the propagation of the gospel in the world and um in a sense we have our important roles to play um in all of that and that are appropriate to our state in life uh yeah i i i don't know if that makes sense but that's what i think about it yeah no just like um kind of piggybacking off on that or extending some of those insights i think that there may be like a little bit of an anxiety on the part of the lay faithful that um that they haven't been given enough to be great saints because when you look at like who are the saints that are ordinarily canonized oftentimes they're religious you know in some cases they're they're diocesan priests but it seems rare that that lay persons are are raised to the altars you know we have the example recently of saint perez's parents but i mean that's a peculiar family um right so i think that maybe subsequent to the second vatican council there was a bigger push you know like you said towards the clericalization of the lady because there is the sense that like the ladies should adopt more priestly tasks um because you know like that's where that's where the holiness is at you know and being priests or in being religious as it were but i think that one of the great things from the second vatican council that remains is yet to be appropriated and kind of mind is this idea of the universal call to holiness that the you know like the faithful of whatever rank or state are called to the perfection of christian charity and that that call is efficacious right so the lord desires that i'll be saved and come to the knowledge of the truth and we can rely upon the lord to give us what we need um to be to be holy in the state to which he calls us so it's not as like you know those who are strong are called to the higher states and those who are of a second tier um you know are kind of like as a concession to their weakness are permitted to be married or something like that that's not it god calls people the different states of life to glorify him in different ways to make manifest different divine attributes and different divine excellences and to build up the church in different ways and so like you know when you think about it in terms of mission this idea of like making the secular world holy is is a properly lay task and so you can think of like laypersons is kind of on the peripheries as it sometimes said or you know you think about them making like skirmishes or sorties from their military camp and the priests are more so concerned with you know kind of like camp maintenance as it were that's not to say that priests and religious aren't missionaries many of them are and many of them did so in very holy and excellent and awesome fashion but if you think about just the ordinary setting of like the town or the city where you live like you are a missionary by virtue of the fact that you're baptized by virtue of the fact that you are confirmed and priests are called to fortify you by teaching you by preaching to you by providing you with the sacraments by building you up in that mission right so that you can do what you are called to distinctly and excellently right and so one need feel no disappointment um you know that you know that he's not a priest because what god gives you is is more than sufficient it's good it's excellent and it makes his makes his glory present makes his glory known in a way that only you are suited to do um so yeah i mean like we hear things certainly preach from the pulpits about you know religious life is an objectively higher state that is true but it's not like by virtue of the fact that one is a religious one is objectively better that's not it it's like the religious life offers perfect means right poverty chaste and obedience but that's to say that one needs to avail themselves of those means in a way that's that's good but the the lay state offers excellent means to holiness in a sense that like baptism and confirmation right so we're not saying that like the lay state is a state in the way that priesthood or religious life for marriage is but we're saying that these sacraments give you what you need to be holy to be a disciple to be a missionary to be to be glorious for god's glory yeah that glory is for god's glory that's a great great um great line there we'll latch onto that glorious for god's glory so um one of the things that uh as you know as dominicans that we are often found doing is recommending things to read so if you want that resource or looking for a little more to read on the the church's notion an idea of what the laity is check out um that that document from the second vatican council lumen gensium it's chapter four i believe it's just paragraphs 30 or 31 through like 38 it's not terribly long but is an excellent resource and perhaps a way to rekindle or revisit the the the necessary role of the laity as priest prophet and king and virtue of your baptism and how you witness and sacrifice and rule um within within the within god's kingdom so check it out if you want a little spiritual reading on on the lady that's what we have for you today on on the lay vocation um so father gregory any announcements anything that we need to make known make manifest in these last seconds together um let's see i'll mention some things and then you will mention other things perfect with better memory so we have a retreat which is to be held in huntington new york uh i i said earlier in an episode in long island but i was corrected because that was silly of me it's on long island so i've got to get my preposition straight i'm struggling with that in french apparently i'm also struggling with it in english just a little struggle bus over here so july 23rd through 25th huntington new york on long island um it's uh for those who are 21 to 33 there's a little application on godsplaining.org and the retreat center is currently at like half capacity so we're hoping that they'll open a full capacity but some persons might be wait listed in light of that and as a result of which you know we just ask you to apply hope and persevere and um yeah i'll leave it at that great yeah space is filling up for that retreat so if you'd like to come fill out an application asap other than that just the normal stuff thanks for your support give us a like listen share whatever people do on to to boost podcasts we appreciate that very much uh thank you to our donors if you'd like to support patreon find uh support god's plating financially you can check us out on our patreon page to do that our merchandise is still up and running for now uh probably forever but for now it's still there and that's what we have for you so know of our prayers for you please pray for us and until next time god bless thanks for listening to god's planning a work of the dominican friars of the province of saint joseph follow us on facebook twitter and instagram leave a review on your podcast app and visit us at godsplaining.org [Music]

Channel: Godsplaining Podcast

Views: 2,093

Rating: 5 out of 5

Keywords: catholic, dominican friars, theology, philosophy, religion, faith, order of preachers, godsplaining, seekers, Truth, preaching, questions, searching, prayer, meditation, lectio, bible, catholicchurch, frgregorypine, divinemercy, mercy, washingtondc, opeast, catholicpriest, priest, orderofpreachers

Id: EGFresshcOU

Length: 35min 25sec (2125 seconds)

Published: Thu Apr 15 2021