Catholic
Prayer Club
… a
Worldwide Apostolate
… spreading the message of
our Lord one word at a time..
September 2006
CPC’s new website is finished and it includes
all of the features of the old site plus a number of new feature pages centered
on prayer, meditation and spirituality. You can visit the CPC website at www.catholicprayerclub.org
“ Just one small step on our
journey to Salvation”
One of CPC’s friends from the Midwest United States
sent us this poem and we wanted to share it with the entire Catholic Prayer
Club family.
TO A BEAUTIFUL PERSON
If
God had a refrigerator, your picture would be on it.
If He had a
wallet, your photo would be in it.
He sends you flowers every spring.
He sends you a sunrise every morning.
Whenever you want to talk, He listens.
He can live
anywhere in the Universe, but He chose...your heart.
Face it, friend, He is crazy about you!
God didn't
promise days without pain, laughter without sorrow, sun without rain, but
He did promise strength for the day, comfort for the
tears, and light for the way.
Author Unknown
Our Feature Article This
Month
Called to Holiness and Service… Lay Ministry
Since Vatican II, the role of lay
Catholics within the Church community has changed markedly. Laypersons are
responding to the baptismal call to holiness and sharing their faith in both
word and action. As more individuals claim their rightful roles as members of
the People of God, the Church, indeed the world, are being transformed.
Today,
in just about every parish, large numbers of lay Catholics serve as catechists
and leaders of Scripture study groups, small faith sharing communities and
social justice committees. Laypeople make up pastoral councils and finance
committees, sponsor other adults through the rites of Christian initiation, and
serve as music ministers, lectors, and extraordinary ministers of Holy
Communion, ushers and greeters at Sunday worship. They also play a major role
in planning Liturgical services and play leading roles in Catholic institutions
outside the parish —in dioceses and hospitals as well as schools, colleges and
universities. As baptized followers of Christ, lay Catholics are actively
attempting to integrate their faith into all they do.
A Full Spectrum of Opportunities
Once
the teachings of Vatican II became mainstream, it became clear that all Catholics are "called to
holiness." The bishops taught: "All the faithful are invited and
obliged to try to achieve the holiness and perfection of their own state of
life" (Dogmatic Constitution on the Church, Lumen Gentium, No.
42). Suddenly the role of laity, men as well as women, shifted
dramatically from passive observer to activist participation.
Holiness,
however, is essentially not an individual undertaking. Christ calls "a
people" (LG, No.9) and incorporates them "into the
Church by Baptism." All the baptized are "obliged both to spread and
to defend the faith" as "true witnesses." Baptism binds us to
Christ and to each other. Married couples, the bishops wrote, are to "help
one another to attain holiness" and to educate their children in the faith
through "word and example" (LG, No.11). The Council
documents describe the Church as the entire community. Whoever would follow
Christ's example must be dedicated to his mission of healing, saving and
transforming the world. As Jesus taught, compassion is key.
Millions
of Catholics have not only heard this call to holiness, but also responded by
volunteering for ministries most had never heard of before. Since the Council,
lay involvement in parishes and at all levels of the Church has flourished.
Education
Many
laypersons expressed a desire to learn more about Scripture and theology,
promptly setting off a mini-boom in religious publishing and a bulge in
enrollments at schools of theology. One unexpected result is that some 30,000
laypersons, trained in pastoral ministry, are now employed in Catholic
parishes. Roughly the same number are currently preparing for Church service.
These laypersons speak of having a "vocation" to Church ministry.
Also
millions of other laypeople regularly teach one another in parish faith-sharing
groups, adult faith-formation programs and the adult initiation process (RCIA).
In parochial schools and parish religious education, parents teach each other's
children, since most catechists today are lay.
Evangelization Begins at Home
The
theology of the "domestic Church" sketched in the documents of
Vatican II looks on the Catholic home as the Church in microcosm—a center of
prayer, witness and service. Catholic parents bear primary responsibility for
transmitting the faith to the next generation. Since they must be well prepared
for the task, parish formation and sacramental preparation programs are
designed to assist them.
Some
Catholics have even become foreign or home missionaries through lay missioner
programs established by religious orders (e.g., Franciscans, Jesuits, Sisters
of Mercy, Maryknoll) after Vatican II. Originally designed as short-term
immersion experiences for single young adults, a few of these programs have
expanded to include older adults, married couples, families with children and
retirees.
Serving Those in Need
Catholic
laypeople have become more service-conscious, seeing outreach to persons in
need as an essential part of holiness. Most parishes sponsor social ministries,
including those that promote justice, as a matter of course. Entrepreneurial
Catholics have started their own organizations in fields as diverse as prisoner
care and health care, food banks and job banks, responsible investing and
micro-loans. Catholics support a vast array of such projects sponsored by the
U.S. bishops' Catholic Campaign for Human Development and Catholic Relief
Services, which works internationally to alleviate hunger, disease and human
suffering.
These
are just a few examples of the call to holiness that has sounded over the past
40 years. As Catholics, we know that our spiritual life, while personal, is
also corporate. It is up to us to become a people of deep prayer, our eyes open
to the needs of the world around us. If, guided by the Holy Spirit and
sustained by Christ's presence in the Eucharist, we can learn real compassion,
then we will sustain one another. If we can learn to lead and not merely
follow, we can more directly shape our Church's future and further its mission
to the world.
In the
last 50 years, our Church has experienced euphoric highs, like Vatican II, when
the Spirit seemed to be embodied in our pope and bishops as they reached out to
the modern world. It has also experienced painful lows, like the recent
revelations of scandal and poor leadership. What we learn from such experiences
and how we grow as a Church are our witness to the world and our legacy to
future generations of the Church.
The CPC
Prayer Intention For August
For
students, teachers and all others in the field of education, may the Holy
Spirit guide and enlighten them as they embark on a new academic year.
Lord Hear
Our Prayer