Mission: Empowering Leadership and Mobilized Laity With clear vision, and strong motivation to carry it out, the final ingredient in Paul’s recipe is the nuts and bolts needed to implement the vision: empowering leadership and mobilized laity. Notice how Paul describes how the Church is built up: “His gifts were that some should be apostles, some prophets, some evangelists, some pastors and teachers, to equip the saints for the work of ministry, for building up the body of Christ” (Eph 4:11–12).
It is not therefore a matter of inventing a “new program.” The program already exists: it is the plan found in the Gospel and in the living Tradition, it is the same as ever. Ultimately, it has its center in Christ himself, who is to be known, loved, and imitated, so that in him we may live the life of the Trinity, and with him transform history until its fulfillment in the heavenly Jerusalem. This is a program which does not change with shifts of times and cultures, even though it takes account of time and culture for the sake of true dialogue and effective communication. This program for all times is our program for the Third Millennium. How, concretely, do we help people nourish and sustain a deep and life-giving spirituality? There are many ways; here I will briefly suggest two. First, people need vital daily contact with the word of God, especially in the form of Lectio Divina, to which the Church has recently been urging Catholics in a new way. Lectio Divina is reading Scripture in a dialogue with God, where we hear him speak to us personally in his word, and respond to him in prayer. Secondly, Lectio Divina leads to contemplation. People often have the idea that contemplation is something esoteric, only for spiritual experts like monks or nuns. But it is really very simple. Perhaps the best definition of contemplation is in Psalm 27: “One thing I ask of the Lord; this I seek: / To dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life, / To gaze on the beauty of the Lord, to inquire in his temple.” In fact, the very meaning of the word is related to this psalm: con - templatio, being “with” the Lord in his “temple,” gazing on his beauty. This is what Paul is referring to when he says, “The God who said, ‘Let light shine out of darkness,’ has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Christ” (2 Cor 4:6–7).
Paul lists here charisms of leadership, both ordained and non-ordained. Then he describes the function of leaders: not so much to do all the ministry as to equip the saints to do ministry—that is, to release and direct the Churchbuilding power latent in every Christian by baptism!6 (By “saints” of course he means all Christians, not just canonized ones. By baptism we are all made holy, though some live it out to the nth degree.) “Equip” has here the connotation of training and preparing, as in mobilizing an army. They are equipped “for the work of ministry, for building up the body of Christ.” How is the body of Christ built up? Basically in two ways: by gaining new members (which itself happens in two ways, through procreation and through evangelization), and by growth into maturity and holiness of the members it already has. The role of leadership in the Church is to equip the laity to build up the body of Christ in both these ways! Yet all too often there is a dependency model of ministry in the Church. The priest (and perhaps the lay ecclesial minister) is viewed as the professional with the skills and the know-how, and the laity come to be ministered to. Their role is entirely passive. This whole idea has to be overturned. Vatican Council II represented a rediscovery of two absolutely foundational interrelated truths: the universal call to holiness and the universal call to evangelization. In its Decree on the Laity, the Council made clear that not only the successors of the apostles but all Christians are to participate in the Church’s apostolate. In fact, if they don’t, they’re “useless.” Are Catholics today aware that every single one of them has a mission, an indispensable role in the body of Christ, a unique, God-given task that no one else can fulfill? We are only beginning to implement the Council’s teaching. The Church is a big ship; it takes a long time to turn it around. The laity is nowhere near as fully equipped and mobilized as it needs to be for the new evangelization. In this regard, it is important to consider what Paul teaches about the gifts of the Holy Spirit. “Now there are varieties of gifts, but the same Spirit; and there are varieties of service, but the same Lord; and there are varieties of 6. See George Montague, The Living Thought of St. Paul (Enrico, CA: Benzinger Bruce and Glencoe, 1976), 201. 2010 Issue One 21