Clergy and Laity: Co-workers in the vineyard

The fact is that there are amazing stories every day of good people doing wonderful things. Since these people don’t seem to make the news as often as they should, maybe that is good news in and of itself. Their extraordinary service is ordinary.

I am touched by this in my travels around the diocese. I have spent my first six weeks traveling to all kinds of events, from installing pastors to confirmations. Everywhere I go, I encounter wonderful people doing wonderful things in service for others. Our parishes around the diocese have more good stories to tell than I could ever have the time to relate.

As you know, our parishes are being engaged in the process of “envisioning ministry” — how we are to grow the church in response to the movement of the Holy Spirit at a time with unique challenges. While I am thoroughly convinced that in the long run we will have the number of priests that God wants us to have, we clearly know that our day calls for real and active engagement of the laity, and not because of fewer priests.

What I challenge the laity to do at this moment in our diocesan history — and at any moment for a fact — is to live out your vocational call. This was true when my parents were growing up. This is true today. This does not mean that laity need to become more like priests (or priests more like laity).

Invite Jesus into your house

What we have been working on at the parish level with envisioning ministry is really a call to an awareness of what it means to be Catholic in our world. Evangelization, personal growth in faith, a healthy prayer life, living lives of charity, justice and faith, service to others — these don’t come out of a program, nor are they dependent on how many priests can be assigned to a parish. They are the clear demands of living the faith in our daily lives — and being excited about it!

A favorite Gospel story of mine is the one we just heard in last Sunday’s Gospel about the little fellow described in Luke — Zacchaeus. When Jesus came to Jericho, Zacchaeus wanted to get a good look at him. But being so small, he couldn’t see over the crowds that lined the street to welcome Jesus. So he ran ahead. He climbed a tree so he could see him when he walked by.

When Jesus reached that spot, he looked up and spotted Zacchaeus. “Come down quickly,” Jesus said to him, “for today I must stay at your house” (Lk 19:1-5).

That is the call of the laity. That is the call to the laity. While we don’t always find ourselves hanging by our fingertips from a tree limb — though maybe we do too often! — the laity are called to live each day in the knowledge that Jesus wants to stay in your house. Keeping that house always in order — through prayer, sacrament and service — is the role of the laity. Reaching out in faith to others, living the commandments, building up the faith in parish life, representing the faith in the public arena — that is the role of the laity. And more.

Live the faith every day

All this can be done through deep involvement in the life of the parish. Parish service — what we do within the parish — is not just a job that we sign up for, a little time that we volunteer. Parish involvement is getting our house in order for Jesus. It is living out our faith in our daily lives. It is not an escape, but something so integral to our lives that we carry it with us every minute of the day.

The role of the laity is to live the faith every day and in every way. Nothing more. And nothing less.

Just about two years ago, we, the bishops of our country, approved a document about the important role of the laity in the church. That resource, “Co-Workers in the Vineyard of the Lord,” underscores the important role of the laity in the vibrant life of the church. If you haven’t had a chance to read the document, you can access it online at www.usccb.org/laity/laymin.

Meanwhile, speaking of us bishops, we will be gathering together in Baltimore for our annual fall meeting beginning Nov. 10 through Nov. 16. We too, as “co-workers,” will be deliberating over ways to grow the church in the United States.

Humbly, I ask: Church of Pittsburgh, pray for us.