The Bishops unintentionally shot themselves in the foot when they published their document on Lay Ministry. By focusing on the ministry laity perform inside the parish, the bishops ignored parishioners who hear the words of the dismissal:
"Let us go forth in joy to love and serve the Lord."
and return to their homes, jobs and communities for the coming week. From this perspective, at least 99 percent of lay ministry is done outside the ecclesial structure. The document Coworkers in the Vineyard of the Lord is subtitled "A Resource for Guiding the Development of Lay Ecclesial Ministry."
Now it appears that the Bishops have shot themselves in the other foot by insulting the work of the 99%. In this WaPo story on the Bishop’s effort to foster religious vocations. Mishelle Boorstein writes:
"Fishers of Men," a 20-minute video released this month by the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, presents priests as handsome and heroic, appearing in scenes of war and civil rights marches that are contrasted with the image of bored-looking people riding an escalator to meaningless jobs.
Are the Bishops really recruiting young people by saying “Be happy. Don’t go out and do the same meaningless, boring jobs as your parents”?
Last week I was quoting Russell Shaw:
The bishops have meant well—for their aim has been to encourage Catholic lay people to participate more fully in the life of the Church—but they have made a damaging mistake. Promoting lay ministry has come at the expense of an earlier tradition of promoting Catholic lay apostolate—and the two are very different things
(Please see his book Catholic Laity in the Mission of the Church for a more positive view of lay ministry and apostolate.)
As regular readers of this blog know, I often recommend Gregory Pierce’s book Spirituality at Work . (Go here for my review.) Pierce offers ten disciplines for practicing spirituality in the workplace. Pierce developed these disciplines by consulting working people – he himself is a publisher. His starting premise is that work is (or should be) a service and creative. A view of holiness that says it can be found only in religious life is unhelpful at best.
We do need to change our perspective on where service is done and holiness is found. I’m reminded of a conversation between a friend who wanted her son’s wedding to take place in her home. A priest disallowed her request, saying the ceremony must take place in a “sacred space.” My question was: “if your home is not sacred, what is it?”
By focusing on Lay ecclesial ministry it is almost as if the institutional church gets Luke 15:4 backwards. It focuses on the one sheep remaining in the service of the church from Monday through Saturday and ignores the 99 who go out into the world – some of them lost for more than one week.
If you’re look for a way to bring your spirituality into the workplace, try William David Thompson’s On the Job Prayers. It has one hundred entries, each with a quote from scripture, a reflection on the meaning of work and a short prayer for help in performing the tasks of the day. Each entry is short, meaning that we can pray without interrupting our service to the world.
Nancy, Your point is taken. It was not my intent to criticizes our priests. We need to respect our priests. Many of them find themselves in difficult situations, jobs to which they would not be assigned , if we had more priests. They do their best. We should be reluctant to criticize and quick to support. Having said that, I still wish the Bishops could take a more positive view of the ministry performed by the laity in their everyday jobs.
Posted by: Herb Ely | April 03, 2006 at 09:45 AM
I am a lay person, and I have recently seen the "Fishers of Men" video. It was amazing, I must say I have gained a much deeper respect for our priests. I know the Bishops recieve alot of critisim, but I would say they hit a home-run with this production.
I would whatch the program first Herb, before you say anything further. It moved me to tears.
-Nancy
Posted by: Nancy | April 02, 2006 at 08:46 PM