“Let us pray for the sick, the poor and the innocent victims of wars, that Christ, through his Resurrection, may grant peace and consolation to all”. This was the appeal made by Pope Leo XIV during his greetings to the Arabic-speaking faithful at the end of today’s audience, dedicated to the fourth chapter of Lumen Gentium, which deals with the laity. “Love and peace are stronger than death”, the Pope then assured, addressing Polish pilgrims. “Lay people are, put simply, the vast majority of the people of God. The minority – ordained ministers – are at their service”. With this quotation from Pope Francis, Pope Leo began his catechesis, in which he cited a passage from the conciliar document that reinterprets a verse from the Letter to the Ephesians (“one Lord, one faith, one Baptism”): “sharing a common dignity as members from their regeneration in Christ, having the same filial grace and the same vocation to perfection; possessing in common one salvation, one hope and one undivided charity”.
“Before any distinction of ministry or state of life, the Council affirms the equality of all the baptized”,
the Pope explained: “The Constitution does not want us to forget what it had already affirmed in the chapter on the People of God, namely that the condition of the messianic people is the dignity and freedom of the children of God”, Leo observed, adding that “along with dignity”, the Council “also emphasizes the mission of the laity in the Church and in the world”.
“The holy People of God”, he continued, “is never a formless mass,
but the Body of Christ or, as Augustine said, the Christus totus: it is a community organically structured by means of the fruitful relationship between the two forms of participation in the priesthood of Christ: the common priesthood of the faithful and the ministerial priesthood”. “By virtue of Baptism, the lay faithful participate in the very priesthood of Christ”, Leo XIV recalled, again citing the conciliar document, which states: “the supreme and eternal priest, Jesus Christ, since He wills to continue His witness and service also through the laity, vivifies them in this Spirit and increasingly urges them on to every good and perfect work”. He then quoted Saint John Paul II, who in his apostolic exhortation Christifideles laici renewed the call to the apostolate of the laity, noting that “the Council, with its rich doctrinal, spiritual and pastoral patrimony, has written as never before on the nature, dignity, spirituality, mission and responsibility of the lay faithful. And the Council Fathers, re-echoing the call of Christ, have summoned all the lay faithful, both women and men, to labour in the vineyard”.
“The vast field of the lay apostolate is not confined to the Church, but extends to the world”,
the Pope explained: “The Church is present wherever her children profess and bear witness to the Gospel”, he recalled: “in the workplace, in civil society and in all human relationships, wherever they, through their choices, show the beauty of Christian life, which foretells here and now the justice and peace that will be accomplished in the Kingdom of God”.
“The world needs to be permeated by the spirit of Christ, and more effectively fulfil its purpose in justice, charity and peace”,
this is the appeal to be embraced, contained in Lumen gentium. “And this is possible only through the contribution, service and witness of the laity!”, the Pontiff commented: “It is an invitation to be the ‘outgoing’ Church that Pope Francis spoke to us about: a Church embodied in history, always open to mission, in which we are all called to be missionary disciples, apostles of the Gospel, witnesses of the Kingdom of God, bearers of the joy of Christ whom we have encountered”.
