In the Hands of the Laity: Part II

 Read Part I of In the Hands of the Laity

Who’s going to save our Church?  It’s not our bishops, it’s not our priests and it’s not the religious.  It’s up to you, the people.  You have the minds, the eyes and the ears to save the Church.  Your mission is to see that your priests act like priests, your bishops act like bishops and your religious act like religious (Archbishop Sheen).

So what was it that led Archbishop Sheen among many things, to utter how the future of the
Church is “in the hands of the laity”?

Sheen saw the collapses taking place from within, in our homes and our seminaries, which became veritable cemeteries on the spiritual level, many being deprived of a lifestyle that supports a life of sanctifying grace, but rather ego and feelings; without doubt, inadvertently or even intentionally lighting that smokey candle made of oil and water that provides a messy light in contrast to God’s light; such as the pantheistic “New Age” movement that is rampant right now in modern Christian thought. I think he saw more hope in the home, and the family as a new Genesis, hence his prophecy of the Church as being “in the hands of the laity.”

Decadent Dicasteries

I visited a seminary many years ago with an oversized refectory that had a soft-serve ice cream dispenser (multiple flavors, cones and all) for the students and faculty. This made me think of the late Fr John Schug, OFM who was implemental in Saint Padre Pio’s canonization. Once he was commenting on Padre Pio’s poor and rough family home being a major contributor to his Sainthood. Schug said in his short documentary Padre Pio, Lighting Rod of God “it makes one wonder if central air conditioning and wall-to-wall carpeting are a help or a hindrance in becoming a Saint!”  I had the good fortune of talking with him a few times, Fr Schug.  He was a tough one, WWII generation as he was.  Those inner-city Friars are always the best ones in my opinion.  In the words of Catholic Vietnam POW Captain Guy Gruters commenting on modern society, “we have become soft.”  Soft-serve, anyone?

Inside Job

Sheen saw the collapse from within, and I wouldn’t be surprised if he had a hard time fitting in his own seminary back in his day in the early 1900s.  He likely saw and experienced issues within then, as there always have been and will be.  The problem is the great rise of evils in the past century, all taking place shortly after Pope Leo XIII heard that foreboding conversation between God and Satan where Leo exclaimed after coming-to from a type of fainting, “the smoke of Satan has entered the Church!”

Helping Hands

We are called as laity to help our priests and bishops. They are our brothers as well as our fathers, and that being said we hold each other accountable, as we also help in other ways.  Fraternal correction is one of the toughest acts of mercy to perform.  Any big shot can volunteer in a soup kitchen, even Al Capone and his boys hid in one disguised as poor men and donated and served “above the table” too, but to correct someone living in sin, when we ourselves are sinners?  Ouch!  Even Jesus gestures us to do as such, stating that once we remove the “big” (mortal or grave in nature) sin from our lives, we can “see clearly” to help remove sin from other’s lives (Matthew 7:5).

Higher Calling

In helping our clergy and religious, we are to understand that most likely entered that way of life because they sensed a calling from God.  That should be the lens that we look at anyone who has dedicated their life to God.  Of course, there are those that went in to escape from the world’s difficulties, or even persecution, and found themselves more persecuted and the collar tighter than ever therein, so to speak; albeit it can be of great merit to “flee the world,” as many desert fathers (and mothers) have, provided one’s motives are pure, as one hermit who chooses to remain anonymous said in a book “to leave the world to embrace the world.”

Channels of Peace

St Francis of Assisi was absolutely terrified to the core at the responsibility of the priesthood and remained a deacon until death. However, God doesn’t cease to call men to the priesthood and women to religious life. On the flip side of holy fear, Blessed George of the Marians of the Immaculate Conception lays out some great determiners in choosing a vocation and exhorts those sensing a call,

for the greater glory of God he should not be afraid to bear the consequences of his choice of one course or another: he must have courage enough to take a gamble, so to speak . . .

. . . Even if one were to make a mistake, God would still accept his good will (For Christ and the Church, letters of Blessed George, Marian Press, Letter #7, used with permission).

What a breath of fresh air he was and is for those always “discerning!”

Splitting the Atom

Now, the home, which is the “atom bomb” of God and unfortunately for the devil too.  When God is center, in a nutshell, when The Eucharist wins out over the TV as the “gathering ground”, we have a fission of good for the Kingdom of God.  A good home creates and helps priests and religious, families and religious to work hand-in-hand.  They give us Jesus, and we help the priest carry the cross of the celibate, and in turn the priest and religious help us.

When the home is split, like the should-be-inseparable atom, the mushroom cloud it creates has lingering effects for centuries.  According to John Paul II, Mother Theresa, and Dr Janet Smith, the mentality of contraception is the “big culprit”.  John Paul the Great stated that the mentality of embracing contraception is at the root of the culture of death; just like Christ, JPII went after the lust in the heart more than the adultery, the anger more than the murder, both Jesus and John Paul II have tried to have us develop the mentality of nipping it in the bud.  With contraception, there is no children.  With no children, no vocations; vocations start in homes more than in churches.

Tough Times

In the current era of priesthood, lots of people think vocations are passé for varying degrees, from the modern thought of “it’s all about me,” to “priests should be allowed to get married,” and to worst of all, the scandals. Take the example of a young priest I recently saw online who wears a traditional cassock in public. This young clergy is widely accepted and approached by all those he encounters, revealing just how hungry people are for knowledge of God.  It goes to show many don’t buy the garbage that most priests are “in it for themselves,” “should have gotten married,” or “generally are sickos,” as the scandals have caused some to believe.  The enormity of these evils caused Jesus to forewarn that, “because of the multiplication of wickedness, the love of many will grow cold”  (Matthew 24:12).

Unfortunately for many teetering or lukewarm Catholics (and even among the fervent) the scandals and the lack of justice following, as many got a “get-out-of-jail-free card”, has become the “ticket out” for those who find the Christian ideal too difficult. For lack of better words, just because there are a few saps on the family tree, we don’t cut the whole tree down.

Gandalf Guides

Tolkien, the writer of the Lord of the Rings trilogy, has some great advice that applies here in his archetype writing, as follows in his conversation with a despairing Hobbit: “I wish it need not have happened in my time,” said Frodo. “So do I,” said Gandalf, “and so do all who live to see such times. But that is not for them to decide. All we have to decide is what to do with the time is give us”( From The Fellowship of the Ring, J.R.R. Tolkien). By the way, Tolkien spent a lot of time in adoration of The Blessed Sacrament! Yes, a layperson!

TV Time?

Christianity is more normal than we think often. Dr Scott Hahn is a huge football fan, for example! So watch the game on TV as a family or watch a rerun of M*A*S*H with the spouse at night, or for those in formation have a cup of ice cream on occasion while watching Archbishop Sheen reruns or the game as well (Sheen regularly played tennis), but if we can spend 2 hours in front of a TV a few nights a week, we ought to be spending at minimum one hour with Christ a week.  Imagine that, an “Adoration Nation”?  “Could you not spend one hour with me?” (Matthew 26:40) is not solely for the Apostle, but for the disciple too!

Venerable Archbishop Sheen, who advocated the Holy Hour to laity and religious alike, please pray for us.