Vocation problem

[TiggerS]

I’m not saying we should have a wholesale return to the past. Absolutely not!
I am saying that we threw the baby out with the bathwater and became so institutionalized that most Catholics believe they are either doing “holy” things or “non-holy” things and there is a very firm line between the two. We go to church, we step over the line into the “holy” territory; we come out and change diapers or prepare a meal, we step back into “non-holy” territory and we are on our own. For instance, “active in your parish” means stepping over the line into “holy” territory to perform a “ministry” which is in “holy” territory. Coming home afterwards is leaving “holy” territory and entering “non-holy” territory, just as surely as if we went through customs.

So…saying a rosary with a group of friends who support us day-to-day while we support them, for the purpose of living a Catholic life, is where on that map?

I am very much in agreement with you. No, we must not return to the past nor seek to do so. Yet there were some things in that past that were of value, other things were not. This is the assessment we need to make today and go forward from there.
As I have said, to my way of thinking, there was an ingrained and conditioned mentality about what it means to be a good Catholic and that this had very little to do, if anything at all, with a total commitment to The Gospel at all times and in every place. “Active in The Church” meant about something at either parish or diocesan level and this was a :“ministry” and slowly we became inward looking. If one was not involved at parish or diocesan level, one was not “active in The Church” - there was no sense of a need to outreach beyond Catholics per se. We need to change this ingrained conditioning and also our inwardlooking-ness.
What we are planning in our parish is get togethers for meals in parishioners homes with all contributing to the meal and with prayer. Our prayer will not be the Rosary, but communal prayer nonetheless. Form yet to be decided. The purpose of the get togethers per se is just socializing and getting to know each other as people. This will be coupled with parish formation programs and adult Catholic education. Will it work? We can only prayerfully hope so. And if it does work, what then? That remains a future question. If it doesn’t work in the parish, then it is back to the drawing board and working out why it didn’t work and trying to come up with something that will.

If we are going to outreach beyond Catholics, then it is felt we need a strong sense of community to outreach from to non Catholics. We need to be supportive of each other in our Faith. We also need to ensure that we have sound knowledge about what we do believe, our Faith, and what it means. We need to be able to address points and answer questions with a sense of being educated in Catholicism. This is a beginning at least.

The very first and most important step in dealing with a problem is to recognize one has one and what it is and with some accuracy. From that there can be a beginning to solving the problem. All this is NOT going to happen overnight or be solved in a Catholic discussion thread. Its going to take prayerful time and commitment even in the face of failures. But at least lay people in places are trying. It is not an overall problem of laity not trying, or not caring. Not at all.

 

[iloveangels]

I am very much in agreement with you. No, we must not return to the past nor seek to do so. Yet there were some things in that past that were of value, other things were not. This is the assessment we need to make today and go forward from there.

Yes. 100% true.

As I have said, to my way of thinking, there was an ingrained and conditioned mentality about what it means to be a good Catholic and that this had very little to do, if anything at all, with a total commitment to The Gospel at all times and in every place. “Active in The Church” meant about something at either parish or diocesan level and this was a :“ministry” and slowly we became inward looking. If one was not involved at parish or diocesan level, one was not “active in The Church” - there was no sense of a need to outreach beyond Catholics per se. We need to change this ingrained conditioning and also our inwardlooking-ness.

Yes, perhaps it’s a carry-over from the past and it’s all we have left after Vatican 2 took things away, and that’s why it’s so painfully obvious. We’ve been kind of in a state of shock for a long time.

What we are planning in our parish is get togethers for meals in parishioners homes with all contributing to the meal and with prayer. Our prayer will not be the Rosary, but communal prayer nonetheless. Form yet to be decided. The purpose of the get togethers per se is just socializing and getting to know each other as people. This will be coupled with parish formation programs and adult Catholic education. Will it work? We can only prayerfully hope so. And if it does work, what then? That remains a future question. If it doesn’t work in the parish, then it is back to the drawing board and working out why it didn’t work and trying to come up with something that will.

This is excellent. I’m wondering how you decide “whether it works or not?”
And I would still challenge you to consider what happens if the meetings are spontaneous or lay-inspired and driven. What then?

The very first and most important step in dealing with a problem is to recognize one has one and what it is and with some accuracy. From that there can be a beginning to solving the problem.

Yes. Exactly.

All this is NOT going to happen overnight or be solved in a Catholic discussion thread. Its going to take prayerful time and commitment even in the face of failures. But at least lay people in places are trying. It is not an overall problem of laity not trying, or not caring. Not at all.

Yes, it’s not going to happen here and now. I agree. It’s good that we’re starting to get a handle on this problem though because this has really gone on long enough. There is still some defensiveness but that’s even getting better. It is a matter of growing and learning new things within our enormous Catholic arena, which I think people are ready to do now. That’s a good thing and it needs to continue.

Now back to the vocations of the religious before they come after us with those knotted ropes.

 

[TiggerS]

Yes. 100% true.

Yes, perhaps it’s a carry-over from the past and it’s all we have left after Vatican 2 took things away. We’ve been kind of shock for a long time.

This is excellent. How do you define “whether it works or not?”

Yes. Exactly.

Yes, it’s not going to happen here and now. I agree. It’s good that we’re starting to get a handle on this problem though because this has really gone on long enough. There is still some defensiveness but that’s even getting better. It is a matter of growing and learning new things within our enormous Catholic arena, which I think people are ready to do now. That’s a good thing and it needs to continue.
Now back to the vocations of the religious.

How to define “whether it works or not” would probably be to ask the questions “Does our parish have a very strong sense of community - of being a Catholic Community, in the richest sense of community”. “Do we feel that our education programs have given us better knowledge of our Faith and lay vocation and what it means”. How those questions (I pulled out the blue) are answered will dictate the road ahead. Certainly our goals are to be living community bonded by our lay vocation in most instances, and to be better educated in our Faith and lay vocation and what that vocation means in the day to day, challenging concepts that it is about ‘inwardlooking-ness’.

I also am conscious that this thread is about religious vocations! The Spirit leads where He may without any referral to our preferences and rules very often:thumbsup: But you are correct, it is about religious vocation and vocations to religious life. In fact, the subject of the thread was prayer for the opening poster, who very bravely shared a quite personal story and with some humility which persevered despite some criticisms.

I am all for, personally, discussion about religious vocations per se, providing negative concepts, and sometimes negative sweeping statements, about laity per se are avoided.
Probably along the way, I have had as many very real problems with religious as some religious have had with some lay people. This does not at all color my love and appreciation, high value, my general attitude towards the religious vocation and religious per se. Not that I am any shining light of virtue to emulate!!!

 

[iloveangels]

How to define “whether it works or not” would probably be to ask the questions “Does our parish have a very strong sense of community - of being a Catholic Community, in the richest sense of community”. “Do we feel that our education programs have given us better knowledge of our Faith and lay vocation and what it means”. How those questions (I pulled out the blue) are answered will dictate the road ahead. Certainly our goals are to be living community bonded by our lay vocation in most instances, and to be better educated in our Faith and lay vocation and what that vocation means in the day to day, challenging concepts that it is about ‘inwardlooking-ness’.

I also am conscious that this thread is about religious vocations! The Spirit leads where He may without any referral to our preferences and rules very often:thumbsup: But you are correct, it is about religious vocation and vocations to religious life. In fact, the subject of the thread was prayer for the opening poster.
I am all for, personally, discussion about religious vocations per se, providing negative concepts, and sometimes negative sweeping statements, about laity per se are avoided.
Probably along the way, I have had as many very real problems with religious as some religious have had with some lay people. This does not at all color my love and appreciation, high value, my general attitude towards the religious vocation and religious per se. Not that I am any shining light of virtue to emulate!!!

I would gently and non-confrontationally challenge you to consider that building community may not be about building community in the building, but building an atmosphere where people can live out Catholicism in a personal whole sense in their lives with other people. Could your metric be “are people living the faith more completely,” rather than is there “more participation in these programs the way we’d like to see it work?” Just a thought.

Also…how do I want to say this? Religious life, per se, isn’t really about the people I personally know, although some of them are religious. It’s about what they are called to BE by their ways of life and what the Church wants of them. They are very, very important to the life of the Church. They demonstrate on the ground that the Catholic faith is able to be lived not only in one way, but in many. They are living exemplars of the very doctrines that we believe.* They are precious, even though, yes, they are human beings. As all of us here are.

*Example: There are many heresies that attempt to separate body and spirit–Manacheism, Algensianism, Arianism, etc etc. The best possible counterexample the Church has for this is the vocation of a monk who vows stability and lives the faith stolidly with his whole being. This is the Christian way, par excellence, in one version. Franciscans have another version of living the faith body and soul in integrated unity, and on and on. It is possible because it’s real. It’s lived.

 

[TiggerS]

I would gently and non-confrontationally challenge you to consider that building community may not be about building community in the building, but building an atmosphere where people can live out Catholicism in a personal whole sense in their lives with other people. Could your metric be “are people living the faith more completely,” rather than is there “more participation in these programs the way we’d like to see it work?” Just a thought.

Also…how do I want to say this? Religious life, per se, isn’t really about the people I personally know, although some of them are religious. It’s about what they are called to BE by their ways of life and what the Church wants of them. They are very, very important to the life of the Church. They demonstrate on the ground that the Catholic faith is able to be lived not only in one way, but in many. They are living exemplars of the very doctrines that we believe. They are precious, even though, yes, they are human beings. As all of us here are.

Very gentle and not at all confrontational!
No, community is not about any sort of brick and mortar type building. It is about relationships of Peace, Justice and Love - mutual appreciation and respect, care and concern. Community is fraternal charity - defined as:
**FRATERNAL CHARITY. **The practice of charity with a love that recognizes another person as a child of God, and therefore as brother or sister in the Lord. (RealPresence Oragnization therealpresence.org/cgi-bin/getdefinition.pl )

And yes, religious life is very much about what religious are called to be as religious and it is very important to the life of The Church. Ideally religious ‘speak’ to us by their very being-ness, by the people that they are, who they are, as they go about whatever they are going about - and they ideally will ‘speak’ to us, or witness to us, about what is highest and best in Catholic living. The life actively looks forward to, embraces and pre-figures eternal life. They are called to the state of perfection. We are called to the way of perfection.

 

[iloveangels]

Very gentle and not at all confrontational!
No, community is not about any sort of building. It is about relationships of Peace, Justice and Love - mutual appreciation and respect, care and concern. Community is fraternity. Community is a spiritual edifice.

And yes, religious life is very much about what religious are called to be as religious and it is very important to the life of The Church. Ideally religious ‘speak’ to us by their very being-ness, by the people that they are, who they are, as they go about whatever they are going about - and they ideally will ‘speak’ to us, or witness to us, about what is highest and best in Catholic living. They are called to the state of perfection. We are called to the way of perfection.

Yes, Vatican II was very clear about the universal call to holiness. The path to God, the Trinity, is different in a practical sense for members of different vocations, that’s all. Like Br JR said earlier, it’s like a garden which has different kinds of flowers and plants. The most beautiful garden has them all, each in their place in God’s own design for us.

 

[FraLeones]

I am very mindful, FraLeones, of your opening post to this thread - as above. Thank you very much for the beautiful witness to humility you gave in a few of your posts. You are in my daily prayers, please keep us in yours. May The Lord clarify for you that path along which He Desires to draw you in life, which has already begun for you. Where it will take you, we cannot know at this point.
Your thread has gone off your opening subject and my apologies for this. I think sometimes The Holy Spirit can lead us along a way that we were not at all one bit prepared for initially.

God bless and keep you…Tigger

thank you ! i will pray for you… and please do pray for me that is what i need

 

[TiggerS]

Yes, Vatican II was very clear about the universal call to holiness. The path to God, the Trinity, is just different in a practical sense for members of different vocations, that’s all. Like Br JR said earlier, it’s like a garden which has different kinds of flowers and plants. The most beautiful garden has them all.

Amen. We are all called to different roles in the Mystical Body of The Church and all are important, else simply they would not exist - and in the footsteps of Jesus and His Gospel, through the power of The Holy Spirit - and in praise and thanksgiving to The Father.
In the ‘Father’s garden there are many different flowers’. Which reminds me of a Carmelite nun I know who commented when I was talking about digging weeds out my garden - “Oh yes weeds, our uninvited guests” which struck me as a quite beautiful and charitable way to refer to weeds.

 

[iloveangels]

thank you ! i will pray for you… and please do pray for me that is what i need

Thank you, FraLeones, for putting up with our rambling discussions.
I will pray for you too.

 

[TiggerS]

thank you ! i will pray for you… and please do pray for me that is what i need

I am very happy you are still with us, FraLeones, though the thread has come far from your subject. I am certainly remembering you in daily prayer - and please remember us all in yours. We all very much and desperately need the prayers of each other…God bless and keep you close as He does…Tigger

 

[iloveangels]

Amen. We are all called to different roles in the Mystical Body of The Church and all are important, else simply they would not exist - and in the footsteps of Jesus and His Gospel, through the power of The Holy Spirit - and in praise and thanksgiving to The Father.
In the ‘Father’s garden there are many different flowers’. Which reminds me of a Carmelite nun I know who commented when I was talking about digging weeds out my garden - “Oh yes weeds, our uninvited guests” which struck me as a quite beautiful and charitable way to refer to weeds.

Kind of makes you hesitate to pull them, huh? Nah.

 

[TiggerS]

True, which was exactly my immediate reaction. I love my CArmelites and further reflection made me think of the weeds (faults and imperfections, failures) in the garden of my own soul - my “uninvited guests”. My Carmelite nun has such a way with words, totally the contemplative. She can say so very much in very few words and a gift I have never ever had!

 

[Julia_Mae]

I really don’t understand why groups of laypeople can’t say a rosary together in the park or someplace like that regularly. Or teach their children how to do so in home-organized childrens’ retreats that join several families for a day. Or collect food for the animals in the winter at the animal shelter, where they go without if no one donates. Or take to the streets to sell flowers to support the poor and make a faithful community of households around that. Or run canned food drives for the food bank, ditto. I cannot see what could possibly be “not in union with the magisterium” about any of these things.

And if those things are too open-ended for some people, and maybe they are for some, then there’s always Right to Life and other groups that can help. A group of laypeople can do any or several of these things and more–really quite normal and good things–and then form a shared prayer life and enjoy community support for these things. This would help them to live out their faith.

Do you belong to Opus Dei?

 

[Julia_Mae]

It is true that the parish priest needs to know, but he doesn’t need to personally lead every single thing that happens.

True, but it depends on the Pastor. I was in a parish where we did all sorts of things Father was not involved in. I am in a parish now where the Pastor feels no prayer groups can or should take place without a priest to lead it.

 

[iloveangels]

Amen. We are all called to different roles in the Mystical Body of The Church and all are important, else simply they would not exist - and in the footsteps of Jesus and His Gospel, through the power of The Holy Spirit - and in praise and thanksgiving to The Father.
In the ‘Father’s garden there are many different flowers’. Which reminds me of a Carmelite nun I know who commented when I was talking about digging weeds out my garden - “Oh yes weeds, our uninvited guests” which struck me as a quite beautiful and charitable way to refer to weeds.

Do you belong to Opus Dei?

No. Why?

 

[iloveangels]

Do you belong to Opus Dei?

No. Why?

True, but it depends on the Pastor. I was in a parish where we did all sorts of things Father was not involved in. I am in a parish now where the Pastor feels no prayer groups can or should take place without a priest to lead it.

Wonder why. Maybe he saw something odd happen in the parish a long time ago that worried him and this is the remaining effect. I’ve seen this happen before. If he’s been there for a while, he may know something about the dynamics of the parish that many of the parishioners don’t.

 

[Julia_Mae]

As those parishes became more prosperous, there is no longer the need for a religious community that serves those in need or that lives only among the poor or the working class. Now, with the rate of immigrants entering the country, the number of homeless people increasing and the rate of people involved in abortion, drugs and promiscuity, there is a greater need for religious in those areas than in parishes. Diocesan priests have a duty to their bishops. They have to keep the diocese’s parishes running. You can’t pull them out and place them with these populations. Your best bet are the religious, because they are not part of a diocese.

Fraternally,

Br. JR, OSF

I’m not arguing with you, but I want to say something about all of this. I speak here from experience as a former police officer, and mother of a grown child who went to school in one of the most affluent suburbs and in a downtown city school. There is more drug abuse, more sexual excess and suicide amongst the adolescents in suburbs than in the city. I guess I’ve lived in every kind of place in America by now, inner city and affluent suburb and small town, and there is this enormous spiritual crisis, IMO, in the more affluent places in the Catholic community.

I’ll bet you also find that poor folks are just in general more charitable. I now live in a place most would find ideal. I miss homeless people. No one believes that, but once you’ve sat on a bus benches in winter with them, and chatted them up on the city park lawn, and stepped around them on the way into the Basilica, you kind of come to feel like you are all part, not a-part. They were people we lived with, if you know what I mean. They were opportunities for Grace. There are a lot of Saints pushing around shopping carts.

I don’t want anyone giving any kind of comfort to those in need not doing it. I’d go back if I could. But here’s the thing: no one is more in need of spiritual care than the middle class. And no one gets less of that, I think.

I agree with one thing, we need a lot more religious vocations.

 

[Julia_Mae]

No. Why?

When I first converted and found out there were 3rd Orders, I was really interested. Someone suggested Opus Dei and I looked at their website (this is like 15 years ago now) and it sounded just like your post. That was when I looked into Discalced Carmelites, too. Anyway, maybe you should check into them, I think they are already doing what you are describing. I was looking for something more “religious,” I guess I’d say now, after reading this thread.

Wonder why. Maybe he saw something odd happen in the parish a long time ago that worried him and this is the remaining effect. I’ve seen this happen before. If he’s been there for a while, he may know something about the dynamics of the parish that many of the parishioners don’t.

Well, the guy who wants all the control is a young guy and the one who pretty much let the Parish run itself was an old guy. I’m thinking once the young guy gets older, he’ll learn we really don’t need a priest hanging around to look at Jesus and say the Divine Mercy Chaplet!

 

[JReducation]

Entirely valid, Brother, as your own personal opinions and concepts. view of Catholic laity in parish and Church life and the way we and it should be going, the direction it should take.
Our parish this year is embarking on a number of diocesan programs that will be formation programs for parishioners - and this is the way that our parish feels that it should be going according to the concepts and opinions, views, of our parish leadership. These programs do include steps, it is hoped, towards reinforcing a real sense of community both in the parish and towards outreaching beyond the parish. It will be a trial and review process to see what is working and what may not be working. It’s probably going to have quite a few problems and concerns as things get underway, much as the changes to religious life post V2 may have caused problems and concerns. We can either look on all this with a negative and defeatist, pessimistic, attitude, or we can look on it all as a challenge to achieve diocesan and parish goals with a readiness to ‘change gears’ if necessary. We intend with God’s Grace to “put our hand to the plough” (Luke 9) and not look back, but keep going forward in whatever direction seems necessary.

I believe this is the way to go. What the laity is hungry for is actually something that most have never experienced, because they’re too young. I believe that they are hungry for that Catholic community with which they not only celebrated the Eucharist on Sundays, but with which they shared their lives between Sundays. This was much easier in the days of Catholic ghettos in America or the old Catholic villages of Europe. Today, with the “Suburban Diaspora” these communities on longer exist. People have to find new methods to recover an “old” way of life.

Just bringing in religious to run you parish school is not going to restore the sense of family that Catholics once shared. If truth be told, the religious in those parishes of the Catholic immigrants were not very involved in the daily life of the parish. The teaching sisters and teaching brothers ran the schools and maybe ran the CCD program and disappeared into their religious houses somewhere on the parish campus.

What gave the community a Catholic culture was that Mrs. Murphy made chicken soup for Mrs. Jones who just gave birth to her fourth child. Mr. Smith and Mr. DeMieri coached the parish boys in some sport or led the parish scouts, while Mrs. O’Malley and Mrs. McCormick baked baked cookies for the fundraiser and the Holy Name Society sold tickets to the parish dance. Scattered in there were the weekday masses, special novenas, days of Benediction and other pious practices.

When I read many posts on CAF, I get the impression that many people believe that if we just got the sisters to don the old habits and take over the parish school, got the brothers to take over the high school, and brought a few friars in with some lay brothers to clean the church and rake the leaves, everything would be Catholic again. That bologna and two slices of bread make a nice sandwich.

Those sisters were there, because those kids were the children of immigrants. They were poor and had no place to go where they could get a good education and be welcome. The discrimination against them because of their ethnic heritage and their Catholic faith was very real, not to mention that many had parents that did not understand the American educational system and could not navigate it. The sisters were truly serving the poor.

The brothers who taught high school were there because the other option was to join orders of mixed life. But after Vatican I, the Church made the mistake of turning over the controls of the orders to the ordained who quickly cut off their non ordained brothers. They no longer went out on apostolic missions. They could not go to school. They had to eat, recreate and pray in separate spaces, because they were not worthy to share the same space as the ordained. In the morning, they had to rise an hour earlier to make breakfast for the priests. At night they went to bed an hour later, after they cleaned up the ashtrays, threw out the beer bottles, and shined the priests shoes that were left outside of the cells for the lay brother to shine. Benedict, Bernard, Francis, John de Matha and the Servite founders were probably rolling over in their graves to see what their communities had become. Those men who were called to the religious life, but were gifted with high intelligence, creativity, initiative and a passion for apostolic and mission work had two choices: a) become teaching brothers or b) enter religious communities devoted to healthcare.

When Vatican II said, “Enough” and the Code of Canon Law demanded that the fraternal orders recover their former way of life, those men who would have entered teaching and nursing communities now saw possibilities for themselves as friars and monks. They could bring their gifts to the table and be accepted as equals and they were not boxed into classrooms, which was the only place where they were allowed to show that they could think and had intelligence. This drained the Catholic high schools of brothers.

 

[JReducation]

I remember telling a friend of mine that I was going to join one of the Franciscan communities. He was joining the Xaverian Brothers. His immediate response was, “Why are you doing that? You’re a smarty guy.”

I also remember arriving at my first parish assignment to take over from a priest. He had been the associate pastor. Now, there was going to be one ordained friar and four non-ordained friars. Three were going to do the usual manual labor, but I was going to be the pastoral assistant. I was going to do spiritual direction, marriage counseling, marriage preparation, preach retreats, coordinate the ministries of the parish and the priest was going to celebrate the sacraments and take care of the administration and personnel management of the parish. That pastor made my life impossible. He was one of my brothers. But he had never worked with another brother who was not a priest as his pastoral associate. I remember his very first question to me. “What do you know about he care of souls?” I looked at him and smiled. Then I said, “Not as much as God does, but I will try to do as good a job as our Father Francis did.” He turned purple. The last thing that he wanted to be reminded of was that Francis was not a priest and was a guardian of souls. It brought down the world that they had created for about 100 years out of the 800 of the order’s existence.

To this day,there are people right here on CAF who mourn the fact that those days of 5 priests have been replaced by one priest, several brothers or sisters and a dozen lay people.

They believe that the loss of the Catholic parish is due to these changes, not to the fact that the complexion of the Catholic community changed. These so called changes were really a return to something that had existed until Vatican I. When people are too young and don’t know the history of the Church, they don’t know this. It’s easier to blame the loss of the Catholic community on what they perceive as changes among clergy and religious than on actual social and economic changes that impacted the lives of Catholics.

It’s true that you will never get many of the former teaching communities to go back to the parish. It’s not because they are bad people. It’s because the parish school is not what it was. The profile of the student does not fit the profile of the student that their founders had in mind. Obviously, there are not enough Jesuits, Dominicans and Holy Cross religious who are called to work with this new generation of Catholic students. The laity has to step in and take over the parish school and CCD.

But you can’t just throw the layman into this situation. He can’t be a lone horse out there. He must be part of a parish family and this parish family has to include his nuclear family. I have a wonderful friend who is very involved in religious education while his wife sits on the side and watches. There is nothing for her and their five children. That’s not a truly apostolic life.

Now we’re at an impasse. The religious are not going to come back to the middle class parish. Those religious who are allowed to serve the middle class are not enough. The layman shouldn’t be separated from his spouse and children by his apostolate. Just as the religious were united around the apostolate, the parish family has to be united around the apostolate. That’s why I’m a big believer in public associations of the faithful such as Opus Dei and others that involve the family.

BTW, laypeople for some reason don’t usually use the word “apostolate” since they tend to use the trendy word “ministry” which kind of tells you how they think that works. If you don’t have a “ministry” or so it goes, then you are not “active in your parish,” or so they say. The opportunities are very limited according to the conventional idea of “ministries.” Not much imagination if you ask me.

The term “ministry” has been inappropriately used with the laity. The term minister has two connotations and neither has anything to do with apostolic life and service.

The first use is a liturgical use. It applies to both the ordained and the lay who minister during the celebration of the sacraments.

The second use is a conventual use. It refers to the religious superior of a mendicant community. His vocation is to minister to his brothers or sisters as Christ ministered to his Apostles.

The corporal and spiritual works of mercy were assigned by Christ to the Apostles. Hence the term apostolate. The Apostles called on the faithful to cooperate wit them in the corporal and spiritual works of mercy. We see this very clearly in Acts when the community of believers brought its gifts and laid them at the feet of the Apostles for the material and spiritual good of the whole.

To engage in an apostolate is to engage in the temporal and spiritual works of the Apostles. To engage in ministry is to engage in sacramental service either as an ordained minister or as a layman who has a role in the sacramental celebration. The other, is to assume the responsibility for the care of a conventual community.

The word apostolate is very rich and has a noble meaning.

Fraternally,

Br. JR, OSF