It is very nice to be in Gladstone. I am aware what a missionary centre it is. Marists are a missionary congregation and it is good to be reminded of this. I have spoken so far in Australia to groups of lay people. This is the first time I have spoken to all the branches of the Marist family. I was also glad to the Sisters of Mercy who taught me as a small boy in Dunedin. The Mercy Sisters draw attention to something which is very central to the Marist charism. Mary is the mother of mercy. The first Marists set out for mission father Colin gave a sermon say “we come among you however unworthy as instruments of Divine mercyâ€. Marists believe that our founders are gifts not only to us, but to the whole church. They are there for all of us.
I would like to begin by recalling the enormous shift in attitude towards the laity in the church and the Marist family. The two changes can be summed by with the official change of Canon Law of 1917.
In the Church and the Society of Mary there has been a massive shift in the way in which we see the laity. That is clear in the documents of the Vatican Council. Both in what they say and use and also in the new code of Canon Law promulgated in 1983 and in the documents from the Synod on the Laity in 1987.
There is a key concepts from the code of Canon Law from 1917 which recognises two fundamentally distinct and equal groups. Clergy and Laity. Even today when a priest leaves the priesthood, we say he has been reduced to the “lay stateâ€. This is a carry on of the old mentality. What you get in the old code is people that are passive and subordinated to the clergy.
The second attitude was the work of spreading the Gospel was primarily the responsibility of the pope and bishops. Others shared that work by being designated by them. The presumption then was that the average Christian had a more passive role of supporting the endeavours of the people. The big shift today as Lumen Gentium does, is that there is only one call to holiness which is shared equally by all people. This gets away from this hierarchical suggestion of various levels of holiness. There is only one call to holiness which will all share. Everyone because of their baptism and confirmation is called to promote the kingdom and spread the good news. They are designated to do that by their baptism and their confirmation. This is an enormous shift.
You are talking about new possibilities that have open up for the laity both in their personal life and in their outreach to others. They have to be formed to make the most of these new opportunities.
When you are talking about formation you are talking about two things really. First of all you are not talking about someone who is going to come in with a full program and put the whole thing down from on high in the way we used to perhaps think. No. Formation today must be an interaction between those that can contribute something and those who can respond to it.
What is the formation you are talking about basically? We are talking about the work of the Lord. We are talking about spreading the kingdom.....
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