Making time for what matters

Don't criticize: serve, and take the risk of criticism from others and even from ourselves

Following on my last article, the question before us is what, then, is the role of the laity, and are we to be concerned with the state of the Church and the state of the hierarchy?

The answer to the questions is yes, of course. We love the Church with filial piety and like good sons and daughters, we don’t criticize the Church or the Church’s leaders. We pray for them. We study Church history, theology, and the Magisterium. We immerse ourselves in Holy Scripture and seek to think with the mind of the Church. We offer commentary to Church authorities within the realm of our expertise, when we are asked to do so or when our consciences prompt us to speak. We listen to what our clergy say and teach, from the pulpit, in teaching venues, in the confessional, and in other places as they present themselves, and we seek to put into action the principles they present for our consideration. Action is the antidote to much of our suffering — but not any action: action that is grounded in truth and tempered by love, undertaken for the glory of God and the salvation of souls.

We may undertake these actions within the context of the Church — through participation in ministries, councils, and boards when we are asked to do so, and in organizations with specific focuses that arise from the Gospel imperative and that speak to us.

But this is not the ordinary locus of activity for the laity. Our place is in the world, implementing in the world the truths and principles that the Church proposes to us through her pastors. Ours is to form families and homes — the domestic church is the first church. Ours is to exercise professional responsibilities in accord with the precepts of the Faith and of the natural law. Ours is to shape our enterprises, to the extent we can, in accordance with the natural law. It falls to us to participate in civil life, in politics, seeking to build with others, Christian and otherwise, a society that is just and equitable: this requires us to know our Faith and the distinctions between supernatural and natural truths, as well as to know how to be gracious and persistent in pursuing and implementing agendas we know to be correct while acknowledging and accommodating different points of views and priorities that are legitimate and worthwhile for society. The Church proposes, she doesn’t impose: so, too, in our dealigns with others, we propose, we persuade, we win over, we build with others societies that give priority to what is truly human, and to what is true, good, and beautiful.

It falls to us, too, to take special care for the weak, the poor, and the sick. This work is hard for us to do. Much easier to dig into our families, businesses, careers, and other ventures that favor the interests we seek to advance — good and laudable ones — and the general common good. But there is something about hands-on, direct-contact work with the poor, the sick, the aged, and the incarcerated that changes us for the better when we don’t engage in those works for personal advantage. Favoring legislation and policy that provides money and services to the poor, giving to charities, perhaps even giving money directly: all good, perhaps, but not if the money is a shield between “us” and “them.” When the Lord separates the sheep and the goats in Matthew 25, there’s no word about those who “gave at the office,” or in the second collection, or who supported social justice legislation. No: it’s the hands-on work, the direct encounter, that the Lord prizes, and it’s the lack that he condemns.

The work is hard. Facing the prisoner, the sick, the aged requires us to face our own mortality and our good fortune that we assume is ours by right as a matter of course. We easily forget that everything we have is gift — our lives, our Faith, our families, our careers, our bodies minds and souls: all of this has been given to us, and all of it can be taken away in the flash of an eye. The prisoner, the sick, and the aged are just like us, and we are just like them. We are all in need of love; we are all in need of companionship; and to God, we are all sick and all imprisoned one way or another. It isn’t that the best way to get what we most desperately need is to give away what we have. It’s the only way. If the work is hard, it is good, for when we give life and hope to others, we receive it back in ways we cannot imagine and in which it falls to each of us to discover.

As summer is about to begin, now is a good time to consider how we might visit the poor and sick, alone or with our spouses and children, as part of our summer activities. The press of the school year is behind; before us lies the horizon of days to be filled with adventure and good cheer. Bringing good cheer to those who need it is an adventure that fills our souls, and it may change our lives, too, making them more Christ-like, compassionate, gracious, and caring. Besides, I doubt we will one day want to hear the response to the protest, “I didn’t have time.”