Fortibus Parentibus
TO THE BRAVE PARENTS
July 2014 Newsletter
News Chaplaincy Schedule Schedule of Masses Mondays & Fridays - 7:50 AM Tuesdays, Wednesdays, and Thursdays - 7:35 AM
Schedule for Confessions (for all) Monday to Friday 10:30 AM - 10:50 AM 11:30 AM - 12:15NN 2:45PM - 3:45PM Extra Schedule for Monday 5:30PM - 7:00PM
Schedule of Spiritual Direction or Counseling (for all) Mondays & Fridays by appointment Phone no. 929-5615 local 112
Recollection for Men Fourth Monday of the Month 6:00PM - 8:00PM
Doctrine Classes for Men Tuesdays 3:45PM - 4:30PM
Recollection & Doctrine Classes for Women (Please ask the Chaplain)
Layout Artist Francis T. Perez
From the Chaplain: Dearest PAREF Northfield Parents: The Northfield Personal Formation Office in collaboration with yours truly would want to foster some more this home-school collaboration through this brief but content-filled monthly leaflet that we aim to give to you ‘Brave Parents’—in Latin, Fortibus Parentibus—of the Northfield community. PAREF believes that the fullness of child education is best realized through integral formation. Crucial to this would be the spiritual and the doctrinal-religious dimension. St. Josemaría Escrivá, whose feast day we celebrate every 26th of June, said: ‘Parents first, teachers second, students last. With the first two sectors properly attended to, the formation of children will come as a natural consequence.‘ Fortibus Parentibus will be the venue by which the School could inform the parents some (a) relevant doctrinal issues that could be guideposts for their personal religious formation (the same topic would actually be discussed in the monthly get-togethers of the faculty teachers of your sons); (b) upcoming events organized by the Chaplaincy, by which they could also benefit; and, (c) other related news. The doctrinal topic for this month is related to our local Church’s celebration of the Year of the Laity. We would be publishing the same contents of the newsletter and more through: www.facebook.com/fortibusparentibus. You may want to send your suggestions and comments by messaging us or commenting on the posts. Thank you very much. We would appreciate to hear from you soon. Rev. Fr. Johnpaul Menchavez Chaplain of PAREF Northfield
Fortibus Parentibus
Doctrine I
“The Essence of being a Lay Person in the Church: to be another Christ in the World”
n the Philippines, when one sees a person spending blessed moments inside the Church to pray daily, one would rashly conclude that the subject is a priest, a ‘brother’, a seminarian, a ‘sister’ or a nun. Perhaps, this illustrates the clericalism and the religious mentality that pervade our ecclesiastical society. The cleric or those dedicated to the religious life are in a privileged position. They seem to be the only models of holiness. They are seen to be responsible in taking the lead in all Evangelical endeavors. Take it or leave it. Generally, such describes the life of the Church in our country: Father Parish Priest initiates everything; Sister Sis leads the community singing; and Brother Bro distributes the communion. Everyone who helps out in the parochial tasks wants to be called “Brother” or “Sister.” Don’t get me wrong. Lay collaborators are needed in the parish, and they are doing a good service. What I am worried about is when they limit their participation in the life of the Church to these responsibilities. When the laity confuse their tasks with those of the priests, or limit their role as assistants in parochial administration, or when they pattern their life with those of the religious (i.e., dressing up like them), they lose their essential characteristic: secularity—their ‘being in the middle of the world.’ The laity are presented with “two temptations [... that they have] not always known how to avoid: the temptation of being so strongly interested in Church services and tasks that [they] fail to become actively engaged in [their] responsibilities in the professional, social, cultural and political world; and the temptation of legitimizing the unwarranted separation of faith from life, that is, a separation of the Gospel’s acceptance from the actual living of the Gospel in various situations in the world.” These considerations are very important as we celebrate the year 2014 as the Year of the Laity in preparation for the 500th year of Christianity in our nation. I opine that if we recognize this ‘power,’ this specificity of the laity, then Christ
could be brought effectively to the four corners of our nation. Who is the lay person anyway? Álvaro del Portillo (1914-1994), successor of the “pioneer of lay spirituality” (St. Josemaria Escriva), and an important figure in the Second Vatican Council’s preliminary Commission ‘On the
Laity’ summed up the Dogmatic Constitution on the Church’s description of the laity’s legal status: “The [laity are] ordinary Christian[s] who live in the midst of the world, undistinguished from other citizens with whom [they] share [their] life, goals, ambitions and interests; [they are] the Christian[s] whose ecclesial mission refers particularly to the world; [they] must promote the Kingdom of God through [their] dealings with temporal matters; [they] must exercise [their] apostolate in the world; [they are] asked to assume responsibility for penetrating the temporal sphere of things with the spirit of the Gospel.”
What then distinguishes the lay person from the other members of the Church, i.e., from the clerics or from those in the consecrated life? Among all the Baptized who share in the common dignity because of their rebirth in Christ and their common vocation to holiness, the laity have something proper and particular to their vocation: the secular character. The two other legal status: the clergy (the deacon, the priest or the bishop), and those dedicated in the consecrated life (the religious) do not have this character, although as members of THE LAY PERSON. PHOTO BY MR. ROMMEL TRINIDAD
the Church, they obviously share in her secular dimension. “All the members of the Church are sharers in the secular dimension but in different ways.” “Clerics are not radically isolated from secular affairs; nevertheless, their function in the profane order is subordinate to their sacred ministry; they may engage only in those [secular] activities which are in keeping with their state, and only in so far as may be compatible with their function in the Church. However, it is important to realize that they basically continue to be immersed in the world: there is no question on their isolation therefrom, but only of
predominance and subordination […]” By their religious profession, the religious, or more precisely those in the consecrated life, are not transformed into human beings who are idlers, and excused from doing manual work such as what monks do. Yet, they are public witnesses in the name of the Church and in the spirit of the beatitudes, and therefore, of the new heaven and of the new earth, and are genuinely separated from the world. It is precisely this separation which provides and makes possible that public eschatological witness which is proper and essential to the religious state. By their function and position in the Church, the religious separate themselves from the natural, secular dynamism—the world—and have a particular mission to perform. Their mission is not to build up the ‘earthly city’, but they are united with the world in the heart of Christ and cooperate with them spiritually. In this way, the work of building up the earthly city can always have its foundation in the Lord and can tend towards Him. […] The lay person is the Christian who is fully immersed in the world, with all the duties and rights that result from that position; together with the rest of humankind, he or she is the builder of the earthly city. As a person and as a Christian, “the lay [faithful] has a temporal commitment, an effective and affective link with this world, which came from the hands of God and whose Creator found it deservingly good.” The religious are proud of their above-mentioned role in the Church: to give public witness to their consecration, to wear their habit—the distinguishing mark of a person in the consecrated life. The priests are also content with their public function, a necessary service to the ecclesial community. Their ‘being in the world’ should not distract them from their primary vocation to administer well the Sacraments, the source of all graces, and give Spiritual Direction. When the religious—because of their status—, and the priests—because of their function—show themselves in public and act as lay persons, the entire People of God suffers because of the confusing signals they could send. When they see the lay person as second-class members of the Church, when they view their importance subject to their participation in parochial initiatives, then we
Fortibus Parentibus have a serious problem. self ] to God as a living, holy and pleasing The Pastoral Exhortation of victim, he or she gives a supernatural the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of the value to work and carries out apostolate Philippines for the 2014 Year of the Laity by means of it. […] For the lay person to has stressed: “[the laity’s] own specific be a good Christian, it is essential that he task, and the special responsibility given [or she] be a good member of the earthto [them] by the Lord is to find [their] ly city; the Catholic doctor has a seriown sanctification in the world, and to ous duty to be a good doctor, the farmsanctify the world and transform it so er has to be a good farmer. Since [men that this world becomes more and more and women are] good because of [their] God’s world, God’s kingdom, where His virtues, the lay [persons] must have and will is done as it is in heaven. [They] are practice the human, natural virtues— called by Jesus to be the salt of the earth which are the bases of the supernatural and the light of the world (cf. Mt. 5:13- ones—and know as much as possible, 16). The Lord Jesus told His disciples within [their] capabilities, about [their] to preach the Gospel to every creature, secular function, that is to say [their] ocand to make all nations His disciples. cupation. For this is what makes [them] This command to the whole Church good member[s] of the earthly city, falls especially on [them], who are in the through which by divine vocation [they] world.” seek the kingdom of God.” Pope St. John Paul II (1920- Pope Pius XII (1876-1958) once stated 2005), in an Apostolic Exhortation, that “the faithful, more precisely the lay would further specify: “The lay faithful faithful, find themselves on the front is called by God in the lines of the Church’s life; secular world. And his or for them, the Church is “The laity have to her place is the world: to perfect their function the animating princi‘live in the world, that is, ple for human society. in every one of the secu- with Christian chari- Therefore, they, in particlar professions and occu- ty; and, by means of it, ular, ought to have an evpations. They live in the they give supernatural er-clearer consciousness ordinary circumstances not only of belonging to of family and social life, value to work and car- the Church, but of befrom which the very fab- ries out apostolate.” ing the Church, that is to ric of their existence is say, the community of the woven.’ They are persons who live an or- faithful on earth under the leadership of dinary life in the world: they study, they the Pope, the head of all, and of the Bishwork, they form relationships as friends, ops in communion with him. These are professionals, members of society, cul- the Church ...” tures, etc. Their condition is not simply If lay persons are the Church, an external and environmental frame- let us not only pray for them, but also work, but as a reality destined to find in respect them with what distinguishes Jesus Christ the fullness of its meaning. them: their secular character. The chalIndeed, it leads to the affirmation that lenge is not that they are involved in the ‘the Word made flesh willed to share in activities of the ecclesial community but human fellowship... [They] sanctified that they know their role in being anoththose human ties, especially family ones, er Christ where they are: in the world. from which social relationships arise, And so the next time you see someone willingly submitting [themselves] to the spending blessed moments inside the laws of [their] country. [They] chose to Church to pray daily, simply ask the lead the life of an ordinary craftsman of Lord that there be many who are edified [their] own time and place.’” by him or her in the middle of the world, What does it mean by encoun- knowing how to bring Christ in their ortering Jesus Christ in the fullness of the dinary tasks, doing them very well and meaning of ordinary life in the world? leading the rest through example. “The lay person is concerned with his or her living presence in the world, involving commitment and immersion in the Want to know more about Alvaro del temporal order. He or she has to raise up Portillo? Visit facebook.com/ and perfect this function with Christian alvarodelportillodaily charity; and, by offering himself [or her-