PEOPLE of GOD
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Archbishop Wester Highlights the Role of Lay Ministers at Recent Convocation Sr. Mary Edna Pearl Esquibel, CSSF, Director, Religious Education
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n the cold and beautiful Saturday of January 11, 2020, Archbishop John C. Wester gathered with hundreds of lay ministers of the Church, deacons and priests called in convocation to reflect on and pray over lay ecclesial ministry at Saint John XXIII parish in Albuquerque. Following morning prayer presided by Archbishop Wester, participants listened to Archbishop’s keynote in which he highlighted the foundational sacrament of baptism in all ministers’ lives. He reminded those present that every other sacrament, everything one does, everything that one is, is grounded on that day of baptism. And, when “baptism assumes its rightful place in the lived experience of our Catholicism, lay ministry will be seen as truly what it is, as important as it is, as critical as it is.” To that end, Archbishop Wester reminded those gathered that the first paragraph of the Decree on the Apostolate of the Laity states, “The apostolate of the laity derives from their Christian vocation and the Church can never be without it.” He went on to share that the Dogmatic Constitution Lumen Gentium and subsequent teachings of the Church state “the laity are called by God to the sanctification of the world from within, like leaven in the spirit of the Gospel by fulfilling their own particular duties.” This insight struck home to
many of the attendees who knew their Church community had a need they can fulfill, but had not stopped to reflect on the very fact that they had been called forth by God. Archbishop Wester went on to remind us that we each must exercise our baptismal call and that we cannot deny that call. We have both a right and a mandate to exercise our ministry. Addressing the inherent dignity of the lay ecclesial minister, Archbishop offered “the Lay Ecclesial Minister is intimately one with Christ and is sharing that union with Christ. What we do is an expression of our intimate relationship with Jesus Christ. It is essential that ministers think about themselves not just in what they do, not just their functions; but who they are. Each of us is a unique, precious self that God has created. And that is the very self that God is asking you to give him and to the world and to the Church. That is your ministry!” Recognizing that serving as a lay minister can be challenging, Archbishop Wester encouraged the assembly with these words: “You are not alone. You are working with everybody. The whole Church together. It is a shared ministry. It is what God is doing in you and as a community.” Archbishop concluded with his grateful blessing to those ministers before him and with the words of theologian Edward Hahnenberg. “To live one’s life as a response to God’s call is a pilgrimage. A shared journey of faith. Solidarity and transformation in the light of Christ. The marks of a very different kind of quest. The marks… of lay ecclesial ministry.”
february 2020
