South Texas Catholic (Corpus Christi, Tex.), Vol. 21, No. 36, Ed. 1 Friday, October 17, 1986 Page: 5 of 20
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October 17, 1986—5
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Living the Faith
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Bible Journeys for Christians
Leadership acknowledges
Jollowship ’
1) Exodus 17:8-13 2) 2 Timothy 3:14-4:2 3) Luke 18:1-8
By Father William Maestri_
Few human qualities are more admired than
perseverance. We can’t help but extol the virtues of
those who ‘keep on keeping on.’ We feel ourselves
very blessed by the friend who stands with us in our
dark hour when all are doubting us. In the words of
the biblical wise mam Sirach: “A faithful friend is am
elixir of life; amd those who featr the Lord will find
him” (6:16).
If we are in position of authority we search out
those men and women who have a proven record of
service under pressure. Few are held in more con-
tempt than those who betray or fail to give their last
full measure. Our readings speaik of three who
persevered: Moses, Paul amd a certain widow men-
tioned by Jesus in a parable.
In our first reading Moses is leading the Jews to
the promised land. However, they must pass through
territory held by the unfriendly Amalek. A war
breaks out which requires Moses to hold his staiT (the
staff of God) upright so the Jews will triumph. With a
little help from his friends (Aaron and Hur) Moses is
able to remaun steady. Finally, Joshua is able to
defeat Amalek.
This little story highlights two important aspects of
the spiritual life: first, our God is neither passive nor
unconcerned about His people. God loves His people
and acts on their behalf. Liberation and fidelity in
time of trial lies at the very heaul of the covenant.
Because God loves, God acts.
Secondly, those in positions of leadership need the
support of others. Moses is a great leader but he is
limited. The Bible tells us that Moses grew tired.
Leadership is the ability to know when to accept help
and allow followship to shau*e the burdens of leader-
ship.
In so doing Moses shows that he is a wise leader.
For without adlowing Aaron and Hur to support his
hands the Jews are victorious. Self-sufficiency is an il-
lusion which no true leader will long entertain and no
community should encourage.
From the desert leadership of Moses to the pastoral
leadership of Paul is quite a jump. However, there is
a constant theme: remain faithful to your ministry
and allow others to be fellow-workers for the Gospel.
Paul is encouraging his fellow-worker Timothy “to
preach the Word, to stay with this task whether con-
venient or inconvenient—correcting, reproving, ap-
pealing—constantly teaching and never losing pa-
tience.”
The battle is no longer against Amalek but against
the demons of popularity, expediency and the easy
fad rather than the hard truth. A decadent minister
in Faulkner’s Light in August offers the following:
‘‘That which is destroying the church,” he sadly
muses to himself, ‘‘is not the outward groping of
those within it nor the inward groping of those
without it, but professionals who control it and who
have removed the bells from its steeples.
Church leadership must continue to keep the bells
ringing—Jesus is alive—and mediate the love of God
in Jesus. If not, the bells ring no more and the
steeples are leveled off at the human horizon.
Jesus tells the parable of the persistent widow who
nags the judge into a favorable decision (a type of
biblical 'People’s Court’). Jesus commends the
widow because of her tenacity but condemns the cor-
rupt judge who acts out of indifference and fear of the
widow.
There is something to be learned from this
parable, namely, we need to be persistent in our
prayer life. Our God is not a corrupt judge but a lov-
ing Father who provides us with the things we truly
need. The real question is posed by Jesus thusly: But
when the Son of Man comes, will he find any faith on
the earth?” Will Jesus find a persistent faith in our
life?
In many ways we are like this unknown widow.
Our lives of quiet persistence are not in the public eye
or taken note of. We daily go about living in such a
way that our "faith is known to God alone.” The
true greatness of our lives is found in the degree to
which we are faithful to God’s word.
But one thing is different: our God is never uncar-
ing or indifferent. Our God seeks us out and wants to
share His life with us. Again a question: do we want
to be found by the God who searches for us?
The blurring of religious life
By Dolores Curran
When I began writing this column in 1967 most of
my editors were priests. Today, most are lay. When I
began lecturing at religious education congresses in
1971, I was an oddity as a lay speaker. I was routine-
ly asked if I was a former nun. Today we find as
many non-clergy and non-religious speakers as we do
others.
In the intervening years we have witnessed
dramatic changes in the professional makeup of our
church. Lay teachers occupy more classrooms than
Religious. It is not uncommon to find laity heading
diocesan offices like Catholic Community Services,
Religious Education and Family Life with Religious
working under them. We are finding laity even in
unlikely church offices such as liturgy, vocations and
annulments.
Indeed, when this era of church history is written,
the phenomenon of the emerging laity in areas
formerly reserved to clergy and Religious will be
noted. The question historians will likely ask is,
“Why the emergence of laity at this time in church
history?”
Dwindling vocations will be one answer, of course,
but there are others. A highly educated Catholic
population has given us lay resources we never had
before. The multiplicity of ministries calling for pro-
fessionally trained personnel is another reason. I con-
ducted a workshop for a diocesan Catholic Com-
munity Services department which employs over 50
social workers, all of them lay.
But I believe there is another reason: Catholic laity
are drawn to ministry much like Religious and clergy
are. They want to carry out God’s word in their work
life as well as in their pastoral life and today there is
an opportunity to do this. We haven’t had that op-
portunity before.
In earlier church history, laity who wanted to play
an active role in spreading the Gospel had to embrace
Religious life to do so. Religious communities, in
fact, were formed by laity who began charity homes
and schools and then became institutionalized by tak-
ing vows and becoming an order. (Sisters, incidental-
ly, are still called laity in the Church, although they
are an institutionalized laity.)
Today we have groups of laity, Religious and
clergy working alongside each other in the Catholic
Worker, Sanctuary, Peace and other movements but
they show little need for becoming an order.
What does all this mean to the Church? Besides
renewed life and more actively ministry, it creates
some problems, mainly loss of hierarchical control.
Laity and lay movements are not canonical in
nature. They don’t take a vow of obedience to the
papacy. Much of the tension we have witnessed in
the past few years emanates from this lack of control.
Another problem is that the laity are becoming
more educated than the clergy. They are flocking to
scripture classes and theology schools. I know of at
least one seminary that bestowed more Master of
Divinity degrees on laity than seminarians this year.
Many laity teach in seminaries.
If this trend continues, the meaning of vocation
and religious life is likely to change. If two women,
one lay and one Religious, work side by side in the
same ministry and both go home to apartments and
pray, who has the higher calling?
I suspect this blurring of identity plays a large role
in dwindling vocations. If we minister on the same
level, receive the same theological education and
practice a deep faith life, we aren’t as likely to be at-
tracted to Religious life as earlier laity were.
Recently I heard a lay woman say, ‘‘I resent the
terms, ‘Religious Woman’ and ‘Religious Life.’ I
am a religious woman and I live a religious life.”
Perhaps we need a new vocation term: ‘‘Religious
Laity.”
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Freeman, Robert E. South Texas Catholic (Corpus Christi, Tex.), Vol. 21, No. 36, Ed. 1 Friday, October 17, 1986, newspaper, October 17, 1986; Corpus Christi, Texas. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth840856/m1/5/: accessed July 16, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu.; .