By Gertrude Heartwood.
In Fr. (now Bishop) Robert Barron’s video series Catholicism, he points out that Our Lord Jesus did not have any religious status in his society. He was not a member of the priestly class and was neither a scribe nor a Pharisee. He was a manual laborer, a member of the laity. So now are we, who once had “religious status” as members of a religious community, counted among the laity.
All states of life were elevated by him, for although he was a regular working man, he also was the model for all in religious life, living poverty, chastity and obedience; and he is the Eternal High Priest. We know that all priests derive their priesthood from His; that all religious follow him more closely in the evangelical counsels; yet he is simultaneously a lay person.
Reflections like these can comfort those of us who pursued religious life and left, but we can never get away from the fact that we no longer remain in what is considered by the Church to be the objectively more perfect way of life which persons in religious vows have been called to live.
Lay people are not called like priests and religious to a supernatural vocation. We may be chosen for the married state of life, or for some ministry in the Church, but this is not the same sort of call that a priest or religious receives…a summons to a way of life that can only be lived because of the grace that is available from the Redeeming Act of Christ. Prior to Christ, the celibate priesthood and the consecrated life did not exist. These are possible only because of the new economy of grace brought about by the Blood of His Cross.
So here we are, just regular folk, living a regular type of life. Some of us are single, some of us are married. But our states in life are nothing new, nothing particularly Christian. All cultures and religious traditions have married people and single people. We are just plain Janes.
And yet, are we really?
In the purely lay state, having no Church status to rely upon, we can show forth the essentials of the Christian gifts, the changes that Christianity brings to human beings. We look, dress, talk, live like secular folk. But we have the Holy Trinity within us. We have a mother in heaven who watches over us. We have a guardian angel. We have grace upon grace upon grace. We are new creations. Furthermore, if we are married, we can live that state in life at a higher level, at the level of grace, because it has been elevated to a sacrament.
These hidden treasures of grace we possess within are like jewels sparkling out quietly from within us, upon a world that is inhabited by darkness. People will catch the sparkles if we remain in His Love, and be drawn to Him too. And that is all we have. Those sparkles of grace. We don’t have a habit, or religious vows, we don’t have a collar, we aren’t set apart. When people look at us and interact with us, it is as persons just-like-them. The only things we have to rely upon to draw people to Christ is His grace inside of us and our cooperation therewith. No one will look at us in a habit and be moved to think of God. But if we wear a smile for them, they may see that they have dignity and that they are loved. If all our interactions with them bear the Light of Christ, the heaviness of their darkness can be lifted from them, if even for a moment.
At the same time, we see the goodness in them, these regular folk like us…though not Christian, they can make us marvel at how they too reflect God’s goodness. His goodness in us, His goodness in them…we and they, regular folk, yet carrying too, the wonder of God’s generous presence.
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