The Apostolate of the Laity

Having set in train the Catholics for Growth process some time ago (due thanks to Frs Evans and Anderson), I spent some time after Mass this morning talking with the group co-ordinators. Initially, we set up seven groups, spread geographically throughout the parish to establish easy access for all members of the congregation. The co-ordinators were trusty and true, and well prepared. My expectation was that after the initial unfamiliarity of a forum in which to talk candidly and securely about Christian faith and life, without that sense of having to say the right thing because Father was present, the members of the group might begin to explore their own role within the particular Christian community that is ours. That was the structure provided. They might yet.

There were some who steadfastly refused to have anything to do with meeting anyone else from the congregation outside the confines of the Church building. Although I might have shared their reluctance to 'do groups', I struggle to comprehend the outright refusal to be anything other than a Sunday Christian. There were others for whom the group provided a forum to whinge and moan. I'm sure there is something therapeutic in being able to get things off one's chest about the Vicar in his absence. Then there are those who diagnose the ills of our particular community and suggest initiatives to remedy them, without apparent awareness of the things that are already taking place and which we have, as a congregation, worked together on. I wonder if they ever read the Sunday bulletin or Notice Board, or whether the sermon, Bible Studies and daily routine of prayer are so alien, remote and seemingly clandestine as to be inaccessible to them, or whether they simply cannot join the dots.

Despite all of that, the co-ordinators overall felt that the groups had been positive - together better attended than any course or study session laid on in Church and led by me (what does that tell me?) - and most have made plans to continue with regular meetings.

The alarming thing for me is just how difficult it is to move people on from utter dependency on the clergy for just about everything. The apostolate of the laity is a fine thing but sometimes we seem so far away from beginning to grasp it. Maybe Anglo-Catholics have been so successful in teaching and practising the necessity of priesthood in that part of the Church which is the CofE that we have made the biggest rod for our own backs when it comes to lay people doing anything other than simply being on the receiving end. And that thought alone exhausts me.