To the Laity in Service of the Church (18 November 1980)

In Fulda, Germany, on 18 November 1980, the Holy Father addressed lay workers in church ministry, to whom he expressed his appreciation for their work, noting that practicing an ecclesiastical profession as a layperson often means ”having to reconcile the demands of the ecclesiastical profession, the demands of the family and the demands of personal life."

Brothers and sisters in Christ, dear ministers!

It was particularly important to me, after my encounter with my fellow priests and bishops at the tomb of St. Boniface to also meet with you here in this memorable place, who share with them the burden of the day to a large extent through their collaboration in the Church's mission. I am delighted that so many of you have come and greet you all from the bottom of my heart.

1. In the Church of Jesus Christ, from its organization, a defining characteristic of His disciples has been that they were of one heart and soul. At the same time, a wealth of ministries, gifts and tasks developed in the first Christian communities. St. Paul repeatedly uses the image of the one body having many members. These ministries were by no means limited to the ministry mediated through sacramental Ordination. In building up the congregation, in witnessing to faith, in serving the neighbor, the church has to take on a variety of tasks, which in principle anyone who has received baptism and confirmation and is actively involved in the unity of the church can take on.

In the young churches in particular, the gospel can only grow if many make themselves available to these diverse ministries with full commitment. But in old Europe, where the Church is more and more immersed in a secularized world, isn't the same thing necessary? The life of the church in your country is more dependent than ever on many who make the cause of the church their own, use their time and energy so that the church remains and becomes alive and credible. Here the main emphasis is initially on the voluntary service, which countless people carry out alongside their professional work, often with great sacrifice. But it is a sign of the dynamism of the church when people make themselves available to the church with all their skills and all their time, including for professional reasons. Many of the pastoral, social, and educational works and accomplishments that characterize the church in your country could not be done without full-time workers. It is a pleasure for me to meet today this group, which plays a vital role in the ministry of the church. The large number of professionals in the service of the Church is a peculiarity of your country. And I know about the pioneering work that women in this country have done, especially in charity and pastoral work. The large number of professionals in the service of the Church is a peculiarity of your country. And I know about the pioneering work that women in this country have done, especially in charity and pastoral care. The large number of professionals in the service of the Church is a peculiarity of your country. And I know about the pioneering work that women in this country have done, especially in charity and pastoral care.

At the outset, I would like to express my sincere gratitude and appreciation to all the volunteers and professionals in the Church service, through whom they participate effectively in the Church's salvific mission. They apply to everyone without exception - wherever they work - even if I cannot address each individual group specifically and expressly in the following for reasons of time.

Practicing an ecclesiastical profession as a layperson often means making a clear commitment to the church, contrary to the usual habits of life, and having to reconcile the demands of the ecclesiastical profession, the demands of the family and the demands of personal life. You can only succeed in this through a more conscious life from the source, from the Holy Spirit, which you received in baptism and confirmation. I would like to encourage you and give you some pointers on how you can understand and carry out your important ministry from this spirit. What the Lord said to Peter: "Strengthen your brothers", I feel that this is also my task for you. What does that mean: strengthen yourself? It means encouraging you to live by the spirit that filled Jesus Christ, who guides and empowers the Church, which is also given to you in baptism and confirmation and is the source of strength for your ministry. It is the spirit of love, the spirit of testimony, the spirit of the children of God, the spirit of unity.

2. Paul writes in his letter to the church of Rome: "The love of God has been poured out in our hearts through the Holy Spirit". So God's Spirit opens up first as love. It is at the same time his fruit and thus the sign that he is at work; it is the highest of graces, the charism that surpasses all others.

The church has been sent to proclaim and communicate this love, which is ultimately God himself, to people through word and deed. It can only do its job if a little of the salvific content of its message is already tangible in this world. From the very beginning, therefore, the proclamation of the word was accompanied by acts of love - whether with the Lord himself, the sick healed and the needy in the desert looked after; or in the early days of the Church, from which we know, for example, of the special care for the poor in Jerusalem or of the balance between rich and poor communities. Diakonia in all its forms is an indispensable part of proclaiming the gospel. Such diakonia sets the tone of all ministry in the church.

Love is both the foundation and the completion of every calling, every gift of grace and every task.

In this context, however, let me address a special word to those of you who are at the service of ecclesial charity.

Caritas work in your country has had a long history since the German Caritas Association was founded by Lorenz Werthmann. This tree, which he planted at the end of the last century, has really borne bountiful fruit. The members of your association are present in all classes and locations of society in the Federal Republic: they are young and old, for children and families, for the disabled and the sick. With almost 300,000 men and women in charitable service, a whole army of helpers is available - really a mainstay for the social life of the Federal Republic of Germany.

Actually, I don't need to emphasize that this mission is a reason for great joy for me.

First simply because you do so much good; because you wipe away tears and feed the hungry; because you remove loneliness, alleviate pain and enable recovery. But then also because your service proves that “all paths of the church lead to people”.

It testifies to an instinctive knowledge of God's goodness and of the church's commitment to God's message, even if so-called godless or non-religious groups seek the experience of God's goodness and benevolence in the church. For you in the charitable service of the Church, this means a responsibility that can hardly be overestimated. You stand as a pillar in the current of a changing society, which increasingly threatens the dignity of the human being, that of the elderly, of the terminally ill, as well as his ability to pass on life. The protection of all these values ​​is widely entrusted to your hands. For many, the credibility of the church, in which they want to meet the serving love of Christ, depends on your service.

In fact, your work must be based on this. A number of conclusions follow from this, which I can only briefly outline here. Helping those closest to you requires well-founded specialist knowledge, qualified training, and the use of the best possible forces and resources. On the other hand, people need far more than just technical perfection. He has a heart and wants a heart to meet him in the helper. Humanity cannot be replaced by apparatuses and administrations. This is also a reason why, despite the need for the best specialist knowledge and the best instruments, volunteers must keep their place in the charitable service. Certainly he too needs training. But what matters is his willingness to help; his eye for need; the patience with which he listens; his caution without routine, which cannot be alone,

No one is under any illusions: even serving others can become mere habit.

How poor is he who sees it as a mere bread-and-butter job with sufficient income and regular working hours, without charity and the gospel being able to carry him through times of fatigue. But also for those who wanted to consume themselves in this service for the good, who wanted to serve the church, because the acceptance of the message of Jesus is linked to the credibility of the church, everyday life comes for him too. Pity fades, magnanimity wears out, the heart is disappointed. Where does he get the strength to endure in this ministry? First he realizes that this claim is beyond his own strength. He remembers the source that produces love. Should God deny him the power of his spirit when he asks him?

Since it is through the Holy Spirit that God's love was poured into our hearts, it is only presumptuous for one engaged in the ministry of charity to renounce that Spirit because he is mingling with the love of his own heart satisfied. Have not all those who are considered examples of charity in the Church received their empowerment from the Holy Spirit? Many of them have started movements and founded communities. For a while, the spirit of the Gründerzeit was passed on in them as a matter of course. This was all the easier because it was mostly a question of religious orders, which, because of their structure, can preserve their spiritual heritage more easily than other institutions. About 30,000 of the full-time employees in the charitable service are still religious today. And no one should say that one can do without these religious; because their appearance alone points to the inner connection between service to man and the facilitation of this service from God. No one can do without those from whom we hope to help with what is most needed: for the constant renewal and strengthening of our own ability to love through the love that God has ready for us in his Holy Spirit.

3. The spirit that Christ puts into our hearts is the spirit of testimony. Only in the Holy Spirit can we testify that "Jesus is Lord." All Christians are qualified and called to witness. Particularly urgent are those who are not only connected to the church in their private life but also in their professional life, who are “people of the church”. Each of us must ask ourselves whether our personal life testimony and our public and professional behavior correspond to what people expect from the church and the church from people.

For some of you, testimony of faith becomes a direct part of your profession. Among these, I would first like to turn in particular to teachers of religion and catechists.

Viewed superficially, many people today seem to be satisfied with a merely factual achievement, with a merely useful service. However, if you look deeper into people, you often see great personal insecurity, a longing for understanding and opening up the meaning of life. Basically, many people, especially adolescents, want to try to find themselves first.

They cannot do it without someone showing them the way, without being led, just as they are young, to discover the truth about man, the truth about the world and all that it contains. You, who teach religion in schools and similar institutions on behalf of the church, make a contribution whose weight can hardly be measured. You are able to do this because your church has been able to maintain the possibility of religious instruction in schools with prudence and emphasis on the state and society. What a chance for the salvation of the young people of your people! What an opportunity for gospel knowledge in your country! A chance that some non-German educators and pastors envy you for! With the help of God, may you be able to put them to good use!

First of all, this demands a high degree of professionalism from you: qualified leadership and solid theology. Faith pushes from its inner dynamic towards the understanding of faith: fides quaerens intellectum. In a certain respect it is like a substance that demands and endures the entire array of tireless research. It is content that, like many others - yes, apparently more than many others - attracts the questioner and offers the sharp mind ever new opportunities to prove itself. I understand only too well that so many of you have turned completely to theology, that so many in your country are devoted to this science as lay people. Theological studies already have their fascination at the level of knowledge. which more moving

Of course, the content of this word is too significant for the result of such research to be irrelevant. What decides the meaning of a person's life cannot be "yes" and "no" at the same time. Here - if anywhere - the truth is asked; it can be found - at least in the dimensions that are revealed to us humans; it is to be announced - at least in the way that is possible for us humans.

Opinions, private views, speculations are not enough for those who weigh their effect on people's lives and whose reverence for these people is awake. They certainly cannot satisfy anyone who realizes that with theological answers he reaches the very foundation of truth itself. God has revealed his word to us, which we cannot find and accept on our own, using the sheer power of our intellect - as much as it is given and given to our reason to elucidate the credibility of this word and its correspondence to our human questions and knowledge. It lies in the inner logic of revelation that the preservation and interpretation of this word also requires a special gift of the spirit. Therefore, the study of Catholic theology must remain encompassed by the willingness to hear the authoritative testimony of the Church and to accept the decision of those who, as pastors of the Church, have responsibility before God for the preservation of the deposit of faith. "The examination, acceptance or rejection of a teaching is part of the prophetic mission of the Church," as I wrote in my letter to the members of the German Bishops' Conference of May 15 of this year. Without the church, God's Word would not have been handed down and preserved; one cannot want the word of God without a church. Acknowledging or rejecting a teaching is part of the Church's prophetic mission,” as I wrote in my letter to the members of the German Bishops' Conference of May 15 of this year. Without the church, God's Word would not have been handed down and preserved; one cannot want the word of God without a church. Acknowledging or rejecting a teaching is part of the Church's prophetic mission,” as I wrote in my letter to the members of the German Bishops' Conference of May 15 of this year. Without the church, God's Word would not have been handed down and preserved; one cannot want the word of God without a church.

The intellectual understanding of faith must, of course, be supplemented by another aspect: Faith wants more than it is known, it wants to be lived. In the New Testament itself, a belief that is based solely on knowledge is rejected as a perversion - when, for example, the Epistle to James points out that the forces contrary to God also know about the only God; but since they do not affirm this knowledge with their being, they only have to tremble before this God; they will receive punishment, not salvation.

When God addresses his word to us, he does not disclose any data about things or third parties, he does not tell us "something" but himself. As the unsurpassable, dense word of God's self-communication, Jesus is at the same time God himself. This is what God demands Word out an answer that has to be given with our whole person. God's reality escapes those who limit themselves to regarding his word and his truth only as a neutral object of research. The only way of approaching God as God, on the other hand, is worship. Master Eckhart, one of the great mystics of your people, has therefore asked his listeners to quit the "imagined God". God, remaining a mere 'He', leaves us alone and empty. - God says You to us. We only end it when we say you too. As Eckhart says, one should have God present “in the mind, in striving and in love”. Only those who are completely permeated by an intimate, spiritual devotion to the God who is present react appropriately.

Jesus also claims the same turning of the whole person when he brings the message from the Father. His word is not understood as conveying mere factual information, but as a call for discipleship. His sermon aims at the testimony that finds its greatest clarity in the dedication of the life of the first disciples. Beyond the common knowledge, his message wants a personal bond with him, or - as the apostolic letter "Catechesi Tradendae" says - "the unity of life with Jesus Christ".

So your testimony, dear co-workers in our church, is indispensable for passing on the message of Jesus. "Verba docent, exempla trahunt" - the Romans already knew that; and recently a pastoral letter from African bishops read: 'Children learn more by seeing than by hearing'. Testimony is the most important service that you religion teachers can offer your students, that they may experience a little of the Lord's kindness in dealing with you; that reverence for God and commitment to the Church are evident in your conduct; that you convey to them the appreciation of prayer and the celebration of the Eucharist not only with words but also with your personal testimony of life.

4. The Spirit communicated to us by the Son of God makes us also sons and daughters of God.

God did not give us the spirit of bondage but of adoption as children. We should notice that, it should radiate from our service. We should present the church in an inviting, attractive way, precisely as God's family. Of course, this also requires that we do not show any slavery, no mere arithmetic and justice. And at the same time it challenges those responsible in the church to take this “new way” of the gospel into account when dealing with the employees.

I have two groups of ministries in mind here in particular: those of you who work in church administration and thus have a considerable say in the outward image of the church in its behavior towards the public - and then the large number of those who are directly involved in pastoral ministry , in the service of the family of God, as church and pastoral officers, as pastoral assistants.

I want to turn specifically to you, dear pastoral workers. You are small in number compared to the full-time professionals in other church work. But your ministry has a special place among all lay ministries; because he helps with building up the congregations, with witnessing to the gospel in the different groups of the congregation and in the different life situations, with leading those who are far away to the church, with the formation of honorary workers.

The awakening of the commitment of the laity to the service of salvation to other people gives the lie to all pessimists. How many young people are ready to enter this ministry! No one considering this should claim that the gospel has lost its appeal. Because everyone who sets out for this service has their own story. You have hardly set out on this path to the applause of public opinion, but rather to criticism from classmates and sometimes even from relatives. According to many opinions, one cannot turn the willingness to support the life of one's fellow human beings into a profession. That is absolutely out of date. And if, in addition, the future contours of this service are not entirely clear, sometimes unpredictable,

But you suspected that the word of God and the mission of the church need people and that you must not withdraw from this necessity. And I am sure that by now you have not only felt the burden of such obligations, but have already met the gratitude of many people. But such gratitude is the best confirmation of the meaningfulness of our work.

It should be adhered to, even if the further clarification of your job profile still requires a number of considerations; if you don't experience the acceptance and confirmation from everyone in the church that you had hoped for. It seems important to me that you proceed prudently - especially in difficult situations - and remember the idealism of the beginning, that you gradually try to convince the other employees and the communities. We all believe that one and the same Spirit guides the congregations and the hearts of men and has called into being your ministry in the church. It is precisely in the moments of distress that you are called to surrender to this spirit.

I know that this advice of mine is of great importance to you. It implies that someone does not get infected by the constant recalculation of working hours and the right to free time, although this is in the newspaper every day; that he must put his thinking in terms of ladders of promotion behind him, although it is common practice in our society; that identification should succeed more and more, not with the sinless church that we all dream of, but with today's concrete church, which never ceases to be afflicted with human weakness.

Such identification is by no means blind, but makes you see in the right way, namely for the good that you can only discover with the heart - that is, with the look of benevolence. In this way it is possible to track down the positive and to proclaim it convincingly: one can first try to understand the decisions of the bearers of church responsibility, the bishops and the priests, even if others initially criticize them; The motto is not skepticism, the cultivation of inner distance, but the leap of faith.

And one last thing: in pastoral work there is also the ministry of the permanent deacon, who opens up to the sacramental gift of grace from God's call, in order to be close to the people from the altar as the spiritual center of the church, helping and witnessing. Liturgy and proclamation, pastoral work and diakonia show their intimate connection here. If you hear God's call to do so, I ask you: open yourselves to it!

5. Finally, the spirit you have received is the spirit of unity. The many ministries are expressions and gifts of the one spirit. Each must have the courage and humility to say yes to a special gift and responsibility. At the same time, this means: I should take the faith and task of my neighbor as seriously and value it as highly as my own.

Working together, showing consideration for one another, being ready for ever new reconciliation, for ever new beginnings with each other, that is no less important than loyalty to one's own mission. Last but not least, unity means: open, good, patient, understanding cooperation between priests, deacons and lay people. Only if everyone makes an effort can the witness of that unity succeed "so that the world may believe".

A very special request follows: Make the Church's concern for priestly and religious vocations yours too!

All of you shall be assured of my solidarity with your ministry. Please carry mine too! Then the Spirit of the Lord will also renew the face of the Church and the earth through us.
 

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