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Editorial: Every Catholic is called to mission

Baptism of Christ Baptism of Christ
Baptism of the Lord. Shutterstock

What does it mean to be a Catholic? What does it mean to be a member of the Church? As young and old Americans alike continue to disavow religious faith and practice at alarming rates, the question is asked with increasing urgency. As our culture changes, the shape of our evangelizing mission changes.

In his 1964 encyclical Ecclesiam Suam (“His Church”), Pope St. Paul VI writes, “Those who are baptized and by this means incorporated into Christ’s Mystical Body, His Church, must attach the greatest importance to this event. They must be acutely aware of being raised to a higher status, of being reborn to a supernatural life, there to experience the happiness of being God’s adopted sons, the special dignity of being Christ’s brothers, the blessedness, the grace and the joy of the indwelling Holy Spirit” (No. 39). Sixty years ago, the landscape we now inhabit would have been unimaginable for Paul VI. Viewed across the span of history, the pope’s words become all the more pressing.

While the last 60 years of Church history have been marked by extraordinary changes to the Mass, the way the Church is governed, how priests and religious sisters live and minister, the essentials are the same. And in fact they are even more important for us to understand and share. But in particular on the Feast of the Baptism of the Lord, we remember that spreading the extraordinary offer of life as an adopted son or daughter of the Father is in fact the most fundamental part of belonging to the Church.

Through baptism, which incorporates men and women into the life of the Church, we Catholics have been given the extraordinary gift of divine life, grace dwelling in our hearts. That gift of divine life, which irrevocably marks us as Christ’s own, includes three dimensions that unfold throughout our lives. Pope Francis has called our attention to these dimensions of discipleship in the course of the preparations for the ongoing Synod of Bishops.

First, by incorporation into the Church, we are bound to the members of the Church in communion. This communion exists not because of a consensus of faith among believers but because it is founded on the love of the Holy Trinity. In baptism, believers are conformed to the image of Christ the Son, and through their conformity to Christ the Son, they enter the exchange of love between Father, Son and Holy Spirit.

The communion of the Holy Trinity that believers have access to by virtue of their baptism is eternal, dynamic and changeless. The sensus fidei of the faithful stems from this bond. And while it can be easy to lose sight of that fact and believe that our bond of common faith depends on our own consensus, it is in fact Christ who binds us to the Father, the Holy Spirit and one another.

Second, in baptism, the Holy Spirit pours forth his gifts into our hearts. And the gifts of the Holy Spirit are given to the faithful not to be kept or hoarded but to be put at the service of the whole community. These seven gifts — wisdom, understanding, counsel, fortitude, knowledge, piety and fear of God — attune believers to the promptings of the Holy Spirit, making it possible to participate with effectiveness and zeal in the life of the Church. The threat to this participation comes when believers wrongly think that they have nothing to contribute! Each baptized Christian, through prayer, works of service, presence at Mass and more, has something to offer the community of believers.

Finally, each and every baptized person is called to “participate in the apostolic and missionary activity of the People of God” (Catechism of the Catholic Church, No. 1270). The mission of the Church is to evangelize, to continue to offer to non-Catholics the opportunity to receive membership in the body and the gifts of the Holy Spirit. It can be tempting to think that others have a gift for evangelization or the duty to share the Faith, but the fact of the matter is that every Catholic is called to share in the Church’s mission, to make Christ known and loved throughout the world.

Communion, participation and mission: These dimensions of the life of the baptized call for continual renewal, commitment and conversion. The Second Vatican Council teaches in Lumen Gentium, the Dogmatic Constitution on the Church, “​​Now the laity are called in a special way to make the Church present and operative in those places and circumstances where only through them can it become the salt of the earth” (No. 33). Every baptized Catholic is at one and the same time a witness to and a living instrument of the Church. In this new year, may we be faithful to the heights of our baptismal calling.

Our Sunday Visitor Editorial Board: Father Patrick Briscoe, Gretchen R. Crowe, Scott P. Richert, Scott Warden, York Young