Year of the Laity

Introduction:The CBCP declared 2014 to be the Year of the Laity. It officially began last Dec 1 with the release of the Pastoral Exhortation titled, Filipino Catholic Laity: Called to be Saints Sent Forth as Heroes penned by Archbishop Soc Villegas, the new CBCP President. As some of you may know, the Philippine Church is preparing for 2021 the 500th year of Christianity in the Philippines (from 1521 to 2021). The highlight of the preparations is 9 years of intensive evangelization with a different theme each year from October 21, 2012 until March 16, 2021. A nine-year journey for the New Evangelization has already been charted climaxing with the Jubilee Year 2021: Integral Faith Formation (2013); the Laity (2014); the Poor (2015); the Eucharist and of the Family (2016); the Parish as a Communion of Communities (2017); the Clergy and Religious (2018); the Youth (2019); Ecumenism and Inter-Religious Dialogue (2020);Missio ad gentes(2021). These are the nine pastoral priorities of the Church in the Philippines. Last liturgical year, 2013, we celebrated a Year of Faith. This liturgical year, 2014, is time for a Year of the Laity.One small sidenote, it would be good to note the correct pronunciation for the word laity. It should be read a leyyi-tee, not ley-te. In the CBCP Pastoral Exhortation, Filipino Catholic Laity: Called to be Saints Sent Forth as Heroes, Bishop Soc, underlines the need to empower the laity. Faith and EvangelizationFr. James Kroeger in his article Celebrating the Year of the Laity envisions this empowerment as a renewal of the laity, a renewal that is founded on the pillars of faith and evangelization. We constantly need to ask: What is the role of faith-filled laity in evangelization? How do laity live, proclaim, witness, and transmit Christs Gospel to humanity? How can the laity facilitate the opening up of peoples lives, society, culture and history to the person of Christ and his living community, the Church?Our Philippine history would tell us that, we look forward with gratitude and joy to March 16, 2021, the fifth centenary of the coming of Christianity to our beloved land. We remember with thanksgiving the first Mass celebrated in Limasawa Island on Easter Sunday March 31 that same blessed year. We remember the baptism of Rajah Humabon who was given his Christian name Carlos and his wife Hara Amihan who was baptized Juana in 1521. Our eyes gaze on the Santo Nio de Cebu, the oldest religious icon in the Philippines, gift of Ferdinand Magellan to the first Filipino Catholics that same year. Indeed the year 2021 will be a year of great jubilee for the Church in the Philippines. (CBCP Pastoral Letter on the Era of New Evangelization)

Moreover, when we talk about faith and evangelization, we are reminded that Evangelization indicates proclamation, transmission and witnessing to the Gospel given to humanity by our Lord Jesus Christ and the opening up of peoples lives, society, culture and history to the Person of Jesus Christ and to His living community, the Church.ThisNew Evangelizationis primarily addressed to those who have drifted from the Faith and from the Church in traditionally Catholic countries, especially in the West.What we are being called to do by this task of New Evangelization in Asia is to consider anew the new methods and means for transmitting the Good News more effectively to our people.We are challenged anew to foster in the Church in our country a renewed commitment and enthusiasm in living out the Gospel in all the diverse areas of our lives, in real-life practice, challenged anew to become more and more authentic witnesses of our faith, especially to our Asian neighbors as a fruit of our intensified intimacy with the Lord.Being witnesses of this faithSince we are talking about faith and evangelization, we will not go further in looking for examples, we should see the situation of our own local Church here in the Philippines. Bishop Socrates Villegas recounted that, while the Philippines has been a Catholic nation for almost 500 years and a vast majority of Filipinos are Catholic, majority of the corrupt people in government and business are Catholic, majority of politicians who buy votes are Catholic, and majority of Filipinos who sell their votes are Catholic. Hence, there is an urgent need to renew the social and political fabric of our country. The bishops further add, Individual goodness is not sufficient anymore. The good individual will only be swallowed up by the evil system. Bishop Soc notes the insufficiency of our religious festivities and educational systems, It is certainly a shameful proof of our failure to evangelize our country that our churches are filled with people, our religious festivities are fervent, our Catholic schools are many, but our country is mired in poverty and in corruption. There appears to be a disconnection between the faith we profess and the actions we commit. On the positive side, the CBCP lauded the faith exhibited by Filipinos, especially when faced with devastating calamities. They said, what Filipinos have is a paradox of poverty and abundance. We may be anguished, dazed, and lost in the face of recent calamities but amid all these, the abundance of hope, faith, and love surfaces. These are the jewels of Filipino dignity. The first and most important truth about you Filipino Catholic laity is not poverty but the greatness of your dignity. The CBCP went on to stress the role of the laity to transform the world by penetrating the different straits of society where we participate. Noting the words of the Supreme Pontiff, they said, You must go into the world of the family, of business, of economics, of politics, of education, of the mass media and the social media, to every human endeavor where the future of humanity and the world are at stake and to make a difference. We can draw strength from reading the Word of God and the seeking recourse to the Sacraments. More importantly, we must evangelize through our own simple means by making our faith bear on our day-to-day decisions and activities.Concrete ideasIn order to concretize these basic statements of faith and evangelization, The Catholic Bishops Conference of the Philippines In their pastoral letter, Live Christ, Share Christ, state their vision for the Year of the Laity. andoutlined important pillars for evangelization. First, fostering and fulfilling themissio ad gentes, as a special vocation of the Church in our country, effectively involving our laypeople, our Christifideles brothers and sisters; our priests and seminarians; men and women in consecrated life.Secondly,bringing Good News to the poor.Again and again, Filipino Catholics coming together to discern priorities, have seen that the Church here must become genuinelya Church for and with the poor.Thirdly,reaching outto those among us whose faith-life has been largely eroded and even lost due to the surrounding confusion, moral relativism, doubt, agnosticism; reaching out tothose who have drifted from the Faith and the Church, and have joined other religious sects.Lastly, awakening or reawakening in faith, forming and animating in Christian life ouryoung peopleand youth sector groups, in both urban and rural settingsIndeed, the role and identity of the laity cannot be adequately grasped without recalling that the pilgrim Church is missionary by her very nature (AG 2). Without a commitment to missionary evangelization, the Church (laity, religious, ordained) is simply not true to her identity as the Church Christ established!The Church exists out of her faith in Jesus the Word incarnate sent by the Father, a faith generated by the Holy Spirit. And the Church exists in order to bring the good news of salvation in Jesus Christ to all people.Pope Paul VI insists that evangelizing is the grace and vocation proper to the Church, her deepest identity (EN 14). He gave a superb definition of evangelization: evangelizing means bringing the Good News into all strata of humanity, and through its influence transforming humanity from within and making it new (EN 18). Indeed, how are lay people to bring the Gospel into all strata of humanity [social, political, economic, cultural, spiritual, etc.] and thus transform the world?Our bishop-shepherds continue: Yet, the gifts of the Holy Spirit through these sacraments [Baptism and Confirmation] often remain dormant. This year is to be devoted to the renewal of the laity, to their empowerment or more accurately to activating their charisms from the Spirit, so that they may indeed take up their role as co-responsible agents of evangelization and lead in the task of social transformation.A challenge left for usA challenge is stated by our bishops: We need to hear again the great commandment for mission, the mission mandate of Christ Jesus himself: As the Father has sent me, even so I send you (John 20:21). A probing, disturbing question arises: Are we truly convinced of the mission-identity of the laity?So as we embark on a nine-year spiritual journey that will culminate with the great jubilee of 2021 we must bear in mind of this grace-filled event of blessings for the Church. We should always remember that indeed that October 21 of last year, when the Holy Father Pope Benedict XVI add another Filipino to the canon of saints of the Church, our very own Visayan proto-martyr Pedro Calungsod who gave his life for the faith on the morning of April 2, 1672 in Guam, it was a great honor as well as a great challenge to all of us. We should not also forget our First Filipino saint in the person of Saint Lorenzo Ruiz, who died for the faith. His famous sord were: "Ego Catholicus sum et animo prompto paratoque pro Deo mortem obibo. Si mille vitas haberem, cunctas ei offerrem." {I am a Catholic and wholeheartedly do accept death for the Lord; If I had a thousand lives, all these I shall offer to HimIn the time before us, we will focus on these dimensions of faith, evangelization and discipleship, one by one. And it is most propitious that as we received the faith 500 years ago, so with the Year 2021we envision to become a truly sending Church.In the face of a secularism which in some parts of our present world has itself become a kind of a dominant religion, in the face of the reality of billions who live in our time and who have not truly encountered Jesus Christ nor heard of His Gospel, how challenged we are, how challenged we must be, to enter into the endeavor of the New Evangelization! We for whom Jesus has been and is truly the Way, the Truth and the Life, how can we not want and long and share Him with brothers and sisters around us who are yet to know and love Him, who are yet to receive the fullness of Life for which we have all been created, and without which their hearts will be ever restless until they find Jesus and His heart which awaits them?May our Lady, Mary Mother of Our Lord, lead us all in our longing and labors to bring her son Jesus Christ into our time and our world, our Emmanuel our God who remains with us now and yet whose coming again in glory we await.Maranatha, AMEN.Sources:1. Bishop Soc Villegas, Year of the laity intro Document Transcript at http://www.slideshare.net/karlolara/year-of-the-laity-intro2. Celebrating the Year of the LaityFiled under: Living Mission - Fr. James Kroeger | 3. CBCP Pastoral Letter on the Era of New EvangelizationDeo gratias Eyeshield211406061421:50