“The greatest untapped reservoir of spiritual power in the Church today is in the Laity” (Fulton Sheen). The Christian laity is the point of contact between the secular and the sacred, between the “this worldly” of everyday life, and the “otherworldly” of God’s grace. The Christian is a channel of grace. Just as the soul gives life to the body, and grace gives life to the soul, the Christian, living out their life of supernatural Faith, Hope and Charity, gives witness to the world of the presence of God and His Son’s salvation. As members of the Church, which is the “Universal Sacrament of Salvation” (CCC 776), the role of the laity is to be the “Anima Mundi”, the Soul of the World.
In order to fulfill our calling as witnesses of Christ in the world, we must live our faith. To live our faith, we must understand our faith by learning our faith. In learning our faith we must practice it, fortifying it with the practice of virtue, the sacraments and prayer. Prayer is the principle means of obtaining God’s grace and it is grace that gives us the light of intellect to understand our faith and the strength of will to live it faithfully. Otherwise, “we cannot give what we do not have”. We are “clay pots”, “earthenware” and can only pour out into the world what has been given to us by God.
The Church exists to evangelize. The mission of the Church is the mission of Christ, which is to draw all souls to Him. Jesus thirsts for humanity. Humanity hungers for Christ. The world longs to see goodness and to see holiness. For the Christian, it is not so much a question of where shall the world find that goodness and holiness. For Christians, that should not be a question, but rather an imperative, which God has commanded for us to “go and make disciples of all nations” (Matt 28:19). The world longs to see manifestations of Christ’s goodness and holiness, and it is through the living witness of every Christian life, that we ought always to strive toward never depriving the world of seeing it.