The Dignity of our Baptisms

First of all, an update - my previous post on Catholicism in Ireland has been published! After I published the post, I shortened it to fit the word limit for The Irish Catholic's letters to the editor section and submitted it by e-mail. In the most recent issue, they printed my letter, complete with my Irish hometown and county and the title "Renewing the Church." Thanks for supporting me to the point where I could confidently send my thoughts in and have them published in a national paper!
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Recently at Clonard, we've been having evenings of conversation with adults from the parish that are dedicated to offering some input on some central issues to living one's faith today. We've offered some simple input on issues that are not specifically doctrinal or dogmatic but rather elements of the faith we can try to live. We based our presentations on teachings of the church and tried to aim our remarks toward practical ends.

We covered liturgy, living Eucharistically, the universal call to holiness, living like Christ and understanding the idea of there being other Christs, and embracing and understanding Confirmation as one's personal commitment to the answer the baptismal call. Our final night was yesterday, and our more open, conversational format took us through some intriguing dialogues.

We talked about confronting pain, suffering, and life's challenges. We talked about disagreeing with the Church and the harshness or softness (depending on who you ask) of the Church. Perhaps most interesting, though, was our discussion of priests. We had a person claiming that priests should be seen as very special while a priest tried to explain that he isn't that special.

Casting aside the way I just totally oversimplified a fascinating discussion into a reductive sentence, the great moment came when a sister from our parish brought the conversation to the important point. The dialogue was showing me that one side felt priests were to be deeply revered and almost set apart while the other side sought to bring priests back toward the level of the laity a bit. The voice of reason came from our sister who grounded us in the profound dignity we all have from our baptism.

The priest is formed and ordained to perform the sacraments and be our spiritual leader, but he is simply responding to the scope of the call he received from God to put his gifts to use to meet the needs of the world. Meanwhile, the lay people are similarly responding to the scope of their calls by being bankers, teachers, secretaries, and pursuing careers that allow their own gifts to meet the needs of the world.

The workplaces may differ; the elements of the jobs' tasks my differ. However, every baptized person needs to answer their call to holiness by remembering their baptismal call. We are grounded in the idea that we are part of something bigger, of someone bigger - the God who became man, gave us the ideal for loving and serving by living it, and left us Himself in the Eucharist and the Church.

We are all baptized into the royal priesthood. While only some become priests or religious, all of us are called to a priesthood. We are all called to be priests in as much as we minister to others, serving others in the awareness that our baptism has anointed us with the call to be a part of something bigger than ourselves, to give of ourselves to others in the example of Christ, whose life, death, and resurrection we are baptized into.

The Church struggles when only a small percentage of its members are answering their calls. If only a few people are living out their baptismal call - the priest in his preaching, sacramental duties, and leadership; the pastoral staff in organizing and training lectors, EMs, acolytes, and ministers of hospitality; those ministers serving those roles; the directors and musicians leading the music; the people leading parish social clubs and local service organizations - then we are left with a Church that is incomplete. Priests and liturgical ministers cannot be the only ones answering their calls. We then become a people made whole in Christ but a people that does not realize its full potential.

Every person who passes through the waters of baptism into Christ is anointed to be a priest in His name. No matter what social class or salary, career or lifestyle, hobbies and interests, or state of life one is in, every baptized Christian has been sealed with the Christian name by which God knows and calls them and loves them. What if we only recognized the dignity and tremendous hope that God places in us in this baptism?