p. 72The Sacred Heart and the Lay Apostolate

The very meaning of the words “lay apostolate,” if we ponder upon their literal significance, will show us how dear to the Sacred Heart must be this blessed service of His followers. For the words, lay apostolate, signify the share which the Catholic laity have in spreading the Gospel of Christ and helping in the work of the salvation and sanctification of souls. The word “apostle” means a “messenger,” someone sent with tidings and directions. The twelve whom Christ chose to be His messengers to preach the gospel throughout the whole world were called apostles, because He sent them with a message of salvation. The bishops and priests of the Church carry on this apostolate to the end of time, preaching and teaching, instructing and admonishing as Christ bade them, throughout the whole world.

But, though the clergy are the official messengers of Christ, the laity also have a share in this tremendous work of spreading the gospel. They can do much which is beyond the power of the limited numbers of the priesthood. They can reach many hundreds of thousands of souls who keep far away from priests. They can cooperate with and help the work of the clergy to a wonderful degree, especially in this age which has been called the age of the lay apostolate. Every member of the Church has some special part in the great sum-total of effort of Christ’s followers which alone will save and sanctify the world.

The works of the lay apostolate must be very dear to the Sacred Heart and He must desire very earnestly that everyone should take some part in spreading the faith, because it was for this He came down from heaven, and became man, like unto ourselves in everything except sin. For this He went through the laborious days of His hidden life. It was to save souls that Christ preached and taught and founded His holy Church. For this He gave up His life and died upon the Cross after the terrible agony and passion which were the manifestation of His love for souls. After He had risen from the dead and had spent forty days in confirming and instructing those who were to spread His faith throughout the world, our Lord ascended into heaven, leaving to us the task of carrying on His work. But just as He was about to ascend into heaven, He gave a tremendous commission to all of us, “And He said to them: Go ye into the whole world, and preach the gospel to every creature. He that believeth and is baptized, shall be saved; but he that believeth not shall be condemned” (St. Mark, xvi. 15-16). “And you shall be witnesses unto Me in Jerusalem, and in all Judea, and Samaria, and even to the uttermost part of the earth” (Acts, i. 8). Those solemn words were spoken to us all. Each one in his own sphere, with his own opportunities is to be an apostle, helping to spread the good news of Christ’s redemption, aiding actively the salvation of souls.

St. Peter, Christ’s first vicar on earth, in his first epistle, which he wrote at Rome about fifteen years after the ascension of our Lord, sends us this solemn message, which should reverberate in the depths of our hearts: “But you are a chosen generation, a kingly priesthood, a holy nation, a purchased people: that you may declare His virtues, who hath called you out of darkness into His marvelous light” (I. St. Peter, ii. 9). Indeed, these words come to us from the pen of St. Peter, but from the Heart of Christ. We are all a chosen generation, we all share in the kingly priesthood, we are made holy, we are purchased by the blood of Christ, that we may declare the goodness, the mercy, the teaching, and the holy will of our Blessed Lord, Who has called us out of darkness into His marvelous light.

St. Peter goes on, in the succeeding verses of this chapter, to outline to the Catholics of his day some elements of the lay apostolate. He bids them remember that they are strangers and pilgrims in this world and to lead a holy life among the Gentiles, so that the good works they do may make the pagans glorify God. Surely this apostolate of good example is as important now and as dear to the Sacred Heart as it was in apostolic times, when the fervor of the Catholic people brought millions of pagans to give up their evil ways and enter the pure fold of Christ.

St. Peter next bids Catholics to be good citizens, being subject for God’s sake to every one who has authority. This apostolate of good citizenship is as important and as efficacious now as it was in St. Peter’s time. He exhorts servants to be subject to their masters, he praises those who are patient under wrongful abuse. In one brief and eloquent verse, which was quoted before in another connection, he utters an exhortation to charity and dutifulness. “Honor all men,” he says. “Love the brotherhood. Fear God. Honor the king” (I. St. Peter, ii. 17).

All these exhortations apply as much to us as to the faithful of the apostolic age. We know, from the history of the Church, how marvelous was the lay apostolate in those days. The Catholics of that time gave such a holy example that the pagans were forced to admire their piety and charity. “See those Christians,” they said, “how they love one another, how they cherish one another,” and the spectacle of this mutual love brought many a hungry heart into the Church.

The holy lives and heroic deaths of so many virgins and martyrs were another means of spreading the faith in apostolic times. The Catholics of those days had to be ready at any time to offer their life in witness to their belief; and hundreds of thousands made this supreme sacrifice inflamed by the Divine love enkindled by the fires of the Sacred Heart. But even those who did not become martyrs by shedding their blood had to lead the lives of martyrs by preserving their purity, their faith, and their patience in the midst of a world corrupted by paganism. So, too, in our day, any man or woman who wishes to be a fervent and consistent apostle must lead a life of fervor and self-sacrifice, worthy of the heirs of the faith of the martyrs.

But the opportunities of the lay apostolate have greatly increased since the apostolic times and new avenues of lay effort, most dear to the Sacred Heart, have opened up in the Church. The marvelous spread of print has made possible the new apostolate of the written word, of Catholic literature about which we say so much and for which we do so little. We have hardly touched with our little finger this immense engine of the press which should be made as powerful for good as it is for evil.

Then there is the apostolate of organized effort, which has grown to immense possibilities but which again we are not using as we should to promote the interests of the Sacred Heart. This is the age of organizations, but, alas, how much more powerful are the organizations whose purpose it is to make money, or to promote secular activities, or even to persecute the Church, than those societies whose aim it is to spread the kingdom of Christ.

So, too, the apostolate of instruction in all its many phases opens up before us, to a degree unprecedented in the history of the world—lecture courses, catechetical classes, study clubs, conferences, not only for Catholic children and young people, but for the vast field of inquiring intelligent non-Catholics, who wish to know something about the Church. How much we could do, how comparatively little we are doing, in these things.

Amazing discoveries, undreamed of in apostolic times, have immensely widened the possibilities of our apostolates. Moving pictures, now can bring the same message to a hundred million pairs of eyes, a message conveyed not in words, but actions and, therefore, comprehensible to all nations. How little use has been made of moving pictures to promote the interests of Christ, compared to the constant utilization of its appeal to corrupt the imagination and poison the mind. The radio makes it possible to speak to the entire nation with one feeble voice. How St. Paul would have welcomed such an opportunity! Yet, what little use we are making of the radio to further the interests of the Sacred Heart. The home and foreign missions have an opportunity in our time which no other age has enjoyed. Modern methods of transportation have made it possible to travel to the ends of the earth with far less difficulty than the apostles found in traversing a single kingdom. The swarming populations of the pagan world are more interested in western ideas and more receptive of Christian thought than ever before. How Christ’s Sacred Heart must yearn over the sad thousand millions of pagans who are still wandering in darkness! Each one of us has a personal vocation to pray and work for the missions.

All these apostolates, and many more, are proper to our own times and most dear to the Sacred Heart. If we love our dear Lord as we should, we shall also love this work of spreading His doctrine and fulfilling His mission to save the souls of men. We need a new crusade, motived by the love of the Sacred Heart, to stir up our Catholic people to do valiant battle for the interests of Christ in present-day society. The battle cry of such a crusade may well be the same with which Peter, the hermit, stirred of old the hearts of the sturdy knights and yeomen when he preached the wars of the cross. “God wills it, God wills it!” The Sacred Heart of Jesus wills it!