The Mission of the Church
'Go, therefore, and make disciples of all nations, baptising them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit ... And behold, I am with you to always, to the end of the age.' [Matthew 28:19-20]
'I tell you, you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my Church. and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it.' [Matthew 16:18]
The missionary mandate. 'Having been divinely sent to the nations that she might be "the universal sacrament of salvation", the Church, in obedience to the command of her founder and because it is demanded by her own essential universality, strives to preach the Gospel to all men'.(Mark 16:15) [Catechism of the Catholic Church, 849]
"Jesus, the Word made flesh, God-with-us, was born among us so that all may have life. The good news of Salvation is the message that the Church is tasked to bring to the whole world. We are called to nothing less than living every moment of life caught up in the love that exists between Father, Son and Holy Spirit."
[Bishop Richard, Pastoral Letter on the Feast of the Baptism of the Lord, 10th January, 2025]
"At that time: Jesus appeared to the Eleven and he said to them, 'Go into all the world and proclaim the gospel to the whole creation. Whoever believes and is baptised will be saved.'" [Mark 16:15]
"Then Jesus said to his disciples, 'These are my words that I spoke to you while I was still with you, that everything written about me in the Law of Moses and the Prophets and the Psalms must be fulfilled.' Then he opened their minds to understand the Scriptures, and said to them, 'Thus it is written, that the Christ should suffer and on the third day rise from the dead, and that repentance for the forgiveness of sins should be proclaimed in his name to all nations... Your are the witnesses of these things. And behold, I am sending the promise of my Father upon you.'" [Luke 24:44-49]
"On the evening of that day, the first day of the week, the doors being locked where the disciples were for fear of the Jews, Jesus came and stood among them and said to them, 'Peace be with you.' When he had said this, he showed them his hands and his side. Then the disciples were glad when they saw the Lord. Jesus said to them again,
'Peace be with you.
As the Father has sent me,
even so I am sending you.'
And when he had said this, he breathed on them and said to them,
'Receive the Holy Spirit.'" [John 20:19-22]
"As you sent me into the world, so I have sent them into the world." [John 17:18]
"At that time: Jesus lifted up his eyes to heaven, and praying said,
'Holy father,
I do not ask for these only,
but also for those who will believe in me through their word,
that they may all be one, just as you, Father, are in me,
and I in you,
that they may also be in us,
so that the world may believe that you have sent me.
The glory that you have given me I have given to them,
that they may be one even as we are one,
I in them and you in me, that they may become perfectly one,
so that the whole world may know that you sent me
and loved them even as you loved me.
Father, I desire that they also, whom you have given me,
may be with me where I am,
to see my glory that you have given me
because you loved me before the foundation of the world.'" [John 17:20-24]
The Church... has a vivid awareness of the fact that the Saviour's words, "I must proclaim the Good News of the kingdom of God,"[Luke 4:43] apply in all truth to herself: She willingly adds with St. Paul: "Not that I boast of preaching the gospel, since it is a duty that has been laid on me; I should be punished if I did not preach it"[1 Corinthians 9:16]
It is with joy and consolation that at the end of the great Assembly of 1974 we heard these illuminating words: "We wish to confirm once more that the task of evangelizing all people constitutes the essential mission of the Church."["Declaration of the Synod Fathers", 4 (27 October 1974)] It is a task and mission which the vast and profound changes of present-day society make all the more urgent. Evangelizing is in fact the grace and vocation proper to the Church, her deepest identity. She exists in order to evangelize, that is to say, in order to preach and teach, to be the channel of the gift of grace, to reconcile sinners with God, and to perpetuate Christ's sacrifice in the Mass, which is the memorial of His death and glorious resurrection. [Pope Paul VI, Apostolic Exhortation "Evangelii Nuntiandi" ("In Proclaiming the Gospel"), 1975]
The most holy council, then, earnestly entreats all the laity in the Lord to answer gladly, nobly, and promptly the more urgent invitation of Christ in this hour and the impulse of the Holy Spirit. Younger persons should feel that this call has been directed to them especially and they should respond to it eagerly and generously. Through this holy synod, the Lord renews His invitation to all the laity to come closer to Him every day, recognizing that what is His is also their own (Philippians 2:5), to associate themselves with Him in His saving mission. [Pope Paul VI, Exhortation, Decree "Apostolicam Actuositatem" ("Apostolic Activity"), 1965 ]
from the Catechism of the Catholic Church
849 The missionary mandate. 'Having been divinely sent to the nations that she might be "the universal sacrament of salvation", the Church, in obedience to the command of her founder and because it is demanded by her own essential universality, strives to preach the Gospel to all men' (Mark 16:15; see "Ad Gentes", n1 ).
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850 The origin and purpose of mission. 'The Church on earth is by her nature missionary since, according to the plan of the Father, she has as her origin the mission of the Son and the Holy Spirit' (see "Ad Gentes", n.2 ). The ultimate purpose of mission is none other than to make men share in the communion between the Father and the Son in their Spirit of love (cf. St John Paul II, "Redemptoris Missio", n.23 ).
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851 Missionary motivation. God 'desires all men to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth'; that is, God wills the salvation of everyone through the knowledge of the truth. Salvation is found in the truth. Because she believes in God's universal plan of salvation, the Church must be missionary.
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854 By her very mission, 'the Church ... travels the same journey as all humanity and shares the same earthly lot with the world: she is to be a leaven and, as it were, the soul of human society in its renewal by Christ and transformation into the family of God' (see "Gaudium et Spes", n.40 §2 ).
[extracts from Catechism of the Catholic Church, English translation for the UK, © Burns & Oates - Libreria Editrice Vaticana]
You can access the full Catechism at the Vatican archive:
Ad Gentes ("To the Nations")
Decree on missionary activity, from the Second Vatican Council
© The Holy See
Preface
1 Divinely sent to the nations of the world to be unto them "a universal sacrament of salvation*, the Church, driven by the inner necessity of her own catholicity, and obeying the mandate of her Founder (Mark 16:15), strives ever to proclaim the Gospel to all men.
(* cf. "Lumen Gentium", 1 ).
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Chapter I - PRINCIPLES OF DOCTRINE
2 The pilgrim Church is missionary by her very nature, since it is from the mission of the Son and the mission of the Holy Spirit that she draws her origin, in accordance with the decree of God the Father*.
(* cf. "Lumen Gentium", 1 ).
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​7 "This missionary activity derives its reason from the will of God, "who wishes all men to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth. For there is one God, and one mediator between God and men, Himself a man, Jesus Christ, who gave Himself as a ransom for all" (1 Timothy 2:45), "neither is there salvation in any other" (Acts 4:12).
"By means of this activity, the Mystical Body of Christ unceasingly gathers and directs its forces toward its own growth (cf. Ephesians 4:11-16). The members of the Church are impelled to carry on such missionary activity by reason of the love with which they love God and by which they desire to share with all men the spiritual goods of both its life and the life to come."
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Chapter II - MISSION WORK ITSELF
10 The Church, sent by Christ to reveal and to communicate the love of God to all men and nations, is aware that there still remains a gigantic missionary task for her to accomplish.
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11 All Christians, wherever they live, are bound to show forth, by the example of their lives and by the witness of the word, that new man put on at baptism and that power of the Holy Spirit by which they have been strengthened.​
You can access the full Decree on the Vatican website:
​Redemptoris Missio ("The Mission of Christ the Redeemer")
On the permanent validity of the Church's missionary mandate
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Encyclical Letter from Pope John Paul II, 4th March 1979
© The Holy See
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22 All the Evangelists, when they describe the risen Christ's meeting with his apostles, conclude with the "missionary mandate": "All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Go therefore and make disciples of all nations,...and lo, I am with you always, to the close of the age" (Matthew 28:18-20; cf. Mark 16:15-18; Luke 24:46-49; John 20:21-23).
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This is a sending forth in the Spirit, as is clearly apparent in the Gospel of John: Christ sends his own into the world, just as the Father has sent him, and to this end he gives them the Spirit. Luke, for his part, closely links the witness the apostles are to give to Christ with the working of the Spirit, who will enable them to fulfil the mandate they have received.
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23 John is the only Evangelist to speak explicitly of a "mandate," a word equivalent to "mission." He directly links the mission which Jesus entrusts to his disciples with the mission which he himself has received from the Father: "As the Father has sent me, even so I send you" (John 20:21). Addressing the Father, Jesus says: "As you sent me into the world, so I have sent them into the world" (John 17:18). The entire missionary sense of John's Gospel is expressed in the "priestly prayer": "This is eternal life, that they know you the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent" (John 17:3). The ultimate purpose of mission is to enable people to share in the communion which exists between the Father and the Son. The disciples are to live in unity with one another, remaining in the Father and the Son, so that the world may know and believe (cf. John 17:21-23). This is a very important missionary text. It makes us understand that we are missionaries above all because of what we are as a Church whose innermost life is unity in love, even before we become missionaries in word or deed.
You can access the full Encyclical on the Vatican website:
​Gaudium et Spes ("Hope and Joy")
Pastoral Constitution on the Church in the Modern World, from the Second Vatican Council
​© The Holy See
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PREFACE
1 The joys and the hopes, the griefs and the anxieties of the men of this age, especially those who are poor or in any way afflicted, these are the joys and hopes, the griefs and anxieties of the followers of Christ. Indeed, nothing genuinely human fails to raise an echo in their hearts. For theirs is a community composed of men. United in Christ, they are led by the Holy Spirit in their journey to the Kingdom of their Father and they have welcomed the news of salvation which is meant for every man. That is why this community realizes that it is truly linked with mankind and its history by the deepest of bonds.
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3 Though mankind is stricken with wonder at its own discoveries and its power, it often raises anxious questions about the current trend of the world, about the place and role of man in the universe, about the meaning of its individual and collective strivings, and about the ultimate destiny of reality and of humanity.
This sacred synod, proclaiming the noble destiny of man and championing the Godlike seed which has been sown in him, offers to mankind the honest assistance of the Church in fostering that brotherhood of all men which corresponds to this destiny of theirs. Inspired by no earthly ambition, the Church seeks but a solitary goal: to carry forward the work of Christ under the lead of the befriending Spirit. And Christ entered this world to give witness to the truth, to rescue and not to sit in judgment, to serve and not to be served. (John 18:37; Matthew 20:28; Mark 10:45)
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INTRODUCTORY STATEMENT: THE SITUATION OF MEN IN THE MODERN WORLD
4 Today, the human race is involved in a new stage of history. Profound and rapid changes are spreading by degrees around the whole world. Triggered by the intelligence and creative energies of man, these changes recoil upon him, upon his decisions and desires, both individual and collective, and upon his manner of thinking and acting with respect to things and to people. Hence we can already speak of a true cultural and social transformation, one which has repercussions on man's religious life as well.
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Influenced by such a variety of complexities, many of our contemporaries are kept from accurately identifying permanent values and adjusting them properly to fresh discoveries. As a result, buffeted between hope and anxiety and pressing one another with questions about the present course of events, they are burdened down with uneasiness. This same course of events leads men to look for answers; indeed, it forces them to do so.
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11 The People of God believes that it is led by the Lord's Spirit, Who fills the earth. Motivated by this faith, it labors to decipher authentic signs of God's presence and purpose in the happenings, needs and desires in which this People has a part along with other men of our age. For faith throws a new light on everything, manifests God's design for man's total vocation, and thus directs the mind to solutions which are fully human.
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PART I, CHAPTER IV
40 Coming forth from the eternal Father's love, (Titus 3:4 "love of mankind") founded in time by Christ the Redeemer and made one in the Holy Spirit, the Church has a saving and an eschatological purpose which can be fully attained only in the future world. But she is already present in this world, and is composed of men, that is, of members of the earthly city who have a call to form the family of God's children during the present history of the human race, and to keep increasing it until the Lord returns. United on behalf of heavenly values and enriched by them, this family has been "constituted and structured as a society in this world"("Lumen Gentium", n.8 ) by Christ, and is equipped "by appropriate means for visible and social union."(Ibid., n.9) Thus the Church, at once "a visible association and a spiritual community,"(Ibid., n.8) goes forward together with humanity and experiences the same earthly lot which the world does. She serves as a leaven and as a kind of soul for human society (Ibid., n.38) as it is to be renewed in Christ and transformed into God's family.
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41 Man will always yearn to know, at least in an obscure way, what is the meaning of his life, of his activity, of his death. The very presence of the Church recalls these problems to his mind. But only God, Who created man to His own image and ransomed him from sin, provides the most adequate answer to the questions, and this He does through what He has revealed in Christ His Son, Who became man. Whoever follows after Christ, the perfect man, becomes himself more of a man. For by His incarnation the Father's Word assumed, and sanctified through His cross and resurrection, the whole of man, body and soul, and through that totality the whole of nature created by God for man's use.​
You can access the full Constitution on the Vatican website:
Apostolicam Actuositatem ("The Light of Nations")
Decree on the Apostolate of the Laity, from the Second Vatican Council
​© The Holy See
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CHAPTER I
THE VOCATION OF THE LAITY TO THE APOSTOLATE
2 The Church was founded for the purpose of spreading the kingdom of Christ throughout the earth for the glory of God the Father, to enable all men to share in His saving redemption, and that through them the whole world might enter into a relationship with Christ. All activity of the Mystical Body directed to the attainment of this goal is called the apostolate, which the Church carries on in various ways through all her members. For the Christian vocation by its very nature is also a vocation to the apostolate.
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In the Church there is a diversity of ministry but a oneness of mission. Christ conferred on the Apostles and their successors the duty of teaching, sanctifying, and ruling in His name and power. But the laity likewise share in the priestly, prophetic, and royal office of Christ and therefore have their own share in the mission of the whole people of God in the Church and in the world.
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4 Since Christ, sent by the Father, is the source and origin of the whole apostolate of the Church, the success of the lay apostolate depends upon the laity's living union with Christ, in keeping with the Lord's words, "He who abides in me, and I in him, bears much fruit, for without me you can do nothing" (John 15:5). This life of intimate union with Christ in the Church is nourished by spiritual aids which are common to all the faithful, especially active participation in the sacred liturgy.(cf. "Lumen Gentium", no. 31 )
These are to be used by the laity in such a way that while correctly fulfilling their secular duties in the ordinary conditions of life, they do not separate union with Christ from their life but rather performing their work according to God's will they grow in that union. In this way the laity must make progress in holiness in a happy and ready spirit, trying prudently and patiently to overcome difficulties.(ibid.)
Neither family concerns nor other secular affairs should be irrelevant to their spiritual life, in keeping with the words of the Apostle, "What-ever you do in word or work, do all in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, giving thanks to God the Father through Him" (Colossians 3:17).
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CHAPTER II
OBJECTIVES
6 There are innumerable opportunities open to the laity for the exercise of their apostolate of evangelization and sanctification. The very testimony of their Christian life and good works done in a supernatural spirit have the power to draw men to belief and to God; for the Lord says, "Even so let your light shine before men in order that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father who is in heaven" (Matthew 5:16).
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However, an apostolate of this kind does not consist only in the witness of one's way of life; a true apostle looks for opportunities to announce Christ by words addressed either to non-believers with a view to leading them to faith, or to the faithful with a view to instructing, strengthening, and encouraging them to a more fervent life. "For the charity of Christ impels us" (2 Corinthians 5:14). The words of the Apostle should echo in all hearts, "Woe to me if I do not preach the Gospel" (1 Corinthians 9:16).(cf. Pius XI, Encyclical "Ubi Arcano," (1922); Pius XII, Encyclical "Summi Pontificatus," (1939))
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CHAPTER III
THE VARIOUS FIELDS OF THE APOSTOLATE
​​12 Young persons exert very important influence in modern society.(cf. St. Pius X, Allocution to Association of French Catholic Youth on piety, knowledge and action (Sept. 1904)) There has been a radical change in the circumstances of their lives, their mental attitudes, and their relationships with their own families. Frequently they move too quickly into a new social and economic status. While their social and even their political importance is growing from day to day, they seem to be unable to cope adequately with their new responsibilities.
Their heightened influence in society demands of them a proportionate apostolic activity, but their natural qualities also fit them for this activity. As they become more conscious of their own personalities, they are impelled by a zest for life and a ready eagerness to assume their own responsibility, and they yearn to play their part in social and cultural life. If this zeal is imbued with the spirit of Christ and is inspired by obedience and love for the Church, it can be expected to be very fruitful. They should become the first to carry on the apostolate directly to other young persons, concentrating their apostolic efforts within their own circle, according to the needs of the social environment in which they live.(cf. Pius XII, letter to Archbishop of Montreal to be relayed to the Assemblies of Canadian Young Christian Workers (May 1947); radio message to Young Christian Workers, Brussels (Sept. 1950))
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Adults ought to engage in such friendly discussion with young people that both age groups, overcoming the age barrier, may become better acquainted and share the special benefits each generation can offer the other. Adults should stimulate young persons first by good example to take part in the apostolate and, if the opportunity presents itself, by offering them effective advice and willing assistance. By the same token young people should cultivate toward adults respect and trust, and although they are naturally attracted to novelties, they should duly appreciate praiseworthy traditions.
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CHAPTER VI
FORMATION FOR THE APOSTOLATE
28 The apostolate can attain its maximum effectiveness only through a diversified and thorough formation. This is demanded not only by the continuous spiritual and doctrinal progress of the lay person himself but also by the accommodation of his activity to circumstances varying according to the affairs, persons, and duties involved... In addition to the formation which is common for all Christians, many forms of the apostolate demand also a specific and particular formation because of the variety of persons and circumstances.
29 Since the laity share in their own way in the mission of the Church, their apostolic formation is specially characterized by the distinctively secular and particular quality of the lay state and by its own form of the spiritual life.
The formation for the apostolate presupposes a certain human and well-rounded formation adapted to the natural abilities and conditions of each lay person. Well-informed about the modern world, the lay person should be a member of his own community and adjusted to its culture.
However, the lay person should learn especially how to perform the mission of Christ and the Church by basing his life on belief in the divine mystery of creation and redemption and by being sensitive to the movement of the Holy Spirit who gives life to the people of God and who urges all to love God the Father as well as the world and men in Him. This formation should be deemed the basis and condition for every successful apostolate.
In addition to spiritual formation, a solid doctrinal instruction in theology, ethics, and philosophy adjusted to differences of age, status, and natural talents, is required. The importance of general culture along with practical and technical formation should also be kept in mind.
To cultivate good human relations, truly human values must be fostered, especially the art of living fraternally and cooperating with others and of striking up friendly conversation with them.
Since formation for the apostolate cannot consist in merely theoretical instruction, from the beginning of their formation the laity should gradually and prudently learn how to view, judge and do all things in the light of faith as well as to develop and improve themselves along with others through doing, thereby entering into active service to the Church.(cf. Pius XII, allocution to the first international Boy Scouts congress (June 1952); John XXIII, encyclical, "Mater et Magistra," (1961)) This formation, always in need of improvement because of the increasing maturity of the human person and the proliferation of problems, requires an ever deeper knowledge and planned activity. In the fulfilment of all the demands of formation, the unity and integrity of the human person must be kept in mind at all times so that his harmony and balance may be safeguarded and enhanced.
In this way the lay person engages himself wholly and actively in the reality of the temporal order and effectively assumes his role in conducting the affairs of this order. At the same time, as a living member and witness of the Church, he renders the Church present and active in the midst of temporal affairs.(cf. "Lumen Gentium", n.30 )
30 The training for the apostolate should start with the children's earliest education. In a special way, however, adolescents and young persons should be initiated into the apostolate and imbued with its spirit. This formation must be perfected throughout their whole life in keeping with the demands of new responsibilities. It is evident, therefore, that those who have the obligation to provide a Christian education also have the duty of providing formation for the apostolate.
In the family parents have the task of training their children from childhood on to recognize God's love for all men. By example especially they should teach them little by little to be solicitous for the material and spiritual needs of their neighbour. The whole family in its common life, then, should be a sort of apprenticeship for the apostolate. Children... should be so involved in the local community of the parish that they will acquire a consciousness of being living and active members of the people of God.
Schools, colleges, and other Catholic educational institutions also have the duty to develop a Catholic sense and apostolic activity in young persons. If young people lack this formation either because they do not attend these schools or because of any other reason, all the more should parents, pastors of souls, and apostolic organizations attend to it.
You can access the full Decree on the Vatican website:
​Lumen gentium ("The Light of Nations")
Dogmatic Constitution on the Nature of the Church, from the Second Vatican Council
​© The Holy See
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CHAPTER I - THE MYSTERY OF THE CHURCH
1 Christ is the Light of nations. Because this is so, this Sacred Synod gathered together in the Holy Spirit eagerly desires, by proclaiming the Gospel to every creature,(Mark 16:15) to bring the light of Christ to all men, a light brightly visible on the countenance of the Church... The present-day conditions of the world add greater urgency to this work of the Church so that all men, joined more closely today by various social, technical and cultural ties, might also attain fuller unity in Christ.
8 Christ, the one Mediator, established and continually sustains here on earth His holy Church, the community of faith, hope and charity, as an entity with visible delineation (note a) through which He communicated truth and grace to all. But, the society structured with hierarchical organs and the Mystical Body of Christ, are not to be considered as two realities, nor are the visible assembly and the spiritual community, nor the earthly Church and the Church enriched with heavenly things; rather they form one complex reality which coalesces from a divine and a human element.(note b)
Notes (a): Leo XIII, Encyclical "Sapientiae Christianae" ("Christian Wisdom") on Christians as Citizens, 10th January 1890
(b): Pius XII, Encyclical "Mystici Corporis Christi" on the Mystical Body of Christ, 29th June 1943
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This is the one Church of Christ which in the Creed is professed as one, holy, catholic and apostolic, which our Saviour, after His Resurrection, commissioned Peter to shepherd, (John 21:15-17) and him and the other apostles to extend and direct with authority, (Matthew 28:18-20) which He erected for all ages as "the pillar and mainstay of the truth". (1 Timothy 3:15) This Church constituted and organized in the world as a society, subsists in the Catholic Church, which is governed by the successor of Peter and by the Bishops in communion with him, although many elements of sanctification and of truth are found outside of its visible structure. These elements, as gifts belonging to the Church of Christ, are forces impelling toward catholic unity.
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Just as Christ carried out the work of redemption in poverty and persecution, so the Church is called to follow the same route that it might communicate the fruits of salvation to men. Christ Jesus, "though He was by nature God . . . emptied Himself, taking the nature of a slave",(Philippians 2:6-7) and "being rich, became poor"(2 Corinthians 8:9) for our sakes. Thus, the Church, although it needs human resources to carry out its mission, is not set up to seek earthly glory, but to proclaim, even by its own example, humility and self-sacrifice... The Church, "like a stranger in a foreign land, presses forward amid the persecutions of the world and the consolations of God"(note c), announcing the cross and death of the Lord until He comes."(1 Corinthians 11:26) By the power of the risen Lord it is given strength that it might, in patience and in love, overcome its sorrows and its challenges, both within itself and from without, and that it might reveal to the world, faithfully though darkly, the mystery of its Lord until, in the end, it will be manifested in full light.
Note (c): St Augustine, "De Civitate Dei" (The City of God) XVIII, 51, 2
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CHAPTER II - ON THE PEOPLE OF GOD
9 At all times and in every race God has given welcome to whosoever fears Him and does what is right.(cf. Acts 10:35) God, however, does not make men holy and save them merely as individuals, without bond or link between one another. Rather has it pleased Him to bring men together as one people, a people which acknowledges Him in truth and serves Him in holiness. He therefore chose the race of Israel as a people unto Himself. With it He set up a covenant. Step by step He taught and prepared this people, making known in its history both Himself and the decree of His will and making it holy unto Himself. All these things, however, were done by way of preparation and as a figure of that new and perfect covenant, which was to be ratified in Christ, and of that fuller revelation which was to be given through the Word of God Himself made flesh. "Behold the days shall come saith the Lord, and I will make a new covenant with the House of Israel, and with the house of Judah . . . I will give my law in their bowels, and I will write it in their heart, and I will be their God, and they shall be my people . . . For all of them shall know Me, from the least of them even to the greatest, saith the Lord.(Jeremiah 31:31-34) Christ instituted this new covenant, the new testament, that is to say, in His Blood,(cf. 1 Corinthians 11:25) calling together a people made up of Jew and gentile, making them one, not according to the flesh but in the Spirit. This was to be the new People of God. For those who believe in Christ, who are reborn not from a perishable but from an imperishable seed through the word of the living God,(cf. 1 Peter 1:23) not from the flesh but from water and the Holy Spirit,(cf. John 3:56) are finally established as "a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a purchased people . . . who in times past were not a people, but are now the people of God".(1 Peter 2:9-10)
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CHAPTER III - ON THE HIERARCHICAL STRUCTURE OF THE CHURCH
28 Christ, whom the Father has sanctified and sent into the world, (John 10:36) has through His apostles, made their successors, the bishops, partakers of His consecration and His mission. They have legitimately handed on to different individuals in the Church various degrees of participation in this ministry. Thus the divinely established ecclesiastical ministry is exercised on different levels by those who from antiquity have been called bishops, priests and deacons.
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In virtue of their common sacred ordination and mission, all priests are bound together in intimate brotherhood, which naturally and freely manifests itself in mutual aid, spiritual as well as material, pastoral as well as personal, in their meetings and in communion of life, of labour and charity.
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Let them, as fathers in Christ, take care of the faithful whom they have begotten by baptism and their teaching.(cf. 1 Corinthians 4:15; 1 Peter 1:23) Becoming from the heart a pattern to the flock,(1 Peter 5:3) let them so lead and serve their local community that it may worthily be called by that name, by which the one and entire people of God is signed, namely, the Church of God.(cf. 1 Corinthians 1:2; 2 Corinthians 1:1) Let them remember that by their daily life and interests they are showing the face of a truly sacerdotal and pastoral ministry to the faithful and the infidel, to Catholics and non-Catholics, and that to all they bear witness to the truth and life, and as good shepherds go after those also,(cf. Luke 15:4-7) who though baptized in the Catholic Church have fallen away from the use of the sacraments, or even from the faith.​​​
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30 Having set forth the functions of the hierarchy, the Sacred Council gladly turns its attention. to the state of those faithful called the laity. Everything that has been said above concerning the People of God is intended for the laity, religious and clergy alike. But there are certain things which pertain in a special way to the laity, both men and women, by reason of their condition and mission. Due to the special circumstances of our time the foundations of this doctrine must be more thoroughly examined. For their pastors know how much the laity contribute to the welfare of the entire Church. They also know that they were not ordained by Christ to take upon themselves alone the entire salvific mission of the Church toward the world. On the contrary they understand that it is their noble duty to shepherd the faithful and to recognize their ministries and charisms, so that all according to their proper roles may cooperate in this common undertaking with one mind. For we must all "practice the truth in love, and so grow up in all things in Him who is head, Christ. For from Him the whole body, being closely joined and knit together through every joint of the system, according to the functioning in due measure of each single part, derives its increase to the building up of itself in love".( Ephesians 4:15-16)
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31 The term laity is here understood to mean all the faithful except those in holy orders and those in the state of religious life specially approved by the Church. These faithful are by baptism made one body with Christ and are constituted among the People of God; they are in their own way made sharers in the priestly, prophetical, and kingly functions of Christ; and they carry out for their own part the mission of the whole Christian people in the Church and in the world.
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What specifically characterizes the laity is their secular nature. The laity, by their very vocation, seek the kingdom of God by engaging in temporal affairs and by ordering them according to the plan of God. They live in the world, that is, in each and in all of the secular professions and occupations. They live in the ordinary circumstances of family and social life, from which the very web of their existence is woven. They are called there by God that by exercising their proper function and led by the spirit of the Gospel they may work for the sanctification of the world from within as a leaven. In this way they may make Christ known to others, especially by the testimony of a life resplendent in faith, hope and charity.
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CHAPTER IV - THE LAITY
38 Each individual layman must stand before the world as a witness to the resurrection and life of the Lord Jesus and a symbol of the living God. All the laity as a community and each one according to his ability must nourish the world with spiritual fruits.(cf. Galatians 5:12) They must diffuse in the world that spirit which animates the poor, the meek, the peace makers—whom the Lord in the Gospel proclaimed as blessed.(cf. Matthew 5:3-9)