The vocation and mission of the laity (LG 30–38)


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The Council explains that the laity are:

• fully part of the Church,

• called to holiness,

• and given a mission that is proper to them.

It describes the laity’s special task:

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. Therefore, since they are tightly bound up in all types of temporal affairs it is their special task to order and to throw light upon these affairs in such a way that they may come into being and then continually increase according to Christ to the praise of the Creator and the Redeemer. (LG 31)”

In simple words:

You bring Christ into the world from the inside — into work, family life, culture, society, and all the ordinary spaces where only you can go.