"I believe in one, holy, catholic and apostolic Church." This is the Church as we believe in it. Yet the Church as we experience it might better be described as "one, holy, catholic and ministerial" The mark of a successful parish seems to have become the number of opportunities for ministry that it boasts. Certainly, to include the laity in ecclesial ministry has been a very good thing. This is not, however, the primary role for the laity that the Vatican Council II insisted upon. The Council called, not for a proliferation of new ecclesial ministries, but for a renewed apostolic initiative for the sake of evangelizing the world.

The Church, the Council insists, "dwells in the world for the sake of the world." In his first Encyclical Letter, John Paul II teaches that the Church has only one purpose: "The Church wishes to serve this single end: that each person may be able to find Christ, in order that Christ may walk with each person the path of life.. H" (Redemptor Hominis, 13). The very purpose of the Church is for the sake of the world-not for the sake of the Christian (or Catholic) community. In its solicitude for the world, the Church fulfills its apostolic vocation. Ministry, on the other hand, is solely for the sake of the Christian community, and is exercised within it.

The emphasis upon ministry has tended to eclipse an emphasis upon the mission of the Church to the world. The Catholic community has turned in upon itself after the Council, to the neglect of its mission to evangelize both persons and cultures. Our whole attention seems to have become the inner life and structure of the Church. But-and this is the terrible irony-we cannot consider the life of the Church by ignoring its "single end." Accordingly, we have experienced a polarization of the community, borrowing political terms such as "liberal" and "conservative" to characterize different approaches to organizing ourselves. We hear calls for the democratization of the Church, and opposing calls for a restoration of Christendom.

But the whole discussion overlooks the Church's apostolic mandate, and both "liberals" and "conservatives" together reflect a pre-conciliar understanding of the Church and her mission.

What, according to the Council, is the Church? What is our role in the Church as priests? Of all the possible characterizations of the Church, the Council prefers to describe the Church as "the People of God." Our role as priests is to serve the People of God. That service is, indeed, a ministry. However, the whole People of God is the subject of the Church's apostolic mandate: the People of God has, as a people, the task of extending Christ's work of redemption to the whole world. As priests our ministry is to the whole People of God, even before we address ourselves to individuals. Or, more precisely, our ministry is directed to the whole People of God and therefore to the individual members of that People.

Herein lies what is, possibly, the greatest single pastoral challenge confronting the Church in this country: that we are, as Paul insists, "the body of Christ, and individually members of it" (1 Cor. 12:27); that salvation is offered to us as a People and not merely as individuals; that we approach our vocation in the world as a People rather than as individuals; that the whole People is the subject and agent of Christ's redeeming work and not individual Christians acting alone, is understood by almost no one. We live in a culture that is Protestant in its origin, and the vast majority of Catholics have adopted a Protestant understanding of their relationship to God as something "personal," which is to say, as something "individual" and even "esoteric." The worldview of American Catholics has long since ceased to be Catholic.

Most Catholics understand their affiliation to the parish, or even to the Church, as an intentional and individual choice. "It was not you who chose me, but I who chose you..." the Lord says On. 15:16), yet most Catholics assume that they are Catholic solely because they have chosen him. Because they hold faith to be something individual and "personal" they cannot see that their faith has anything to do with their secular pursuits-with business, politics, the economy, the arts, or their recreation. Many would hold evangelization to be immoral, in that to evangelize is to intrude upon the life of other individuals. To issue a call to someone to the priesthood or to religious life, to involvement in a ministry or in an apostolic initiative, is to intrude upon his or her individual choice. The Church should be governed democratically, according to "the will of the people," by which is actually meant, "according to a majority consensus of individuals."

In a society which has lost all notion of being a people, there can be no apostolic mandate. There can be only "ministry," and ministry can only be understood as a service to individuals. This is, indeed, what has occurred: ecclesial ministry exists either to provide opportunities for individual Catholics to participate in the life of the parish, or to serve the needs, real or perceived, of individual Catholics. Adult faith formation then becomes an opportunity for "personal growth." The individual is so much at the center of our concern that the measure of revelation itself has become its relevance to the particular needs or circumstances of individuals.

That vocation to the priesthood or to religious life is little understood in such a culture as ours should not surprise us. In a society which is predicated upon one's individual needs or interests, the very idea of vocation does not make sense. Vocation consists in a call or, better, in a summons to take one's place in the midst of the People, either to serve the People of God or to participate in its common mission. Historically, and in fact, the People of God is the subject or agent of God's call. But in our society no one calls anybody to anything. Vocation is vaguely understood to be a sort of intuition or feeling, rather than a real summons, issued by real people, for the sake of a real work. Our divine vocation is, in fact, at the center of our pastoral challenge. Each man and woman, every man and woman, has been called and appointed by Christ to a divine destiny. John Paul II insists that Christ has redeemed each man and each woman" ... without any exception whatever" . (Redemptor Hominis, 14), and that the purpose of the Church is to walk with each man and each woman, in order that each one may answer God's summons to be one in Christ.

Seen in this light, the vocation crisis is a crisis for the whole of society, and not merely a crisis for the Church. We will solve the crisis for the Church in the moment that we solve the crisis for society. Happily, the very reason for the existence of the ministerial priesthood is to serve the vocation of the People of God. Our ministry is literally for the sake of solving the vocation crisis.

How are we to do this? The liturgy itself illumines our priestly office. At the beginning of the Mass, the celebrant gathers the People of God. Next he instructs them in the Liturgy of the Word. He then presides the Eucharistic prayer, in which the people are sanctified in the Sacrament of the altar. Finally, he sends the People of God into the world to fulfill the apostolic commission by proclaiming what they have seen and heard and received. Our ministry is to gather, instruct, sanctify and send (commission).

At the beginning of the liturgy we are called to be a people.This must be preached. In fact, we are a people precisely because we have been called: we share in common the fact that Christ has called and appointed us. It is the Lord's call which constitutes us as people. Because of his call, each of us has a place in his people; to answer his call and to take our place among his People is to begin to discover our personal vocation.

Having gathered according to the Lord's own summons, we are then instructed as a people. But at the center of this instruction is our vocation: the Lord reveals himself to us, but he also reveals us to ourselves. This is something that we should not tire of proclaiming to our people. The Word of the Lord is only received when we are prepared to act upon it, placing ourselves at his disposal. By extension, the parish itself is to become an agent of the call of God; we are to become aware of the gifts that are present in the community, and to call for them. The question, "What is God asking of me?" then becomes, "What is the Church asking of me?" or, closer to home, "What is the parish asking of me?"

The Eucharistic prayer culminates in the moment that Christ entrusts himself into our hands, so that we may be nourished by his body and blood. We are, therefore, the People to whom Christ entrusts himself. But in the Sacrament we also perceive what we are to become: we are to offer ourselves so that others may live. In this sense, each member of the community is represented in the self offering of every other member, and each has a stake in the sacrifice of the other. It is urgently necessary that our parishioners understand that they never approach the altar alone.

The liturgy concludes in the apostolic commission to go forth and serve the Lord. The "service" which is required is apostolic: the Lord is to be witnessed and proclaimed to the world. The substance of the proclamation is what we ourselves have experienced; our witness is to act in the world in his name and person. We are reminded of the injunction of St. Francis to proclaim Christ always, and to use words if we have to. Nothing will illumine our own call more decisively than to undertake this witness. The witness, moreover, demands an integration of every aspect of one's life: whether at work, at table or on the golf course, we act in the name and person of Christ.

If the objectives of Vatican Council II are to be met, we priests must place ourselves at the disposal of the People of God by instructing them in the common vocation which shapes and illumines their individual vocations. When we re-read the documents of the Council, we discover all of the material that we require for the sake of this instruction. Our parishes are then to become places where the gifts of individual members are recognized and called for. Our parishioners can then assist others to discern their vocations, even as they take up their own.

In our present cultural climate, we might wonder whether such a thing is possible. But we are encouraged by Our Lord himself, "Nothing is impossible for God!"

Rev. Michael B. Sweeney, OP is co-director of the Catherine of Siena Institute an organization which equips parishes to form lay apostolates.

Reprinted with permission of the National Federation of Priests' Councils (NFPC). This article appeared in the Winter, 2003 issue of Touchstone.