Reflection Paper I

Pax et Bonum!
Verbum Domini nuntiates in universo mundo

A Reflection on Ministry
Harold William Vadney III

St Bernard’s School of Theology and Ministry

40 North Main Avenue
Albany, New York 12203

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Rev. John A. Molyn
Summer 2011
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"For the Kingdom of heaven is like a householder who went out early in the
morning to hire labourers for his vineyard. After agreeing with the labourers for
a denarius a day, he sent them into his vineyard" (Mt 20:1-2).
The key event in our Christian faith and the flower of the liturgical year, the Resurrection event,
has passed and we now approach the Pentecost feast, the primal event of ministry, in my view. In
1 Corinthians we read about the Spirit and her gifts and receive the instruction that we are to
cooperate as the members of one body.1 In Acts 2 we read about the visitation of the Spirit and
speaking in tongues, the sending of the disciples to proclaim.2 John teaches that Jesus spoke to
the disciples with the words, "Peace be with you. As the Father has sent me, so I send you." and
informs us that “he breathed on them and said to them, ‘Receive the holy Spirit.’”3 He leaves us
in the fourth Gospel with the words, “The Advocate, the holy Spirit that the Father will send in
my name--he will teach you everything and remind you of all that (I) told you.”4 So we have the
Spirit indwelling us, infusing us with her gifts, and the Christ breathing the Giver of Life into us
and sending us forth. These vents are renewed in our Baptism, and we are taught that it is
through our Baptism that we are priests, prophets, and members of a royal household here and
not, and in the future; through our Baptism we are made ministers in the mission that is the
Church.
Transition and transformation compel one to distinguish essential models of service and mission
from historically-traditionally configured models of clerico-centric ministry to include the novel
and often misunderstood concept of a cooperative–collaborative model of ordained–lay ministry
and ministers within the mission of the Church, wherein the heretofore unsung heroes and
heroines called to the lay ecclesial ministries established in the visionary promulgations of
Vatican II and validated in subsequent papal, synodical, and conference documents. To be
realized this vision required a validated working proposal and a clear definition.
Vatican II produced the fundamental document on the renewed and updated Church in the
document Lumen Gentium with the ambitious English title “Dogmatic Constitution on the
Church5,” which reads in this respect:
Upon all the laity, therefore, rests the noble duty of working to extend the divine plan of salvation
to all men of each epoch and in every land. Consequently, may every opportunity be given them
so that, according to their abilities and the needs of the times, they may zealously participate in the
saving work of the Church. (LG, 33)
In the document Apostolicam Actuositatem (Decree on the Apostolate of the Laity) the council
fathers lay down a seminal statement on the laity, which reads:6
The laity derive the right and duty to the apostolate from their union with Christ the head;
incorporated into Christ's Mystical Body through Baptism and strengthened by the power of the
Holy Spirit through Confirmation, they are assigned to the apostolate by the Lord Himself. They
are consecrated for the royal priesthood and the holy people (cf. 1 Peter 2:4-10) not only that they
1
1 Cor 12:2-7; 12-13
2
Acts 2:1-11
3
John 20:21-22
4
John 14:26
5
Lumen Gentium (Dogmatic Constitution on the Church)
http://www.vatican.va/archive/hist_councils/ii_vatican_council/documents/vat-ii_const_19641121_lumen-
gentium_en.html (last accessed on April 30, 2011)
6
Apostolicam Actuositatem (Decree on the Apostolate of the Laity)
http://www.vatican.va/archive/hist_councils/ii_vatican_council/documents/vat-ii_decree_19651118_apostolicam-
actuositatem_en.html (last accessed on April 30, 2011)

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may offer spiritual sacrifices in everything they do but also that they may witness to Christ
throughout the world. The sacraments, however, especially the most holy Eucharist, communicate
and nourish that charity which is the soul of the entire apostolate. (AA, 3)
In 1988 Pope John Paul II, too, was mindful of the vision of Vatican II and of the absolute role of
the baptized follower of Christ and memorialized his thoughts in the apostolic exhortation,
Christifideles Laici (On the Vocation and the Mission of the Lay Faithful in the Church and in
the World) (CF):7
The gospel parable sets before our eyes the Lord's vast vineyard and the multitude of persons, both
women and men, who are called and sent forth by him to labour in it. The vineyard is the whole
world (cf. Mt 13:38), which is to be transformed according to the plan of God in view of the final
coming of the Kingdom of God. (CF, 1)
His holiness John Paul II continues:
In the wake of the Second Vatican Council(20), at the beginning of my pastoral ministry, my aim
was to emphasize forcefully the priestly, prophetic and kingly dignity of the entire People of God
in the following words: "He who was born of the Virgin Mary, the carpenter's Son -as he was
thought to be-Son of the living God (confessed by Peter), has come to make us 'a kingdom of
priests' The Second Vatican Council has reminded us of the mystery of this power and of the fact
that the mission of Christ -Priest, Prophet-Teacher, King-continues in the Church. Everyone, the
whole People of God, shares in this threefold mission" (CF, 14)
More recently, in 2005, the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops promulgated the Co-
Workers in the Vineyard of the Lord: A Resource for Guiding the Development of the Lay
Ecclesial Ministry. From these seminal documents we can articulate a definition based on the
cultural, traditional, and historical continuum of the evolution of what I understand to be
ministry.
"Christian ministry is the public activity of a baptized follower of Jesus Christ in actuating a call
or vocation flowing from the continual discernment of the Spirit's charism and an individual
personality on behalf of a Christian community to proclaim, serve and realize the kingdom of God
here on earth."8

I believe that this definition provides a useful roadmap for realizing the Gospels, the teachings of
the councils, synods, conferences, the inner workings of our persons in fulfillment of our
baptismal commitments and promises, while also enlightening the "archaic" model of ministry
received from the New Testament and patristic periods revived by Vatican II, and proposed by
the bishops.
Karl Rahner's insight that grace always intersects human culture as an essential expression of
God's incarnation in the world in Jesus and the Spirit, and through the Christifideles Laici,
Christ’s faithful, completes this reflection. The church, whose whole mission is to proclaim the
salvific initiative of God in Christ through ministry, is made relevant or irrelevant to the extent
that it corresponds to the Spirit in each time and place through the mission of ministry of the
baptized.

7
Christifideles Laici (On the Vocation and the Mission of the Lay Faithful in the Church and in the World)
athttp://www.vatican.va/holy_father/john_paul_ii/apost_exhortations/documents/hf_jp-
ii_exh_30121988_christifideles-laici_en.html (last accessed on April 30, 2011)
8
This definition is modeled on Thomas F. O’Meara, Theology of Ministry, revised edition (Paulist, 1999), ISBN: 0-
8091-3856-5 and Edward P. Hahnenberg, Ministries: A Relational Approach (Crossroad, 2003) ISBN: 0-8245-
2103-X; I have underscored key words in this definition.

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Holding all of the above in mind, I consider ministry to be an ethics, that is, ministry for me is a
way of living life rightly. It involves commitment to others and commitment to self in terms of
authenticity. Ministry for me is living a spirituality, that is, living life to give it meaning, value,
truth. Living ministry is seeking to discern that for which God created me and where God wants
me to be, where my bliss is to be found. Ministry is my realization and actualization in my
personal place in creation, a path to authenticity.
While it is true that I am blessed with many gifts, each of which can be implemented continually
or situationally, it is only through the response of others that I realize which gifts the Spirit may
be calling forth in a particular situation; in ministry my fiat must be “Thy will, not my will, be
done!” and I am constantly working to find the humility and obedience to abandon all else in
favor of that fiat.
At the same time, in my ministry and understanding of ministry, as properly in all aspects of life,
I must guard against pride, hubris and sloth. In other words, I must constantly guard against
exalting myself in asserting myself over against God and the other; against elevating myself to
the level of the divine and alienating myself from God; against weakness in failing to appreciate
and actualize my gifts and potential, or refusing to answer God’s call.
All ministry, therefore, can be exemplified as a two-faced coin: for every good there is a
potential evil. Perhaps that is the challenge of holy ministry, to be given the grace to discern the
spirit of our ministries.
Pax et Bonum! Alleluia!
Harold W. Vadney III
on the feast of St Pius V
30 April 2011