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            Three major themes characterizing the thinking of the Second Vatican Council offer a key to the renewal it envisaged: an ecclesiology of "communio" and of the "People of God"; a philosophy of "Christian personalism" which emphasizes the personal dignity, rights and duties of each member of Christ's faithful; a spirit of "diakonia" or service as distinguishing the call to follow Christ, and especially the vocation of his ordained ministers. It is important to see the harmony and interaction between these three concepts: communion, personalism, service.

            Emphasis on the dignity and inviolability of the person might at first sight be seen as potentially opposed to "communio." On the contrary, as I have tried to illustrate elsewhere [1], true Christian personalism is in deep harmony with "communio," and lies at its very basis. The opening paragraph of Lumen Gentium tells us: "The Church, in Christ, is in the nature of sacrament — a sign and instrument, that is, of communion with God and of unity among all men" [2]. This dense phrase already indicates that the broad ecclesial communion of the People of God —a divine force to gather all men into one— implies a personal communion of every Christian with God, who calls each one by his or her name [3]. External "communio" —visible expressions of union among the faithful— would be lacking in substance if it were not based on this internal communion of each one with God [4]. Personal "communio" in this sense remains the condition of any true and effective —salvific— ecclesial communion. A "communion" with others, without personal union with Christ, would be external, hollow, non-lasting and nonsalvific.

            Here it is important to distinguish between two philosophies or outlooks that are at times confused: personalism and individualism [5]. Although a superficial consideration might suggest that they have much in common, in fact they are fundamentally opposed: to the point that while personalism favors "communio" and is a condition for it, individualism is basically destructive of any real union or fraternity between people, even on the purely human level. Within an ecclesial context, individualism is in inevitable tension with "communion," and destructive of the renewal of the "People of God." Nevertheless, expressions of individualism, at times using personalist terms, are not infrequently found in the Church today.

            This merits a few more comments. Vatican II is not individualist; in other words, it does not accentuate the individual above the community. It is community-centered; it accentuates the community, at the same time as it accentuates the person. In other words, it is both personalist and community-centered. There is no contradiction. Personalism stresses the dignity and rights of each person, as someone made in the image of God and called to communion with God and with others [6]. However, in stressing rights, personalism also stresses duties (any genuine philosophy of rights is also a philosophy of duties). It stresses duties towards other persons —towards the community— and sees the fulfillment of these duties as a means of personal growth and self-fulfillment, in the fulfillment of the community [7]. Individualism, in contrast, stresses the interests and advantage of the individual regarded as an end in himself or herself, unrelated to any community. The individualist may at times pay lip-service to duties, but has no real concern for them. Self-interest is his rule. Where individual interests and common interests seem to clash, the individualist will put what he considers his own interests first.

            One can be personalist and community-centered. One cannot be individualist and community-centered. The failure to recognize and observe this basic truth explains the failure of many attempts at renewal over the past 30 years.

At the service of "communio"

            Let us now consider the role of the priest within this panorama of renewal through "communio" inspired by Christian personalism. A key concept to the understanding of the priest's role offered by Vatican II is, as we have noted, that of "diakonia." The priest has voluntarily offered himself and freely undertaken to serve. His mission is one of service. The content of this mission needs to be identified further. Who or what is he meant to serve? And how should that service be carried out?

            The priest is certainly called to serve within the institutional, structured, hierarchical Church. Any non-hierarchical service would be individualistic and tend to the disruption of "communio." The Apostolic Exhortation, Pastores Dabo Vobis says that the priest "is a servant of the Church as communion because —in union with the bishops and closely related to the presbyterate— he builds up the unity of the Church community in the harmony of diverse vocations, charisms and services" (no. 16). Nevertheless we could create unnecessary difficulties for ourselves here, if we did not bear in mind that the institutional-structural aspects of the Church are themselves at the service of "communio," of the saving communion which Christ offers to the world; and that Christ offers that saving communion ultimately to persons.

            The Church with its corporate life, it structures and its laws, exists to carry on Christ's work, so that his grace and salvation can reach every person everywhere. Salvation is a person-to-person affair; it incorporates into the community, but first incorporates each one into Christ. It links persons, beginning with God's personal advance to men, and depending for its achievement on the personal response of each one. Each one, with his personal rights and duties, has a part to play. It is in the service of personal rights within the Church that I see the priest's role particularly expressed.

            When we speak of personal rights, we must remember that the first rights to be served by Church ministers are those of Our Lord himself: Christ's right to have his redemptive work carried on; in particular his right to meet and offer salvation to each one through the Church he founded in order precisely that, by means of its doctrine, worship, sacraments and authority, it should be a visible, audible and tangible means of Redemption for all.

            Christ has the right that his ministers further his work; and the rest of the faithful have the right of access to Christ, through the Church. It is particularly important to see the role of Church law in this light. The law exists primarily as an instrument to facilitate "communio" of Christ with each one, and each with Christ, and as a consequence of all with all. Its purpose is to protect and keep open all the channels of access to and from Christ, so facilitating that interpersonal relationship of communion and commitment [8]. The loyal and responsible application of Church law, therefore, is pastoral in the most fundamental sense; that is, it puts people in touch with Christ their Pastor, with the sacramental and institutional gifts that his Goodness wants to give, and also with the demands —in matters of belief and conduct— that his Wisdom knows we need to face up to.

Vatican II and law

            Nevertheless it is a fact that some lay people and also not a few priests tend to see ecclesial law as an obstacle to Christian renewal and even to the spirit of the Council. This implies a radical misconstruction not only of Church law but also of the central ecclesiological ideas of the Council itself. This is worth dwelling upon.

            Vatican II nowhere countenances a de-emphasis on law, and less still does it put an "Ecclesia Spiritus" —a Church of charismatic gifts and pastoral spontaneity- above an "Ecclesia iuris" — a hierarchical Church of juridical realities and government. On the contrary, when the Council seeks to reduce the theologically rich (but broad and somewhat vague) theme of "communio" to a more concrete image, it chooses "People of God," a term which necessarily carries with it a juridic emphasis in a way that other traditional descriptions of the Church —such as "Body of Christ" or "Bride of Christ"- do not. It should be obvious that while an ecclesiology of the Body of Christ can be developed without any special emphasis on the reality or necessity of law, an ecclesiology of the People of God cannot, since the very notion of a "People" necessarily stresses interpersonal rights and duties, and therefore questions of justice and law. That is why it is important to emphasize that ecclesiastical law finds its ultimate reason and justification in the defense of the rights of the people and of the communion to which each and all are called.

            This perhaps can be better seen by looking more closely at how Church law defines and defends certain ecclesial rights whose non-exercise, or worse still whose violation, impedes "communio." Each Christian has a right to enjoy the fullness of saving ecclesial "communio"; a right, in other words, to find the Grace, Truth and Will of Christ in and through his Church, using the means that Christ himself has instituted and left us. Book Two of the new Code of Canon law, entitled "The People of God," opens with a series of canons which express the constitutional rights of the faithful, and are reechoed or specified further in subsequent sections of the Code. Canon 213 is perhaps the most basic canons of all these canons. It tersely states: "Christ's Faithful have the right to be assisted by their Pastors from the spiritual riches of the Church, especially by the Word of God and the Sacraments." Later on, canon 762 further stresses part of this, also in terms of a right: "the People of God are first united through the word of the living God and are fully entitled" —they have the full right— "to seek this word from their priests."

            Some important points can be noted about these canons, which are taken word-for-word from the conciliar documents Lumen Gentium (no. 37) and Presbyterorum Ordinis (no. 4). In the first place, in underlining the rights of certain persons, they necessarily underline the obligations of others (one person's right always implies another person's obligation). Secondly, while the terms "Christ's Faithful" and "People of God" in themselves include clerics as well as laity, the Council is evidently speaking in these passages — which emphasize what the people are entitled to seek from their pastors — of the rights of the laity in particular.

            Given the ecclesiology of the Council, renewal depends very largely in fact on the laity's becoming aware of their ecclesial rights (and, of course, duties) and exercising them; and this, as should be clear, can only come about through a special response of "diakonia" — of service — on the part of the clergy. There is a point here that priests cannot let themselves forget. The special stress laid by the Council on the rights of the laity necessarily places an equal stress on the obligations of those who are called to be ministers to the people. Within the People of God, after all (and it is a fact not to be forgotten), it is the laity who have more rights than duties and the clergy who have more duties than rights. And a particular duty of the clergy is to respect the laws that guarantee the rights of the rest of the faithful. Unless that respect were fully lived, people's access to the riches of Christ's work would be hindered or reduced.

Aspects of service

            Within the exposition of the sacraments offered by the new Catechism of the Catholic Church, the sacrament of Order is considered, along with matrimony, under the title of "Sacraments at the service of communion." The Catechism states at the very outset that these two sacraments "are ordered to the salvation of others. If they contribute to personal salvation, this comes about through the service of others" (no. 1534). Speaking specifically of Order, the Catechism insists that the function of the ordained minister "is to serve in the name and in the person of Christ the Head in the midst of the community" (no. 1591) [9].

            It is extremely helpful for us priests to work from these ideas in examining our attitude towards the various institutions and missions  ["munera"] of the Church. Towards worship and the sacraments, and towards the norms given to regulate their celebration. Towards evangelization and the mission of the Church to hand on the doctrine of Jesus Christ in its saving integrity. Towards union with Christ our Head and with those who represent him, and towards our efforts to serve that unity among his followers, which he so ardently prayed for at the Last Supper.

            First of all towards the sacraments which the new Catechism so superbly describes as "those masterpieces of God" (no. 1091). Space allows for no more than one or two brief observations in relation to the two which can be received frequently. The people have the right to see their priests centered in a spirit of faith on eucharistic worship of which, as the Catechism says, the Church and the world have such need (no. 1380). More than anything else, daily celebration of the Eucharist should help the priest identify himself with Christ, who offers himself for the people.

            There is another more internal aspect to the priest's celebration of the Mass where an important right of the people is also involved, though they themselves are often unaware of its existence and, due to its hidden nature, would remain unaware even if deprived of the fruit it ought to produce. That is the parish priest's obligation to apply the Mass each Sunday and holyday for the people entrusted to him (c. 534). "I have prayed for them," said Jesus; and the priest's identification with Christ calls him to do the same constantly, never more so than in the Eucharistic sacrifice where, "in persona Christi," he prays and should offer himself for the salvation of all.

            Despite our personal limitations and defects —which seldom escape our people's attention— we should try to rise to this challenge in all aspects of our pastoral ministry. One particular way to do this is by making ourselves available for the administration of the Sacrament of Reconciliation, where people expect to find the infinite patience and generosity of God's Mercy. Here we could specially recall the words of the Cure of Ars which the catechism quotes: "the priesthood is the love of the heart of Jesus" (no. 1589).

            We might also mention here (although it is outside the strictly sacramental area) another duty of the priest, which also corresponds to a right of the people, though again they usually are unaware of it, and therefore its fulfilment (and even more the spirit in which it is fulfilled) escapes their attention. This is the Liturgy of the Hours, the Divine Office ("officium" of course means duty) [10]. Our Lord prayed constantly for his people —the whole of mankind— at times spending entire nights in prayer. We too, especially in the recital of the Breviary, need to carry on Christ's incessant prayer of adoration and thanksgiving and reparation and petition, on behalf of our people. Not to try to pray constantly for one's people is to miss one's priestly identity and not to fulfil one's priestly role.

            Each priest of course shares in the "munus docendi" of the Church, as in fact do all the faithful. But this mission is especially operative when exercised by papal and conciliar authority, for then it has Christ's special guarantee behind it. We need particularly to examine our attitude towards Christian teaching, as it come to us in this sense; i.e., "from above" our own level. It is an individualistic spirit which harps on how the Magisterium "threatens" people's rights. A spirit more attuned to the ecclesiology of Vatican II realizes that the Magisterium is in fact at the service of people's rights; concretely their right to know the Mind of Christ on major issues [11]. This is just as true for the individual priest and theologian as it is for any other member of the faithful. The priest or theologian — if he is a man of faith — knows that the Magisterium is endowed with a particular charism of truth that he personally does not possess. No more and no less than the rest of the People of God, he has the right —and the duty and privilege— of looking for guidance to this institutionalized charism of the Magisterium. Otherwise he cannot serve others in achieving communion with the saving Truth of Christ.

A sharing in Christ's mediation

            Particularly by means of his preaching, the priest has a share in the "munus docendi." To fulfil this mission responsibly, he needs to bear in mind what the Pope recently recalled: "The preaching of priests is not a mere exercise of the word that answers a personal need to express oneself and to communicate one's own thought, nor can it consist solely in sharing one's personal experience. This psychological element, which can have a didactic-pastoral role, is neither the reason for nor the principal element in preaching...  The mission of preaching is entrusted by the Church to priests as a sharing in Christ's mediation, to be exercised by virtue of and according to the demands of his mandate." As the Fathers of the 1971 Synod of Bishops said, priests "in their degree of ministry, share in the office of the one Mediator, Christ, and proclaim to all the divine word." This expression cannot fail to make us reflect: it is a "divine word," which therefore is not "ours" and cannot be manipulated, changed or adapted at will, but must be proclaimed in its entirety" [12].

Priests must be ready for service

            Our attitude towards the hierarchy could also be examined. A minimum of spirit of "communio" calls for union with one's bishop, just as with the Pope. Pastores Dabo Vobis says: "By its very nature the ordained ministry can be carried out only to the extent that the priest is united to Christ through sacramental participation in the priestly order, and this again to the extent that he is in hierarchical communion with his own bishop" (no. 17). That spirit of "communio" is most effectively shown in the priest's availability for service: here or there in the diocese, in this or that parish or job, along with this or that person. It is equally shown in helping the people under his care be at one with their bishop; in avoiding all negative criticism, and especially too the individualistic spirit that easily ends in the formation of splintergroups. All of this calls for a true priestly spirit of self-sacrifice. As the Pope emphasized in his General Audience of August 11, 1993, if priests and bishops are "to live and work in communion, [this] does not occur without renouncing an ever real, recurring individualism, without achieving self-denial in the victory of charity over selfishness" [13].

Liturgy, "communio" and personalism

            Before ending let me add some few further considerations on the celebration of the liturgy, where "communio" and personalism should meet in a special way. Each individual's participation in the liturgy ought to be an expression of his or her sense of personal communion with God. If this is lacking, then all that is likely to be provoked is a surface experience of community, which fails to effect a true "communio" with Christ; and even that experience of human communion, since it lacks a true ecclesial and supernatural basis, tends not to be lasting.

            Speaking of liturgical worship in general, the new Catechism says: "The assembly ought to prepare itself to meet its Lord, to be 'a people well disposed.' This preparation of the heart is the common work of the Spirit and of the assembly, especially its ministers. The grace of the Holy Spirit seeks to stir up faith, conversion of heart and adhesion to the will of the Father. These dispositions are the prerequisites for the reception of the other graces offered in the [liturgical] celebration itself, and for the fruits of a new life that it is designed to produce" (no. 1098).

            Obviously if we priests are to be good instruments for stirring up these fundamental dispositions —faith, conversion, and adhesion to God's fatherly will— we need to foster them in ourselves, and they should appear in our conduct and ministry. That "new life in Christ" [14] which the Gospel brings and of which we are special ministers —in the liturgy and in all our pastoral work— will carry more appeal and be communicated more effectively if people see that the priest serving them is a man of faith, penance, and ready acceptance of God's will.

            Conversely, if a priest did not actively pursue these interior dispositions, his external ministry would be limited in its fruit. However well carried through a liturgical celebration may be, its catechetical effect is greatly reduced if the people see or sense that the minister is weak in faith; for instance, as shown in a certain lack of reverence towards the Blessed Sacrament. If the priest himself gives little impression of change of heart in the practical everyday battles to conquer personal defects, if people sense he is not seriously trying to overcome impatience or lack of punctuality, or that he simply will never say he is sorry or admit he is wrong ..., what dispositions of conversion is he showing or likely to provoke? The same holds good if he is well known not to get on with his fellow-priests in general, or with his bishop, pastor or assistant pastor in particular.

We must preach what we live

            The importance of these apparently small details for an effective pastoral practice could be spelled out in many examples. Let one or two suffice. When a married couple's relations are getting a bit frayed, a priest's efforts encouraging them to convert and learn to get on are so much more powerful in their effect, if they know him to be positive in his judgments and at one with others, especially his fellow-priests, above all those he may live with. On the contrary, how those efforts are undermined if he has earned a certain reputation of being negative or cold or indifferent towards others. When someone's wife or husband or son or daughter has just died, they need to be told —also by us— that God's fatherly will is behind that loss, even though humanly it does not seem so. Such encouragement or consolation can be effective on our lips, if we have learned to see and are known to accept —wholeheartedly— his fatherly will in the things we ourselves find hard in our own lives; and how artificial such encouragement may be if our own attitude towards hardships is one of resistance or protest.

            Vatican II wanted to renew the Church because it saw that the world needs renewing. This has become more evident in the past thirty years. Modern western civilization is in a major crisis: values, authority, solidarity, morality, social cohesion, sense of purpose of life..., all seem to be in danger of demise. The temptation to discouragement is strong for many outside —and inside— the Church. The crisis which the world is going through is in many ways typical of old age, with a growing spirit of skepticism, disillusionment and grumbling self-concern. The Gospel should be the spirit of youth, filled with the hope and dynamism of the Resurrection. A first consequence of our faith should be optimism. Optimism in God's creation, and therefore in the power of the instinct for good and ultimate attraction towards truth which he has implanted in the heart of each man and woman, and on which the Pope, throughout Veritatis Splendor, grounds his presentation of morality. Evil is certainly present in our world today, as it has been in every age. But no Christian, and particularly no priest, should ever forget what Thomas Aquinas so succinctly and forcefully says: "good is stronger than evil" [15]. In the end good has a far greater appeal to each human person, for he or she is made for it.

            Optimism then in God's designs and fatherly care should be ours, for he has not abandoned the world, even though at times we cannot understand situations and seeming tragedies he appears to permit. But it is God's specialty to draw good from evil; and, as Blessed Josemaría Escrivá liked to repeat, to draw great good from great evil. Optimism in the work of Redemption, in the "triumphant power" of God's mercy [16]. Optimism therefore in the value and effectiveness of our own ministry —our life of "diakonia"— serving Christian "communio," both on the more corporate and visible level, as well as on that of the personal and interior "communio" with Christ, to which each individual Christian is called. There lies our ecclesial function, and therein our priestly identity and role.

NOTES

1 Cf. "Personalism, Individualism and the 'Communio' of Vatican II" Osservatore Romano (English Ed.), April 28, 1993.

2 LG 1.

3 Isa. 43:1.

4 The growing loneliness that many people seem to be experiencing in the Church today may ultimately be due to a sense of not belonging to a people, of not feeling the strength of common values, of a common inheritance.

5 I consider this at greater length in the Osservatore Romano article referred to.

6 "To be human means to be called to interpersonal communion": Mulieris Dignitatem, no. 7.

7 "The member of the faithful who, under the impulse of the Holy Spirit, recognizes the need for a profound ecclesiological conversion, will transform the assertion and exercise of his or her rights into an assumption of duties of unity and solidarity by means of living the higher values that pertain to the common good": John Paul II, 1979 Address to the Roman Rota: Insegnamenti di Giovanni Paolo II, 111-1979, 410.

8 "Law is at the service of the faithful and it establishes the necessary dispositions so that pastors transmit to them the faith, communicate the sacraments and the means of sanctification to them, and guide them in the communion of God": Jean-Marie Lustiger, Le Choix de Dieu, p. 432.

9 The words of the Apostolic Exhortation Pastores Dabo Vobis (no. 17) come to mind: "Priests are there to serve the faith, hope and charity of the laity."

10 Cf. c. 276 § 2, 30.

11 "The right of the faithful to receive Catholic doctrine in its purity and integrity must always be respected," Veritatis Splendor, no. 113.

12 General Audience, April 21, 1993 (Osservatore Romano, Engl. Ed., April 28, 1993, p. 11).

13 Osservatore Romano, Engl. Ed., August 18, 1993, p. 11.

14 Cf. 2 Cor 5:17.

15 "Bonum est potentius quam malum": Summa Theologica, I, q. 100, art. 2.

16 Cf. Veritatis Splendor, no. 118.