The laity must cooperate with the hierarchy.

The laity must cooperate with the hierarchy.
*******************************
Power or service?
----------------------------

The followers of Jesus are bound by love, as Jesus is Love.

All the members of our hierarchy and laity are followers of Jesus and hence are united with one another by love.

Love expresses itself in service.

The word 'minister',  which we usually use to refer to people in authority, really means 'servant'.

God Himself became man and lowered Himself to the state of a servant by washing the legs of His disciples, including Judas.

"Therefore, if I, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you also ought to wash the feet of one another. 

For I have given you an example, so that just as I have done for you, so also should you do." (John.13:14,15)

"And whoever is the leader, let him become the server."  (Luke.22:26)

So,  our hierarchy is not meant to be a power structure.

It is meant to serve as a bridge between men and God.

Any power they have is not theirs, but rather Christ’s.

Their only job is to allow Christ to work through them.

The priests are in the place of Jesus Himself. 

Jesus gives us

whatever He wants to give us

through His priests.

Only priests can administer the sacraments,

through which

our sins are forgiven,

Our Lord is given to us as our spiritual food,

we are confirmed in our faith

and

our marriages are blessed .

Priests Offer the Sacrifice.

Throughout human history,

in every culture and religion,

the priest is always the one who offers the sacrifice

on behalf of the people.

Jesus is our High Priest and His priests participate in his priesthood.

The sacrifice of Christ on the cross is the only  perfect sacrifice ever offered.

When a priest offers the sacrifice of the Mass,

he re-presents the sacrifice of Christ on the cross.

Holy Mass is the life of the church.

No priest,  no Mass.

So,

No priest, no life.

It is essential for the Church,

that the sacrifice of the Mass  is offered  throughout the world

every second.

Every second has a  Mass or even more Masses offered.

Holy Mass is offered ceaselessly by one priest or other.

We ,the laity,  unite ourselves   with the priest while the Mass is  offered,

as we cannot do it ourselves .

Together with the priest we  offer Jesus to our Heavenly Father, as reparation for our sins.

Without priests the laity are like a car without an engine!

It is Christ who offers Holy Mass, in the person of the priest.

The priests die fully to themselves  at every Mass, when they say,

"This is my body."

"This is my blood."

When they say these words we see Jesus Himself in them.

Of course, the salvation path to heaven is the same for all the members of the church, both the priests and the laity.

It is a path of Sacraments and grace.

Both have to receive the grace of God through the Sacraments instituted by Jesus in order to attain salvation.

So priests have double responsibility.

(All the members of the hierarchy, from His Holiness downward, are basically priests)

A doctor has to take care of

his own health

and that of his patients.

Let us take for example a parish priest.

First he has to save his own soul.
He is also responsible for the salvation of all his parishioners.

The parish priest is like a father of a family, that is why we call him 'Father'.

A chief minister takes care of his state as a whole. He need not know each and every citizen individually.

But it is not enough that the father of a family takes care of his family as a whole.

He must take care of each and every member of his family  fully, individually.

It is not enough that he gets food for the whole family,

he must see that each and every member is served food and that he/she eats what is served.

In the same way a parish priest must give each and every parishioner individual spiritual attention.

The only work of a parish priest is

to administer the Sacraments,

  lead the people under his care in the right path towards heaven with his spiritual direction

and spread the Word of God by preching His Gospel.

If he does this properly  he won't have time for any other work.

In fact he  is full time servant of Jesus.

God has chosen him only for spiritual service to be done for those who have been given to him for his care.

He has not been chosen for any temporal administration.

In practice we have overloaded him with work which presses him down when he tries his level best to rise up in his spiritual service to God and man.

The works like
School administration,
financial management,
land administration,
building churches don't need years of intensive study in philosophy and theology
and ordination.

Such parish works, temporal by nature,  must
be entrusted to the laity,

so that the priest can get more time to do his spiritual services like

visiting houses,

hearing confessions,

visiting the sick with our Eucharistic Lord,

recctifying irregular  marriages etc. etc.

Every parish has a parish council.

It can take over the temporal works of the parish to help  our spiritual Father to give more attention to the spiritual welfare of the people.

'The church' must be under the care of the hierarchy.

'Church' must be administered by the laity.

'The church' refers to the mystical body of Christ. திருச்சபை
The Roman Catholic Church.

'Church ' refers to the building.
கோவில். (Going to 'church' daily for Mass is good for our soul)

A priest, whether he is a diocesan priest or religious priest, is meant for spiritual service, not temporal service.

Our missionaries started schools and colleges purely for Evangelical work.

It is time to evaluate the quality of the Evangelical work our schools and colleges are doing  now.

We should not be like other worldly educational institutions, which have producing results as their only aim.

Admitting only bright students and make them pass is not an achievement.

It is like hospitals admitting only healthy people for treatment!

We must

give preference to intellectually poor Christian students for admission

and prepare them spiritually and accademically for future life.

We should have schools and colleges for the spiritual and temporal benefits of our people,

but if they don't help us evangelically, they are no better than eys without sight.

Both the hierarchy and the laity are parts of the same mystical body of Christ, interrelated and interdependent

and should be mutually helpful,

to attain one and the same end, everlasting life with our Creator.

Lourdu Selvam.