Chapter 5
Our Cooperation with the Laity in
Mission
305: §1. Aim:
• The Society recognizes as a
the laity`s taking “an active, conscientious,
and responsible part in the mission of Church in this
great moment of history.”
• …we seek to respond to this grace by cooperating with
them to realize their mission fully, accommodating
ourselves…
§2. How:
• In order to achieve this, all our members should become
more keenly aware of the meaning of the state and
vocation of the laity and their apostolate in the Church
and the world according to the new teaching of the
ecclesiastical magisterium (Conc. Vat. II. Lumen Gentium,
nos. 30-38)
•
31. The term laity is here understood to mean all the faithful except those in holy orders and those in the state of
religious life specially approved by the Church. These faithful are by baptism made one body with Christ and are
constituted among the People of God; they are in their own way made sharers in the priestly, prophetical, and
kingly functions of Christ; and they carry out for their own part the mission of the whole Christian people in the
Church and in the world.
• By means of fraternal dialogue with them, we should
make efforts to understand better their life, their ways
of thinking and feeling… to share our spiritual heritage…
we can receive from the laity much to strengthen our
own vocation and mission…
Evangelizing
Mission
Cooperation
The Forms of the Cooperation
• 306: Jesuit in a lay work
“This cooperation requires from all of us formation and renewal,
to take place early in our training and throughout our lives.”
• 307: Lays in the works of the Society
• 309: Ignatian associations
• 310: Closer bonds of certain lays with the Society – Not the
case anymore