By Rita McInerney

The Kingdom of God is wherever His will is done, and He wants that rule to be established in the everyday lives of Catholics, Bishop Raymond Lucker, bishop of New Ulm, MN, told those attending the workshop on "The Role of the Laity" held Friday, Feb. 27 and Saturday, Feb. 28.

The sessions at Sts. Peter and Paul Church in Decatur included a panel presentation Saturday morning during which five women described their lay ministries. One hundred and forty people were registered for the sessions.

The rule of God must be established in everyday lives, in families, schools, institutions of society, "wherever we are," Bishop Lucker said. But it must "begin in our hearts and lives and then extend to the world."

Like the prophets in the Old Testament, people today give the same excuses to God's call to build up the kingdom, the bishop said. They're afraid, too young, don't know enough, don't have enough time. But they are instruments in the hands of God and are given gifts of the Spirit by Baptism and Confirmation. “Through us the Lord is able to reach into other people and touch them. ‘I will send you my spirit, you will have power, then you are to be my witnesses,' Jesus told his apostles.”’

A great breakthrough of Vatican II, Bishop Lucker said, was to call every single member of the Church to life and ministry. No longer is there a separation between pew and sanctuary. No longer does the priest "say" and the parishioners "hear" Mass; it is "We are gathered together to celebrate." There is no such thing as a passive recipient now; when people come to receive the sacraments with love and confidence, the grace of God works better, Bishop Lucker said.

Everyone shares in the servant ministry to reach out in love to those who are hurting. But the bishop conceded that the Church "hasn't caught on a lot to the importance of social concerns. We're beginning but have a long way to go, to promoting justice, working for peace, working for life, working for women."

There is an explosion of people accepting the call, all under Church leadership and control, he said ... "What we have not done very well is in affirming people in ministries that affect the transformation of society. We spend most of our time in family, work and recreation." But Vatican II, he continued, called people to change the society in which they live and called them to be ecclesial.

Two neglected areas, Bishop Lucker said, are those of economics and sexuality. The social convulsion of the rural crisis -- people losing their land, their self worth -- has led to the realization there is a real relationship between the family and the economy, and society and sexuality.

"There is a parallel in history in the way we, (white males) have treated the land and the way we have treated women." The land, Bishop Lucker said, has been used, exploited, dominated. "We tend to deal with women in the same way, we tend to look on people of color in the same way. Land is the object of our greed, our covetousness," so are women and people of color.

Catholics must look upon the economic system as a way to cherish God's creation and they must come to see human sexuality as something not to be talked about degradingly, the bishop said. There is a need for a theology of sexuality but it can't be done unless lay people express their experiences. "Those who will change society in this regard will be lay people."

Returning to the subject Saturday morning, he said lay people have to proclaim that sexual intimacy is good and that they share with God an incredible power. "We need to speak of the conjugal relationship as a special gift of God ... what we hear is sexuality separated from human love and responsibility. Lay people need to help us know the sacredness and beauty ... We need to help society, children see human sexuality as a gift."

Bishop Lucker came to Atlanta a few days after returning from Guatemala where his diocese of New Ulm, which has 90 parishes, allocates $300,000 each year to support a mission.

He told the audience during the question and answer period after his Friday night talk that he lives in a community with eight lay people. His job is to care for the large vegetable garden which provides the community table all year round. He sees gardening, doing plastering and carpentry, as ways to keep close to the human values.

Much more support is needed for those who wish to give their whole lives to ecclesial ministries within the Church; financial support in the form of scholarships and adequate salaries, the bishop said Saturday morning.

The role of women in the Church is especially critical, and there is the "need to be much more aware of the exclusive language, and become more conscious of the need to involve women according to the gifts they have been given."

The first speaker during the panel discussion was Ruth Lammars, a Catholic in the archdiocese for 24 years and a member of St. Mark's Church in Clarkesville. The parish has 140 members, 20 of whom are very active, she said. She is involved in the Saint Vincent de Paul Society, the RCIA, Covenant Center and for peace and justice. She is the mother of 14 children and grandmother of 14.

She described Covenant Center as a lay-initiated center that shelters the elderly, sick, unwed mothers, the mentally disturbed, many who couldn't afford a place to live. It is now run by the Glenmary order and does a lot of outreach in the north Georgia mountain area.

She warned about the danger of laity being involved in a "constant dose of mundane work that doesn't nourish the spirit," busy work of doing the same job over and over. There is a definite need for a game plan, she said.

The first lay principal in the archdiocese, Judy Jenks, of St. Jude's School in Sandy Springs, spoke of her journey beginning with teaching in a one-room school in Kentucky between her junior and senior year in college. Living in a cabin, she had enough quiet time to read the New Testament. In later years, "resistant to what He was trying to tell me," she slowly came to find teaching was sheer joy, sharing the knowledge and faith she was slowly growing into. She spoke of how the people around her, parents, students and other teachers, helped her to see that the Lord "had given me many gifts to share in helping children reach their full potential."

She sees a real need to recruit lay people to the ministries for which they are called, and to pay them adequate, just salaries. "I'd like to see greater respect and appreciation for those choosing the vocation of being single. It is an area to which we have not given enough support and appreciation in the past," she said in closing her talk.

Rhonwyn Rogers, a convert, and the first director of the archdiocesan Office for Black Catholics, said she was made aware in her earliest years that as family "we work in the church. God was first in our life at home." She was drawn to the Church early and, at 21, married and became a Catholic. She and her husband have two children.

Educated as a psychologist, she found after working in this field for a few years that she needed to be committed to "what God wanted for me."

In her work now, she said, she is concerned with the number of black Catholics who are leaving the Church because they tell her, "I don't think I'm welcome here." She is deeply concerned about the misunderstandings that have to be bridged, "The struggles and situations of past lifetimes we're still working through as people of God."

Kathy Clarke, director of religious education at St. Joseph's Church in Athens, said as a divorced mother of four children she represents a large number of Catholics. "I bring the experience of brokenness, I bring the experience of healing, the experience of ever-deepening conversion. These elements affect how I relate to others in the church. We are all in the business together of conversion catechesis." She said Engaged Encounter and Marriage Encounter were the most significant influences in her faith journey. She spoke of her frustration, saying the Church has not done a good job of helping the laity understand their call. In implementing the pastoral letter on the economy there is a need to empower people to know they are going into the workplace as Christians."

She doesn't have feeling of security in her job, she told the audience, and must act responsibly in supporting her family. "I stay in it because it is life-giving."

Terry Zobel, director of St. Thomas Aquinas in Alpharetta, said she was led to ministry at the age of 30 after being stricken with a life-threatening illness. The family crisis her illness brought about made her look more seriously at her church. Her husband converted, and their making of Cursillo weekends was essential, saving for both of them. It moved them to be leaders of their parish, teaching Sunday school and taking part in the Homecoming program which called inactive Catholics back to church.

"In our parish the work of adult education and evangelization came to be seen as a process flowing in and out of each other," she said in explaining how she came to be asked to take on a 20-hour-a-week position whose description included adult education, evangelization and RCIA. "Only a woman could be asked to do that."

She stays, she said, because her work "calls me to exercise levels of creativity that I never knew existed in my person. Although she sees today as a time of desert for the church, "faith eyes see blooms in the desert. Leaders can call us to covenant, community, vocation, responsibility, service."

She said there is a sense of a caste system in the church with people still being ranked in holiness as priest, sisters, deacon and laity. And the people in the pew see those in key ministries as "people who help Father, people doing busy work." Very few men would be able to enter lay ministry, it is seen by many people as women's work, she said.

Regarding the consultations being held as prelude to the Synod on the Laity at the Vatican next fall she said, "We have a voice we want to dialogue with priests, bishops. The whole church needs to be open to modern administration."

The workshop was sponsored by the archdiocesan Office of Religious Education in collaboration with the Committee for Continuing Education of the Clergy and the Office for Black Catholics.