Tonight the instructor began by saying that history is not a study of the past, but is an interpretation of the past. He also pointed out the difficulty of teaching 2000 years of history in 4 hours. To provide us with a historical perspective on the history of vocation and ministry in the Catholic Church, he decided to present 10 turning points and persons in the history of lay ministry.
1) The Emperor
Constantine was the first Christian Emperor whose reign marked a profound change in the early story of Christianity. The church was both helped and hindered by the emperor's close involvement, but in either case it would never be the same again. This was a period of rapid and dynamic change in the church. Preceding a battle with local city states, Constantine had a vision of a cross accompanied by the words, "By this sign you shall conquer". He wasn't a Christian, although he had Christians on his advisory teams and recognized that Christianity could bring stability to his empire. He legalized all religions, including Christianity, and returned property using earlier records of persecution. This was a quantum leap forward for Christianity. He was very committed to knowing what was happening in the church, and his involvement in the Council of Trent impacted it's direction and results. Uniformity developed as Christianity began to be accepted and encouraged growing uniformity. Although Christianity was advanced significantly, where it might have gone without this influence is unknown.
2) The Desert Mothers and Fathers
The Desert Mothers (Ammas) and their male counterparts, the Desert Fathers (Abbas), left the distractions of everyday life in order to retreat to the desert for solitude, silence, and prayer. Their intention was to "be alone with God", but they often formed small, loosely-knit communities for common prayer and mutual guidance. Their movement marked the beginnings of Christian religious life and their contemplative prayer had a great impact on the history of Catholic spirituality. As Christianity became more accepted and uniform, people began to ask "how do you live a life of radical faith" which had been the model of Christian life under persecution. They're answer was a retreat to isolation, the desert life, and to give up the comforts, beauty, noise, and distractions of the big cities. Out of this developed the religious life of monastic communities, with their constant desire for meditation, prayer, and worship.
3) The Pope
Pope Innocent III is considered the most powerful of medieval popes, but much of his greatness had to do with an authority based on integrity and wisdom. A lawyer by training (both civil and canon), he represents a new standard in the ministry of St. Peter. He was a devoted pastor and did much to shape parish identities, in clergy and parishioners, for centuries to come. During this period scholarship became important, and education shifted back from the monastic communities to the Cathedrals. This shift back to the cities provided a different emphasis on education, such as current affairs and diversity of ideas. It was a boom time of relative prosperity, and a period of peace. Although these new ideas challenged orthodoxy, resulting in another council, they also resulted in a response to the poor within the cities, and a raising of the expectations and standards for the education of parish priests.
4) The Laywoman
From the early 13th century, groups of lay women (mostly in the cities) began to form communities without vows for the sake of a common life, prayer and various apostolates. Like so many other groups before and after them, they sought to live "as the disciples lived" in their own time and place. A male version of this non-vowed model of religious life, the Beghards, flourished at roughly the same time, the late Middle Ages. Vocations in life happen in non-programmed ways, and for these women, the Begheens, vacations were born when their spiritual desires met a challenge, educating women and children and providing medical aid and service. Unfortunately, other more radical non-Christian groups of women called themselves Begheens as well. Although eventually suppressed, dedicated lay women re-emerged as educators.
5) The Teacher
St. Thomas Aquinas is considered the greatest mind of the Christian Middle Ages and represented the human desire to join reason with faith in order to more fully explore the vast mystery of the Devine. As a child he was sent to St. Benedicts Abby, but he wanted to be a Dominican and went to Paris for school, where his instructor, St. Albert "the Great" introduced him to Aristotle. St Thomas tried to understand "how such a brilliant mind could not know God" and this led him to explore three schools of thought about faith and reason. As a member of a young religious community, the Order of Preachers (Dominicans), St. Thomas was a profound intellectual. He began writing Summae Theologiae (The Summary of all Theology) but it was never completed. One day half way through a lecture he suddenly stopped later claiming that "all he had done was like wind and straw". He ended his life crossing into the mystic realm of contemplation.
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