Lay Life in a Year

52 Reflections on JPII's vision for the Laity

Week 1: The World Is A Vineyard

The world is not how it should be; the Church is not how it should be; I am not how I should be. 

Things are broken and seem to demand a solution. But every time one of us takes it upon ourselves to fix it, things only get worse. But that’s because the world is not a problem to be solved, it’s a place filled with souls waiting to be transformed. As Christ puts it, it’s a vineyard—His vineyard. 

The world doesn’t need a solution, especially not from one of us. It needs to be transformed in Christ, just as a vineyard needs to be transformed into wine. 

Only He can save the world, the Church, me. Only He can transform people into saints. And He doesn’t ask us to throw solutions at the world from afar. He points to all of humanity and to His Church and shows us that far from being an enemy to conquer or a problem to solve, it is a vineyard to be entered, nurtured, and transformed with love. 

Lay Life in a Year Overview

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Week 25 : An Urgent Diagnosis

Imagine you go to a routine check up, and your doctor sits you down: “Look, you need to urgently change some things. In fact, I know you’re already taking some medicine and don’t want to hear this, but as I look at your bloodwork all the fundamental indicators are not...

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Week 24 : Salt of the Earth

I didn’t grow up a Catholic, or even a Christian. So when I would hear my Christian friends say things like “that guy is salt of the earth” I never really understood what it meant or where it came from.  But over time, I began to notice something.  These “salt of the...

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Week 23 : Identity and Mission of Lay Christians

Who are you supposed to be and what are you supposed to do? The answer is really the center of the entire document because it has the potential to change everything about our lives. John Paul II does not mince words: You cannot be a Christian and live just like...

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