Eight Characteristics of a Culture of Lay Formation

In various ways I have been thinking about formation of the laity all my life. I have seven children and twenty grandchildren with whose religious formation I am very involved; I teach in a Department of Theology where we have almost 900 majors and minors. We attract them because we are very intentional about creating courses that lift up the beautiful ideals of our faith. And at the McGrath Institute for Church Life, we have programming designed to help local churches build credible cultures of formation in their parishes and schools. I have tried to distill these reflections from this ongoing experience.

In his last encyclical, Dilexit Nos, Pope Francis talked about the “recrudescence” in the modern Church of various forms of dualism rejected by the ancient Church under the heading of “Gnosticism.” Gnosticism, Francis said, “refused to acknowledge the reality of the ‘salvation of the flesh.’” It was a “disembodied spirituality” (DN §87). It resurfaced in Jansenism and continues to resurface today in “a powerful wave of secularization that seeks to build a world free of God.”

This secular mentality creeps into the Church in the form of a programmatic mentality. Francis says there is “another kind of dualism found in communities and pastors excessively caught up in external activities, structural reforms that have little to do with the Gospel, obsessive reorganization plans, worldly projects, secular ways of thinking and mandatory programmes.” “The result,” Francis says, “is often a Christianity stripped of the tender consolations of faith, the joy of serving others, the fervor of personal commitment to mission, the beauty of knowing Christ and the profound gratitude born of the friendship he offers and the ultimate meaning he gives to our lives. This too is the expression of an illusory and disembodied otherworldliness” (DN §88). Surely the ideals mentioned as “stripped off” here by these organizing activities are precisely what we would think of as goals of the formation of the laity.

By “otherworldliness” in the passage just quoted, Francis is thinking of the way that organizing and planning efforts in a parish can become focused on their programming and programs as ends in themselves. They tend to float free of “embodiment” in the concrete life of the whole parish. They can seem to serve only an inner elite of activists and organizers, and the generally smaller number of participants they attract. It is this activity that comes to be thought of as “formation,” and those being “formed” are those who participate in these programs. Though done with good intentions, “formation” becomes, ironically, another part of the “wave of secularization” Francis points to, because it becomes identified with the organizing efforts of a pastoral team and the programs they generate, as though formation were essentially a human work.

But formation of the Church, and of the laity as members of the Church, is essentially the work of Christ. The programs created can become a distraction from what is ultimately the primary formation of Church members, namely that offered by Christ at work in the Church. It is Christ himself who is the primary agent, forming the Church. He is the primary formator, so to speak. He formed the Church in the first place through his “total self-giving for our salvation, anticipated in the institution of the Eucharist and fulfilled on the Cross” (CCC §766), and he continues to form the Church by that self-same sacrifice: “The Eucharist makes the Church” (CCC §1396), because it is the “same One now offering himself, through the ministry of priests, who offered himself on the cross.” Again, Christ is present in his word, forming his members, “since it is he himself who speaks when the holy scriptures are read in the Church” (Sacrosanctum Concilium §7). We recall, too, that “Christ loves the Church as his Bride . . . as a man loves his wife as his own body,” and out of this love he “fills the Church with his divine gifts.” Principal among these, of course, is that he “shares with us his Spirit” to be the “soul” of the Body, the Church. The Spirit “gives life to, unifies and moves through the whole Body” (Lumen Gentium §7).

It is primarily by these means, namely by his action in the celebration (the sacraments), in “proclamation” (the Word), and in the various gifts of the Spirit, that the Church is formed and not primarily by any program of ours. He is always at work in his Church until all members, including the laity, are “formed in his likeness, until Christ is formed in them” (LG §7, cf. Gal. 4.19), which is not a human work but the work of the Spirit. The formation of the laity is simply one aspect or domain of this primary formation of the whole Church. The idea is not to replace this primary formation with our programs, but rather to make Christ’s work of formation as available as we can to as many of the laity as we can. Of course we need programming to accomplish this goal. But the first criterion of genuine formation of the laity would be this: our efforts in formation should be ordered towards the primary formation by Christ in sacrament, Word and Spirit, rather than seem to “replace” this formation by something we create.

This means that our efforts at formation should be directed to helping layfolk, in all their variety of ways of life, status and condition, to encounter this primary formation by Christ, and to encounter it as meaningfully as possible for each, without necessarily participating in a particular program of formation. We should ask things like, “How can we help people encounter the Lord’s work of formation in a way that it is most likely to be efficaciously received by them?” We do not think of ourselves first and foremost as forming them, but of creating a parish culture which makes it easier to receive the Lord’s gift of formation to us in all the ordinary ways he gives himself and forms us by his giving. To think first about the creation of such a culture, and of any special programming as secondary and ordered towards the creation of such a culture, would be the second criterion for going about the business of lay formation in the Church.

What could we call such a culture? We could perhaps call it a culture of encounter, thinking of the words of Pope Francis as he echoed in turn the words of Benedict XVI (Evangelii Gaudium §7): “Being a Christian is not the result of an ethical choice or a lofty idea, but the encounter with an event, a person, which gives life a new horizon and a decisive direction.” A parish culture that was a “culture of encounter” would be one that did not try to replace with our own programming the Lord’s formation of us in all the ordinary ways in which he gives himself. Rather our efforts would be directed at creating a parish culture that in all of its moments made it more likely that someone would encounter Christ’s work of formation efficaciously, such that the encounter does in fact give his or her life “a new horizon, a decisive direction.”

A very simple example of what I mean: unfailingly, the Lord is giving himself in his word, especially as it is read at Mass. But it is harder to “hear” him, harder to encounter him in a way that does give one’s life a new horizon and a decisive direction, if the lector is hard to hear, difficult to understand, reads without care, treats the Word casually instead of reverently—or, alternatively, reads as though he believes it is his effort in reading that will “make” the Word efficacious. The Lord certainly has the power to break through even the most uninspiring or overbearing reader because the very words carry his power! But we should not put obstacles in his way! A parish culture that is a “culture of encounter” would be a parish that in this case holds its lectors to a certain standard, such that the Lord’s formation offered in his word is more likely to be received efficaciously.

Another way of putting this: instead of relying solely on formation programs, the whole culture of the parish would be a “culture of formation,”[1] promoting encounters with the Primary Formator in a way that his formation in his ordinary means of sacrament, word and spiritual gifts, would be more likely to be efficacious for each person. A “culture of formation” would be one in which it was easier to stay in the Church, not because the challenge of Christian life has been diminished, but because that very challenge, Christ’s own challenge, would be celebrated, proclaimed, and borne witness to in ways that people could more easily receive its very boldness and feel moved and inspired. To think first and primarily of creating a parish culture that is a “culture of formation” would be another way of articulating the second criterion of lay formation mentioned above, and I will adopt that language going forward. We can think of further “criteria of formation” as characteristics of a parish culture that is itself a “culture of formation.”

1.  A culture of formation would be above all a culture of devotion, a culture that is devotional and fosters devotion. Pope Francis especially bequeathed devotion to us in his parting encyclical, almost like his last testament to us. Francis listed the fruits of devotion in the passage already quoted above: “the tender consolations of faith, the joy of serving others, the fervor of personal commitment to mission, the beauty of knowing Christ and the profound gratitude born of the friendship he offers and the ultimate meaning he gives to our lives.” I am not here prescribing any particular devotions or devotional practices, since these will be a function of local sensibilities and customs. But devotion must be expressed if it is to be devotion, and a culture of formation would be one in which the devotional spirit would more easily find expression.

   Devotion is the opposite of the “Gnostic” dualism of the otherworldliness Francis identified as giving rise to pathologies of church life. Devotion is concrete. It is devotion to someone. Devotion is the willingness and desire to give oneself, to expend oneself, to exhaust oneself even, for the sake of the one to whom you are devoted, be that a platoon leader, a spouse, a family, etc. This is a desire especially in the heart of young people and is at the very heart of religion. Francis says he was “led” to “propose to the whole Church renewed reflection on the love of Christ represented in the Sacred Heart” because—in my words—it is a synecdoche—a part for the whole—of the whole devotional spirit prompted by the Gospel. In his words, because “there we find the whole Gospel, a synthesis of the truths of our faith, all that we adore and seek in faith” (DN §89). A culture of formation would be a culture that is responsive to Francis’s call to recover the spirit of devotion.

2. A culture of formation would be a biblical culture. People love the Bible because it is full of powerful stories and of powerful and beautiful images. These stories and images are proposed by the Spirit to our hearts and to our imagination. They carry the power of the Spirit. To the extent that our parish culture trusts these images to form our speech, our customary way of talking, we have a parish culture that is infused with the power of the Spirit encoded in these images and stories, ready to spark the imagination and kindle the heart of the one hearing them and the one using them. These images arrest the heart and mind and thereby form devotion to the one who formed these images in the first place and who is forming us through them, namely, the Lord Jesus through his Spirit. We can see immediately that the criteria of formation, here the characteristics of a parish culture that is a culture of formation, are linked to each other. A culture that is biblical will be one likely to spark devotion and to offer the words and images, the vocabulary, in which to express devotion.

   In Dilexit Nos, Francis cites John of the Cross’s adoption of the language of the Song of Songs: “the Bridegroom, ‘beholding that the bride is wounded with love for him, because of her moan he, too, is wounded with love for her. Among lovers, the wound of one is the wound of both’” (DN §69). I am not saying that we should all go around quoting the Song of Songs indiscriminately, but a culture of formation would make it more likely that the biblical language of devotional love was available and that its use was OK. Remember that I am not here proposing particular programs or strategies because these will be locally determined, but rather emphasizing that whatever efforts we exert in any kind of programming or strategy should be towards forming the parish culture as a culture in which we are more likely to hear, and feel comfortable using, the words and stories in which the Primary Formator works his formation.

3. A culture of formation is a culture of mission. Another way of saying this, taking a lead from Evangelii Gaudium, is that it would be a culture of witness. By this I mean that it is a culture where laypeople feel encouraged and supported as agents of evangelization, bearing witness to the faith to each other and to non-believers among co-workers, community members, sports teammates, fellow soldiers in the military, you name it! Pope Francis, in Evangelii Gaudium, observed that “it would be insufficient to envisage a plan of evangelization to be carried out by professionals while the rest of the faithful would simply be passive recipients” (EG §120). He touchingly recalls Paul’s mention of Timothy’s mother and grandmother at 2 Tim 1:5: “I am reminded of your sincere faith, a faith that dwelt first in your grandmother Lois and your mother Eunice” (cited at EG §13). I am sure Lois and Eunice did not have PhDs in theology, but it did not stop them from being evangelizers, and given their end product, Timothy, they do not seem to have done such a bad job. A parish that is a culture of formation would be one where it seems natural for layfolk to have the confidence to bear witness to what the Lord, the Church, the sacraments, what Mary and the saints, mean to them. And the more they have biblical and devotional language they have to employ in the witness they bear, the better!
4. A culture of formation would be a catechetical culture. The CCC (§426), citing John Paul II (Catechesi Tradendae §5), puts it this way:
   

   At the heart of catechesis we find, in essence, a Person, the Person of Jesus of Nazareth, the only Son from the Father . . . who suffered and died for us and who now, after rising is living with us forever.

   Catechesis aims at putting “people . . . in communion . . . with Jesus Christ: only he can lead us to the love of the Father in the Spirit and make us share in the life of the Holy Trinity.”

   A catechetical culture is a culture of encounter, enabling in turn a more effective culture of witness and evangelization. That is because a catechetical culture will also be instructional. As noted above, one does not have to have a PhD (or even a Master’s degree!) in theology to evangelize through one’s bearing witness. But eventually, people will have questions. Who is this Person, exactly? What does “the only Son from the Father” mean? Is this Person divine? Then how can he be human, if he is indeed human?

   Everyday evangelizers, so to speak, do not have to have the precise teaching at their fingertips, but a parish culture that is catechetical will make the instruction needed to answer such questions easily available as part of the parish culture. And note that by “instructional” I mean “informational,” but not merely informational. Catechesis passes on the doctrines of the faith with the realization that the “information”—for example, that Jesus is one Person in two Natures—not as mere information, but as information that is formational and even transformational. It is not the same kind of information as “Rome is the capital of Italy.”

   It contains the mystery of the unimaginably awesome gift of the self-emptying of the Word of God—who is truly divine—to live a human life just like our own but without sin. Taught properly, this is information that increases the depth and intensity of our encounter with the Person we find “at the heart of catechesis,” such that we learn how, “in the Person of Christ the whole of God’s eternal design reach[es] fulfillment in that Person” (CCC §426 citing CT §5). And evangelizers will have need of this kind of information to respond to the kinds of criticisms of Catholic teaching that lure Catholics to the camps of the Evangelicals and Pentecostals, etc. There can be no true culture of formation that is not catechetical, and that includes the apologetic capacity provided by easily available instruction. A catechetical culture is one where it is easier to hear Christ the Teacher forming us ever more deeply into his saving doctrine. A truly instructional culture is not the same as a pedantic culture that would “overlay” his voice, but one that amplifies it. The strategies for achieving this will vary, but the point is the goal of creating a parish culture that is ordered towards helping everyone to hear and receive the voice of Christ the Teacher more clearly and more efficaciously.

   Incidentally, one aspect of the formation offered by a culture that is instructional is the opportunity it affords various parishioners to teach. I am thinking here especially of young people. One way of forming young people in a sense of apostolic mission is to place them in the position of forming others. For example, the service associated with sacramental preparation for Confirmation is often construed as social service of some kind, but what if we asked our young Confirmandi to assist in the catechesis of younger kids? When one is responsible for someone else’s learning or formation, it also tends to form the formator in a deeper identification with the faith.

5. A culture of formation is a culture of diakonia, of service. It is very important, though, that the service in which a parish or parishioners may engage not be understood in or reduced to secular terms or motivations, otherwise it is part of a culture of deformation rather than formation. Pope Francis, to the contrary, shows how diakonia flows from the devotional spirit and in turn builds it up: “our work as Christians for the betterment of society should not obscure its religious inspiration, for that, in the end, would be to seek less for our brothers and sisters than what God desires to give them” (DN §205). Our work for the betterment of society is prompted, as no less than Leo XIII taught, because “through the image of his Sacred Heart the love of Christ ‘moves us to return love for love’” (DN §166, citing Leo XIII Anum Sacrum). Francis also quotes John Paul II, who, he says, “explained that by entrusting ourselves together to the heart of Christ, ‘over the ruins accumulated by hatred and violence, the greatly desired civilization of love, the kingdom of the heart of Christ can be built’” (DN §182, citing a 1986 letter of JPII). Francis himself comments, in a very beautiful passage, that
   
   

   Christian reparation cannot be understood simply as a congeries of external works, however indispensable and at times admirable they may be. These need a ‘mystique,’ a soul, a meaning that grants them strength, drive and tireless creativity. They need the life, the fire and the light that radiate from the heart of Christ (DN §184).

   If our efforts to work for the betterment of human society proceed from this kind of devotion to the love of Jesus Christ, they will be formative of the laity involved in just that spirit of true diakonia animated by devotion, by the “mystique” or “soul” that Francis mentions here. Pope Leo XIV has commented, quoting Francis, that Christian diakonia is not an essentially secular work and that engaging in it helps form us in a contemplation of the mystery of the poverty of Christ in the Incarnation: “A poor Church for the poor begins by reaching out to the flesh of Christ. If we reach out to the flesh of Christ, we begin to understand something, to understand what this poverty, the Lord’s poverty, actually is; and this is far from easy” (Dilexi Te §110). Again, from Pope Leo XIV, “The Christian tradition of visiting the sick, washing their wounds, and comforting the afflicted is not simply a philanthropic endeavor, but an ecclesial action through which the members of the Church ‘touch the suffering flesh of Christ,’” (DT §49, also citing Francis). Laypersons engaging in such efforts as an “ecclesial action” are formed not only in a deeper contemplation of the mystery of the Incarnation, but of the mystery of the Church herself, which is, as Lumen Gentium famously put it, “by no weak analogy, compared to the mystery of the incarnate Word” (LG §8). This is one avenue by which one may come to be formed in love of the Church (to which I will return below).

6. A parish culture that is a “culture of formation” is sacramental. It is indelibly stamped by Christ at work in the sacraments, all the sacraments. But this means, above all, that a parish culture which is a culture of formation is Eucharistic, because, as Presbyterorum Ordinis proclaimed, “The other sacraments, as well as with every ministry of the Church and every work of the apostolate, are all bound together with the Eucharist and are directed toward it” (PO §5). If the essence of devotion is fervent self-offering, then the Eucharist is the font of the devotional spirit, because “the Most Blessed Eucharist contains the entire spiritual good of the Church, that is, Christ himself, our Pasch and Living Bread, . . . giving life to men who are thus invited and encouraged to offer themselves, their labors and all created things, together with him” (ibid.). Again, “We beg the Lord in the sacrifice of the Mass that ‘receiving the offering of the spiritual victim,’ he may fashion us for himself ‘as an eternal gift’” (SC §12) in a perpetual devotion of love for love. This devotion can find further expression and further growth in Eucharistic adoration, as recommended by Pope Francis (DN §85) in continuity with his predecessors.

   The Mass is also the font of a biblical culture, for “the Eucharist . . . is the source and the apex of the whole work of preaching the Gospel” (ibid.). As already noted, Christ is present in the reading and preaching of the Word. Indeed, the very fabric of the liturgy is woven from Scriptural phrases and images so that over time the images come to dwell in the imagination of all those participating. The liturgy is also “the privileged place for catechizing the People of God” (CCC §1074) because of the homily and because the prayers narrate the mysteries and name them as they are being celebrated.

   The Eucharist forms the culture of the parish as missionary because it sends us forth to proclaim the Good News of the Gospel. And, as Paul VI explained, liturgical preaching, “inserted in a unique way into the Eucharistic celebration, from which it receives special force and vigor, certainly has a particular role in evangelization” (EN §43), while at the same time, the terminus of evangelization is not simply intellectual consent, but Eucharistic communion. Evangelii nuntiandi teaches that, “in its totality, evangelization—over and above the preaching of a message—consists in the implantation of the Church, which does not exist without the driving force which is the sacramental life culminating in the Eucharist” (EN §28). The Eucharist also is the source of formation in diakonia for, “the Eucharist commits us to the poor” (CCC §1397) and, as Benedict XVI noted, a “Eucharist which does not pass over into the concrete practice of love is intrinsically fragmented” (Deus Caritas Est §14).

   We can therefore think of the liturgy as almost a culture of formation of its own, imparting to the parish culture a “Eucharistic coherence.”[2] In a way the Eucharist, duly celebrated, is always a locus of formation. But it is important to think of it deliberately and consciously as a site of formation because of its centrality in forming the whole life of the parish as a culture of formation. Is the Eucharist celebrated reverently? If so, it forms people in reverence for the awesome mystery of Christ’s self-gift as he offers himself. Reverence is something that has to be taught. It is not the same as being sanctimonious. Rather, reverent gestures, on the part of priest and people, are shared gestures of love and of tenderness towards a holy mystery. They are signs of our awareness of a transcendent intimacy being imparted to all and binding all in a communion that is elevating and melts many barriers. Reverence is a training, a formation, in mystery, and, supplementing the Mass, Eucharistic adoration is a site for formation in reverence for young and old.

   Reverence is connected to beauty. We have to be careful not to assume that young people today have the same dispositions they were thought to have had forty years ago. It is telling that the clientele of the contemporary revival of the Tridentine Mass is not the few of us who remember how it actually was sixty years ago, but young families who have a nostalgia for something they actually do not remember but are looking for, namely, a sense of something not “off the shelf,” not seemingly just another element in consumer culture, but a sense of purpose as communicated by the beauty and dignity associated with a love that is thrilling to the core of one’s being. Should we blame young people for looking for such a thing? I am not arguing that we should go back to the Traditional Latin Mass to supply it, but our liturgies, by the exquisite care we take of them, should make that unnecessary. Reverence and beauty can come in many forms; I remember travelling to the (relatively remote) diocese of Tshumbe in the Democratic Republic of Congo where I experienced the Mass celebrated in the Rite of Zaire, and fully in its own idiom it expressed a sense of mystery and awe that, I thought at the time, was very hard to locate in many of the suburban parishes of the West. For many of us, life is a struggle against banality, seeming futility, and the coldness hidden in flashy marketing strategies. The liturgy should offer an opening into a different world, the kingdom of heaven, here present as a foretaste of an eternal beatitude which gives us the power to evangelize culture and orient it towards, and attract it into, a future it cannot give itself.

   Incidentally, by Eucharist, I do not mean only Sunday Mass. Daily Mass is its own unique site of formation. Daily Masses seem like “lower stakes” environments for many people, some of whom may be testing out whether they want to return or join; and daily Masses form their own communities of encouragement and support. They are, I think, an underutilized avenue of evangelization and formation.

   In conclusion, I want to name two further characteristics of a parish culture that is an intentional culture of formation. These flow especially, I think, from the imprint of the Eucharist on the whole culture.

7. A culture of formation is a culture of vocation. Attuned to and formed in communion with the sublime and moving sacrifice of love welcoming us into the “hour” of Jesus’s passion and the culmination of his calling, for for this purpose I was was born and for this purpose I was sent into the world (John 18:37), we are moved to find our own calling and, once found, to pursue it with devotion, love, and zeal. A parish culture that is a culture of formation in the way I have been describing it is one that will allow young men to discern and recognize a call to the ordained priesthood along with the confidence needed for answering it. A Eucharistic culture of formation will also be a matrix for the formation of faith- and love-filled marriages, for nurturing the “domestic church” that is the family and that, after the Eucharist, is the next most important locus of formation of the laity. Birthrates are declining at an alarming rate! A consumerist culture offers its own formation of our young people into a culture of sterility which makes the raising of children seem a waste of time that could be better spent earning more money, achieving autonomy, seeking a life of comfort that desensitizes those who achieve it to the emptiness at its heart. But if we are deliberate and intentional not just about creating programs but of forming a culture in which it is “easier to be Catholic,” “easier to stay Catholic,” attractive in its contours of the beauty on offer and the saturation in the soul satisfying ideals of Christ’s sacrificial love, we can form the confidence needed to form and support fruitful families who can also support each other.
8. A parish culture of formation is one conceived intentionally as a culture infused with the formation of the Primary Formator, the Lord Jesus: it will be a culture of love of the Church or even devotion to the Church. Friends, love of the Church can be one of the hardest loves to form or acquire. To many, it seems equivalent to love of an institution. Why can’t I just love Jesus in my heart and leave the seemingly unlovable institution behind?

   Remember, friends, that affiliation and disaffiliation are not just matters of the intellect. One can know all the correct doctrine of the Church but not join or stay in the Church. Affiliation is a matter of the will and so it is a matter of love. A parish culture that is intentionally a culture of formation ordered towards making Christ’s formation primary, will be the place where love of the Church is formed. For love of the Church will be love of a Person who is efficaciously present in liturgies intended to help people be aware of him as he speaks and pours himself out for them. Love of the Church will be love of Christ as he is met in the devotional spirit of persons who lend their affection for the Sacred Heart, for Mary and for the saints, for the Blessed Sacrament, to building a culture of love for the beautiful things of religion.

   Love for the Church will be love for the flesh of the poor served by the Church, which is the flesh of the Lord, our own flesh, bound in communion. Love for the Church will be love for the love that forms the Church, pouring out of the pierced Heart of Christ hanging dead on the Cross. Love of the Church will be love of the love that transcends the boundary of death and forms a communion that is not broken by death and in which we can meet, in his love, those gone before us. In all these many ways and more, love of the Church is encountered and formed not as love of a bare institution separate from and separable from Christ, but as love of him as he gives himself here and uniquely here, in all of the persons who are his members and in all of those outside whose misery, spiritual and material, we are called to serve, and whose “joys and hopes” (Gaudium et Spes §1) we are called to celebrate.

EDITORIAL NOTE: This article was originally presented as a lecture to the Dicastery for Laity and Family Life at the Vatican on 4 February 2026.

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