Lay identity
I understand well the concern of those lay chaplains and people who work in pastoral care or similar ministries as lay people when they are repeatedly taken as a priest or religious sister - it can be sort of embarrassing. What could we do?
If after clarification and explanation they still call you "Father" or “Reverend Mother”, so let it be - until the next encounter. Might be that the patient him/herself feels embarrassed when the word "Father" or “Mother” automatically slips off of his/her lips. We are so accustomed that a figure of authority should be a "Father" or at minimum a "Reverend Mother"!
At least they still thought you to be a Catholic priest or religious! With me it me happened more than once that thought of a heretic, or of a cult or strange religion - that could have been also funny if not embarrassing.
I remember also the uneasiness when needed to explain repeatedly that I am not a religious (funny word, suggesting that only members of orders are "religious") but a layperson; but this repeated experience helped also to develop and strengthen my "lay identity", the conviction that we have a distinct role and spirituality in the Church on our own right. And basically the Church is first of all "lay" (coming from "laos" =people in Greek) as "the people of God". The various functions come as secondary to it.
Do you have similar experiences? What do you think of being a lay person, a lay minister in the Church of our time?
-K
