Chapter IV of Lumen Gentium, the Dogmatic Constitution on the Church, is entitled “The Laity.” It continues as follows:
“35. Christ, the great Prophet, who proclaimed the Kingdom of His Father both by the testimony of His life and the power of His words, continually fulfills His prophetic office until the complete manifestation of glory. He does this not only through the hierarchy who teach in His name and with His authority, but also through the laity whom He made His witnesses and to whom He gave understanding of the faith (sensu fidei) and an attractiveness in speech(200) so that the power of the Gospel might shine forth in their daily social and family life. They conduct themselves as children of the promise, and thus strong in faith and in hope they make the most of the present,(201) and with patience await the glory that is to come.(202) Let them not, then, hide this hope in the depths of their hearts, but even in the program of their secular life let them express it by a continual conversion and by wrestling ‘against the world-rulers of this darkness, against the spiritual forces of wickedness’.(203)”
(200) Cf. Acts 2:17-18; Revelation 19:10.
(201) Cf. Ephesians 5:16; Colossians 4:5.
(202) Cf. Romans 8:25.
(203) Ephesians 6:12
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