"Whom shall I send, and who will go for us? Then said I, Here am I; send me."
-Is 6:8
Lay believers are in the front line of Church life; for them the Church is the animating principle
of human society. Therefore, they in particular ought to have an ever-clearer consciousness not only of
belonging to the Church, but of being the Church, that is to say, the community of the faithful on earth
under the leadership of the Pope, the common Head, and of the bishops in communion with him.
They are the Church. (Catechism of the Catholic Church 899)
