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Our Blog

A Message from the Director

Dear Students,

I would like to take this opportunity to welcome you to the Bishop Helmsing Institute. In the past weeks I have spoken with many people who knew Bishop Helmsing personally, and we are very proud to bear his name as an institution.

Forty years ago, Bishop Helmsing was one of the fathers of the Second Vatican Council. This council helped clarify the Church’s understanding of the role of the lay person in the Church and in the World.

In the Council’s Constitution on the Church (Lumen Gentium), we are taught that there is a universal call to holiness based on our baptism which results in an apostolic outlook toward the world around us (LG 30-36). There is also a natural unity to the Christian life which informs every aspect of our existence.

"The faithful, therefore, must learn the deepest meaning and the value of all creation, as well as its role in the harmonious praise of God. They must assist each other to live holier lives even in their daily occupations. In this way the world may be permeated by the spirit of Christ and it may more effectively fulfill its purpose in justice, charity and peace." Lumen Gentium 36.

Finally the council documents point out that the laity has a special mission to be "secular" or to live in the midst of the world interacting with secular affairs and influencing them in the light of Christ

"The laity have the principal role in the overall fulfillment of this duty. Therefore, by their competence in secular training and by their activity, elevated from within by the grace of Christ, let them vigorously contribute their effort, so that created goods may be perfected by human labor, technical skill and civic culture for the benefit of all men according to the design of the Creator and the light of His Word. . . . In this manner, through the members of the Church, will Christ progressively illumine the whole of human society with His saving light. Lumen Gentium 36.

The Bishop Helmsing Institute exists to help lay people, from all walks of life, to fulfill this great vision of living holiness in the midst of their daily lives. As the apostle Paul says, "And whatever you do, in word or in deed, do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him." Col. 3:17.

May God bless you richly as you journey toward deeper faith in Him. Duc in Altum.

Scott McKellar

Director, Bishop Helmsing Institute