"When I became Catholic fifteen years ago, I was amazed by all the organizations available to Catholic laypeople.  They are the outward, organizational expressions of our “Catholicity”, our call to worship, to serve, to pray, to evangelize.  I bet anyone reading this can rattle off a good list of these, from parish-based hospitality groups to Knights of Columbus to the Order of Malta. But there’s a subset of lay organizations based on the charisms of particular religious orders and patterned on the vows that religious make in those orders.  These are called, variously, “Secular [name of order],” or “Lay,” or “Third Order,” or “Oblate,” or “Associate.”

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Question to ponder: What aspects of a "lay order" appeal to you?

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