Prioritize the Interior Life

"... I am sick with Love. " --Song of Songs 5:8

“Be self-controlled and sober-minded for the sake of your prayers” (1 Peter 4:7). We are committed to mental prayer within a daily holy hour, daily meditation, a daily rosary, eucharistic adoration, and frequent confession of our sins. Our missionaries are convicted of the universal call to contemplation and we desire  to be transformed into the person of Christ in this life.  We strive to live a joyful life filled with constant prayer, praise, and thanksgiving. All of our missionary activity is an overflow of His radical love for us. Our evangelization is inspired by  the instruction we receive in prayer from the Holy Spirit, the principal agent of evangelization (Pope St. Paul VI, Evangelii Nuntiandi 75). In imitation of Christ, our love takes on an ascetical character as we grow in virtue, letting charity form all the actions we take, so that our love can not only purify our hearts but the hearts of those we serve. The primacy of prayer in the christian life is reflected in our schedule and practice, and through that divine intimacy we participate in the crucified love of Christ that is rooted in the resurrection. This love has the power to restore, redeem, and transform our lives. It is the source and goal of our missionary endeavors. 

“For mental prayer in my opinion is nothing else than an intimate sharing between friends; it means taking time frequently to be alone with Him who we know loves us.” 

- St. Teresa of Avila; The Book of Her Life, ch. 8, 5.

Live Liturgically

We center our lives, our team, and ministry around the Church’s liturgy.. We attend Mass daily, structure our routine around liturgical events, and invite those we serve  into liturgical devotions.  Our team participates in the divine office, we celebrate the lives of the Saints, live into the liturgical seasons, we fast and feast, and intentionally embrace the sabbath. We believe the Church as our Mother forms us into her Son primarily through Her prayer through which we participate both individually and communally. Culture has commonly been defined as “what you celebrate, and what you tolerate.” We embrace a liturgical culture in our team and our families, desiring to live out our Catholic faith to the fullest by taking advantage of all the Church has to offer in her rich traditions. We hope, as pilgrims on this earth, to heal society from within in such a way as to center it around the liturgical worship of the Church, which is the prayer of Christ to the Father in the Spirit for the redemption of the world. Through our active participation in the Church’s prayer, the liturgy disciples us as a community toward union with Christ. We believe through the Holy Spirit, the liturgy has been imbued with a formative quality upon our lives. We strive to integrate that prayer into our manner of living starting with the individual, followed by the family, the community, and ultimately the entire world. This liturgical rhythm of prayer keeps our minds renewed in Christ and His works, providing a spiritual tether that allows us to live in the world but not of it.

“Prefer nothing to the love of Christ" (Rule 72: 11; cf. 4: 21) and “let nothing be preferred to the Work of God" [that is, the liturgical prayer of the Church] (43, 3).

 –St. Benedict

Build the Domestic Church

"As the family goes, so goes the nation, and so goes the whole world in which we live." --St John Paul the Great

The Church often refers to the family as the Domestic Church. The family is the foundation of any civilization and its health is vital for the well being of a society. The family holds the principal place of evangelization because it is the first society. We stand in solidarity with Pope Benedict XVI who said, “The new evangelization depends largely on the Domestic Church.”

This primacy of the family is not without sacrifice for the Gospel.  While this sacrificial love looks different from those called to the priesthood or religious life, the Christ like character of love still remains. We do what is first best for the family to thrive and allow our mission to overflow from the home. As an apostolate, we desire to cater to the family and to host family friendly events while also accompanying men and women in their personal growth. We seek to prioritize family life over financial gains, professional success, media consumption, and societal expectations. We believe for the laity that the greatest witness to holiness is a healthy family life rooted in Christ and His Church as “Matrimony is a Gospel in itself, a ‘Good News’ for the world of today, especially the dechristianized world.( Pope Benedict XVI).” The family is the greatest and first school of virtue because it is the school of love. We desire to accompany couples to strengthen their marriage and empower them to raise their kids virtuously in the faith.

“But you surely know that we must love God more than we love our family, and that we must be ready to let go of everything on this earth and that is dear to us rather than to offend God in the least.” 

–Blessed Franz Jägerstätter

 Ownership of the Great Commission

"Go, therefore, and make disciples of all nations teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always, until the end of the age." --Matthew 28:19

Mother Church directs the laity to “exercise the apostolate by their activity directed to the evangelization and sanctification of men and to the penetrating and perfecting of the temporal order through the spirit of the Gospel. In this way, their temporal activity openly bears witness to Christ and promotes the salvation of men” (Apostolicam Actuositatem 2). We do this through building a community that evangelizes and takes ownership of that responsibility communally and individually. The Church has one vision: to see missionary disciples made of both individuals and nations.

The decree on the apostolate of the laity boldly states that a “member who fails to make his proper contribution to the development of the Church must be said to be useful neither to the Church nor to himself” (Apostolicam Actuositatem 2).The Great Commission was given to the Church as an institution and simultaneously, through our baptism, each of us has a personal obligation to participate in the mission of Christ. Flowing from our divine intimacy with Jesus, we embrace the call to accompany others in discovering Christ’s love for them and how He desires that love to bear fruit of unique apostolates in the world through their individual calls to sanctify the temporal order. Allowing our apostolate to become inculturated wherever the Lord brings us, we foster ownership of this invitation in each parish and community we enter.

“Many, many people hereabouts are not becoming Christians for one reason only: there is nobody to make them Christians”  

- St. Francis Xavier, S.J.

Formation of the Whole Person

“Do not be conformed to this world but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that you may prove what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect.” --Romans 12:2

As Christians, we are called to be dead to sin and alive in Christ Jesus (Rom 6:10-11). Rooted in our identity and convicted of the call to wholeness, we constantly turn to Jesus for inner healing and the ridding of all vices and strongholds in our lives. We start with ourselves, knowing that our apostolate flows from holiness and unity with the Lord. Jesus came to make us whole, to transform us entirely and we believe that the pursuit of this re-formation within Jesus is essential to apostolic work. As a result, our missionaries commit to lifelong formation in every aspect of the human person—human, spiritual, intellectual, and apostolic—so that we can put off the old man while ever-embracing the new (Eph 4:22-24).

We encourage our missionaries to seek assistance in growing from spiritual directors, mentors, coaching, ongoing education at academic institutions, and spiritual training programs. Discipleship entails far more than exterior acts of zeal, it must be rooted in a constant desire for configuration of the entirety of ourselves to the Person of Jesus Christ. By continually striving to grow in virtue and holiness, we believe this enables us to see Christ’s face and hear His voice more clearly.

“Faith and reason are like two wings on which the human spirit rises to the contemplation of truth; and God has placed in the human heart a desire to know the truth—in a word, to know himself.”

-- St John Paul the Great