Missionary Image
of
Our Lady
of
Guadalupe
Dan
Lynch, Director Rev. Thomas Celso, Spiritual Advisor
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Missionary Image
of
Our Lady
of
Guadalupe
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The Lay Apostle’s I Can Do This! Checklist Dan Lynch As a member of the lay faithful, you are called by your Baptism to be an apostle to bring the Gospel message into the temporal realities of the world such as your family, neighborhood, work, parish, culture, the media, politics, sports, etc. You are part of the priesthood of the laity who offer, by means of the hands of the priest in the Eucharist, Christ’s body and blood, soul and divinity with your entire existence as praise and thanksgiving to God, as intercessors for the needs of the world and in reparation and atonement for your sins and the sins of the whole world. The Eucharist must be the source and summit of your Christian life. This leads to what St. Josemaría Escriva called a “priestly soul and a lay mentality.” From this Eucharistic source, you can propose the Gospel message as the best way to solve the personal and social problems of our times, as the best way to seek peace and justice in the family and among peoples, and as the best way to build what Pope John Paul II called “a Culture of Life and a Civilization of Love.” As a Lay Apostle, you are special in God’s plan for the New Evangelization. Your mission is to allow the Sacred Heart of Jesus to flow through you as one of His arteries to bring His grace, mercy and love to His body, the Church. You can be a Lay Apostle! You don’t need any special education or training. Just be yourself, and practice your faith, hope and love. But you can do more than you are doing now. You can do this:
1. Be Holy! Be personally holy according to your state in life as a mother, father, daughter, son, sister, brother or single person. Click here for more information. 2. Love one another and your enemies. Forgive those who have hurt you. Be kind and gentle to others and respectful of them. 3. Pray the daily Rosary and the Chaplet of Mercy. 4. Consecrate yourself to the Immaculate Heart of Mary and wear the Brown Scapular as a sign of your consecration. Click here for more information. 5. Sacrifice through fasting on bread and water on Wednesdays and Fridays, if you are able, or make other acts of self-denial such as renouncing addictive behavior of watching television, using computers, smoking, drinking, etc. 6. Practice the First Friday Devotion of attending Mass and receiving Communion on nine First Fridays of the month in reparation for the offenses against the Sacred Heart of Jesus. 7. Practice the First Saturday Devotion of praying the Rosary, meditating for 15 minutes on the mysteries, attending Mass and receiving Holy Communion in reparation for the offenses against the Immaculate Heart of Mary on five First Saturdays of the month with confession within eight days of each First Saturday. 8. Practice Holy Hours of adoration of the Blessed Sacrament and visits to the Blessed Sacrament. 9. Learn the Catholic Church’s teachings on faith and morals by reading the Catechism of the Catholic Church and the Scriptures. 10. Practice apostolic action such as: Þ Be a missionary to the culture by speaking and writing seeds of truth in your own environment of family, neighbors, friends and co-workers. You may be the only Gospel that someone ever sees or hears! Þ Communicate with your political representatives in favor of good laws and in protest against bad ones.
Þ Communicate
with the media or sponsors in protest against any Þ Serve in your parish on the parish council, or as lector, usher, sacristan, singer, teacher of CCD, youth or RICA, in a prayer group or scripture study group, or help with maintenance and repairs. Þ Serve in your community by works of mercy of visiting the sick, the poor and the prisoners, feeding the hungry, comforting the sorrowful and instructing the ignorant. Þ Host a Visitation of an image of Our Lady of Guadalupe to your parish or home . Þ Host a Visitation of an image of Jesus King of All Nations to your parish or home. Þ Be a volunteer promoter of devotion to Our Lady of Guadalupe. Click here for more information. Þ Be a volunteer promoter of the Jesus King of All Nations Devotion. Click here for more information. Þ Use whatever talents that God gave you to bring His Good News to our Culture of Death in the New Evangelization!
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