Apostles for Today - March 2020

Apostles for Today

Prayer and Reflection

March 2020

“Imaging God by taking care 

of our common house”

The Holy Scripture teaches us that God created heaven and earth and all that it contains. God’s work of creation reached its climax with the creation of man and woman in the image and likeness of God (Gen 1, 1-28). Every time God concluded each day of creation, as the biblical author narrates, he saw that it was good, and even very good. That goodness is what God entrusted to humankind with the duty to perpetuate it: “be fruitful and multiply” (Gen 1, 28). The Psalmist was so overwhelmed at God’s empowerment of humankind that he exclaimed: “What is man that you should care for him…you made him a little like a god, crowning him with glory and splendor…you made him rule over the work of your hands…” (Ps 8, 5-9). It means then that ruling over the work of God’s hand should always reflect the godliness that indwells in human beings and sustain the goodness that creation contains originally.

Jesus Christ, the Apostle of the Eternal Father, has always understood his mission as the continuation of the Father’s work: “My Father is at work and so do I” (John 5, 17). And this work is of salvation, of redeeming the world and reconciling it with the Father, that is, re-imaging human beings to God and bringing the whole of creation back to its original goodness. St. Paul, on his part, understands Jesus Christ as the image of the invisible God in whom the work of creation was accomplished and reconciled with the Father. Jesus Christ is the recapitulation of creation, therefore the architect of the New creation in the Holy Spirit (Col 1, 15-20): “Behold I make all things new” (Rev 21, 1-5).

The commitment of the Church to the caring of the earth and all that it contains is inscribed within her evangelizing mission in fidelity to the commission of her Lord and Master: “As the Father sent me, so I also send you” (John 20, 21). This has been the driving force of different Pope’s commitment to the caring of our common home. Pope Francis inscribes his call to the awareness of our common call to protect the earth within the tradition of the Church. The Church cannot carry out her evangelizing mission while remaining indifferent to the state of the earth, the environment within which evangelization takes place. The reason behind this as Pope Benedict XVI said, is that there is an interconnectedness of creatures to the extent that anything that happens to one affects the others. The African vision of the world looks at the universe as a vital connection that exists between the cosmos, the divine and humankind. A traditional proverb states: “You cannot cut a branch of the tree on which you are seated”. It implies that by cutting that branch, you are most likely to fall down with it. This interconnection explains why Africans consider the universe and humankind as sacred, due to their origin in the divine. Any offense directed to one aspect of creation provokes a disorder in the others. Consequently, any good that affects one aspect of creation accrues and reinforces life in the others as well. Human beings have the responsibility to care for the harmony that the Creator put in creation in order to enjoy the benefits of creation.

The awareness of the interconnection among the elements of creation not only prompts in human beings the responsibility of caring for the mother earth but also of the “global ecological conversion” when people realize that they “are sinning by contributing to the disfigurement of creation”. The degradation of the ecosystem is a sin in the sense that our actions against mother earth disconnect us from the Creator and bring about disharmony within creation. We are no longer imaging God who entrusted to us the care of creation because we have become disobedient to the will and order of God. And this justifies the call to conversion; that is, a renewed attitude towards creation rooted in God. The renewal of the ecosystem is tied up to the renewal of attitude. It is a belief that things can change when human beings correspond to God’s image imprinted in them and come together “to dialogue and converse,” to honestly look for ways that uphold the common good as Pope Francis urges. 

St. Vincent Pallotti, our Founder and Father, like the Psalmist, was captured by the nobility of human beings who are created in the image and likeness of God. That is the expression of God’s infinite love and mercy. Being created in the image of God, Father, Son and Hoy Spirit entrusts to humanity a corresponding responsibility of reflecting God’s behavior, that is, “creating” and “preserving”. Caring for “our common home” is constitutive of what it means to be humans. It translates the gift of the free will that God has bestowed on humankind. St. Vincent Pallotti is convinced that the gift of the free will should be used to always grow in resembling more and more the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. Although sin had disconnected human beings from God, Jesus Christ has come to reestablish that connection and redeem in humanity the capacity to mirror God. This mystery is channeled through the sacraments of Baptism and confirmation whereby humanity is configured to God and empowered by the Holy Spirit to correspond to God. Unfortunately, as Pallotti decries, it happens that human beings use their free will and the gifts of creation to offend God. Scores of the offenses against God through the negative attitude of humankind towards mother earth demonstrate how human beings have become destructive of God’s creation. The environmental degradation Pope Francis points out, extends also to the deforestation of the Amazon, the plastic bags in oceans and on the Himalayas, the melting of glaciers and the deforestation of tropical forest of the Democratic Republic of the Congo in Africa, rightly termed as “the second largest tropical rain-forest area on earth” after the Amazon. 

Recently, in January 2020, there happened two major events: the 50th anniversary of the Davos World Economic Forum and the opening of the Australian Open, a major tennis tournament. Both events happened while the Australian bush was on fire, with several people losing their lives and property and large parts of the bush destroyed. In Australia, tennis stars organized functions to combat bushfire, while in Davos, debates evolved around climate change. Gretta Thunberg, a Norwegian teenager together with her peers not only strongly called on world leaders to act now and not to wait until 2030, but also were committed not to give up the fight, even when the leaders did not. Their claim points to the fact that “our common home is burning now” and that they as the children, “will be the ones to suffer the “irresponsibility” of those who have power and influence to act, yet do not”. Antonio Guterres, the United Nations’ General Secretary denounced at Davos 2020 the lack of political will to effectively implement the Paris Agreement on climate change and warned that “humankind has declared war on nature and nature is striking back in every violent way”. 

These voices respond, one might say, to Pope Francis’ call for everyone to come together, and never tire to protect and care for mother earth and the sisters and brothers that live in, whether nature or humans. It raises hope that progressively people are more and more aware of their call to mirror God through their responsibility towards our common house.

 - Do I understand my commitment to the care of our common home as a cooperator/collaborator
   in the evangelizing mission of Jesus Christ and the Church?

 - As members of the Union of the Catholic Apostolate, what concrete action (s) can we undertake
    locally or globally to respond to Pope Francis’ call for dialogue and conversation in order to shape
    together the future of our planet?

Fr. Désiré Bakangana, sac.

Saint Vincent Pallotti Parish/Bukavu (D.R. Congo)

Holy Family Province (Central Africa)

Apostles for Today - Feb -2020

Apostles for Today

Prayer and Reflection

February 2020

Father Paul de Geslin de Kersolon, an enthusiastic follower of St Vincent Pallotti, was visiting him in Rome when he received a letter from his home in France. He writes: “... as it (the letter) was of no importance, I squeezed it up and was about to throw it into the fire, when Padre Pallotti stopped me with these words: ‘Oh, my friend, you are going to lose those bits of paper.... some parts of that sheet can be used!’ ’Paper is so cheap,’ I exclaimed.

‘I know well,’ he continued, ‘but it is an imperfection voluntarily to waste anything, however small its value. Look at our good God, richer than any earthly monarch: He never permits anything He has created to be lost. The humblest drop of water serves to refresh a blade of grass or to quench the thirst of a little bird. And it is our duty to utilize everything so
that we may imitate our Heavenly Father! Tear off the bit on which there is no writing and put it in the basket.’

I obeyed rather unwillingly, when he spoke again: ‘That basket must be nearly full. Will you look out for one of the men who collects such scraps and send him up here?’ I did so, and the man offered about a dime for the whole lot, which was 
accepted.”

As we know, the story ends with St Vincent purchasing a bag of biscuits with the money and using the biscuits to save the soul of a dying man. Was St. Vincent Pallotti the first person to recycle? I don’t know the answer to that question but in my view, he is the most famous person to have been involved in the recycling business. We live in a throw away, consumer society and we all need to change the way we think and act as individuals, before we can move out to the world at large.

When one reads the bible, it is hard not to think how stubborn and silly our Old Testament forefathers were when they continuously turned away from the God who loved them. Yet I wonder if we today aren’t equally as hard hearted as our ancestors. St. Vincent Pallotti’s writings and actions 200 years ago are just as relevant today and the parallels between Laudato Si and the charism, spirituality, writing and life of St. Vincent Pallotti are uncanny. The words of Sr. Monica at the UAC Formation Coordinators Meeting came to mind: “It is good to have a Pope who speaks like our Founding Father”.

Yes Sr. Monica, I agree, but it would be even better if we listened!

St. Vincent invited everyone to join the Pallottine Family, his writing and his philosophy was simple but very powerful.

We are called to be apostles by virtue of our creation not our baptism. “Before I formed you in the womb I knew you” (Jer. 1:5). It is comforting to know that God has a plan for everyone and every part of our lives, if only we would be open and receptive. St Vincent’s only entry requirement was that of love, to love God, and God’s creation. Similarly, Pope Francis’ encyclical is addressed to everyone, “now, faced as we are with global environmental deterioration, I wish to address every person living on this planet”. It is therefore written in simple language that we can all understand.

When caught in a rain-storm St. Vincent said to his grumbling friend: “Have you reflected that each drop of this rain was created by the Almighty with infinite wisdom for our use and our good?” How much time do we spend reflecting on the wonder and the beauty of God’s creation? If we did spend some time, I’m sure our reflection would galvanize us into action and our planet would be a lot better off.

Today’s society is an “all care and no responsibility” society, “they must solve the problem”, “the government must deal with it”. But what are we as individuals doing? Laudato Si is a call for collaboration, “everyone’s talents and involvement are needed.... all of us can cooperate as instruments of God for the care of creation”.

St. Vincent wanted to win souls for God all over the world however he sorrowfully admitted that faced with a world of secularism, agnosticism and sin, he alone would not be very effective. He realized that he could achieve his aim by collaborating with others and multiplying everyone’s talents “infinitely”. Pope Francis is well aware that St. Vincent started with twelve collaborators, and in the short space of two hundred years, the Pallottine Family has covered the globe and brought, maybe not an infinite number but certainly a very large number, of people to God. (We in Australia are forever indebted to the German Pallottine priests for bringing St. Vincent to our shores.)

Pope Francis calls us to consolidate St. Vincent’s teaching on love of God and God’s creation with his call for collaboration and urges us to all become involved “each according to his or her own culture, experience, involvements and talent.” Both Pope Francis and St. Vincent call us to do what we can, not what we can’t. St. Vincent said if you can’t do, you can still pray. Prayer is a pillar of Pallottine spirituality. Being part of the Pallottine Family has helped me, through prayer, to deepen my relationship with the Blessed Trinity, Mother Mary and the Angels and Saints. If we all examine our lives prayerfully then, with the help of the Holy Spirit, I am sure we will find opportunities to become “instruments of God for the care of creation”(LS).

Pope Francis provides us with some encouragement in the face of a very daunting situation, “In some countries, there are positive examples of environmental improvement: ... these achievements.... do show that men and women are still capable of intervening positively”. Likewise, St. Vincent encourages us: “When [an apostle] acts with true zeal and fervent love,
there is no temptation, no difficulty and no obstacle he cannot overcome.” St. Vincent gave us the model of the Cenacle.

Many parts of the Family meet in a Cenacle type environment to pray, discuss their apostolic endeavors, receive encouragement and plan before returning to their apostolic pursuits. Loving support and encouragement are never very far away when you are a member of the Pallottine family.

Pope Francis uses creation theology to explain that God loves all of creation, he calls us to be humble not domineering and points out the need to repair our relationships with God, our neighbor and the earth which sin has broken. St. Vincent has written at length on the need for humility, and indeed lived a very humble life putting God first and then his neighbor before any of his own needs. In a description of Vincent in an early Italian biography we read: “His prudence was most remarkable; but his great characteristics were his deep humility, and the most ardent charity towards all who were in need and trouble.” We are loved by God and having been created in the image and likeness of God, we in turn need to humbly love our neighbor and all of God’s creation.

St. Vincent did not want to start a new society in the church, but rather a way of being church. I would argue that it became much broader than that, that the UAC became a way of being with only one rule, that of love. Being part of the Pallottine Family doesn’t require us to perform great feats but rather to do all of the ordinary things in an extraordinary manner and for the greater glory of God.

St. Vincent’s “way of being” is achievable but not easy, even he had ways to remind himself to stay in focus. When asked why, when eating and drinking, he took only little drops or bits at a time St Vincent replied: 
“When we eat and drink, it is certainly not sacramental communion: but I always think it is a sort of communion with God’s power, goodness and providence. Every mouthful of food and very drop of water contains all these things, for it is God who has given to our food the property to preserve and sustain life. Does not the Apostle tell us, even in partaking of our daily food, to seek in this, as in everything else, the glory of God? Now I in my weakness, am only too inclined to forget these things, I try by dividing my bread into little bits, to help my poor memory!” Yes, it is good to have a Pope who speaks like our Founder, because his encyclicals are our reminder of how we need to “be” in order to live the charism of St. Vincent Pallotti.

I will be reflecting on finding ways of loving all of God’s creation in an extraordinary way for God’s greater glory, as I go about my very ordinary life.

Steve Kay

Formation Co-ordinator UAC Australia

22nd January, 2020

_________________________

Segretariato Generale, Unione dell’Apostolato Cattolico

Piazza San Vincenzo Pallotti 204, 00187 Roma, Italia uacgensec@gmail.com

Apostles for Today - January 2020

UAC 

Monthly Reflection, 

January 2020 

-

“The earth is like a sister with whom we share our life.
The earth is like a beautiful mother who opens her arms to embrace us”
  (Laudato Sí, 1).

As an environmental chemist, I always say that the level of care we give to creation is a measuring bar of sin and of grace. It is a special perspective from which we see how man thinks, acts and lives. I dealt with the theme of the relationship between faith and ecology in three conferences, one and international conference and the other two national conferences, as well as in a monograph. These were conferences requested by fellow scientists – even non-believers – in which science questioned Sacred Scripture and listened to the words of our founder, Saint Vincent Pallotti.

Laudato Sí opens with a broad panorama of the suffering inflicted by man on the planet; it is not an arid and external complaint, rather it is an objective analysis shared by scientists of all faiths, cultures and backgrounds. It is both a denunciation and an invitation to “ecological conversion” for the very survival of the human race. The meeting between nature and our faith re-lives the event of the Epiphany. The Magi represent the wisdom that questions and that marries itself with science (they seek God and they want to meet with Him to adore Him); Herod, on the other hand, represents a search for knowledge that produces technology that, in turn, is influenced by idolatry (knowing in order to exploit and to dominate). Immediately, we must ask ourselves which side are we attracted to, each one of us with the actions, the choices and the attitudes of our lives. So, how do we position ourselves before the protection of creation, the discovery of the mysteries of nature, the search for the common good and for the good of every creature.

The first chapter of Laudato Sí carries the mark of Pope Francis and it was developed by people of science, who know, each one in his/her own field of studies the “state of the planet” and the various scenarios that await us as a consequence of the political decisions and common actions of recent decades. Pollution has existed since the beginning of humanity, but for millennia the moral question of the production and dissemination of waste (urban, biological, industrial, radioactive, chemical…) has never been asked. At most, humanity simply moved the problem from some areas to other areas. For example, the air quality of western cities is much cleaner than twenty or fifty years ago. But western countries have passed on and continue to pass on ‘dirty’ technologies and waste to countries in the developing world. The problem is amplified by the increase in the global population during the last century, by an out-of-control recourse to energy sources and by the over-production of goods that are passed off as being primary and essential needs. This humanism, which is “so little human” disguises a vision of humanity that is characteristic of selection, that is, it is “only the strongest” who will survive, because the world is simply too small to contain all of us and at the same time satisfy everyone’s expectations and well-being. The so-called developing countries pressure the so-called developed countries not only because of greater demography, but also because of a desire for development and access to better living standards.

All of this contributes to the race for over?production and hyper-consumerism. The most evident and dramatic results of this approach are the changes in climate, the increasing pollution of all of the environmental elements (air, water, soil, food), the appearance of new diseases, a shortage of water and the loss of biodiversity. And yet, authoritative advocated of the scientific and political worlds do not believe all this evidence, attributing it to natural fluctuations in the climate, and putting their trust in man’s capacity to self-regulate, that somehow humanity will always know how to find appropriate solutions. But, in truth, they consciously do not listen, they do not see nature and the results of the forecast study models that have been published in the thousands in scientific journals, and also, they do not accept and do not believe in the reports drawn up by experts and by international organizations.

Diverse theologians and philosophers have spoken out, repeatedly warning against treating the earth like a landfill dump. But such warnings seem in vain when faced with the powerful and the rich of this world who view nature as an evil monster which takes revenge by means of environmental disasters and who is not like a mother who is exhausting her strength and resources to sustain and maintain her own children. It is into this context that Laudato Sí comes, a superficial reading of which appears to give credence to those who reduce the faith of Pope Francis to a vision and an action that is horizontal, in which God remains behind us and that the spiritual (vertical) dimension moves us to go out (of oneself, out of the churches) in order to look on the world and on the other, and that it remains only an interior disposition and does not need to find occasions and forms of expression in taking initiatives to go out to meet all that is other than us.

It is from this that the criticisms that define him as a communist pope, an ecologist and an unrealistic pacifist, which are put forward by the powerful of the earth, and even by people within the Church herself; on the opposite side, then, is the concerned acclaim of the “green” fundamentalism, which advocates a return to understanding nature in a deterministic and/or pantheistic sense. They mirror the two “heresies of our century” which Francis outlined in Gaudete et Exultate. Man puts himself at the center of the universe in order to dominate it and exploit it, molding it “in his own image and likeness”, according to a vision that, because it is only focused on itself, ends up taking the place of God the Creator. So it is that man no longer knows who he is, neither where he has come from nor where he is going to, he creates himself and without points of reference. The relationship with God disappears, as does his relationship with his fellow man and with himself. A society and an individual that are turned in on themselves are inexorably devoted to their own goals and aims.

At this juncture it can happen that even theology which should illuminate and ignite the flame of faith, hope and charity, in some cases is not able to get out from the universities and “be broken into pieces”, making itself understandable to and digestible by the common man, close to humanity that Jesus meets today on its streets, in the factories and in the mines, in the offices and in the fields, in the houses and in the shanty-towns.

But the vision and the action of Pope Francis is something completely different. He, following precisely in the wake of another Francis, sings of God as Father, Brother, Intimate Companion of the soul, Wisdom and Freedom, Power that is translated into mercy, communion and joy. In a word, beauty: beauty that reflects itself in the world, in the life of everyone, created in the image and likeness of God. Jesus is the intimate companion of every man, he died for everyone. He saves them where they live and how they are, each one with his/her own baggage of nobility and misery, virtue and sin, just as Saint Vincent intuitively and experimentally understood of himself and every other person.

In return Jesus asks us to believe, not to stop at what we perceive to be our limits, but to commit ourselves, to spend ourselves, to give of ourselves. This implies that we see our neighbor precisely in him/her who stands before us, a riches and a gift to be welcomed and to care for; so it must be also with nature, with the universe and our earth as a place to be cultivated and made fruitful like the Garden of Eden. Every creature, even the stones, the black holes and the insects are the work of God and, as such, precious. They are, in their extraordinary variety, an entirety, a home and a mother. We are made of the dust of the earth, into which God breathed a breath of eternal life; matter and spirit find a synthesis and a point of convergence which Christ has made his own. The Word became flesh.

The relationship with God then is to be nourished every day; by means of prayer, interior silence (and also exterior silence, like turning off our cell phones – why not!!), celebration that is stripped of all triumphalism and ritualism, with spaces and times reserved for Him and for our meeting with Him, in adoration and in the face of everyone we meet. It is only from this starting point that our “going out” in order to encounter others is found.

Returning to the image of the Epiphany, the Magi represent “the people”, the men and women and countries of every culture, class and faith who seek “the One that they do not know” but who is closer to them than they can imagine. Christians and all people of good-will belong to that group and they are bearers of other people. They are not those who isolate themselves because of fear, who arm themselves, who discard and reject. The Pope is the prophetic voice of God who calls on us to “get involved”, to get our hands dirty, and to also risk our “holiness” for the “Jesus who is hidden and rejected”, who is in us and just outside of us. He urges us to make use of public places, politics, the schools of formation, the times and spaces for education, the mass media, the theaters, culture, homes and churches, to start a process of integral human progress, where God creates history with man. This true ecology is the natural face of “Catholicity”, of a universality that includes all people and all of humankind, it is the holiness of next door, lived in daily interaction with other people. “I like to contemplate the holiness present in the patience of God’s people: in those parents who raise their children with immense love, in those men and women who work hard to support their families, in the sick, in elderly religious who never lose their smile. In their daily perseverance I see the holiness of the Church militant.

Very often it is a holiness found in our next-door neighbors, those who, living in our midst, reflect God’s presence. We might call them “the middle class of holiness” (GE 7), the new apostolate or – in present terminology – the new evangelization. Thus, the person returns to being the manager, the caretaker of the land that God confidently entrusts to him, like the five talents in the parable and just as He entrusted Jesus to Mary and Joseph and, as he entrusts children to their parents. Nature, like every neighbor, is not an enemy, rather it is another who completes us and who helps us to fulfill ourselves here on earth, according to the plan to which God has called us, and for the Kingdom, God’s destiny for us. The earth is our home, albeit not our definitive home. God creates history with man, every man, and man with God, in time, and that history will be fulfilled at the end of time. Saint Vincent Pallotti was a man of his time, but it is also certain that he too is a spiritual son of Saint Francis. He searched for and practiced a spiritual harmony with nature of which he felt part. The sun, the moon, the seas, the winds, animals and plants incessantly praise their Creator, giving back all to Him and to His beauty and goodness and inspiring joy and a song of blessing. Vincent rediscovers this dimension and he keeps himself humble, materially poor as well as poor in spirit; and yet he is rich, in need of nothing more than to receive and give love, becoming the voice of all creatures who, with one voice, sing the glory of the Lord. We too could sing the canticle of creation in the Benedicite of the Founder, we could sing it with our everyday lives, where we are and how we are.

For personal and community prayer and reflection
1. Do we think and live “in the world” as in a home to be cared for, to help it grow and beautify it,       giving glory to God for everything?
2. Do we want to move from the way of solidarity to the way of synodality with every person, and   with Christ living in every person, that everybody and everything may be “the glory of God”?

Angelo Cecinato

The Community of Quinta Dimensione

Member of the NCC Italy

_________________________

Segretariato Generale, Unione dell’Apostolato Cattolico

Piazza San Vincenzo Pallotti 204, 00187 Roma, Italia uacgensec@gmail.com

Celebration of St. Vincent Pallotti's Feast - January 2020

Our Celebration of the Feast of St Vincent Pallotti in Milwaukee January 26,2020

We celebrated the Feast of St. Vincent Pallotti beginning with a Novena of  Evening Masses Each day and Ending with a Parish Mass and Pot Luck Lunch with the main Celebrant our New Auxiliary Bishop James Schuerman.  At this Celebration the members of the UAC Present Renewed their Commitment to the Union of the Catholic Apostolate.  At the Lunch we also had a number of Displays including copies of some of our literature to take home.  It was a wonderful celebration of the Pallottine Family - Fr. Greg Serwa

Novena Prayer

Novena Prayer
In Honor of St. Vincent

St. Vincent Pallotti, you were formed and called by God, the Infinite Love.
You answered God’s call to serve.

You were there:
for those seeking forgiveness and counsel,
for the sick,
for the youth and the aging,
for the rich and the poor,
for the people of every profession and walk of life.

Every person is important to you.
You inspire us to seek God in all things,
Reminding us of our call to be apostles
In the Church and in the world.

Now we call upon you to intercede for us.

Help us to pray. Help us to pray only for what we truly need;
Help us to grow in holiness, to live for the honor of God and for the salvation of our neighbor. You received many graces from God and we ask you to bless us now by presenting our petitions to God (Pause to mention your intentions)

With you we give thanks to God as if He had already granted us what we have asked in the name of Jesus who lives and reigns with the Father in the unity of the Holy Spirit forever and ever. Amen!

St. Vincent Pallotti, pray for us
Our Lady Queen of Apostles, pray for us
Our Father…Hail Mary…Glory be…

Prayer and Reflection Aug 2019

Apostles for Today

Prayer and reflection  August 2019

Holiness: A Path Traveled Together

“Let us not forget that Jesus asked his disciples

to pay attention to details. The little detail that

one sheep was missing.”

Gaudete et Exultate 144

The Beginning

    My introduction to the Pallottines happened when I joined Holy Cross Catholic Church in Milwaukee, Wisconsin after I moved into the neighborhood. I was married and pregnant with my first child and this was my neighborhood Parish. I was welcomed by a wonderful community of religious and lay members. I had never heard of St. Vincent Pallotti  but I am eternally grateful to have found this place to grow and flourish and I remain a member of the parish now known as St. Vincent Pallotti Catholic Church.

   Both of my children were baptized in our faith by Pallottine priests or deacons and experienced new joy and deepening faith in Reconciliation, Holy Communion, and Confirmation. We grew in our faith and love of Christ together as they attended our Parish school. I became a very active member of the parish having volunteered in various capacities and holding leadership roles in both the school and parish. As a result of this deep involvement I got to know our Pallottine priests very well and learned more and more about St. Vincent Pallotti. I soon realized that his charism and teachings, as well as the way he lived his life in Rome, were very much in line with my personal feelings and beliefs. How lucky was I to be in the midst of this community?

    Of the many friends I made during this time I became especially close to one of the founding members of the UAC in the United States, Elizabeth (Betty) Reichertz. Oftentimes she would tell me about the UAC and the activities she was involved with including the NCC and attending worldwide meetings of the UAC. Fast forward to 2005 and I received an invitation to be a part of a newly formed UAC group at our parish from Fr. Joe Koyickal and Fr. Leon Martin. When I met personally with Fr. Joe to ask him for more information about this organization, and sharing with him how busy I already was with my professional and home life, as well as the many volunteer commitments I had, he convinced me that I was already walking in Pallotti’s footsteps by doing the work in the community that I was doing and that this would give me a spiritual connection to bring it all together. I am happy to say that I accepted their invitation to join the UAC, went through eighteen months of formation with a wonderful group of people and on January 21, 2007 I made my Apostolic Commitment to The Union of the Catholic Apostolate. “Even one person filled with the spirit of Jesus Christ will do much.” St. Vincent Pallotti

My Personal Encounter with St. Vincent’s Charism

     I began my volunteer work in the field of Domestic Violence when my youngest child moved away to college and I became an “empty-nester”. I knew that I needed to fill the “void” in my life and while I had been a financial supporter of this organization for many years, I felt I had more to offer. A notice appeared in our church bulletin asking for volunteers and I signed up. This was in the late nineties. I have been involved with Sojourner Family Peace Center and the shelter, known as Sojourner Truth House, for well over twenty years now. Let me tell you a little bit about our namesake, Sojourner Truth. She was born into slavery in 1797. In 1843 she walked onto the pages of history when she became Sojourner- God’s pilgrim. A second name – Truth- came to her “in a voice as true as God’s is.” Sojourner Truth was a woman of fierce determination who traveled widely speaking about slavery, women’s rights and the dignity of all people. While doing some research to write this it struck me that she lived at virtually the same time as Vincent although on different continents and under vastly different circumstances. He was born just 2 years before her and lived 7 years longer. One was a priest and the other was a slave. Each in their own way were helping the most vulnerable and needy of society and I choose to believe that their work was equally important and vital. “Even the best efforts of individuals cannot be successful unless they are united and directed to a common goal.” St. Vincent Pallotti All of us live in communities where Domestic Violence exists and in many cases is prevalent in our society. The Mission Statement for my organization is powerful.

   Our primary goals are to ensure the safety of victims of family violence and provide a pathway out of violence for victims and abusers through opportunities to make positive and lasting changes for themselves and their children. I hold many roles at Sojourner. I volunteer on the Hotline, which is staffed 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. I speak with victims who seek safety and shelter, counsel others who are in need, work with law enforcement and medical personnel to assist victims. In addition, I work closely with the residents of the shelter, both women and children. We try to meet all of their needs for housing, food, clothing, medical needs, and most importantly safety and healing. We are the largest facility in my state.

    In addition, I work on fund-raising efforts as the Chairperson of the Engagement Committee, a group of volunteers who raise money to support the organization’s mission. It is sometimes hard for anyone to understand and grasp the impact that this issue has on a community. Here are some numbers that illustrate what I am talking about:

Statistics for 2018

18,821 calls on the 24-hour crisis hotline

4.481 people helped in applying for Restraining Orders

12,040 survivors served

91,678 points of contact with people in need

   This mission brings me closer to God as I help to guide and work with survivors to help them understand that they are valued and loved and we will do everything we can to help them on the path of wholeness again. These victims come to us broken and battered, sometimes severely, and our entire staff does everything we can from the minute they call us, to arriving at our door, to help them cope, heal and feel safe. It is so personally rewarding and fulfilling to see them flourish, grow in confidence and faith, and gain the strength to change their lives. This doesn’t happen for everyone but when it does and they leave us with big smiles and tears of joy we know we have given them a better chance at life.

My ongoing efforts make me feel, in the very slightest way, that I am carrying on Vincent’s work in today’s world. No one should be left forgotten, broken and in need without a helping hand. As Pope Francis reminds us, “Let us not forget that Jesus asked his disciples to pay attention to details. The little detail that one sheep was missing.” (Gaudete et Exsultate 144)

   Pope Francis recently addressed this issue in June of this year. He sent a message to the Catholic Church in England and Wales as they prepared to celebrate the Day of Life which focused on the theme of Courage of Domestic Abuse. In his message the Pope said that as the bishops consider the theme of Domestic Abuse, “and in particular the shameful ill-treatment to which women are sometimes subjected (cf. Amoris Laetitia, 54),” he prays that the efforts of the bishops’ to “support the most vulnerable of our brothers and sisters will bear much fruit and contribute to a growing commitment to fight against all forms of exploitation.”

   “The responsibility to share the good news that every human life is beautiful and sacred is a noble calling”, said Pope Francis. He continued offering “his encouragement to all who strive to promote a culture of life, gladly imparting his Apostolic Blessing as a pledge of strength and peace in the Lord.” The full article from the ‘Vatican News’ can be viewed in the below link.

https://www.vaticannews.va/en/pope/news/2019-06/pope-

message-bishops-england-wales-day-for-life-domestic-abuse.html

In closing, there is another quote from Vincent that I hold dear. I try to live by these words.

“God is ready to do more than we can ever request or imagine.

Yet God wants us to do all that is humanly possible in this world.”

St. Vincent Pallotti

Linda Barikmo, Mother of God LLC, GCC Member

Milwaukee, Wisconsin United States

Segretariato Generale, Unione dell’Apostolato Cattolico

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Piazza San Vincenzo Pallotti 204, 00187 Roma, Italia uacgensec@gmail.com

Richard Henkes Beatification

Witnessing Faith in the Church and in the World

Fr. Richard Henkes, S.A.C., who died in the Dachau Concentration Camp during World War II, will be beatified on September 15th in Limburg, Germany. Fr. Henkes was a member of the German province of the Society of Catholic Apostolate (Pallottines) and was a vocal critic of the Nazi regime. Due to this, Fr. Henkes was arrested in April 1943 and was sent to Dachau three months later. He cared for and ministered to the sick people of the Dachau, particularly the Czech people who were imprisoned there. After over a year in the concentration camp, he contracted a disease that would ultimately take his life in February 1945. He was declared by Pope Francis in December of 2018 to have died "in hatred of the faith" and declared a matryr. This allowed his cause of canonization to move forward. The Catholic Apostolate Center, working with Pallottines internationally, now offers a resource page devoted to the life of Fr. Richard Henkes, S.A.C. It also provides more information on his cause for canonization. A book on Fr. Henkes's life is forthcoming which will be available in both eBook and hard-copy. Please pray for the Pallottine Fathers and Brothers around the world on September 15th, as well as for the canonization of Fr. Henkes.

Visit Fr. Richard Henkes, S.A.C. Resources More resources link above