This giving season, Regnum Christi invites you join us in the mission of sharing Christ’s love in a time when it’s needed more than ever. The pandemic has impacted countless lives this year. In many places it has prevented us from gathering, worshipping, and evangelizing in person, but it has also inspired us to find innovative ways to reach people through online and local ministries around the North American territory. Fr. Mark Haydu, LC, Director of Development, invites those who would like to be a part of Regnum Christi’s evangelizing mission through their financial support to consider giving in one of the ways below, explaining, “We see development as a mutual sharing of gifts. We in development offer our gifts of connecting friends and members with the mission and they offer the gift of their time, talent and treasure.”
Here are some of the ways God is reaching hearts, souls and lives through the Regnum Christi mission, and how you can join us. Thank you for your support.
The Regnum Christi Federation
As the pandemic closed churches and prevented groups from gathering in early 2020, Regnum Christi created a Virtual Spiritual Resource Center, pivoting to provide live-streamed daily and Sunday Masses, missions, retreats, spiritual talks, marriage-prep, and marriage programs, in multiple time zones and two languages. Regnum Christi members of all vocations also continued their missions of evangelization in online parish activities, and many innovative socially distanced and online outreaches.
Click here to support the Regnum Christi Federation
ECYD
A significant focus of Regnum Christi’s mission is evangelizing youth, primarily through ECYD, a global association of Catholic adolescents who live the Regnum Christi charism in a way particular to their age and stage of life. As schools closed and students went online, ECYD created online missions and meetings, as well as socially distanced in-person events whenever possible. Maria Knuth, Director of the ECYD Life department in the Regnum Christi Federation shares her passion for the long-term impact of ECYD that she has seen in the over 50,000 members who have been a part of it, “It is impossible to quantify the impact on thousands of lives of adolescents who were a part of ECYD or involved in Challenge and Conquest. Now is not the time to become complacent when it comes to passing on our faith to our young people.” They have launched a giving campaign called IMPACT ONE, highlighting the focus on the individual person that ECYD believes is key to helping adolescents know Christ’s love and embrace their God-given mission in life.
Click here to learn more about IMPACT ONE and support ECYD
RC Spirituality Center
The Regnum Christi Spirituality Center offers print and online resources that help people grow in their relationship with Christ, including online Retreat Guides, essays, online classes, email reflections, novenas, and books – many of which are offered at no cost. In 2020 they lead an online retreat called “Holy Week at Home,” offering people who wanted to grow closer to Christ and serve others through the corporal and spiritual works of Mercy a daily itinerary of shared online prayer times, talks and live-streamed liturgies that people could participate in from home. Your financial gift of any size helps RC Spirituality to continue providing authentic Catholic spirituality resources for all those seeking to deepen their faith and service to Christ and His Church.
Click here to support the RC Spirituality Center
Mission Youth
Mission Youth exists to engage young people, adults and families in spreading Christ’s love through local missions, and abroad serving communities in their specific needs. Mission Youth believes all Catholics are called and capable of being missionaries through their baptism. This living of baptism is a rich part of the Regnum Christi charism which they imbue every mission with. Their mission is two-fold: to the people they serve, and also to the missionaries themselves as they are formed to be apostles, by accompanying them in the practice of the works of mercy which open the door to share God’s love & evangelize. In 2020 Mission Youth was not able to organize oversees missions, but they have not stopped reaching out to people on the streets of our cities in safe and socially distanced ways, and through virtual missions like the ones it held over Holy Week.
Click here to support Mission Youth
RC Mission Corps
Every year, a group of young adults serve as missionaries in the RC Mission Corps, a 1-2-year Catholic youth missionary program that leads young people into a deeper relationship with Jesus Christ, forms them as Christian leaders and apostles, and sends them out to put their unique gifts and talents at the service of the evangelizing mission of the Church. They receive high quality leadership training, and virtue and character formation, helping them to become the courageous missionaries Christ’s Kingdom needs. They are then sent on missions throughout the United States and many other countries, working in parishes, schools, youth work, and other ministries. To date, over 1500 young people have participated in RC Mission Corps, most as a gap year between high school and college, a decision which transforms them into mature Christian leaders as they enter into their university and professional lives.
Click here to support RC Mission Corps
The Legionaries of Christ
Since March of 2020, over 270 Daily Masses have been live streamed on the Legionaries of Christ Facebook page, with a cumulative attendance to date of well over 2,000,000. Many of the virtual Mass-goers attend on a daily basis and have found a community of faith when their parishes were not open, sharing prayer intentions, praying for each other, and feeling connected in prayer at a time when many have been isolated in their homes. In addition to the Daily Masses, the Legionaries of Christ have also been using their Facebook page to lead online Rosaries, vocations retreats, and fire-side chats. Although many of the communities of the Legionaries of Christ in North America have been touched by the virus, they also continue to minister in person where possible, particularly in hospitals where priests who have recovered from COVID-19 have been able to comfort the sick and isolated and bring them the sacraments.
The Legionaries also offer a way to give twice. Give the gift of a Mass offered for some one you love through the Legionaries’ Mass Program. A Legionaries of Christ priest will offer Mass for your intentions, or someone else you may choose, living or deceased. Donations made through this program also help support the needs of the priests and brothers of the congregation.
Click here to support the Legionaries of Christ
The Legionaries of Christ Novitiate & College of Humanities
Christ still calls young men to the priesthood, even in the midst of a pandemic. The Legionaries’ Novitiate and College of Humanities in Cheshire, CT, is an institute of higher education, accredited by the State of Connecticut, that offers an Associate of Arts degree to prepare Legionary seminarians for their evangelizing mission as priests in today’s world. They not only strive to promote academic excellence but also a profound spiritual life, solid character formation, and a fine sensitivity to others’ needs according to Christian charity. They have over 70 students who are all novices and religious brothers of the Catholic Congregation of the Legionaries of Christ, coming from a variety of cultural backgrounds. Currently there are members from over 10 different nationalities living together in community and preparing for their future mission under the guidance of a select formation team. During the pandemic, they are livestreaming their Daily Mass every Saturday at 7:30 am, Eastern Time, and leading the Rosary on Tuesday evenings at 6:00pm Eastern Time, on the Legionaries of Christ’s Facebook page.
Click here to support the Legionaries of Christ’s Novitiate and College of Humanities
Sacred Heart Apostolic School
Sacred Heart Apostolic School is a high school for young men who are open to a possible call to the priesthood, run by the Legionaries of Christ. The term “apostolic school” refers to a high-school seminary where young men can discern their vocation to the priesthood in a missionary order or congregation. Since opening its doors, hundreds of students have passed through Sacred Heart Apostolic School. Fifty percent of graduates have continued on to the Legionaries of Christ’s novitiate in Cheshire, Connecticut, or to diocesan seminaries. Other graduates continued their education in colleges such as Loyola University, Ave Maria University, Benedictine College, Christendom College and Holy Cross College, with a firm foundation in their faith and mission as lay apostles of Christ. The mission of Sacred Heart Apostolic School is to provide integral formation (spiritual, human, academic and apostolic) for junior high and high school boys considering a call to the priesthood in the Legion of Christ. They provide personal accompaniment in a healthy and supportive environment that enables them to mature, discern, and respond to their potential call to a religious vocation.
Click here to support Sacred Heart Apostolic School
The Consecrated Women of Regnum Christi
The Consecrated Women of Regnum Christi are passionate about their mission. Christ-centered and Gospel values are becoming more and more rare within our culture. So many people are losing their identity and worth in their lives and leaving the Church. Our ever-changing secularized world demands well-formed lay Catholic women who can find creative and attractive ways to evangelize and witness to the truth. As lay consecrated women, they accept this challenge. They help form Christian leaders so that Christ may reign in every heart and transform the world with his love, serving him through a diversity of ministries including the formation of teachers, students and parents in Catholic schools, spiritual direction and retreats for women, leadership mentoring and training for youth, formation of diocesan seminarians and lay leaders, and digital evangelization. They invite you to join them in helping to change the world through your support this giving season.
Click here to support the Consecrated Women of Regnum Christi
The Lay Consecrated Men of Regnum Christi
The Lay Consecrated Men of Regnum Christi give their lives completely to God in a unique way. Living the lay vocation, together with a total consecration to God that is enriched by the charism of the Regnum Christi Movement, the life of the Lay Consecrated Men of Regnum Christi is a path of vocational fulfillment for the Christian man. They live in the world among other people, while being completely consecrated to God. They are men who fight to radiate Christ in the world, to make it a place of encounter with God, while they work in business, higher education, law, diocesan roles, and other professional fields. They are men of a deep interior life, who encounter God in the realities of the world around them. They are living witnesses of what Christ proposed as the response to our deepest needs for fulfillment and happiness as human beings, showing that it is possible to live like this in today’s world. Following Christ, they embrace vows of poverty, chastity, and obedience.
Click here to support the Lay Consecrated Men of Regnum Christi
