“Behold, I am the handmaid of the Lord; let it be done to me according to your word.”
- Luke 1:38 -

Today is a triple birthday celebration for Youth Apostles! First, September 8 is the Feast of the Nativity of the Blessed Virgin Mary, which is a joyful celebration of the birth of Mary, our mother and our model of perfect discipleship. September 8 is also the birthday of Youth Apostles, which was founded in 1979 and today celebrates 44 years of blessings from God and dedicated and loving ministry to young people. And today we also celebrate the beginning of this blog, which we hope will enable us to share some of God's blessings to us with you.

A beautiful and important thread connects these three birthdays. When we pray the first line of the Hail Mary or read the beginning of Mary's Magnificat in the Gospel of Luke, it's pretty hard not to see how great and glorious Mary is in the eyes of the Catholic Church. "Full of grace" and "From this day all generations will call me blessed" (Luke 1) are lines no other creature can claim.

But both of these statements about Mary highlight something even more important: they are a gift from God! Mary is full of grace because she received special favor from God; she is exalted among all women and throughout all generations because God, who loves to exalt the humble, "has looked upon his handmaid's lowliness" (Luke 1:48). Mary possesses nothing of her own. Rather, she is a mirror or a vessel for God's glory, his abundant kindness, and his rich and gratuitous blessings.

Youth Apostles pray the Angelus every morning as one of the spiritual practices that unite us in a common pursuit of holiness each day. The Angelus helps us call to mind God’s initiative to save us from sin, the example of Mary’s radical yes, and the glorious Incarnation of our Lord and Savior that came through the total self-gift of the Blessed Mother. We pray for the grace to have hearts full of gratitude for the gift of our Lord and to imitate Mary by dedicating ourselves to doing the Lord’s will joyfully.

I have always been struck by the very first phrase in the Angelus: “The angel of the Lord declared unto Mary.” It does not say, Mary begged God to send a Savior, and God answered her prayer. The initiative, the choice to seek us out, the impulse of love that sent God’s Son into the world, belonged wholly to God. “In this is love: not that we have loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as expiation for our sins” (1 John 4: 10).

This impulse of love by which God ran to seek out his lost sheep and bring them back through the sacrifice of Christ was mirrored beautifully in the way members of Youth Apostles ministered to me when I was in middle school and high school. Many of the men I now call brothers came into my life as the leaders of my Confirmation retreat in 8th grade or as moderators of the boys’ Catholic Life Community (CLC) at my parish. These adult men sacrificed their weekend to lead that retreat for a bunch of middle school boys, or they gave up their free time every Wednesday evening after work to bring the love of Jesus to me and my fellow CLCers.

Why? Why would grown men who have jobs and in some cases families devote their precious leisure time to hanging out with a bunch of adolescents? Certainly it wasn’t because we were banging down their doors begging them to put together a church group for us, or because it was their way of relaxing after a hard day. It was simply because they were called by Christ to bring his love to young people, and they were willing to receive that call joyfully and answer it in imitation of Mary’s radical yes.

The result was a radical shift in the course of my life. I had always been a pretty good kid, but my parents remember the start of my time in CLC as the time when I started being noticeably nicer to my little sister. I stopped using swear words and started praying on my own, embraced the Sacrament of Confession as something I made time for rather than something I ran from, even went to Mass on Friday mornings before school. 

After high school, I joined Youth Apostles because I heard a call to bring to other young people what I had received through the dedication of the men who sought me out to bring me the Lord’s merciful love. After graduating, I worked for 19 years as a campus minister and got to see from a new angle the impact an adult can have on a young person by being willing to take the initiative to seek them out, spend time with them, love them just as they are, and encourage them to live Christ-like lives within the richness of the Catholic Church.

I remember vividly the moment when the Lord made it clear to me that he was calling me, not just to be a member of Youth Apostles, but to truly, individually, in the depth of my heart, dedicate myself to him as an apostle to young people. I found myself waiting at airport security on the Saturday after Thanksgiving, and it seemed like everyone in line with me was a college student returning to school. I noticed that the guy in front of me had a UVA t-shirt on. 

I went to UVA and I was a campus minister; there was the potential for a natural connection. But there was something else: I found the Holy Spirit pushing me, as if he were dragging my heart toward that young man. I started a conversation with the sole goal of showing love and being a blessing to him in any way I could in that brief encounter.

I never saw that student again, and I have no idea if our conversation had any impact on his life. But I do know that God blessed me very richly through that interaction. He called me and drew me closer to himself in that moment, and whatever I may have given to that young man, the Lord gave me so much more.

This is the pattern of our experience as Youth Apostles: the Lord Jesus has called us to inspire youth to a Christ-like life by seeking them out, befriending them, and doing everything we can to draw them into a relationship with Christ and his Church. Certainly this commitment involves sacrifice on our part, but the sacrifice is nothing compared to God’s blessings to us. If we have anything to give to young people, it is because God has showered his love and blessings on us.

I hope that through this blog we will be able to share with you a glimpse of the wonderful work God has done for us, in us, and through us. In return, I hope that you will join us in praying for young people, and that you will reach out in love to the young people in your own life. They need to see God’s loving initiative made present in their lives, and if you are willing to say yes like Mary did, he will work through you to draw them close to himself. Finally, I beg you to pray for Youth Apostles and for our mission, that we may live lives worthy of the call we have received and inspire youth to live Christ-like lives based on the Lord’s sacrificial love.