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November 8, 2023

How Did You Know You Had A Vocation? Monstrance of Eucharistic Adoration

“How Did You Know You Had A Vocation?”

/ APP News Feed, Consecrated Women, Regnum Christi News

The third part of a blog series answering questions about the Consecrated Women of Regnum Christi, by Lisa Small


It was the year 2000, the day two of the children who witnessed the apparitions of Our Lady in Fatima,  were to be beatified. I hadn’t known that when I agreed to go with my boyfriend to a Friday evening Mass in downtown Auckland. We planned to go dancing in the nearby clubs afterwards. As we entered the Cathedral, there was a beautiful statue of Our Lady of Fatima in front of the altar which I later learnt in the homily was one of the official traveling statues from Portugal that is taken around the world.


After Mass, the priest exposed the Blessed Sacrament and explained that there would be all-night adoration which would end with 8am Mass. My first experience of adoration had been just a few months earlier, and I had had a powerful encounter with Jesus that had started transforming the way I saw my place in the world and my understanding of who the Son of God was. I was mesmerized by His presence and how close He had felt to me that first night, and as I gazed up at the monstrance, that deep thirst for Him came flooding back. Here He was, completely vulnerable and exposed, pouring Himself out to me with His love, grace and mercy. I just couldn’t leave.


I leaned over to my boyfriend and whispered, “Do you think we could stay a bit?” After about half an hour, I leaned over to ask the same question. As a naïve eighteen-year-old, and being new to a lived faith in my daily life, I had never heard about all-night adoration. I thought it meant that we would stay all night and keep watch with Him, rather than the usual practice of praying in turns throughout the night. As He continued to draw me into His Heart, the desire to not leave Him kept growing. I just couldn’t leave…


And so we didn’t – we didn’t make the clubs that night. Around nine in the morning my boyfriend dropped me off at my house, a little exhausted but with a full heart.


That began a deeper quest to understand the longing in my heart to belong completely and exclusively to Him. Even with my boyfriend beside me, there was an unspoken prayer within “Lord, why can’t it be just you and me forever? Do I have to get married? Do I have to have kids? Do I have to get a 9-5 job and do what everyone else does in life? Isn’t there another way?” I had never met any nuns before. I had never thought of that as a possibility so I felt I had to resign myself to getting married and having a job and family, while something deep inside was pulling me in a different direction. “Lord, open the path and show me what I am supposed to do with my life!”


I had no idea where He would lead me, but just a few months later I found myself in Rhode Island, USA, about to begin my training as a missionary with Regnum Christi, meeting Consecrated Women of Regnum Christi for the first time.


I first heard about the missionary year from a lay man in NZ who had just returned home after discerning religious life with “some congregation” overseas called the Legionaries of Christ. When he shared about the Regnum Christi Mission Corps volunteer program, something had sparked a flame within. I knew it was what I should do after High School as my gap year. When I arrived at the Providence airport in RI, I would never have imagined that God would answer my all-night adoration prayer so quickly.


When I met the Consecrated Women who ran our training, I was a little confused about who they were. This was the first time that I was meeting them. Right away though, I fell in love with the way that they celebrated and participated in the liturgy, their love for Christ and the Church and their keen resolve to make a true difference in the world by evangelizing through creative and enterprising means. This was when I truly saw the beauty of a life totally given to Christ and His Kingdom. After one of them shared her own story about her call to this vocation, things in my mind and heart started to fall into place. In her, I saw a reflection of myself and the deeper longing that had been growing to belong completely to Christ. I went to back to Our Lady, this time Our Lady of Guadalupe, and entrusted that desire to her, “Mother, is this where your Son has been leading me? Did He need to get me to cross the huge Pacific Ocean in order to discover the mission that He has made me for?” That night I resolved to live my volunteer year as if I were consecrated, as a way of continued discernment.


So, how did I know I had a vocation? It was a journey of seeking God, listening to the inner desires of my heart and finding Him in the circumstances of life and how He created me. That was later confirmed in spiritual direction and by those in authority within Regnum Christi. The peace and joy I have now is a deep consolation that He has continued to meet me every step of the way.


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November 8, 2023 – Discipleship: Neither Cheap nor Easy

/ Daily Meditations

 

 

 

 

 

Wednesday of the Thirty-First Week in Ordinary Time

 

Luke 14:25-33

 

Great crowds were traveling with Jesus, and he turned and addressed them, “If anyone comes to me without hating his father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters, and even his own life, he cannot be my disciple. Whoever does not carry his own cross and come after me cannot be my disciple. Which of you wishing to construct a tower does not first sit down and calculate the cost to see if there is enough for its completion? Otherwise, after laying the foundation and finding himself unable to finish the work the onlookers should laugh at him and say, ‘This one began to build but did not have the resources to finish.’ Or what king marching into battle would not first sit down and decide whether with ten thousand troops he can successfully oppose another king advancing upon him with twenty thousand troops? But if not, while he is still far away, he will send a delegation to ask for peace terms. In the same way, every one of you who does not renounce all his possessions cannot be my disciple.”

 

Introductory Prayer: Lord God, I believe that you are present here for this moment of prayer. Even if I have not really longed for this time together, I know that you have been waiting for me. As an expression of my gratitude and love, I truly wish to give myself totally to you during this meditation.

 

Petition: Lord, help me to realize that holiness is worth the effort!

 

  1. A Capital Campaign for Holiness: Our Lord remarks on the need to calculate the costs and estimate the amount of resources needed in a building project. That sounds like a “feasibility study,” the first step of any capital campaign. Whether a parish is trying to build a new hall, or a school is trying to put up a new building, there’s no way to avoid a great deal of work in order to make the endeavor successful. The Lord is saying something similar about our spiritual lives. We have to know what it will take to achieve the goal. His answer to this question? Much sacrifice. This can sound daunting. But just like the thrill of cutting the ribbon when the building is all paid for and ready to be used, the effort to grow in holiness will result in a magnificent eternity!

 

  1. A Battle Plan’s First Goal? The answer is simple: Don’t get beat! This second image of Our Lord makes another important point about discipleship. War is tough, and if getting beat is a likely prospect, you’d better find other tactics to achieve the goal. So too with our discipleship. In our efforts to grow holy, some “battles” will be won easily; others will need to be avoided completely. So, let’s not get beat by foolishly overestimating our capacities. This happens especially when we don’t avoid the occasions of sin, thinking ourselves strong enough to handle them. At times, the best battle strategy is not to fight, but to flee!

 

  1. What Place for Our Relationships? In all this reflection about plans and resources, the Lord has some extremely radical words about our relationships. In the hyperbole of “hating father and mother” a very important teaching emerges: As vital as these relationships are, they cannot take the first place in our heart. That place belongs to the source of our entire existence, the one who loves us with a tender and passionate love— God himself. This is why the cross is so important. When we see how thoroughly Jesus embraces the will of God above everything and everyone, he gives us a pattern to follow. But the divine irony is that by following Christ in the way of the cross, this “hatred” actually results in a greater and more self-sacrificing love in those very relationships that have to take a back seat to the Lord.

 

Conversation with Christ: O Jesus, following you is not easy. You ask me to put everything in second place to you and pick up my cross every day. I won’t be able to do this without your grace. I am weak and frail, but I believe that you will give me the strength I need.

 

Resolution: I will take some time and think about my priorities to make sure that God is always coming first.

 

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Alex Kucera

Atlanta

Alex Kucera has lived in Atlanta, GA, for the last 46 years. He is one of 9 children, married to his wife Karmen, and has 3 girls, one grandson, and a granddaughter on the way. Alex joined Regnum Christi in 2007. Out of the gate, he joined the Helping Hands Medical Missions apostolate and is still participating today with the Ghana Friendship Mission.

In 2009, Alex was asked to be the Atlanta RC Renewal Coordinator for the Atlanta Locality to help the RC members with the RC renewal process. Alex became a Group Leader in 2012 for four of the Atlanta Men’s Section Teams and continues today. Running in parallel, in 2013, Alex became a Team Leader and shepherded a large team of good men.

Alex was honored to be the Atlanta Mission Coordinator between 2010 to 2022 (12 years), coordinating 5-8 Holy Week Mission teams across Georgia. He also created and coordinated missions at a parish in Athens, GA, for 9 years. Alex continues to coordinate Holy Week Missions, Advent Missions, and Monthly missions at Good Shepherd Catholic Church in Cumming, GA.

From 2016 to 2022, Alex also served as the Men’s Section Assistant in Atlanta. He loved working with the Men’s Section Director, the Legionaries, Consecrated, and Women’s Section leadership teams.

Alex is exceptionally grateful to the Legionaries, Consecrated, and many RC members who he’s journeyed shoulder to shoulder, growing his relationship with Christ and others along the way. He knows that there is only one way, that’s Christ’s Way, with others!