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March 7, 2024

New Podcast Hopes to Inspire Women to Embrace Their Mission in the Moment

/ APP News Feed, Consecrated Women, Consecrated Women of Regnum Christi News, Regnum Christi News

Today, on International Women’s Day, two sisters and RC members, Laura Matthews—a Consecrated Woman, and Megan Sternhagen—an RC lay member, launch the first episode of the For This Moment Podcast. They desire to create a space for women to connect and share their stories of the Kingdom, catching glimmers of God’s glory and marveling at His works, both big and small.  

 

New episodes will be published bi-weekly on the Regnum Christi App, and all your favorite podcast platforms!

 

Enjoy the first episode here!

 

For our light affliction, which is for this moment, works for us more and more exceedingly an eternal weight of glory-2 Corinthians 4:17

 

And who knows but that you have come to your royal position for such a time as this?-Esther 4:14

 

C’est pour cela que je fus nais (for this I was born)-St. Joan of Arc

If you’d like to share your story, please contact them at [email protected] .

 

Links to the For This Moment Podcast on major platforms:

Youtube Spotify Apple Amazon Audible

New Podcast Hopes to Inspire Women to Embrace Their Mission in the Moment Read More »

General Convention: Andrew Rawicki

Road to the 2024 Regnum Christi General Convention, Meet the Delegates: Andrew Rawicki

/ 2024 General Convention, APP News Feed, Dallas, Regnum Christi News, Whole Territory

In his 23 years as a Regnum Christi member, Andrew has served in various leadership roles: as a team leader, Men’s Section Director, and Hub City Director for Holy Week Missions in San Jose, Regnum Christi Director in Dallas, and now as one of the five elected lay delegates for the upcoming Regnum Christi General Convention to be held in Rome at the end of April this year.

 

Andrew is a convert to the Catholic faith, entering the church in 1991. He then followed his wife, JoAnna, into Regnum Christi in 2001, after attending Encounters with Christ and Spiritual Exercises on the Northshore of New Orleans. Their introduction to the Legion and Regnum Christi had occurred in the years immediately prior, with their children attending Conquest and Challenge camps at Camp Bocamb. Andrew was thrilled to reconnect (after more than two decades) with Madeline Leblanc Cottrell, owner of the Bocamb property, when they both attended the North American Territorial convention in Chicago last year.

 

Upon arrival in the  Dallas locality, Andrew served as the locality liaison to a regional Regnum Christi conference with Houston and San Antonio, and was appointed to the role of Dallas Local Director in 2020. He has also served as board chairman for a pro-life non-profit organization which ran a maternity home in Bakersfield, California. With his wife, he has completed several training courses at the Theology of the Body Institute, and has taught this critically important material to 8th and 10th grade boys for the past three years. He is currently in the middle of his first year of his second three-year term as Local Director, and is humbled and honored to be chosen as a delegate to the General Convention. Andrew is also excited to be joined by two other delegates from the Dallas locality, both members of his local council: Consecrated Woman of Regnum Christi, Helen Yalbir, and Horacio Gomez.

 

Andrew is highly anticipating the trip to Rome in April, not just to be a participant in the General Convention, but also to attend (on the preceding Saturday) priestly ordinations to the Legionaries of Christ. Less than two years prior, Andrew and JoAnna were honored to be part of the ordination of their son, Fr. Luke Rawicki, LC, at the same basilica. While no Rawicki family members will be vested on April 27, 2024, three deacons who are well known by Andrew and JoAnna will be among those ordained: Deacon Christopher Daniel, who was an RC Mission Corps member in San Jose while the Rawickis lived there fifteen years ago; Deacon Andrew Torrey, who has been a longtime friend (and somewhat shorter-time podcasting partner) of Fr. Luke; and Deacon Kevin O’Byrne, who is currently serving the youth as the ECYD Boys’ chaplain in Dallas and whom Andrew has been blessed to get to know over the past year. Andrew and JoAnna look forward to receiving priestly blessings from Fr. Christopher, Fr. Andrew, and Fr. Kevin during the days preceding the Convention!  

 

The preparation for the General Convention has been carried out in three phases that shift the emphasis from the local to the territorial and, finally, to the general level. The territorial phase, which served as a meeting between localities and a forum to address issues common to all of them, took place in the second half of 2023 and concluded with the celebration of the Territorial Conventions. For Andrew, the highlight of these meetings were the liturgies in which he was blessed to participate.

“There were so many holy priests concelebrating, and a beautiful choir of voices, with so many melodic Consecrated Women supporting in song!”

Andrew looks forward to this experience during the upcoming General Convention in Rome, as well as the small group discussions that contribute to group discernment of how the Holy Spirit is working. Lastly, and quite importantly, Andrew is looking forward to having a good translator, as English is Andrew’s first (and only) language!

 

Andrew and JoAnna retired to Dallas, Texas in 2019, where they now live in close proximity to four of their six children, and eight of their ten grandchildren.

The members of Regnum Christi, represented at the General Convention by elected delegates including Legionaries of Christ, Consecrated Women of Regnum Christ, and lay Regnum Christi members, are impelled by the personal experience of Christ’s love, feel the inner urgency to make his Kingdom present, give witness to what they have lived and experienced, and thus seek to respond to the needs of the world and of the Church.

 

The Regnum Christi General Convention, as an event of the Spirit, involves three actions: illumination, discernment and action. As an event of the Spirit, synodal, Eucharistic, and prayerful, the convention should illuminate Christian apostolic life, as well as conclude with concrete decisions on the life and mission of Regnum Christi.; it is about letting the Spirit blow on our embers and fan the fire of love, light and joy of the Gospel in us.

 

The General Convention is a strong moment in the life of the Kingdom – a Eucharistic, communitarian event, of union of each and everyone in the Body of Christ. It is about praying together, united in one faith and one mission, and receiving a Word from God about the needs of the Church and the world, with the intention of doing the will of the Father at this moment in history and from the Regnum Christi charism. The General Convention, whose theme is Discerning & Living the Mission Together, will begin on April 29, 2024, and is expected to last six days. To find out more, visit rcgeneralconvention.org.

 

Road to the 2024 Regnum Christi General Convention, Meet the Delegates: Andrew Rawicki Read More »

March 7, 2024 – Jesus or Satan

/ Daily Meditations

 

 

 

Thursday of the Third Week of Lent

 

 

Luke 11:14-23

 

Jesus was driving out a demon that was mute, and when the demon had gone out, the mute man spoke and the crowds were amazed. Some of them said, “By the power of Beelzebul, the prince of demons, he drives out demons.” Others, to test him, asked him for a sign from heaven. But he knew their thoughts and said to them, “Every kingdom divided against itself will be laid waste and house will fall against house. And if Satan is divided against himself, how will his kingdom stand? For you say that it is by Beelzebul that I drive out demons. If I, then, drive out demons by Beelzebul, by whom do your own people drive them out? Therefore they will be your judges. But if it is by the finger of God that I drive out demons, then the Kingdom of God has come upon you. When a strong man fully armed guards his palace, his possessions are safe. But when one stronger than he attacks and overcomes him, he takes away the armor on which he relied and distributes the spoils. Whoever is not with me is against me, and whoever does not gather with me scatters.”

 

Introductory Prayer: Lord Jesus, as I prepare for Easter during this Lenten season, I turn to you once again in prayer. I wish to see you with the eyes of faith. I wish to welcome the salvation you came to give me and to accept it with a humble heart. Now, during this time of prayer, I want to give everything over to you so that your love and truth may direct my life.

 

Petition: Lord, help me to accept with simple faith the reality of who you are.

 

  1. All for God’s Glory: When Christ works this simple miracle, the crowds are amazed. They are amazed at what Christ has done, but surely they were also amazed at what the mute person said. We do not know what was said, but it is likely that they were words that glorified God in thanksgiving for his miracle. Christ bestows freedom by loosening the tongue of the mute person so that he can glorify God his Creator. When Jesus frees the mute person from Satan—who does not want God to be glorified and who wants to keep mankind in the chains of sin—it is so that God will be glorified. In my life, do I seek to glorify God for the wonders of his creation and all the good things he has done for me?

 

  1. Truth or Lies: Jesus’ enemies could not deny the miracle he had just worked, but instead of accepting his power to drive out evil spirits, they came up with an accusation that it was Beelzebul who caused the miracle. Their envy gets the best of their common sense. Envy always tries to find a way around the truth. It asks for a sign or proposes a false accusation. Jesus counters envy’s contorted reasoning with simple straightforward logic: “Every kingdom divided against itself will be laid waste and house will fall against house.” It cannot be by Beelzebul’s power that he drives out demons because that would mean Beelzebul is driving out his own demons. Simple logic shows that this is not so. Does my own faith help me to differentiate between lies that I hear and the truth?

 

  1. Jesus Challenges Satan’s Reign: The strong man that Jesus speaks of is the devil. He has kept mankind under his control since Adam and Eve’s fall. He has had nothing to worry about up to now because he has been the strong man able to defend from all comers his prize of corrupted human nature. But Jesus is stronger, and he has come to attack the devil and win back from him what he has taken. He takes away his armor of evil, hate, anger, lust, and egoism. He redeems mankind from the clutches of the evil one. Can I truly say that I set my faith in God and that he truly brings about good despite the natural calamities or bad intentions and actions of others, including the devil himself?

 

Conversation with Christ: Lord, help me to accept your miracles in my life so that my life will give you glory in my actions, words, and thoughts. Do not let me be blind to the force of your love in the world. I know you are stronger than Satan. I want to be in your camp. I want to be rescued from the clutches of sin by the omnipotence of your love.

 

Resolution: When I am faced with a temptation, I will call to mind that Jesus is stronger than Satan and he can give me the strength to reject the temptation.

March 7, 2024 – Jesus or Satan Read More »

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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!