Dear Regnum Christi members in Christ,

Christ is risen, Alleluia! Truly he is risen, Alleluia!

As members of Regnum Christi we feel as if Holy Week is, in a singular way, ‘our week,’ especially the Sacred Triduum of Holy Thursday, Good Friday, and Holy Saturday, since “our spirituality is centered above all on Jesus Christ and is born from experiencing his love” (SRCF  12). Our Lord’s passion beckons us, apostles of his Kingdom, to sound the mystery of his boundless love and the fathomless depths of his mercy ‘to respond to our Friend and Lord with a personal, real, passionate and faithful love” (ibid 12). For this reason, Palm Sunday is for us the traditional opening day of our Holy Week Missions in this territory and around the world, during which thousands of missionaries are commissioned to bring the Gospel message of his extreme love to the peripheries of their cities, communities, and families.

This year was no different. As Regnum Christi missionaries we walked with Our Lord along the path to Calvary and we invited others to walk with us. Whether we served as a missionary on the streets or prayed virtually together with our teams, we were united and our hearts were moved. “The personal experience of Christ’s love produces an interior urging in our hearts that impels us to passionate self-giving in order to make his Kingdom present: ‘Caritas Christi urget nos’”(SRCF 10).

It is in this light that we discover that the Easter season is also ‘our season.’ How so? During the Easter season the universal Church celebrates the Lord’s definitive victory over death and prepares itself for the gift of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost. From the vantage point of his definitive victory, the way we see reality is now transformed: all that he suffered is not seen as shame but as the deepest expression of his love for his Father and for us. With the Church “we let ourselves be permeated by Christ’s love for humanity, striving to have him reign in the hearts of all people and society” (SRCF 13:2).

It is also the season when in her liturgy, the Church reads from the book of the Acts of the Apostles and thus contemplates her own beginnings. We see a young Church that discerned how to engage culture, combining both the old and the new; a Church that went out to people with the desire to reveal Christ’s transforming love for them. As Regnum Christi, we can live this rich liturgical season contemplating the parallels between the Church’s beginnings and our own mission in this post-Christian era, drawing hope and inspiration to continue engaging individuals, families, and society by bringing the Gospel message to each of these cultural dimensions of human existence. We desire that this King, whose love is stronger than death and whose mercy can unbind the most heinous of sins, will establish his Kingdom in all hearts. “Bearing witness to, proclaiming, and expanding the Kingdom of Christ constitutes the ideal that inspires and directs us. Our motto – ‘Christ our King, Thy Kingdom Come!’- expresses this longing” (SRCF 13).

The Easter season culminating at Pentecost is when the young Church was keenly aware that she was guided intimately and powerfully by the Holy Spirit. “The Holy Spirit is the guide and artisan of our transformation into Christ. Therefore, we cultivate an intimate relationship with him and seek to be docile to his inspirations in order to walk boldly on the path of God’s will.” (SRCF 19). “Impelled by the Holy Spirit and in the style of St. Paul, [members of Regnum Christi] endeavor to be supernatural in their aspirations, magnanimous of heart, audacious in self-giving, tenacious in the face of difficulties and practical and effective in action. They seek to transform the world in Christ…” (RL 9). This is our season!

This is our second year living this Easter Season within the pandemic. We, like the apostles after Easter Sunday, are perhaps somewhat disoriented. This reflection on the early Church allows us to re-orient ourselves to the truths of our faith and our mission. We members of the Territorial Directive College believe deeply:

• In the transforming power of our charism given to us by the Holy Spirit to build the Kingdom of Christ;
• In the potential of each member to live that charism as an apostle;
• That by collaborating, we can make a bigger impact in the mission

With you, our desire is to see Regnum Christi fulfill its calling at the service of the Church and to ignite the heart of the apostle who sees the needs of the world and the Church, discerns through the lens of our charism, and steps out boldly in mission.

We desire all of this because our Lord has truly Risen!

Yours in Christ,

Members of the Regnum Christi Federation Territorial College