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.
