On Apostolate

By Fr. Conor Donnelly

(Proofread)

In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

My Lord and my God, I firmly believe that you are here, that you see me, that you hear me. I adore you with profound reverence. I ask your pardon for my sins and grace to make this time of prayer fruitful. My Immaculate Mother, Saint Joseph, my father and lord, my guardian angel, intercede for me.

There was a man in Australia once who learned about how to take the apostolic aspect of his Christian vocation a little more seriously.

He saw that God had called him to be “a fisher of men” (Matt. 4:19).

In his prayer he contemplated that reality and all that it meant, to fish souls, to look for them. He saw that God had brought him in contact with spiritual formation activities that helped him to grow in his own spiritual life, in order that he would spread that around to other people.

He began to look at his circle of friends and acquaintances, people that he met in his profession, people he met because of other reasons in his day-to-day life.

He realized that one person that he had sort of struck up a friendship with was the owner of the local petrol station, where he would go to fill the tank of his car every week. This man was a Catholic, and so he invited him to come to a retreat.

The man had never been to a retreat, but he was willing to go, and so he went along to the retreat. Early in the retreat, he heard a meditation about apostolate, friendship, and confidence, reaching out to our friends and trying to influence our environment in that way.

But he thought, ‘I don't have too much opportunity for friendship and confidence because people come into my petrol station, they fill up and then they leave. It's a three-minute relationship.’ He decided to pass on that one.

But later in the retreat, there was a talk on the family and about promoting the family. The Holy Spirit began to work and give him some ideas.

He thought, ‘I don't have too much opportunity to promote the family with my petrol station. It's a rather unusual way to promote the family.’

But the Holy Spirit overcame these obstacles and gave him the idea: ‘I could make my petrol station into a family-friendly petrol station.’

He began to throw that idea around in his mind and he thought he could have little flags as he wanted to make the place a bit more attractive. He could also have magazines for the ladies to read while the tank was filling. He could have football results for the fathers. He could have slides for the children.

So that was his resolution from that retreat. He went home and he began to implement this resolution. He found it was very good for business. In fact, it was quite lucrative.

All the children wanted to go to that particular petrol station. He was very happy with his resolutions. It had changed his life a little bit. It had given him some meaning, some purpose, some apostolic influence. It had enriched his pocket a little bit more. He was very happy with that retreat that he went to.

When he was invited to go again the following year, he readily accepted. Again, he heard a meditation about apostolate.

This time it was about reaching out to your peers, your professional colleagues, and all those in a higher level, “launching out into the deep” (Luke 5:4), being daring, influencing our environment.

Initially, he thought again that he didn't have too much opportunity to do things like that, to reach out to his peers. ‘I think I'll just pass on that one again.’

But later on, there was another talk on the family. It was about how to promote the family and help one's peers to promote the family. And again, the Holy Spirit began to work.

He got the idea that maybe, he could call a meeting of all the petrol station owners in his area and share with them the idea of being a family-friendly petrol station.

That was his resolution from the second retreat. He implemented it and called a meeting of all of these petrol station owners in the area. The result was that they all became family-friendly petrol stations. They all began to use their petrol station in order to promote the family.

From a situation where they thought there was nothing to be done, the whole area looked so barren, there were no possibilities or opportunities, he ended up having an enormous influence on his environment.

One of the goals of our Baptism is holiness and apostolate.

If you are a family man, St. Josemaría used to say, our “first apostolate” is within the family (cf. Josemaría Escrivá, Conversations, Point 91). Friendship with our children. Spending time with them. Being their friends. Influencing with our example, with our virtue. Trying to live like a great human being so that they see what that means and hopefully want to imitate it.

And then, in your profession, in your neighborhood, in your environment, trying to see the souls that God has brought us in contact with. There is a particular area of society in which God wants you to sow seeds and try and leave an impact.

St. Paul says this to the Corinthians: “Mark this: he who sows sparingly will also reap sparingly, and he who sows bountifully will also reap bountifully. Let each one give according as he has determined in his heart, not grudgingly or as if by compulsion, for God loves a cheerful giver” (2 Cor. 9:6-7).

Every day, every hour of our life, we have opportunities to sow seeds in the lives of other people with the things we say, with the things we do.

Sometimes God wants us to sit down, have a coffee or offer a drink or something, and go one-on-one with our friends and let down the drawbridge of our hearts. Share with them the things that we have come to treasure and value. Speak to them about God and about the spiritual realities of life.

That's what friendship is. It's letting down the drawbridge of our hearts and letting other people see into our hearts and what's inside there.

And when they see that, then they let down the drawbridge of their hearts and then there's a heart-to-heart communication.

That's what friendship is all about. People see that there is something in your heart that they don't have, and hopefully, they want to have it.

Our Lord in the Gospel said to St. Peter, “Come, follow me, and I will make you into fishers of men” (Matt. 4:19).

It's a rather unusual phrase, “fishers of men.” And yet Our Lord used it very deliberately.

If you think about what a fisherman is, most fishermen love their fishing. They love to be out fishing. They take very good care of their fishing. They think about the fish. They go to where the fish are. Nobody fishes from their living room.

I saw a fisherman once fishing from some rocks. And he got to the farthest point that he could possibly go to on the rocks.

He had to climb over many craggy edges. He probably cut himself a few times to get to that optimal place, because that was the best place from which to cast his line.

Fishermen maneuver themselves into position because their mind is on the fish, and because it's not just for the joy of casting the line or just being there. The whole idea is to catch the fish. That's what it's all about. He has to think very carefully and very cleverly about what bait he will use for which type of fish.

Our Lord wants then in our prayer that we talk to Him about our fishing. And we talk to Him about the fish: souls. Christ died on the Cross for souls.

He loves it when we go to Him to talk all about our apostolate, the souls that we're trying to deal with, the ones we're trying to fish, we're trying to bring closer to God.

Those are the souls that He's interested in, the ones He's placed us in contact with. That's what it's all about. And so, our prayer, our conversation with Him comes alive.

It's like if you're talking to somebody and they're a fan of some football club and you hit on the right club, Chelsea or Arsenal, then the conversation comes alive.

The topic that Our Lord loves to talk about is souls, because that's why He died on the Cross. So, it’s very good to bring those souls to Him one by one.

What do you want me to say to this one? What do you want me to say to that one? Or this son of mine? Or this daughter of mine?

When I sit down with them over a couple of minutes to talk about things, what should I talk to them about? All the time we're fishing, and every opportunity is an opportunity to fish wherever God has placed us.

When some members of Opus Dei began to go into China many years ago, they met a man who had been in the seminary in the 1940s. The seminary was closed down with the Communist Revolution.

He was thrown out of the seminary, but he felt a call to evangelize. He used to try and talk to people about God, but then the police got to hear about him, and he was arrested because that was illegal. He was placed in prison.

He was sharing a cell with a pickpocket. He thought, if God has placed me here in this prison cell with this pickpocket, He must want me to evangelize the pickpocket. He began to give doctrine classes to the pickpocket and the pickpocket was very impressed.

He'd never heard such beautiful things before about truth, about beauty, about love, about being happy in the world, the Ten Commandments, about the meaning and purpose of life.

He felt that he should reciprocate in some way for such a great gift this man had given to him. But the only thing that he knew how to do was pickpocket. He gave classes in pickpocketing to the other man.

But then the prison authorities noticed that these two were talking a lot, maybe too much. They separated them into two different cells side by side.

They called out the older man in the middle of the night to interrogate him, to find out what he had been speaking to the pickpocket about. And this man, during the interrogation sessions, was able to use the skills he had learned from the pickpocket.

He noticed there was a piece of wire on the floor. While maintaining eye contact with his interrogator, he was able to reach down with his hand without letting his right hand know what his left hand was doing.

He managed to get that piece of wire and slip it up his sleeve. Back at the cell later on, he was able to use the wire to pick away at the clay in between the bricks.

Little by little, he was able to burrow a hole into the cell beside where the pickpocket was. Now they had a channel of communication. He was able to continue the doctrine classes.

There came a moment when he finished the doctrine classes and the pickpocket was ready to be baptized. Now they had another problem, another challenge. So then, he got an idea.

He told the pickpocket, “Look, make a loop at the end of the wire and then get the metal mug that you have for your water. Put a bit of water into it and hang it on the loop that you’ve made with the wire. Then put your head under the mug and tell me when you’re there.

“Then I will turn the wire, which will turn the mug, which will make the water flow. And that way you will be baptized.” That’s what happened.

Sometime later, that man came in contact with Opus Dei. He read the homilies of St. Josemaría in Christ Is Passing By and Friends of God. He discovered a deeper aspect of his Christian vocation. He said, “This is what I've been trying to live for the last twenty years.”

All over the place, there are opportunities. Sometimes they come to us handed on a plate. But sometimes God also wants us to make those opportunities, to create them, seize them when they come.

There may be people that God will place beside us at a meeting, at a conference, on a bus, or in a shop. Those will be golden opportunities to transmit some message that God wants us to transmit. Or to invite someone to join us in coming to a recollection or a retreat or some formative activity.

We never know how much God is depending on our initiative and correspondence and daring in those moments.

There's a book by Sister Briege McKenna, available in the Pauline Bookshop, where she talks about how one day she was in the departure lounge of Dublin Airport, waiting for a plane to London at 8:00 in the morning.

She got chatting with the lady beside her. She asked her, “Well, are you going to visit some relatives in London?”

The lady said, “No, I'm going for an abortion.” Sister Briege was shocked. At 8:00 in the morning, that was the last thing she expected in the departure lounge of Dublin Airport.

She told the lady, “You know, that means you're going to murder your baby.”

The lady said, “Well, the doctor says it's going to be a handicapped child. And I already have a few children and I can't manage another one, especially a handicapped one. I've talked to all my relatives and friends and they're all in agreement. They all agree that God is merciful and God will understand.”

Sister Briege McKenna told her, “You know, you're really going to murder your child. And don't say that nobody ever told you because I'm telling you now.”

But the lady dismissed her words and didn't want to hear anymore. The following day when she was going into the abortion clinic, the words of this nun were ringing in her ears: “You're going to murder your child.”

She found she couldn't go through with the abortion. She walked out of the abortion clinic. A few months later, she gave birth to a healthy baby boy.

She went back to the doctor and said, “You told me this baby was going to be handicapped.” The doctor said, “Yeah, but we all make mistakes.”

Then she went and she looked for Sister McKenna because she wanted to thank her. She said, “If you hadn't told me those words in the departure lounge of Dublin Airport, I would have murdered my baby. And now look, I have this beautiful, healthy baby boy.”

We don't know the influence that God wants us to have, the seeds that He wants us to sow in the lives of other people.

Some seeds fell on rocky ground. Some seed was choked by thorns. But some seeds fell on good ground, grew up, and yielded a hundredfold (Matt. 13:3-23).

God will ask us someday to account for how we've used the opportunities that He's given to us. He wants us to come back to our prayer again and again, and to see what new beginnings He wants us to make, because we're always beginning again in our apostolic task.

Like the fisherman who casts his line: he casts it once and he casts it twice, maybe he casts it ten times, and maybe, no fish bites. He has to come back another day. Or he has to look for another river or a different part of the ocean. But he keeps on fishing.

And if you observe a fisherman, you'll see how there's a great method in the way that he casts his line.

I saw another fisherman once who was fishing from a boat with a big net. He was very purposely letting the net out into the water, very gently, very methodically. He didn't just take the net, throw it into the water, and say, ‘Here, fish! Swim into this.’ You could see that his mind was on catching the fish, on being effective, being successful.

We have to ask Our Lord for the grace to make our fishing effective, to lead us to the right places. to see where He wants us to go. We have to try and influence society. We have to try and change the way the world does business.

It's good to ask ourselves the questions, What national and international organizations do I belong to? How am I having that apostolic impact, that Christian influence that God has called me to have?

St. Paul says to the Romans, “How are they then to call upon him in whom they have not believed? And how are they to believe him of whom they have not heard? And how are they to hear if no one preaches? And how are men to preach unless they be sent?” (Rom. 10:14-15).

We have been sent: “Go you, therefore, teach all nations” (Matt. 28:19).

Our Lord wants us to have the ear of this friend and that friend. To whisper a certain word into the ears of those wavering friends. Perhaps to encourage them about Confession.

Or to share with them our own experience of the sacraments or of leading a deeper spiritual life, or taking our spiritual life a little more seriously, because we know that God has great things planned for us.

Our Lord is counting on us for the huge apostolic work that He wants us to do in this country at this time.

Like all the fishermen and all the saints who came before us, we have to try and refuse to look at the difficulties. There are always difficulties.

When the fisherman goes out to fish, it may be raining or foggy. He might not have the right bait this time, or he might have forgotten to bring something. But he doesn't just go home because of that.

He keeps on trying. When he goes out on the boat, he uses all the means. He leaves no stone unturned to catch those fish.

If he fails, he thinks about it again. He comes back and tries again the next time, because that's what it's all about. St. Josemaría used to say, “We have to go after each soul to win it for Christ.”

“Treat them all with affection. Drown them all in love for Christ” (cf. J. Escrivá, The Forge, Point 863).

And it may be that the souls that cross our path or that God leads us to be in contact with have a great hunger to hear spiritual things, either waiting for some sign from God or some inspiration perhaps, to change their life, perhaps to begin again.

We don’t know how God is using our words and our lives and our example. But we do know that He wants us to be His instruments.

It’s very important that we try and increase our own sense of responsibility in the apostolate, and help our children also to think in the same way. Prepare them to be apostles. Expose them to people who have less in this world. Help them to live the corporal works of mercy. Teach them how to be generous, to be concerned for other people, with their time, their effort, to expend themselves for others.

Generosity is a beautiful virtue, especially in young people. Our Lord wants us to have initiative, to foster our spontaneity in searching for new friends. To bring them to Jesus Christ. To open up great horizons for them.

Each one of us needs to bring this topic to our prayer and say, “Lord, what do you want me to do?”

“You have visited the land,” we're told in the Psalms, “and watered it. Greatly have you enriched it. God's watercourses are filled. You have prepared the grain.

“Thus, have you prepared the land, drenching its furrows, breaking up its clods, softening it with showers, blessing its yield. You have crowned the year with your bounty, and your paths overflow with the rich harvest. The untilled meadows overflow with it, and rejoicing clothes the hills. The fields are garmented with flocks, and the valleys are blanketed with grain. They shout and sing for joy” (Ps. 65:9-13).

There's one word that shines out in the whole of the Scriptures. That's the word “harvest.”

Our Lord said, “The harvest is great, but the laborers are few” (Matt. 9:37). It's a very beautiful word to remind ourselves frequently of: the harvest.

We are here for the harvest. That's what it's all about. That's what our Christian vocation is all about. God wants us to deliver to the full, to sow the seeds, to cast our nets. That's the purpose of everything.

Lord, help me to take this more seriously, to ask you for light. “Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and it shall be opened” (Matt 7:7).

“Behold, I stand at the door and knock” (Rev. 3:20). If God has knocked on your door and brought you closer to Him, by the very fact that you're listening to this meditation, some graces are working in your soul.

He wants you to hear these ideas, to put them into practice at a deeper level, to “launch out into the deep” in a new way, to find new horizons.

“You are the salt of the earth. But if salt loses its taste, what can make it salty again? It is good for nothing and can only be thrown out, to be trampled under people's feet. You are the light of the world. A city built on a hilltop cannot be hidden. No one lights a lamp to put it under a tub. They put it on the lampstand where it shines for everyone in the house” (Matt. 5:13-15).

We cannot give what we do not have. If we want to be more effective apostles, we need to expose ourselves to the formation, to grow in our apostolic vibration and apostolic formation.

How does God want me to function as a fisher of men? What does it mean in my profession, in my environment, in my family, with the permutations and combinations of my existence?

And as time goes on, we might be limited physically, or financially, or health-wise, or in a whole pile of other ways, but still, God will always want us to have some little influence, like that man in the prison cell with the pickpocket.

If this is where God has placed me, that's where He wants me to cast my net.

Peter and the others spent the whole night fishing, we're told, and they caught nothing. And then they see this stranger on the shore.

“He asked them, ‘Children, have you any fish?’ They said, ‘No.’ And he said, ‘Cast the net to the other side of the boat, and you will find some’” (John 21:5-6).

Peter and John could have said, ‘Look, we are professional fishermen. We know all about fishing. We know the name, the mobile, and the email of every fish in this lake. If we say there's no fish, well then, there's no fish.’

But they cast the net to the other side of the boat. They went a little deeper. “They caught such a huge shoal of fish that the net was almost breaking.” They looked again at the stranger on the shore. John is the one who says, “It is the Lord!” (John 21:6-7).

From the vast catch of fish that they made, they realized the source of the miracle. They reacted with faith, and they drew all the fruit.

In our fishing too, we can have great optimism—optimism, because we know that we're not the ones doing the fishing. God is fishing in us and through us.

We can have great optimism as a consequence of our faith, great tenacity in our fishing, because we have an unshakeable hope and the daring of someone who knows that we're fulfilling a command of God.

Optimism, tenacity, daring—these are all supernatural gifts that God gives to us. We try to cultivate them in prayer.

We lift up our sights and see the great horizons, the harvest, the fishing, and so much work to be done. God wants us every day to think about our fishing.

Who does God want me to touch today in some way? St. Josemaría recommended that first of all, prayer. We talk to God in prayer.

Before Jesus did His fishing, He withdrew to pray, and then He chose the apostles (Luke 6:12-16), and He talked to the multitudes (Luke 6:17-49), and so many other things. But His prayer came first.

It's a very serious commitment that Our Lord is asking of us: “Go into the whole world” (cf. Matt. 28:19). Preach the gospel to every creature. Be a modern apostle in your office, in your club, among your friends.

See how I can influence, what can I do? How can I leave a lasting impression here for the good? To raise the spiritual temperature in some way?

All the time, God will be with us, especially when He sees we're trying to walk at all times with a pioneering spirit: beginning again, casting the nets, throwing out the line, making this into a daily habit so that it almost comes naturally to us, becomes the joy of our life, because I see: “This is why I am here, this is what God wants of me. It's the basic part of my Christian vocation.”

We can turn to Our Lady, the Queen of Apostles, who's always there with us, guiding us in throwing out the net or casting the line, inspiring us with ideas, helping every effort to be fruitful.

God said, “My chosen ones do not work in vain” (Isa. 65:23). The seeds that we sow today will yield the abundant fruit tomorrow (cf. Gal. 6:7). We know that Our Lady will help that fruit to come.

I thank you, my God, for the good resolutions, affections, and inspirations that you have communicated to me during this meditation. I ask your help to put them into practice. My Immaculate Mother, Saint Joseph, my father and lord, my guardian angel, intercede for me.

In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

RK