Once upon a time, God created wonderful, exciting, loving, valuable you. God created you for a reason: to know Him, love Him, and serve Him. Your life has great purpose! That purpose is revealed in the work of your apostolate.
Every person’s apostolate is taking place at this very moment. Just as we do not stay the same through our lives, our life’s work changes, too, as we make decisions based on what God asks of us. Jesus’ apostolate evolved from growing in His mother’s womb through His infancy, childhood, young adulthood, and adulthood. He lived His life privately until becoming well known during the three years of His public ministry. He was loved and persecuted, popular and unpopular, loved and hated, returned to Jerusalem a hero at the age of thirty-three and was crucified shortly after that. Several things remained the same through the different stages of Jesus’ life: He was obedient to God and served others with great love.
Our imitation of Christ includes all we do during the different stages of our lives: as embryos, babies, children, teenagers, adults, and senior citizens. We serve Christ as students, whether we are employed, unemployed, stay-at-home, religious, whether we are in transition between jobs or careers, whether we are healthy or not, whether we are able bodied or disabled. Each apostolate takes place through all the events of our lives.
Our efforts to grow in holiness and share the love of God with one another not only helps each of us individually, but benefits so many other people, including people we may never meet! Father John A. Harden, S.J., S.T.D. stated on his audiotape, He Will Come Again to Judge the Living and the Dead, that no human act is unproductive. “We are writing history for eternity” 1.
Just as we benefit from God’s love in so many different ways, through so many different people, so too are we called through our apostolate to share God’s love with others. So beautiful is His love that it will not be denied and can never be contained. God’s love is extremely contagious! “I am confident of this, that the one who began a good work among you will bring it to completion by the day of Jesus Christ” (Philippians 1:6). Imagine the moment when you will one day stand before God and share with Him the many ways you loved Him back throughout your life, directly and by serving in His place. How beautiful that moment will be! 2The beginning.
_____________________1.“No human act is sterile…” Rev. John A. Harden, S.J., S.T.D., He Will Come Again to Judge the Living and the Dead (Bardstown: Eternal Life), audiotape.
2. Bottesi, Andre; Bondi, Michele, Your Teenage Apostolate: Accepting and Sharing the Love of God (Rochester, MI: Joseph Karl Publishing, 2009).
