Rescue Mission
One
I Chose You
With the feasts of All Saints and All Souls we are reminded that we are called to personal holiness and to help others to heaven.
But sometimes that call feels impossible. We look at our own sins, our failed efforts to help our family or friends, and we whisper, “Who am I to lead anyone to God? I can’t even get my own life right.”
Would it surprise you that every saint felt that way. St. Juan Diego certainly felt that way.
When Our Lady appeared to him outside of Mexico City, she said:
“Know for certain, littlest of my sons, that I am the perfect and perpetual Virgin Mary, Mother of the True God through Whom everything lives. You must go to the bishop of Mexico and tell him that I sent you and that it is my desire to have a Church built here.”
Juan obeyed—but the bishop didn’t believe him.
Discouraged, Juan begged Mary to send someone more important, a professional so to speak, saying to her, “Because I am a nobody, I am a small rope, a tiny ladder, I am just a leaf the tail end, …”
But Our Lady answered, “I have many servants and messengers whom I could send but I have chosen you…Go and tell the Bishop that I, in person, the ever-virgin Holy Mary, Mother of God, sent you.”
And she says the same to us. God could have chosen anyone to reach your family, your friends — but He chose you. There are hearts only you can reach.
Two
Friendship Carried the Miracle
In the 1500s, there were no phones, no email, no TikTok, no YouTube. Yet within a decade of Our Lady’s appearance on Tepeyac Hill, nearly ten million people of the Aztec world heard the news and walked, sometimes hundreds of miles on foot, to Mexico City. Why? Because one person told another. But it wasn’t gossip. It wasn’t rumor. The story of the tilma and the roses passed through webs of trust, family to family, neighbor to neighbor, friend to friend. Each act of sharing rested on the credibility of an established relationship. They believed because they trusted the one who spoke. The miracle of Guadalupe spread not only by divine power, but by the ordinary power of friendship and conversion. It shows us that God’s greatest works move forward not only through great signs, but through one ordinary person sharing faith with another in love. That is how millions were baptized, because the Gospel, clothed in Mary’s presence, traveled the pathways of human friendship.
We all have family and friends who are not interested in Jesus and the Church. But currently there are three thousand Catholics for every one priest. So who is going to bring the love of Christ to them? The people at risk are our people, so we are in the best position to show them the love of God and to know, love, understand, and care for them.
Who else will do it? We are the ones who care!
Three
Our Method
We want to help others grow closer to Jesus, especially our family. But what is the method?
Analyze all of Catholic history from Jesus and the Apostles to St. Patrick, Francis, Dominic, and Francis Xavier. All successful missionaries combined three essential ingredients: Personal holiness that was attractive and compelling. Genuine friendships that included sharing life together, loving them, and good conversation. When the time was right, an invitation to encounter Christ in the Word of God, prayer, and the sacraments.
If you want to help your loved ones back to Christ and the Church, the first step is a commitment to your own personal holiness. Our lives must be a visible testimony that Christ is real and he is good. That means my thinking, feeling, and behavior must flow from Christ living in me, the fire of Christ’s love must radiate through me.
This Fire of Christ is enkindled in us by the Eucharist and regular Confession. Daily meditation shapes us into souls that are humble, meek, detached, detached, patient, cheerful, calm, strong, courageous, just, temperate, fun-loving, daring, and loving. Because that is attractive and compelling.
Four
What Story Do We Tell Today?
We all know that you can’t just go up to someone who wants nothing to do with Christ and the Church and say, “Hey, why don’t you go to Confession or try praying the Rosary!” That’s why the method of Christ and the Saints, and our method for evangelization is friendship. If a family member or friend has fallen away from Christ, the solution is not a program, and you shouldn’t go to your priest and tell him he needs to do more.
If you want to help a loved one back to Christ, do this: Intentionally pray for them every day at Daily Mass, the Rosary, and every time you pray. Offer sacrifice for them. At Fatima, Mary pleaded, “Pray, pray very much, and make sacrifices for sinners; for many souls go to hell, because there are none to sacrifice themselves and pray for them.” Never let a day go by without offering both voluntary and unexpected sacrifices for the conversion of our loved ones.
Most importantly, do all you can to develop a genuine friendship with them and have good conversation. Our culture has removed the natural lines of intersection between people. We live individual and isolated lives. So, we have to create a way to spend time together, meals, dessert, drinks, take a walk, and watch a game. And whatever you do, talk while you do it. Be genuinely interested in their life. Be open-minded. This is the time to learn about them, not correct or condemn them. Ask good questions and allow their story to open a space for God.
Who can you invite to coffee, to drinks, to your house? Who can you get to know better? How quickly can you get them on your schedule? Do it now, do it immediately. Don’t wait. If you can’t find the time, make the time. Keep it up and don’t stop.
Five
Invitation
Personal holiness and friendship must come first, but at some point, we must also invite. Invite them to encounter the Person of Jesus Christ in the Word of God, in prayer (the CCC says that prayer is the encounter of God’s thirst with ours), invite them to the sacraments, Baptism, Confession, and the Eucharist in Mass. Once you invite, leave them free and don’t make a big emotional deal if they decline at first. Continue with cheerful patience to build a genuine friendship with them, wait for another opportunity, and invite again.
Mary’s message and her rescue mission move forward when ordinary people commit to personal holiness, friendship, and invitation. Mary’s rescue mission moves forward through ordinary people who dare to believe she means it when she says, “I have chosen you.”
So go live holy lives, build friendships, and invite others to meet her Son. The world is waiting for its Juan Diegos.