What is Youth Apostles?

"Youth Apostles" is shorthand for the Youth Apostles Institute, a community of men who, with lives singleheartedly focused on and enlightened by Christ's real presence in the Eucharist, share a common call to youth ministry in the Catholic Church.

The community is based in Northern Virginia--in the Diocese of Arlington--where its members work and volunteer in parishes and on high school and college campuses and support diocesan youth activities.

Youth Apostles was founded in 1979 by Dr. Eduardo Azcarate and a handful of graduates of the boys' Catholic Life Community (CLC) at St. Anthony of Padua parish in Falls Church. The original idea was to continue to provide these young men with a sense of community as they matured in their faith, and to give them an opportunity to give back some of what they had received by helping evangelize young people in the church.

Of the original members, only "Doc" has participated continuously over the past 28 years, but their concept for the community flourished. Today, 68 Full Members and Candidates call themselves "Youth Apostles."

Who are Youth Apostles?

In the broadest sense, anyone who loves young people, who wishes to evangelize, inspire, console, and teach them to lead heroic and saintly lives of prayer and participation in the sacraments of the Catholic Church, is a Youth Apostle. The name echoes an honorary title of one of the community's patrons, St. John Bosco, the "Apostle to Youth." Don Bosco's work with young people forever set the standard for how Youth Apostles try to cultivate in the young a deep and abiding love for Jesus Christ.

According to  the community's canonically approved General Statutes, Youth Apostles are men who have freely made a serious commitment to pursue deep spiritual lives centered on the Eucharist, to live in simplicity and chastity, and to dedicate their apostolic efforts to working with young people.

Several Youth Apostles are priests. Most others are lay men of all kinds: married, single, and consecrated. All of these men share a common spirituality, a common vision for living their Catholic faith, and a common apostolic thrust: to bring Christ to young people, and to bring young people to Christ. Youth Apostles are chastened by the Lord's rebuke to his Apostles, whose first impulse was to keep children out of the Master's way (cf. Mk 10:10).

What sort of work do Youth Apostles do?

We come to know Christ in the Eucharist and the sacraments of the Church. We come to know him in prayer. And we come to know him in our relationships with one another. We are called to see the risen Christ in our fellow human beings, no matter who they are. Any activity or youth program that seeks to help young people know Christ in this way, by faithful participation in the sacraments and prayer and through strong personal commitments to small communities of faith, is the work of the Youth Apostle.

The Youth Apostles Institute itself grew from one such community, the CLC at St. Anthony parish. CLCs teach young men and women the values of truth, freedom, and care as cornerstones of their Catholic faith and their lives as Christian disciples.

"Truth, Freedom & Care." What's that about?

Christians are guided through their daily lives by the evangelical counsels of faith, hope, and love. Youth Apostles share a special calling to contemplate these counsels and live them as the core values of truth, freedom, and care.

We dedicate ourselves to live out the Lord's commandment of love, which transcends the cross and brings new life into the world. Christ's teaching is clear: "As the Father has loved me, so I have loved you, live on in my love" (Jn. 15:9). We also intend to live a commitment to the truth which will in turn enable us to experience the freedom promised by the Lord when he said to his followers: "If you live according to my teaching, you are truly my disciples; then you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free" (Jn. 8:31b-32). Freedom is understood as a personal dying to sin, a profoundly humble acknowledgement of divine authority and eac person's call to holiness. Inspired and strengthened by the Lord's example of love, truth, and freedom, we have responded to His call to discipleship by accepting to become brothers in the Truth, free to love as he loved (General Statutes, 1.9).

Where do Youth Apostles minister?

The community is based in suburban Northern Virginia, where Youth Apostles work and volunteer in parishes and on campuses in Alexandria, Bristow, Fairfax, Falls Church, Herndon, Manassas, Springfield, and Vienna. Youth Apostles priests lead the campus ministry programs at Paul VI High School and George Mason University in Fairfax, and at Marymount University in Arlington.

The community's Retreat Center operates out of its Community House in McLean, where weekend day retreats for parish youth ministry programs help young Catholics prepare for Confirmation or other aspects of their faith life.

Other programs include the Don Bosco Center, a program based in Manassas. The center reaches out to young Hispanics men and women who need help developing life skills and a sense of community. It seeks to aid them as they develop their natural abilities and realize their full potential in a setting where they might otherwise seek less productive outlets for their energy.

Outside of Northern Virginia, individual Youth Apostles live and work with the young in parts of the United States as far-flung as Charlottesville, Va.; South Bend, Ind.; St. Louis, Mo.; Houston, Texas; and southern California.

I understand the community's patrons are St. Francis of Assisi, St. Ignatius of Loyola, and St. John Bosco. Why did Youth Apostles pick these three?

As men who aspire both to cultivate their own interior life and to put the fruits of this prayer into action, the community's founders looked to examples who could help us form our heads, hearts, and hands for the work.

The founder of the Jesuits, St. Ignatius of Loyola, inspired a rigorously disciplined army of men who were ready to hold forth Christ's light and take on the errors of their age. His Spiritual Exercises molded strong minds into sturdy tools for the rebuilding of the kingdom, challenging participants to develop a prayer life that was at once scriptural, personal, highly sensory, and intensely rational. The Jesuits helped re-form generations of lay Christians through their sodalities of the Blessed Virgin Mary; in many ways, the parish-based CLCs Youth Apostles run and the Youth Apostles Institute itself are direct descendants of these sodalities.

If St. Ignatius is the "head" of Youth Apostles, the "heart" of the community is St. Francis of Assisi. St. Francis truly gave up everything he had for the sake of Christ and his Church and he did so at a time when anything more than cultural interest in the faith stood out as foolish. He embraced poverty, sickness, and rejection so he could become a more genuine and selfless disciple, and he exhorted his brothers to do the same. Utterly emptied of himself, Francis set a seemingly unattainable standard for living the Christian faith. It is in Francis, perhaps, that we see most clearly how embracing the Truth and living Jesus. universal call to love God above all things and our neighbors as our selves comprise  the clearest and simplest path to the freedom and happiness we crave.

But it is a modern who best exemplifies how we are to do the work to which Christ calls us. As the forces of industrialization forced communities and families apart and scattered them to seek their livelihoods further from home than ever before, the Church turned to St. John Bosco to show it how best to reach out to the young people who were most directly exposed to the new dangers. Working primarily with the poor and the orphaned, Don Bosco gave young people formation in the faith, personal stability, a sense of moral order, and communities built on loving relationships. He didn't just work with the young, he lived among them, befriending them and looking out for their interests, doing everything he could to give them opportunities to grow and to discover the persons God had made them to be. For Don Bosco, the new dangers were the displacement and the loss of ties to home and family, as well as the industrial cities that had become centers for dehumanization. For us as would-be "Apostles to Youth," we find added to that list of dangers drug addiction, a contraceptive mentality that distorts the true purpose of human sexuality, errant messages of materialism and moral relativism, and a loss of respect for traditional institutions such as the Church and the family. Through God's grace, however, we are heartened also to find so many young men and women who have spotted the counterfeits and have closed their hearts to such things, while opening them to the truth they find in Jesus Christ.

What are the core elements of the community's spirituality?

Youth Apostles spirituality is an essentially Catholic spirituality that calls members to commit themselves to the basics of the Catholic faith. The spiritual life of the Catholic culminates in the celebration of the Mass. The faithful are encouraged to participate in the Mass every day; the Youth Apostle strives to make this happen. Christ is the center of the Youth Apostle's life, everything else, including his ministry to young people flows from this communion with Christ in the reception of the Eucharist. Frequent, regular confession and spiritual direction support this commitment to the most important of the sacraments.

Youth Apostles spirituality is also deeply Marian. Mary's radical response to the Father's command that she bear his Son by the Holy Spirit brought Christ into the world. Similarly, God has a plan for each of us and his call is a constant opportunity for us to imitate Mary's humility and obedience and bring Christ into the world for others. Mary's "fiat," her radical "yes" to God, is the foundation for the Youth Apostles Prayer, which begins with the declaration, "Dear Lord, we no longer want to live for ourselves, but for you." Youth Apostles seek to cultivate this devotion to Mary through the Angelus, a daily Rosary, and other Marian prayers.

The community's common spiritual life is further directed by its patron saints, whose lives and spiritual writings form the foundation for much of the community's ongoing formation programs. Each Youth Apostle is called to get to know these saints intimately, and to strive to imitate their lives and their works as disciples in the contexts of their own times.

Why is it only a men's community? Don't women do good work with kids, too?

Women do fantastic work with kids and young adults! Many of the best youth ministers we know are women, and we learn from them all the time. We work with them in forming CLCs for boys and girls in the parishes, in helping them build quality co-ed parish youth ministry and campus ministry programs, in creating retreats and workshops and planning other events such as World Youth Day trips and annual workcamps. Our work would have made far less of a difference were it not for the hundreds of well-trained and highly skilled women who at the same time have given sacrificially to help young people know Christ.

Youth Apostles began as a continuation of a high school boys' community led by a Catholic layman who especially hoped to find brothers who could help him continue and expand his work with young people. This project has consumed the community since its inception in 1979. During the following 28 years, we have made an effort to contribute to the general improvement of youth ministry in our diocese, principally by hosting monthly youth ministry seminars open to the public and by cultivating a collegial and cooperative spirit among the men and women who work and volunteer with kids in our area.

In November 2005, several women discerned personal commitments to founding a community that shares our vision for youth ministry. These women have met several times over the past year to pray and discern about the shape and direction of this community. We ask for your prayers as they live their new commitments and continue to build and explore this new commual life and vision for ministry.

In what sense is Youth Apostles a "community"?

Community is at once a very simple and very slippery thing. Intuitively or logically, most people seem to know what it is, yet very few find what they'd call a genuine experience of it. Community is a place, a set of shared ideals, a life together, a group of friends. We look for it in our neighborhoods, our parishes, our schools, or other institutions. Sometimes our experiences live up to the name, other times, they fall far short.

Youth Apostles is a community in the sense that all of us have made a strong, personal commitment to move our faith from the periphery to the center of our lives; that we share a desire to help young people do the same thing; that we work--side-by-side whenever we can--to build up the young as they grow spiritually and morally; that we come together as often as possible to celebrate the Mass and share openly with one another our lives and our efforts to live this challenging call.

We are blessed with a community house, where some of our priests, consecrated laymen and single laymen live. Our main Community House and Retreat Center, located in McLean, Va., is home to 11 of our members.consecrated priests, consecrated laymen, and single laymen, all of whom participate directly in youth ministry leadership. Dozens more, including most of our married members, live in the area, gathering on Tuesday nights whenever possible for Mass and the weekly community meetings. Several members have moved away but continue to participate in our annual retreats and workshops and visit us when they return home to see family. But it is our spiritual bonds that are most fundamental to our lives and convictions as Youth Apostles.