Our Apostolate Spotlight Series introduces you to lay-led groups that are powerfully advancing the Gospel and the Church’s mission in this Age of the Apostolate. Christ in the City is doing exactly that.
Co-founded by Dr. Jonathan Reyes and Yvonne O’Brien, Christ in the City unites two central elements of the Church’s work: forming young people in the heart of Christ and reaching deeply into human suffering to offer authentic friendship to the materially poor. Christ in the City’s founders noticed that very few people are getting this quite right.
Fifteen years later, hundreds of Christ in the City missionaries have reached into communities across the country.
As Blake says in the podcast: “we bring in young adults, bring in adult volunteers, we bring in all sorts of people as a place to serve the poor together.”
The missionaries receive intellectual and spiritual training while living in community. They continue to pray together each day and in different ways each week. They support one another in their work as missionaries.
Once they’re formed, they hit the streets to minister to the poor for either one or two years. Every day, they immerse themselves in the heart of human suffering, but in a particular way – working to build friendship with those who are rarely even asked their names. In the process, everybody grows in love of Christ and one another. Change becomes possible because trust is created, and the Gospel has more fertile ground to take root.
The Trinity exists in relationship – Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Our faith, then, is centered on our relationships. The care we take in our relationship with God first, and then with every person we meet. That is what real charity is. Blake says CIC missionaries focus on the chronically
homeless:
“The goal is to encounter the person in front of you and respond to the Holy Spirit in that moment to get to know them, to see them, to love them.”
