School of Apostles - Quezon City (April 6, 2019)

​For Jaime Bonet, the Verbum Dei founder, the so-called “School of Apostles” (SOAp) is an essential element of the Verbum Dei spirituality. What is a SOAp?

Stephen Drum, a Verbum Dei member said “In simple terms, an apostle is someone who has not just been evangelized but also becomes an evangelizer. In terms of Christians, it means that the apostle not only believes in Jesus, has a personal relationship with Him, and follows His teaching, but also has accepted the task of helping others to come to a similar relationship with Jesus. For Verbum Dei, the Apostle is someone who does this according to the specific charism of prayer and preaching with the Word of God.”

This is in line with the exhortation of Pope Francis, “In virtue of their baptism, all the members of the People of God have become missionary disciples (cf. Mt 28:19). All the baptized, whatever their position in the Church or their level of instruction in the faith, are agents of evangelization, and it would be insufficient to envisage a plan of evangelization to be carried out by professionals while the rest of the faithful would simply be passive recipients. The new evangelization calls for personal involvement on the part of each of the baptized. So what are we waiting for?” (Evangelii Gaudium, no. 120)

In other words, a SOAp is a school, where you learn, to be an apostle! Not to just to receive, but to learn HOW TO GIVE!

The Quezon city community has the SOAp twice a month, on the first and last Saturdays, from 8am-11am, and we start and end on time. This year we have covered the talks of Welcome, Life and Love, and now we are working on God the Father. Each apostle is expected to pray with the talk, type it up, have it checked and then give it. And as Jaime reminded us, “The School of Apostles, for me, never had as an objective that they learn to preach, but that they live what they have to say.”

For Francis, one of the Verbum Dei Disciples of Pansol, Quezon City, said “School of Apostles is very helpful in the Verbum Dei mission because it makes the person be more prepared in preaching. The last lesson that we had was about God the Father. It reminded me that no matter who we are, we are all connected to one source who is God our Father. He knew us even before we were born. He is always there for us whatever season of life we are in.” For Francis the School of Apostles prepares the disciples to be ready for evangelization which is very vital in our mission as Verbum Family. It helps us to deepen our faith and to be able to be better ambassadors of Christ in our world today.
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Resti Bautista, a pediatrician from PGH, has volunteered to give the talk of God the Father on 26 April. Good luck Resti! Enjoy your prayer with God the Father!

See some photos of the event:

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With thanks to Francis Santos and the WordNews team