In Atlanta, Archbishop Wilton Gregory received a group of YTM-Missionaries after Easter Vigil and encouraged their work

"Hello! We are Catholic Missionaries visiting the neighborhood on behalf of the local Catholic parish. Do you have any prayer intentions, anything or anyone we can pray for?"

Those words were repeated thousands of times during the second annual Holy Week Missions, March 20-27, 2005, sponsored by Youth for the Third Millennium and Missionary Families for the Third Millennium.  Some two thousand missionaries -- teenagers, young adults, moms, dads and their children -- knocked on doors in parishes across the USA and into Canada. Missionaries helped out in parishes in Sacramento, Northern Virginia, Chicago, Atlanta and Quebec City. 

This year marked the second time Megamissions have been held in Atlanta and Sacramento. The event was new to the three other dioceses.

In Chicago alone, nearly 500 missionaries from all over the Midwest took part, going door to door to pray with people in twelve different parishes. More than 200 of the missionaries – family teams including parents and children – walked the streets of St. James of the Sag Bridge Parish in suburban Lemont, Ill.  Father Ed Greeley, pastor of the sprawling St. James parish with its historic church built by Irish immigrants who worked in a nearby limestone quarry, expressed his gratitude to the missionaries on numerous occasions. He was glad to see overflow crowds for several of the Easter Triduum events and joked that "I knew the mission was a success when a Baptist called up to complain."

Fr. Scott Reilly,

	«May we ask God to strengthen the Pope and his aides and open the hearts of men to the message of peace that Christ brought to us.»

LC, territorial director for the Atlanta Territory of the Legion of Christ and Regnum Christi, was in Chicago for the Holy Week Missions and celebrated the opening mass for the missionaries on March 23 at Chicago’s Immaculate Conception Church.

"You are here for one main reason, "Fr. Reilly told the missionaries. "You are here because you love Christ. And that love inspires you to bring Christ to others. Nothing else explains the sacrifices you make to come here," he said.

Since 1995, YTM and MFTM have conducted over 520 parish-based missions. They were inspired to conduct a large scale Holy Week mission by a sister organization, Juventud Misionera, based in Mexico. Juventud Misionera conducted its first large scale Holy Week mission in 1994 with over 5,000 missionaries and last year, during its 10th anniversary Holy Week mission, a record number 60,000 missionaries offered their time and talents to visit both rural and urban areas throughout the Mexican countryside. This year, the Mexican Megamission included some 70,000 missionaries, mostly youth and local catechists, working with 130 Legionary of Christ priests to reach 25,000 villages and communities throughout 29 states of the Mexican republic. 

YTM and MFTM hope for similar growth in serving local churches throughout the US and Canada.

For more information on this Holy Week Mission including how to be a missionary with YTM or MFTM, please visit www.ytm.org or phone us at YTM headquarters in Bethesda, MD, (301) 365-3205. YTM and MFTM are apostolic works of the Legionaries of Christ and the Regnum Christi Movement.