Promoting the Legionary lifestyle at the National Catholic Youth Conference.

November 28, 2011. Indianapolis, IN.  This past November 17-19, a small group of Legionaries and Regnum Christi consecrated women participated in the National Catholic Youth Conference at the Indianapolis Convention Center and Lucas Oil Football Stadium in Indiana.

Organized by the National Federation for Catholic Youth Ministry, the event brought together 23,000 young Catholics from all over the United States. The weekend program included various conferences given by well-known Catholic speakers, youth ministers and clergy, together with Eucharistic adoration, the recitation of the rosary, confession, praise and worship sessions, over 120 workshops, and a daily half-day exposition of 400 exhibits by different religious congregations and Catholic organizations.

The Legionaries and consecrated women put together a section of four booths to promote the Legion of Christ, Regnum Christi consecrated life, the Regnum Christi Mission Corps, Mission Youth, Immaculate Conception Academy, the Sacred Heart Apostolic School.

A new kind of GPS

One of the Legionaries’ marketing strategies at the conference included the newly launched website, www.gpsconnection.org. On display using a 42-inch touch screen, the web site invites young people to pray in order to find a more fundamental kind of direction: God’s Plan for the Soul.

The GPS web site invites youth spend to spend minutes in prayer through Eucharistic adoration, and states that the Legionaries and consecrated women will match their minutes. The site also includes links to the different retreats held at Legionary or consecrated women’s centers, such as the Test Your Call vocational retreat with the Legionaries, the God’s

	About 23,000 youth attended the conference.

Plan for your Soul open retreat for men who would like to pray for direction in general, the Come and See retreats with the consecrated women, and so on.

Another successful gimmick was the GPS wristband, which was embossed with a decade of the rosary. About 8,000 wristbands were handed out in total.

"We had a lot of visitors to our booths. Some were clergy, bishops, and religious, all of whom expressed sincere concern and support for the Legion and Regnum Christi family, assuring us of their constant prayers. Others were youth ministers, parents, and grandparents. The majority were high school students,” said Br Luis Lorenzo, LC.

“High school girls loved the idea of praying the rosary on a wristband, while the boys were impressed by the giant touch screen, which they called an ‘awesome and wicked giant iPad.’ But what moved me most was how one young man out of every twenty visitors would come to our booth, pause for a moment with eyes wide open, and say, ‘I’ve been looking for this.’ I met about six young men like that, and I suppose the other ten Legionaries who were with me had the same experience,” he said.

Mission Youth under construction

The three young women at the Mission Youth stand used 2 x 4 pieces of wood, hammers and nails and other materials to create a booth to look like a Mission Youth construction site, complete with a cross. 

The missionaries asked the students who visited their booth to write notes to Jesus to tack on their cross.

“Within minutes, it was covered with notes,” said Paola Trevino, National Director of Mission Youth. “Tons of young people expressed their interest in missionary work. We are blessed that Mission Youth can be a way to channel all that youthful enthusiasm.”