Carrying Christ to Jacob’s Ladder: Catholic Mission in Jamaica

By Fr. Kevin Baldwin, LC

It had been some time since I had gone on a mission trip.

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This trip was an opportunity to see those different parts of our spiritual family come together: Legionaries, Regnum Christi members, and Catholic World Mission united in a desire to bring Christ to those most in need.

As a Legionary of Christ, mission is at the heart of my vocation. We are formed to know Christ, to love Him, and to bring Him to others. There are many ways we live that mission in our daily apostolate, but there is something particularly powerful about physically leaving home, traveling to another country, and entering into the lives of people whose circumstances are very different from our own.

This past summer, at the end of July, I had the opportunity to do exactly that by joining a mission trip to Mustard Seed Communities in Jamaica, alongside fellow Regnum Christi members Nick Donnelly and Oscar Tanaka.

There was also a special connection to Catholic World Mission. I currently serve on the Catholic World Mission Board along with Nick, while Oscar is a former Catholic World Mission board member. Catholic World Mission itself was started years ago by the Legion of Christ, and today it continues to provide a tremendous way for Legionaries and Regnum Christi members to reach out to some of the poorest and most vulnerable communities around the world.

For me, this trip was an opportunity to see those different parts of our spiritual family come together: Legionaries, Regnum Christi members, and Catholic World Mission united in a desire to bring Christ to those most in need.

For Nick and Oscar, this was not a new experience. They have been traveling to Mustard Seed in Jamaica for years, developing relationships and returning again and again to serve. For me, it was an opportunity to experience this community for the first time and to see firsthand something that is central to our Regnum Christi family: encountering Christ, allowing Him to transform us, and then going out on mission.

Encountering Christ at Jacob’s Ladder

Our mission brought us to Jacob’s Ladder, part of Mustard Seed Communities in Jamaica. Our team came ready to work, including helping to construct a shaded pavilion for the community.

But very quickly, I was reminded of something that is fundamental to our vocation as Legionaries: mission is never simply about what we build or what we accomplish.

It is about encounter.

I remember seeing members of our group simply sitting with residents, holding their hands, praying with them, laughing with them, and being present. One resident, unable to sit up on his own, wanted to be raised onto his pillow so that he could reach out and hold the hands of those who had come to visit him.

There was tremendous joy in those encounters. The original account of our visit captured it beautifully: there was a sense that there truly are “no strangers under God.”

The joy was already there when we arrived. We did not bring it with us. In many ways, we were the ones being invited to discover it.

That is one of the great gifts of missionary life.

We go thinking that we are bringing Christ to others, and then we discover that Christ was already there waiting for us.

Regnum Christi Members on Mission

It was particularly meaningful for me as a Legionary to make this trip alongside Nick and Oscar.

As members of the Regnum Christi spiritual family, we share a conviction that our formation is meant to lead us outward. We are formed for mission. Our encounter with Christ is never meant to remain something private or simply for ourselves. Christ calls us to become apostles.

Nick and Oscar have been living that missionary spirit through their longstanding relationship with Mustard Seed Communities. They did not simply visit once. They have continued to return year after year.

Watching them reconnect with people they had known from previous trips reminded me that authentic apostolate is fundamentally relational. It is not simply about arriving, completing a project, taking a photograph, and leaving.

It is about accompaniment. It is about relationships. It is about returning.

And I believe there is an important invitation here for the wider Regnum Christi family.

How do we reach the poor? 

Not every Regnum Christi member can travel regularly to Jamaica, Africa, Latin America, or another part of the world. But all of us should be thinking about how our apostolic lives include those who live in poverty and those whom the world can so easily overlook.

Catholic World Mission provides one very practical answer.

Catholic World Mission was founded by the Legion of Christ years ago and provides a powerful vehicle through which Legionaries and Regnum Christi members can connect with Catholic communities serving the the poor around the world.

Through Catholic World Mission, we can support priests, religious sisters, missionaries, and local Catholic leaders who know their communities and are responding directly to the needs in front of them.

For Regnum Christi members in particular, I believe Catholic World Mission is something worth knowing about and thinking about. When we ask how our time, talent, treasure, and apostolic energy can reach the poor, Catholic World Mission gives us a way to make that desire concrete.

As a Legionary and Catholic World Mission board member, I was grateful to see that mission personally in Jamaica.

Bringing Christ in the Eucharist

One of the most meaningful moments of the trip for me as a Legionary priest was the opportunity to celebrate Mass with the community.

Wherever a Legionary may go in the world, the Eucharist remains at the center. At Jacob’s Ladder, celebrating Mass was a beautiful reminder that regardless of nationality, circumstances, ability, or background, we belong to the same Church and gather around the same Christ.

I was also privileged to participate in something that has become a beautiful part of Catholic World Mission’s work around the world: its Monstrance Program.

Each year, Catholic World Mission purchases several monstrances to give to Catholic communities in need around the world. They are placed in communities where priests, religious, and lay Catholics desire greater access to Eucharistic Adoration but may lack the resources necessary to purchase a monstrance themselves.

It is a relatively simple gift with the potential to bear spiritual fruit for years.

There is also a wonderful connection developing between this program and our Regnum Christi family. Regnum Christi Encounter teams are sponsoring monstrances, creating a direct spiritual connection between an Encounter team here at home and a Catholic community somewhere else in the world.

An Encounter team can help place a monstrance into the hands of a community that needs one, knowing that long after the monstrance arrives, men and women will continue gathering before our Lord in Eucharistic Adoration.

In Jamaica, I had the privilege of presenting one of these monstrances to the leader of the Mustard Seed community.

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The monstrance itself carried a beautiful story. Engraved inside its base were the words “Misericordia Dei † Fr. Laurence Dunn.” Father Laurence Dunn is a Chicago priest who has spent nearly sixty years at the altar.

A sacred vessel connected to the ministry of a man who had spent decades bringing Christ to others was now being carried to Jamaica so that another Catholic community could adore Christ in the Eucharist.

When I lifted that monstrance, its gold caught the light.

But what mattered was not the gold.

What mattered was Who would be placed within it.

Jesus Christ would be present among people whom much of the world may never notice. And yet Christ sees them. Christ knows them. Christ comes to them.

We can build structures. We can provide resources. We can organize programs and partnerships. All of those things matter.

But ultimately, our mission is to carry Christ.

Those interested in helping Catholic World Mission place monstrances in communities around the world, including Regnum Christi Encounter teams interested in sponsoring a monstrance, can learn more through the Catholic World Mission website.

Formed and Sent

This mission to Jamaica reminded me of something fundamental about what it means to be a Legionary and a member of the Regnum Christi spiritual family.

Christ forms apostles and then sends them.

Our formation cannot end with ourselves. Our prayer cannot end with ourselves. Our encounter with Christ cannot end with ourselves.

The encounter with Christ sends us toward others. In Jamaica, Christ sent us to the sick, the suffering, the vulnerable, and the forgotten.

This missionary spirit is what I saw in Nick and Oscar as they return year after year to Jamaica. It is what I saw in the missionaries working beside us. 

As we discern our apostolates and the ways Christ is asking us to use our time, talent, and treasure, we must remember the poor. We should ask ourselves where Christ is inviting us to go beyond our immediate circles and encounter Him in those who have the least.

Catholic World Mission gives the Regnum Christi family a concrete way to do that.

We went to Jamaica to serve.

We helped build. We celebrated Mass. We prayed. We spent much time with the residents. We brought a monstrance.

But perhaps the greater gift was being reminded once again why Christ sends us in the first place.

Mission begins with encounter.

We encounter Christ. Christ changes us. And then He sends us to bring Him to others.

At Jacob’s Ladder, that bridge between formation and mission was easy to see, and Christ was there standing on it.