Apostolate is service

Let us serve, then, because that is just what the apostolate is. With our own efforts, we cannot achieve anything in the supernatural realm. But if we allow ourselves to become God’s instruments, we can do everything: omnia possum in eo qui me confortat! (Phil 4:13), I can do all things through Him who strengthens me! God in his goodness has willed to make use of such clumsy instruments. Thus an apostle has no other purpose than to let our Lord work through him, to make himself available so that God, through his creatures, his chosen ones, can carry out his work of salvation.

Baptism

The apostle is a Christian who knows that he has been grafted into Christ, identified with Christ through Baptism and enabled to fight for Christ through Confirmation. He is called to serve God with his action in the world, through a sharing in the royal, prophetic and priestly mission of Christ. This sharing equips him to guide people to God, to teach them the truth of the Gospel, and to co-redeem them with his prayer and atonement.

Ipse Christus

A Christian who is ready to serve is a guide, a teacher and a priest for his brothers and sisters, being for them another Christ, alter Christus – or rather, as I like to say, ipse Christus. But, I insist, it is a matter of not doing our own thing, of not having personal ambitions. We must serve Christ so that he may act and also serve others, because Christ came not to be served but to serve: non venit ministrari, sed ministrare (Matt 20:28).