November 23 marks the death (in 1933) of Fr. Thomas Augustine Judge C.M. of the Eastern Province of the Congregation of the Mission.

[Fr. Judge] was ordained a Vincentian priest in Philadelphia in 1899. At that time the Church in the United States faced the task of absorbing thousands of immigrants from the Catholic countries of eastern and southern Europe. On April 11, 1909, at a meeting in Brooklyn, New York, six women responded to his appeal for lay apostles who would share in the mission and ministry of the Church. [They along with other women and men would] become members of this lay apostolic band, later known and accepted in the Church as the Missionary Cenacle Apostolate.

From this lay organization eventually came two new missionary religious congregations: the Missionary Servants of the Most Blessed Trinity (a congregation of women) and the Missionary Servants of the Most Holy Trinity (a congregation of men). Father Judge believed in the capacity of ordinary men and women to love and serve God in the ordinary circumstances of their lives. He taught that by being a loving presence to the people we meet in our daily life we live out our Baptismal call to be Apostles.”

– from msbt.org