I attended Mass this morning at a certain parish, and it just so happened that the men who had recently attended an ACTS Retreat were apparently beginning their reunion with this Mass. This is good! However, when it came time for the homily, the visiting priest stole the show and delivered one of the best homilies (directed to an ACTS group) that I’ve ever heard. You see, the priest began his homily by revealing that he had been at the retreat center where these men had been on retreat. To put this into context, this is a pretty big venue with multiple events going on all the time so the chances of this same priest doing this Mass for this group are (to me) pretty slim. He gently, but purposefully, recounted one particular encounter with this group of men, and began by saying that some of the “ACTS men” had been very nice; and some had not… During lunch time, the group of men and a group of women from the University of the Incarnate Ward were lining up for lunch. The priest had asked the group of men on retreat: “could we let the ladies go first?” Some were ok with it, but others had grumbled and voiced their objections. Without revealing the outcome, the priest gently (but firmly) reminded the men (and all those present) that being a gentleman is not something that a man who professes to love God can opt out of. He reminded all present that basic courtesy is a way for men to recognize the dignity of women, and to treat them with the respect the designation of being a daughter of God commands. He reminded us that we who claim to be transformed by our personal encounter with Jesus Christ are watched by others, and that the way we live our lives (not our flowery speech) is our ultimate testimony. The world is looking for reasons to derail the Christian message, and seeks at every opportunity to point out how we have failed in our witness. It is an unfair standard of pseudo-perfection that we, who are Christian, are subjected to. To paraphrase Fr. John Riccardo, professing Christianity and proclaiming to be a disciple of Jesus Christ in His Church is not a bragging right – it’s an indictment. This means that if we profess to follow a God who not only gave us a new commandment to live by but lived it Himself; then we are required by our own profession to do the same. Such is the cross that we are called to pick up and follow Christ… The priest closed his homily by saying that one theologian at the Oblate School of Theology had compared ACTS to cocaine because of the immense high that is experienced during the retreat. I personally disagree with this base comparison, but the reality is that after this spiritually and emotionally charged experience, we must “come down from the mountain.” My brothers and sisters in Christ, I say this to you all not as a would-be prophet, but as a sinner who has suffered this path. It is in coming down the mountain that we are tested. It is after the euphoria and the emotions that we must rely on Faith to sustain us. Rather than succumbing to the “need” of being on Team after Team to get our spiritual “fix” we must look inward and upward in order to die onto ourselves and rise to new life in Christ Jesus as His disciple. It is through discipleship that we surrender our wants and our needs and realize that the ACTS apostolate is not about t-shirts, bracelets, or the experiences we have on an ACTS Retreat. It is about witnessing to a personal encounter with Jesus Christ by our words and actions which demonstrate a conversion of heart that is only possible by the power of the Holy Spirit. This is a message that all who participate in ACTS need to hear and mindful of.
Posted on: Sun, 16 Nov 2014 02:43:52 +0000
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