23 October 2026 - Prayers of the faithful for Friday of the 29th week in Ordinary Time ACTS RETREAT

Lord Jesus - you call us to be your disciples. 

Christ Jesus - you are our source and our strength. 

Lord Jesus - you call us to be missionary in spirit.  

Priest: Let us unite our prayers with the prayers of all believers today as we present our petitions to God: 

1. For all Church leaders, especially Pope Leo XIV and Bishop Joseph Kopacz. May they lead the Church in unity and courage. We pray to the Lord. 

2. For all of our governmental leaders. May the Lord lead them and guide them in the difficult decisions they have to make. We pray to the Lord. 

3. For all missionaries serving the Church throughout the world. For a missionary spirit in all of us. For greater understanding and dialogue amongst the religions of the world. We pray to the Lord. 

4. For our children, our youth, and our families. For a strengthening of their faith and a greater effort in the way we reach out to our families. We pray to the Lord. 

5. For those who are struggling through life. For those who are recovering from natural disasters. For those struggling with addictions, depression, and mental health issues. For healing and help for those who need it. We pray to the Lord. 

6. May the Lord bless all of us on the ACTS retreat this week. May be open to the Holy Spirit working within us. We pray to the Lord.  

7. For the spirit of Respect life month to last throughout the year. That all of us may have a greater respect for life from the moment of conception to the moment of natural death. We pray to the Lord. 

8. For the sick and the afflicted. For the repose of the souls of the faithful departed. We pray to the Lord. 

9. For the prayers we hold in our hearts today. May we unite our prayers with the prayers of Mary and the community of saints. We pray to the Lord.

Priest: Heavenly Father, with faith and hope, we present these prayers through your son Jesus Christ, our Lord for ever and ever.  AMEN.

22 October 2026 - prayers of the faithful for Thursday of the 29th week in Ordinary Time ACTS RETREAT

Lord Jesus - you proclaim the goodness of God’s kingdom. 

Christ Jesus - you lead us to the mysteries of God. 

Lord Jesus - you call us to a life of discipleship. 

Priest: With faith, hope, and love, we now present our prayers to our heavenly Father: 

1. For a fuller life in the Holy Spirit. That God will free us and lead us to a greater fullness in our faith. We pray to the Lord. 

2. For those who are grieving and afflicted. May God give them hope and the opportunity to heal. We pray to the Lord. 

3. For our team members and retreatants on our ACTS retreat this week. May they be open to the Holy Spirit moving within them. We pray to the Lord. 

4. For all who are in formation to become Catholic. That they will take God’s Word to heart and grow in knowledge and intimacy with God. We pray the Lord. 

5. For farmers and gardeners. For all who work the fields and bring food to our tables. That God will protect them and grant them a bountiful harvest, allowing them to be fruitful in their labors. We pray to the Lord. 

6. For a greater respect for human life in our words and our actions during Respect Life Month. We pray to the Lord.

7. That we may unite all the prayers we hold in our hearts with the prayers of our Mother Mary and all the saints. We pray to the Lord. 

Priest: With a sense of thanksgiving and gratitude, we present our prayers through your son Jesus Christ, our Lord forever and ever. AMEN. 

24 October 2026 - homily for the Saturday of the 29th week in Ordinary time ACTS RETREAT - Ephesians 4:7-16

St Anthony Mary Claret was born in 1807 in the Catalonia region of Spain. We celebrate his feast day today. After spending five years as a priest giving retreats and missions in Spain, he founded a religious order named the Congregation of the Missionary Sons of the Immaculate Heart of Mary in 1849, commonly known as the Claretians. That same year, he was named as Bishop of Santiago in Cuba. Arriving in Cuba as the Bishop, he found his Diocese to be in very bad spiritual condition, so he initiated reform measures, including the establishment of a teaching order of sisters in the Diocese. In 1857, he was named as chaplain to Queen Isabella II of Spain, so he returned to his home country. As Queen Isabella’s advisor, he helped revive the Catalonian language and spread the devotion to the Immaculate Heart of Mary and the Blessed Sacrament. After a revolution in Spain in 1868, he died in exile with Queen Isabella in 1870. His missionary spirit lives on in the ministry of the Claretians, which number more than 3,000 priests and brothers and who serve in more than 70 countries throughout the world. 

In our readings at Mass for the last several weeks, we having been hearing from St Paul’s letters to the Ephesians and to the Galatians. In our reading from Ephesians today, St Paul speaks about God’s grace, about how God’s grace to each person individually. Paul speaks about how there was diversity in how Christ appointed his followers to different roles, as some were apostles or prophets, while others were evangelists, pastors, and teachers. They did not do ministry individually, but rather worked as a team in the work of service to God and his people. Paul speaks about how these individuals work together for the growth of the Body of Christ and build that body up in God’s love. We see in our ACTS retreat this weekend a great diversity in our service as individuals, but all of us working together in the common goal of this ministry. We met for several months working together to plan this retreat and bonding together as a team. 

According to the Catechism of the Catholic Church, grace is the free and undeserved help that God gives us to respond to his call to become his children. Through the working of grace in our lives, God invites us to a life of holiness and to eternal life with him. Through baptism, we participate in the grace of Christ and in a life of disciples. 

God’s grace is at work in a powerful way here at our retreat this weekend. We are hearing about God’s grace at work in our lives in different ways as people share their stories with us in the presentations and in our conversations. God’s graces has helped us meet the challenges and struggles we have met in life. God’s grace will help us to heal when we need healing in our lives. May the Lord continue to open our hearts and our minds to the presence of God’s grace in our lives and in the way God has been present to us in our journey of faith. 

Prayers of the faithful for the Catholic sacrament of Holy Matrimony - Marriage convalidation

Priest: We now call upon the mercy of God the almighty Father. 

His plan of salvation is reflected in the love and fidelity of Emily and Austin, the their marriage that they are having blessed in the church today: 

1. Renew the fidelity of your servants Emily and Austin. Holy Father, as they bless their marriage today in the presence of their family and friends. We pray to the Lord. 

2. Holy Father, who with the Son and the Holy Spirit enjoy from eternity the perfect oneness of life and communion of love, grant that Emily and Austin may always remember and faithfully keep the covenant of love they make in this Sacrament. We pray to the Lord. 

3. Holy Father, watch over Emily and Austin and their family in both the joys and challenges of life. We pray to the Lord. 

4. Holy Father, you will that the partnership of Marriage should be an example of Christian living, grant that Emily and Austin and all married couples may be witnesses in the world to the mystery of your Son’s love. We pray to the Lord. 

5. We have family members and loved ones who are going through health challenges and illnesses. We pray for them in the name of Christ the healer and the great physician. We pray for healing in body, mind, and spirit. We pray to the Lord. 

6. We pray that the Lord bless all the children and youth of our community and accompany them on their journey of faith. We pray to the Lord. 

Priest: O God, in whose plan, family life has its firm foundation. Please hear with compassion the prayers of your servants and grant that, following the example of the Holy Family, they may praise you without end in the joy of your kingdom. We ask this through Christ our Lord. ± Amen.

23 October 2026 - St John of Capistrano - homily for Friday of the 29th week in Ordinary Time ACTS RETREAT - Ephesians 4:1-6

Today is the feast day of St John of Capistrano. We probably are familiar with him by his Spanish name, as mission San Juan Capistrano in Orange County, California was named after him by the Franciscan missionaries who brought God’s word to the native people of California. The Spanish missionaries usually named missions and areas after the saint on the date of the feast day on which they arrived in that location. St John of Capistrano was born in 1386 in the kingdom of Naples in Italy.  He was imprisoned during a war with a neighboring town. He entered the Franciscan community as a friar in Perugia after his release. After being ordained to the priesthood, he brought his gifts of preaching to countries all over Europe – throughout  Italy, Germany, Bohemia, Austria, Hungary, Poland, and Russia.  Through his preaching, John of Capistrano tried to unify the Christians throughout the European realm. He also wrote religious tracts against different heresies of that era. He died in 1456 at the age of 70. 

We have been hearing from St Paul’s letters to the Galatians and the Ephesians these past several weeks.  Today, in his letter to the Ephesians, St Paul writes how he is a prisoner of the Lord. He is writing this while he is actually imprisoned in Rome. Writing this message behind bars, it gives weight to his message to the Ephesians to be worthy of the calling to live a Christian life that they received through their baptism. He exhorts them to be patient, gentle, and humble. We can imagine St Paul praying that he himself would be follow those same virtues in his challenging life circumstances. He calls the Ephesians to live in unity as one Body and one Spirit, of which those virtues would help to achieve these goals. We can think of the ways our faith and God’s love can set us from free from all that keeps us down. 

We welcome all of you to this first Mass of our ACTS retreat. The Mass and the Eucharist are central to our Catholic faith and to our relationship with Christ, so Mass has a very important role in our ACTS retreat. As we hear St Paul tell the Ephesians to be patient and humble, as we start this ACTS retreat, it is important to be patient and humble and open to how God is speaking to us through this retreat. It is always good to enter a retreat time with openness to how God is going to speak to us through this retreat, that it may be in a way that might surprise us. God will certainly speak to us in this retreat in the midst of the reality of our lives, through the talks and devotions and conversations and prayers and experiences we will have in this retreat. May our hearts and our minds be open. May we not have expectations as to what this retreat is going to be. The team and I look forward to journeying with all of you this weekend.  

22 October 2026 - St John Paul II - homily for Thursday of the 29th week in Ordinary time - ACTS RETREAT MASS FOR TEAM MEMBERS - Ephesians 4:1-6

When we consider that Pope John Paul II served as Pope from 1978 to 20025, one of the longest pontificates in the history of the Church, we can think of the influence he has had on the Church and the Catholic faithful. He made a profound impact on the Church and on the world. And his contributions as pope continue to have an impact on the Church and the world today. 

One of the first popes who was not from Italy for many centuries, he made an impact on the world in helping to bring an end to communism in his native country of Poland and in many other countries in Europe. 

In the life of the Church, he promulgated a new Catechism, providing a new authoritative summary of Catholic doctrine for the Catholic faithful. He also oversaw the reform of Canon Law. He issued many influential documents during his papacy, including 14 encyclicals and 15 apostolic exhortations. He also wrote the influential theology of the body, which addressed the topic of human love, sexuality, and the dignity of the human body. He advocacy for the pro-life movement also made a big impact in the United States and in other countries in the world. 

In the realm of spirituality, he popularized the spirituality of St Therese, whom he named a doctor of the Church. He also popularized his personal devotions to the Divine Mercy and Our Lady of Fatima. He beatified and canonized numerous saints, more than many of his predecessors combined. He also established World Youth Day in 1985. His travels to many countries helped revitalize the Catholic faith throughout the world. 

In his letter to the Ephesians, Paul writes how he is a prisoner of the Lord.  Paul indeed was imprisoned in Rome at the time that he wrote this letter. Even though he was behind bars, he was able to exhort the Ephesians to be patient, gentle, and humble. I tell the prisoners whom I visit and minister to in the state prison here in Central Mississippi that there are far worst prisons that can confine them in their lives than the bars that they are behind right now at the state prison. We can be imprisoned by different forms of addiction. We can be imprisoned by false expectations and a false sense of values, by clinging the to values of the secular world and our worldly appetites that never seem to be satisfied. We can be imprisoned by our past, by not being able to let go and forgive. St Paul calls us to the one Body, the one Spirit, the one faith. Through our faith and through our membership in the Body of Christ, we can break free from all that imprisons us. 

As we celebrate Mass today right before the beginning of our ACTS retreat, I am thankful for all the hard word and dedication of you ladies in starting the ACTS retreat here in Central Mississippi. I know that a lot of you have made a lot of sacrifices in our busy daily lives in order to commit to ACTS. For years, the men and women of Vicksburg who had gone on the ACTS retreat had approached the Diocese and had approached their parish priests and there was no answer and no support as to beginning the ACTS program. We tried to get it started in the Jackson area, and then the pandemic hit, derailing those plans. Thankfully, through prayers and hard work and perseverance, that dream of starting the ACTS retreat in Central Mississippi is now a reality. I am thankful for the women of the Diocese of Alexandria and of the Diocese of Jackson who have made all of this possible. We unite our prayers with the prayers of Pope John Paul II and St Paul, two great evangelizers, as we start our ACTS retreat today. 

THE ANGELUS PRAYER - traditional Catholic prayer

The leader reads what is in regular text. 

The others read who is in bold text. 

The Angel of the Lord declared to Mary: 
And she conceived of the Holy Spirit.

Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with thee; blessed art thou among women and blessed is the fruit of thy womb, Jesus. Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners, now and at the hour of our death. Amen.

Behold the handmaid of the Lord: Be it done unto me according to Thy word.

Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with thee; blessed art thou among women and blessed is the fruit of thy womb, Jesus. Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners, now and at the hour of our death. Amen.

And the Word was made Flesh: And dwelt among us.

Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with thee; blessed art thou among women and blessed is the fruit of thy womb, Jesus. Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners, now and at the hour of our death. Amen.


Pray for us, O Holy Mother of God, that we may be made worthy of the promises of Christ. 



Let us pray: Pour forth, we beseech Thee, O Lord, Thy grace into our hearts; that we, to whom the incarnation of Christ, Thy Son, was made known by the message of an angel, may by His Passion and Cross be brought to the glory of His Resurrection, through the same Christ Our Lord. Amen.