We had a wonderful ACTS retreat these past four days at Our Lady of Hope retreat center in Chatawa just south of McComb. We had been hoping to start an ACTS retreat program here in central MX since before the pandemic, and finally our dreams and hopes came to fruition this past weekend. I had the very joyful experience of serving as the priest for the ACTS retreat with a wonderful team and with a great group of retreatants. We are very grateful for the men of the ACTS program of the Diocese of Alexandria in Louisiana for adopting our ACTS program as a mission to get us started.
The book of Sirach today tells us that God is immense in wisdom, mighty in power, and all-seeing. But Sirach also states that God has given man power, too, in giving us a choice. And that choice was selected as our theme for this ACTS weekend: “Before man are life and death, good and evil. Whichever he chooses shall be given to him.”
We have the power to follow God or not to follow him, to obey God or to disobey him. We may not even be conscious that we have that choice. If we do not choose God and do not choose life, if we choose to sin and turn our backs on God, we are saying that our wisdom and judgment are preferable to God’s.
Sometimes, we can stray from our path of faith and choose something other than God. Sometimes we can be so bogged down in sins and our temptations, that we do not think we can turn back to God. Sometimes our temptations are too much to resist. Sometimes, we can feel isolated and think that our community of faith won’t understand the choices we have made and won’t understand the reality of our lives. We need our community of faith to be there with us on our journey. I was very edified on the ACTS retreat this weekend to see our brothers accompanying each other on their journey, sharing with each other, and providing support and compassion to each other.
We hear a continuation of the Sermon on the mount in the Gospel today, where Jesus is reassuring the people that he did not come to abolish God’s law, but to bring them a fulfillment of the law and the message of the prophets. The new covenant that Jesus brings us in his life and ministry values the spirit and heart of God’s law. Jesus follows the wisdom of God that is presented in our reading from Sirach.
In order to choose God and to choose life and to choose the good that God offers us, we need to be constantly engaging in our faith in different ways and offering ourselves in service in our parish and in our community. We will be starting the holy season of Lent this week with Ash Wednesday. Our Lenten preparation for Easter and our Lenten disciplines of prayer, fasting, and works of charity will help us engage in our faith in this way. We will be offering the ACTS retreats annually for men and annually for women. I am hoping that we have good participation from Holy Savior parishioners in the ACTS retreats both as retreatants and as team members who put on the retreat. I am hoping to have good representation from the other 5 parishes in central MS collaborating with us in ACTS. I am hoping that the ACTS retreat will bring renewal and engagement to our individuals parishioners, their families, and our parishes in general.
Our retreat director, Brandon Monceaux, in his closing talk this morning, spoke about Jesus in the transfiguration on the mountaintop. Jesus and his disciples could not stay on the mountaintop forever. They had to go down the mountain to return to everyday life, to do the work of God, and to be of service to others. Our lives of faith need to be engaged even after a retreat or a mountaintop experience. What we learn in our faith needs to be incorporated into our everyday life. Just is just like in mass, when we are dismissed we are called to bring the Gospel and the spirit of the Eucharist to how we live each day.
As it states in Sirach: May we understand the choice before us. May we choose God. May we choose life.
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