As Father John Riccardo spoke animatedly about the Gospel in which Jesus is sleeping in the boat during a violent storm, he eyed the roomful of Archdiocese of Los Angeles priests seated during their Presbyteral Day and gave them a weather forecast for their lives: A 100% chance of storms.
“There isn’t anyone in the room right now who’s not either in the middle of a storm, just coming out of a storm, or isn’t about to head into one,” Riccardo said. “In the midst of wherever you are or whatever’s going on, Jesus says these words to me and to you: What’s the problem? What are you worried about? Don’t you know who I am?”
Riccardo said that the disciples’ reaction — and more importantly, Jesus’ response — to the storm perfectly encapsulates how the state of our lives, the state of the world and the state of the Church can feel right now.
“I know so many people, maybe some of us here right now, who are anxious and fearful,” said Riccardo, executive director of ACTS XXIX and a priest of the Archdiocese of Detroit. “Maybe we’re anxious about the state of the election, or about the state of the Church, or what’s going on in the parish.
“Here’s the truth: Jesus is not anxious right now. He’s not nervous right now, about anything. Not because he doesn’t care. But because he holds the world in his hands. He holds your life in his hands. He holds all those that you love and are concerned about in your hands.”
Riccardo was speaking as part of the ACTS XXIX team’s weeklong series of talks in the archdiocese in late September and early October.
The organization was invited to LA to help those ministering in the archdiocese look at their lives and their ministry in new ways — with the help of some lively preaching.
The week began with an ACTS XXIX-hosted “Rescue Live!” event at the Cathedral of Our Lady of the Angels on Sept. 28, where more than 350 mostly lay people and parishioners gathered to hear about how Catholics should respond and look to God in a damaged world.
ACTS XXIX then presented at the archdiocese’s annual Presbyteral Day for priests on Sept. 30 before spending the rest of the week with a series of talks with pastors, staff, seminarians and more.
ACTS XXIX is an apostolate that bills itself as a group to “unleash the power of the Gospel” and “mobilize the Church for mission” with three core principles: “Reacquire a biblical worldview” (seeing the world through God’s word), “It’s not enough to be a staff” (identifying more as a family on mission), and “restore the initiative to God” (putting God’s plans ahead of our own).
“The idea is to get people renewed and excited with the love of Jesus and the desire to share their faith with others.,” Archbishop José H. Gomez said at the Presbyteral Day about ACTS XXIX. “People are coming back to Jesus, coming back to Mass, back to the Church. They’re starting to think about their lives in a whole new way. So, let’s pray and continue to be optimistic, encouraging our people in the parishes and ministries.”
Father Parker Sandoval, the archdiocese’s Vice Chancellor and Senior Director of Ministerial Services who helped bring the group to LA, said ACTS XXIX provides “a Gospel revival.”
“They convey the Gospel, not as a mere message, but as power,” Sandoval said. “They really tap into the Holy Spirit and in the way they communicate the message. They offer a new set of lenses through which to look at life and ministry.
“It can apply to a family, it can apply to a parish, it can apply to a ministry, it can apply to an archdiocese.”
During the “Rescue Live!” event, Sandoval said several attendees mentioned that they’d never heard someone preach the Gospel that way.
“It was really powerful to hear stories of people, little testimonies afterward,” Sandoval said. “’I never experienced that.’ ‘I'd never heard that.’ ‘I'd never seen that.’ So it was a great affirmation that the Holy Spirit was moving.”
The messages, though, were tailored to the audience. Speaking to hundreds of priests during their Presbyteral Day, Riccardo warned about taking their vocation for granted, calling it “dangerous to be professionally religious.”
“Because you and I get used to this,” Riccardo said. “Every one of you can stand up here and give a reflection out of your back pocket. There’s something that’s good about that and there’s something that’s not.
“Nothing is worse than getting used to the magnificent. You and I are handed, both in our speech and in our hands every day, the magnificent.”
ACTS XXIX says it does not charge any fees for putting on the weeklong talks — “You can’t hire us and you can’t fire us,” said Riccardo — so there are no current plans for future collaborations, Sandoval said. But that doesn’t mean the impact stopped when the week ended.
Several pastors have expressed interest in attending ACTS XXIX’s Leadership Immersives training in Michigan, while Sandoval said there are innumerable ways to put the organization’s three principles into practice, even something as small as meetings.
“We have a meeting and the first item on the agenda is prayer, but that's all it is, one item on an agenda,” Sandoval said. “How do we go to prayer together as a family, as a parish team, as a department? How do we take our concern to the Lord in prayer? Such clarity comes from allowing God to set the agenda and to take the initiative back.”
Since ACTS XXIX is not a program or a curriculum, the organization is being likened to a missionary spirit, a flame that catches and spreads.
“We know there's a flame burning in the Archdiocese of Los Angeles,” Sandoval said. “In a sense, we invited ACTS XXIX here to throw some gasoline on that fire.
“The hope is that they can reignite the fire already burning, such that everyone who interacted with them can return to their homes, their parishes, their offices, and be fire starters. We want fire here in the archdiocese. That’s what Jesus wants.”
