Embracing the joy of the Gospel was theme of priests' retreat

Friday, Jun. 16, 2023

MIDWAY — Diocesan priests gathered June 5-8 at the Homestead Resort in Midway for their annual retreat. The speaker was the Most Rev. Alfred C. Hughes, Archbishop emeritus of New Orleans; he currently serves as adjunct professor and adjunct spiritual director in residence at Notre Dame Seminary’s Graduate School of Theology. 

The retreat is a time for the priests to undertake continued spiritual formation and enjoy fellowship, Bishop Oscar A. Solis said. A good thing about the retreat is that it “gives ourselves … time to pray together as priests,” he added. “That’s a beautiful thing.” 

Each full day of the four-day retreat began with morning prayer and ended with evening prayer; Mass was celebrated daily. In addition, the schedule included silent personal time and the opportunity for the Sacrament of Confession.

Embracing the joy of the Gospel is the foundation of a priest’s life, Archbishop Hughes said in an interview at the retreat, adding that through his talks he hoped the priests “meet the Lord, not me. I hope that they hear whatever word God wants them to hear, and will respond to that.” 

At the end of each presentation, he provided suggestions for Scripture passages for the priests to reflect upon, “hoping that in their prayer God will reveal to them something that he’s inviting them to hear and then address in their lives,” the archbishop said.

Archbishop Hughes also addressed the new evangelization, “which fits in perfectly with the convocation that we had last October, which was on the new evangelization,” said Father Martin Diaz, rector of the Cathedral of the Madeleine, who organized the retreat.

At the retreat, the archbishop put the new evangelization “in the perspective of priesthood and ministry,” Fr. Diaz said.

In one presentation, Archbishop Hughes told the priests that they should remind themselves that “we are going to evangelize well only if we love the people we are striving to evangelize. If people sense we do not like them, or condemn them or their culture, they will not listen, may even become openly hostile.”

“We want to love people so much that we want to help them become free of the impact of Satan in their lives,” he added. “We want to love them with a saving love, with a sanctifying love. But we first need to let God love us with a saving and sanctifying love.”

In another presentation, Archbishop Hughes explored the Gospel virtues for the new evangelization. “Real communion with God is expressed in virtue,” he said. “When more and more people experience the Church living Gospel truth and witnessing to Gospel life, they will not only be more likely to give the Church another look but even be attracted to her.”

Although faith, hope and charity are the theological virtues that guide all Christian life, the Church traditionally has presented the virtues of poverty, chastity and obedience as “the reliable keys to interpreting and living the Gospel,” he said, adding that the three moral virtues of simplicity of life, chaste love and obedience to God’s word “open up the message of the Gospel.”

 These virtues address a distinctive Gospel way to relate to possessions, other people “and ourselves, our egos,” he said. “I suspect that we need to recognize the greatest obstacle among us as priests to giving witness to these evangelical virtues is clericalism.”

The archbishop defined clericalism as a type of narcissism that expresses itself as a sense of entitlement, manipulation of other people for one’s own purposes, and egotism.

When the virtues of simplicity of life, celibate love and filial obedience “are evident in us, that’s going to be attractive; it’s going to spill over, especially to those closest to us in leadership at the parish level, and it’s going to make others  take a second look,” Archbishop Hughes said.

Bishop Solis said he enjoyed the archbishop’s presentations, and that the theme of “Embracing the Joy of the Gospel” “is a good reflection on our life and ministry, and how we carry out this special vocation that God has gifted us with as priests.”