The next best thing after having an encounter with Jesus is seeing other people encounter Jesus. Last week, I was blessed to experience both while on a Catholic Leadership Retreat in Wyoming. At the end of the day, that’s what we want; for people to encounter Jesus in a profound and life-changing way. We want to see people’s hearts set on fire with love for Jesus and for that fire to continue burning after the experience ends.
Too often, people have an amazing, life-changing experience and over time, they forget and allow their faith to fade or to disappear completely. Unfortunately, the devil is very much real and always working hard to pull us away from Jesus. When we experience Jesus in a powerful and profound way, we need to let that experience stay with us when we return to normal life.
In his homily at our mass on Thursday evening, Fr. Matt spoke about “remembering your peak.” He told us about the importance of remembering this profound mountaintop spiritual experience when we go back home to the valley. It’s easy to be on fire when you’re living in community with a group of others who’ve experienced the same thing, but going back to the real world is much more challenging and where the growth in our faith needs to continue to happen.
It was a huge blessing to be on this trip again and one of the best parts was seeing people encounter Jesus and get excited about their faith. On Thursday of the retreat, while spending some time in quiet, individual prayer, I opened up scripture to find a passage to pray with and reflect on. I ended up reading Matthew 13:18-23, which is The Explanation of the Parable of the Sower. Reflecting on the four different responses people may have to God and His word was quite relevant to the moment, as I thought about the ways in which the retreatants might respond moving forward from the trip. The passage talks about how there are those who never accept the word of the Kingdom, those who believe for a while but fall away because of persecution, those who believe, but in whom the word is choked by worldly anxiety and the seduction in riches, and those who respond to the word and produce fruit abundantly. Seed is either planted on the path, on rocky ground, among thorns, or on good soil. I want to see everyone embrace Jesus fully and go forward to produce fruit abundantly. The challenge in this is to help people to have receptive and open hearts, continuing to walk with each other so that we stay close to Jesus.
When we encounter Jesus in a powerful way, we cannot forget. We need to always take time to think about the times we’ve experienced Him in a profound way so that we continue to recognize He is real and always working in our lives and walking with us, even when we go back to regular life. My prayer for each of us today, especially for each and every retreatant and leader on the CLR 2025 trip, is that we would “remember our peak” and never let our love for Jesus fade.
Faith and The Good Stuff 