Fr. John Riccardo

from Unshakeable Hope in the Midst of the Storm

by The Word Among Us

Unshakeable Hope In The

Midst Of The Storm

Published by The Word Among Us Press

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Opening Prayer

Heavenly Father, may your Holy Spirit anoint the words on these pages to be like an arrow that pierces the hearts of those of us who are most in need of hope. We surrender ourselves to You and we give You permission to do whatever You desire in our lives. Let these words be like fire and bring warmth, light, and hope to those of us who need it the most. We ask this in Jesus’ name. Amen.

Whenever I preach, teach, or write, I pray that the Lord will help me to hear what it is that He wants me to deliver, as opposed to simply offering some ideas that I might have at the time. A priest mentor of mine, many years ago now, once said to a gathering of priests I was fortunate to be a part of, “Brothers! The only reason you should preach is because the Holy Spirit has given you a word to deliver. If He hasn’t, please just move on to the Creed immediately after proclaiming the Gospel!”

I pray what follows is such a word. I know it has been for me, as the Lord is always encouraging me, correcting me, and exhorting me. I pray it will also resonate deeply with you and bring you ever greater confidence in God, as well as an ever more certain hope in Him.

Lord. Save. Lost.

Over the course of more than twenty-five years as a priest, I’ve been repeatedly struck by a particular Gospel story. Every time I read it, the Spirit speaks to me in a new way. He is doing so again even as I write this. This Gospel story will serve as an introduction to the primary word I think the Lord wants to deliver to us. I’d encourage you to read the story through once, but then return and read it again very slowly. As you do so, ask the Holy Spirit—who was there when it happened—to bring you there now. To see the scene. To hear what this scene must have sounded like. To picture the faces of the disciples and, above all, the face of Jesus.

Now when Jesus saw a crowd around him, he gave orders to go over to the other side. . . .

And when he got into the boat, his disciples followed him. And behold, there arose a great storm on the sea, so that the boat was being swamped by the waves; but he was asleep. And they went and woke him, saying, “Save us, Lord; we are perishing.” And he said to them, “Why are you afraid, O you of little faith?” Then he rose and rebuked the winds and the sea, and there was a great calm. And the men marveled, saying, “What sort of man is this, that even winds and sea obey him?” (Matthew 8:18, 23-27)

I recently had the chance to be in Galilee with some friends. While we were there, we took a boat ride on the Sea of Galilee. If you’ve not been there, this “sea” is about thirteen miles by seven miles. It’s really just a big lake, and it’s notorious for violent storms that come out of nowhere.

Let’s invite the Holy Spirit to help us enter into this scene, so that we might each receive whatever the Lord desires to give us. The Greek word that we translate as “storm” is seismos. Though we might not know Greek, we almost certainly recognize this word. Think of a seismograph. This is a device that measures earthquakes. Matthew, in fact, describes this storm as seismos megas, a “mega earthquake!” Matthew isn’t telling us that the wind picked up a bit. It has suddenly and unexpectedly become very, very violent. The boat, Matthew goes on to say, is virtually covered by the waves. It’s almost as if the boat is getting “baptized.” In a sense, that’s what’s happening. Just as a person emerges from the waters of Baptism a new creation, so, analogously, do the disciples emerge from this storm different men.[1] The Lord wants to change us, too, I’m convinced, as we pray with this text.

And through the shaking, the wind, the waves, and the noise, Jesus. Is. Asleep.

As the storm rages, the disciples awaken Jesus with these words: “Save us, Lord; we are perishing” (Matthew 8:25). Now think for a moment to how most of us have heard this Gospel read at Mass. Unfortunately, it’s often read in a rather monotone, almost perfunctory way. Try, though, in your mind, right now, to imagine this. Are we to imagine that the disciples gently nudged Jesus and politely said, “Pardon us, Lord. We’re terribly sorry to cut short your nap, but it appears we’re about to die here. Could we trouble you to do something?”

Not a chance! How would you awaken Jesus? I’d be shaking Him, screaming all the while!

In the original Greek of Matthew 8:25, there are only three words: Lord. Save. Lost.

This is where some of us are right now as we read these words.

If I may, let me allow you into my imagination as I pray with this scene. I see Jesus in the back of the boat, asleep on a cushion. I see John next to Him because, well, John always seems to be close to Him. Peter, as I imagine the scene, is in the front of the boat. Now, if you’ve ever been outside in the middle of a storm, then you know that you can’t have a simple conversation with someone. Imagine being on a lake in almost hurricane-force winds threatening to rip the sails apart. Imagine the rain ceaselessly pounding the water and the boat. Imagine the lightning and thunder. Imagine the waves tossing the boat up and down, with no end in sight. Imagine how your stomach would feel in all of this. With all of this going on, you can’t just have a gentle conversation. You have to scream.

In my mind, I see John shaking Jesus, screaming all the while, “Lord! Save! Lost!” Peter, up front, can’t hear what John is saying; all he can see is John shaking Jesus. As this is happening, I see Jesus suddenly waking up, rubbing His eyes, and quickly assessing the situation. And then I see Jesus smile at John and ask, “What’s the problem?” Peter, of course, can’t hear this, so I hear him shout back to John, “What did He say?!” John shouts back to Peter, “He wants to know what the problem is!” And Peter says, “You have to be kidding me!”

Jesus Is With Us

As you read these words, you might well be in the middle of a storm. Perhaps you’re feeling as if you’re all alone, or maybe you’re frightened about the world around you or your future. Maybe you’re getting older or dreading a doctor’s report. It could be you’re fearful for your children who have wandered away from the Church. Some of us are concerned about the state of the Church and afraid for the future of our country. Increasing numbers of us are feeling depressed and afraid that nothing will ever get better. Whatever the storm might be, Jesus asks you and me the same question: “What’s the problem?” And I sense that He also says to us: Why are you afraid? Don’t you know who I am? Don’t you know what I’ve done? Don’t you know what I can do? Don’t you know that the Church is right here in my hands? Don’t you know that your marriage is right here in my hands? Don’t you know that your life is not in the hands of doctors? It’s not in the hands of the treatment; it’s not in the hands of a diagnosis. It’s in my hands. No one can take you out of my hands because I’m Lord and there is no other.

And I’m not just Lord; I love you. I see you—right now, with all your anxiety, your fear, and your worry. I see you, and it’s OK— not because I’m just going to magically make all the problems go away. Life can be very much like being in a boat in a very violent storm. But I’m in the boat with you, and I promised you that I would give you a peace that the world cannot give. The world only knows peace when there’s an absence of conflict. My peace comes in the middle of conflict. My peace comes in the middle of the storm. My peace comes when you’re sitting there in the waiting room. My peace comes when you’re at the bedside of someone you love who’s leaving this world. My peace comes in the middle of results that you don’t like. That’s what I’m offering you right now.

There, in the boat with His disciples in the middle of a storm, Jesus addresses His creature the sea and says, “Peace! Be still!”

(Mark 4:39). And this creature, who knows its Master’s voice, is instantly calm. With just a word, Jesus brings peace. We can imagine the apostles looking at each other, dumbfoundedly asking each other, “Who in the world is this who speaks to storms and they listen?!”

As it was with the disciples in the boat, so it can be with you and me. In the midst of all the crazy, terrifying, and uncertain things that are going on, you and I can, even now, live our lives with unshakeable confidence in Him. As I write these words, personally, I’m not all that confident in the leaders of the world, the country, or even my state. And, no offense to our dear bishops, but I’m not overwhelmingly confident in them either. That’s OK. None of these people, ultimately, are in charge. Jesus is in charge. Jesus is Lord. And He’s not afraid. So you and I don’t have to be afraid either. No matter what.

Now, this isn’t to imply that it isn’t more than a bit choppy out there. It is, both in the world and in the Church. Once again, though, the Lord is with us. He promised that He would be with us always, even until the end of the ages (see Matthew 28:20).

We Need To Know The Story

I help lead a ministry called ACTS XXIX. Now, if you know the Bible, then you know there is no twenty-ninth chapter in The Acts of the Apostles. However, the same Holy Spirit who wrote the first twenty-eight chapters of the Book of Acts is writing right now, through you and me, the next chapter in the history of the Church and the world. It’s important to realize that you and I don’t just happen to be alive right now. We’re not historical accidents living at this moment. God has intentionally and providentially willed for us to be alive at this very moment, with everything that’s happening in our country and the Church. He’s blessed us all with both natural and supernatural gifts for these very days, and he wants to continue writing the next chapter of the drama that is history (“His story”) through and with us.

In the midst of the storms we are weathering right now in the world and the Church, there are many needs. But we at ACTS XXIX believe there is a most pressing need for what we might call “missionaries of hope.” There is so much despair all around us. Sociologists are prone to talk often about what they call “deaths of despair.” These deaths—suicide, the opioid crisis, and an increase in alcohol-related deaths most especially—are rampant in our country. There are many causes for these types of deaths, to be sure, but we believe that the root cause is that when the Creator is pushed farther and farther off the stage, the creature made in His image and

Jesus is Lord. And He’s not afraid.

likeness loses all sense of meaning and purpose. As God is eclipsed more and more from our lives, those same lives don’t make all that much sense, aside from maximizing pleasure and minimizing pain. And when the pain gets too intense, well . . .

I agree wholeheartedly with a line written by a pastor and scholar we’ve been blessed to know a little bit. She writes, “In the final analysis theological speculation can only take us so far. We need to know the story.”[2] We see a lot of theological speculation in the Church right now. Now, don’t get me wrong, most of this is very important stuff. However, it’s secondary to “the story.” There is a desperate and urgent need right now, both inside and outside the Church, to know “the story.” That story is the gospel, or what we might call the kerygma. Kerygma is the Greek word for proclamation. It’s something like the synopsis, or the essence, of what God has done for us in Jesus.

Pope St. John Paul II once said that the kerygma is “the initial ardent proclamation by which a person is one day overwhelmed” by what they’ve heard and is led to make a decision to surrender their entire lives to Jesus in faith.[3]

Really?! Has this happened for many people? Imagine a priest, just after proclaiming the Gospel at Mass on a typical Sunday, asking his parish for a show of hands to two questions. First, “How many people here have been overwhelmed by the gospel?” Second, “How many people here have made a decision to surrender their entire lives—their money, time, body, talents, everything—to Jesus in faith?”

How many hands do you think would go up? Not many. It’s not uncommon to run into people who say things like “I grew up Catholic. But then I met Jesus over at First Pres.” To be sure, you can’t meet Jesus more objectively than in the Eucharist, where He sacramentally enters into our bodies. But they didn’t know this. They didn’t know “the story.” When they heard it, though, in a compelling and attractive way, many of these people were overwhelmed and surrendered their lives to the Lord. Perhaps we in the Catholic Church could stand to learn a bit from some of our Protestant brothers and sisters.

This urgent need to know “the story” led us at ACTS XXIX to create The Rescue Project. This is a nine-part, eight-week video experience. Ideally, it’s watched in small groups, allowing for a meal, the talk, and conversation afterwards. But it can be watched in any context, even binged. And it can be used in any setting: parishes, OCIA, high schools, college campuses, men’s groups, women’s groups, homes, prisons, you name it.

The Rescue Project has three goals. First, that the person would be overwhelmed—not by the messenger, but by the message. Second, that the person would be moved to surrender their lives to Jesus in faith. Third, that the person would be mobilized for mission to get God’s world back.

A Clear Mission

I have a number of friends who have served in the military. I’m so grateful for the way they have poured out their lives for us and been willing to lay down their lives for us, their friends. Like the Church, the military uses lots of acronyms. One of those acronyms is IOT. It stands for “in order to.” A Marine Corps friend of ours at ACTS XXIX recently told us that when she was in officer school, it was drilled into her to make sure that those under her command had absolute clarity on the “in order to” when they were preparing for an operation. In other words, “We’re going into Okinawa in order to . . . what exactly?” “We’re landing on Omaha Beach in order to . . . what?” “We’re going to that hill in order to . . .” You get the picture. If there’s not clarity on the IOT, then things can easily go sideways, communication can break down, morale can sink, and people can die.

I often wonder if we as Christians have clarity on two IOTs: the mission of Jesus and the mission of the disciple. Think for a moment to yourself: God became a man in order to . . . what? And Jesus sends us out into the world as His disciples in order to . . . what exactly? What are we supposed to be doing with our lives right now?

Archbishop Alexander Sample of Portland, Oregon, is a friend of our ministry. I’ve heard him say on a number of occasions that the Church has three options right now: we can capitulate and just give in, we can build a ghetto and say “the hell with the world,” or we can engage. Obviously, there’s really only one option: we have to engage. But I can’t engage if I don’t know what it is I’m supposed to be doing.

We need to know “the story”—the story that first explains Jesus’ mission in a compelling and attractive way, as well as our mission as His disciples. This is what we do in The Rescue Project. We condense the gospel to four questions:

1. Why is there something rather than nothing?

2. Why is everything so obviously messed up?

3. What, if anything, has God done about it? and

4. If He’s done anything about it, how should I respond?

We then further reduce those four questions to four words: Created, Captured, Rescued, and Response. These words are the answers to those four crucial questions. Those questions and those words are broken open at length in The Rescue Project. You can find this experience in a number of different places, including rescueproject�us, watch�actsxxix�org, or use the QR code on the back cover of this book. And it’s all free. That momentary digression was all about how we can become the “missionaries of hope” I mentioned earlier that our Church and world so desperately need. I can’t offer hope if I don’t know “the story,” after all. Please allow me now, though, to share a few reflections that the Lord has been speaking repeatedly to me. I pray they will bring peace into your mind as they do my own.

Scripture: A Splint For Our Hope

Some of you might remember Frank Sheed. He was a great twentieth-century Catholic apologist who once said that most of us have mostly worldly minds with a few Catholic patches. He said that in the 1960s! I confess that I have a mostly worldly mind. I know that. I pray an hour every morning in front of the Blessed Sacrament. I soak daily in Scripture. As a priest, I talk about Jesus more or less all day long. But if you were to add up the amount of time that I spend praying and reading the Word of God versus listening to the radio, watching movies, reading the news, and all sorts of other things, it’s not a one-to-one ratio. It’s unfortunately not even close! What’s yours like? Is it any wonder, then, that we often feel the way we do? That we get unnerved the way we do by what we see all around us? That we’re wondering what the heck is happening in the country, in the world, and in the Church?

In his second letter to his friend Timothy, St. Paul writes, “All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, that the man of God may be complete, equipped for every good work” (3:16-17, emphasis mine). Let’s linger for a moment with that word correction. We could also translate it as “straightening up again, making something lame whole, putting us back on our feet.” Paul is conveying to Timothy the truth that God’s revealed Word is helpful in bending back into rightful position things that have been bent or distorted.

For many of us, what’s “bent” is our hope. Over and over, I run into people in the Church who are exceedingly anxious. I’m here to tell you—Jesus tells you (and me)—“Don’t be anxious!”

Thinking, then, about that passage on the Word of God from Paul, we could perhaps see Scripture as something like a splint put on an injured body part to help it heal. I’d like to propose ten “splints” that can help us whose hope has been bent or distorted. These passages have been immensely helpful for me, and I pray they will be for you too.

Do Not Fear What They Fear

God’s First Splint

Do not call conspiracy all that this people calls conspiracy, and do not fear what they fear.

{ Isaiah 8:12 }

Who are the “they” in this passage? They are those who don’t know God. They don’t know there is a God or, if they do know there is a God, they don’t know who He is (which are related but different things). What do they fear? Everything. Breathing. Bringing children into the world. Getting sick. Suffering. The future. Other political parties. You name it. They fear everything. Why? Because they think life is a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing. They don’t know there’s a story. They don’t know that they’re in that story. They think life is just a series of events with no ultimate point. They think we just happen to be here; we simply evolved from the slime. We came from nowhere; we’re going nowhere. Which means there really is no point to anything, so just have at it.

I was recently speaking about this with Archbishop Samuel Aquila of Denver, Colorado. He mentioned he had been at some large event recently. As he walked into the gathering, he was suddenly struck by all that he saw and heard in the immense crowd. He told me that he thought to himself, Is everybody just lost? I think many are, because they don’t know the story, they don’t know there is a story, and most importantly of all, they don’t know that there is an Author of the story who is Love, without rival, and who knows what He’s doing.

Your Father Knows What You Need

God’s Second Splint

When you pray, do not heap up empty phrases as the Gentiles do, for they think that they will be heard for their many words. Do not be like them, for your Father knows what you need before you ask him. Pray then like this: “Our Father . . .”

{ Matthew 6:7-9 }

Who are the Gentiles? The Gentiles are the non-Jewish people. We could say these are the ones to whom God has not revealed Himself, as He did to the Jewish people. Not only do they not know the true God, they think the gods are far away and need to be appeased somehow. They even think they can bribe or manipulate the gods. They think the gods are angry, even at times warring with each other. Their gods act like rival political parties. They’re envious of each other. You and I, Jesus says, are not to be like these people. If we’re honest, though, don’t many of us relate to God—often, at least—just like them? Don’t we think of God sometimes as if we have to manipulate Him? Don’t we pray that way? “Lord, if you do this I’ll do that for the rest of my life. Or for a week. Or at least until I go to bed tonight.” I mean, I do that! Even if I don’t say it out loud, I think it often, anyway. I think we try to manipulate God in lots of different ways.

If that’s not convicting enough, Jesus goes on to talk about the purpose of prayer. I don’t know about you, but I often pray as if I’m making God aware of things. How crazy is that? How much of our prayer is intercession and petition? When we intercede, how often do we do it as though we’re bringing to God’s attention something of which He is ignorant? “Lord, there’s this situation going on in Ukraine right now.” “Yeah,” God says, “I know.” “Lord, my niece is going through a really difficult time in her marriage.” “Yeah,” He says, “I know that too.” “Lord, I’m struggling with . . .” “Yeah, I know that, John.” We relate to prayer as if it is about communicating information to God that He doesn’t know, and Jesus just punctures that immediately by saying, “He knows what you need before you ask Him.”

We Do Not Yet See

God’s Third Splint

At present, we do not yet see everything in subjection to him. But we see him who for a little while was made lower than the angels, namely Jesus, crowned with glory and honor because of the suffering of death, so that by the grace of God he might taste death for everyone.

{ Hebrews 2:8-9 }

Ilove the Letter to the Hebrews. It’s probably my favorite book in Scripture. Interestingly, it’s not a letter and it’s not to the Hebrews. It’s something like an extended homily on the priesthood of Jesus. As an ordained priest, I find it very convicting to read because it contrasts Jesus’ priesthood with the Old Testament priesthood. The reason I find it convicting is because I, like many of my brother priests—if we’re honest—often act and think more like Old Testament priests than the priesthood Jesus embodies. Perhaps you’ve seen the crowd-funded show The Chosen? If not, watch it! I know people who are totally enamored of it and others who refuse to watch it. Personally, I find it very enjoyable to watch. To be sure, it takes many liberties with the Gospels. It’s a TV show, after all. It is based on Scripture but it creatively fills in many things that the Bible is silent on. One of the many things The Chosen can help us understand is why Jesus provoked and even scandalized the religious leaders so often. One of the reasons has to do with His behavior and interaction with those often considered “unclean.”

I find it helpful to think of the age that we’re living in as something like the time between D-Day and VE-Day.

The priests in the Old Testament saw themselves—and others saw them, too—as apart from the people (not part of the people). An Old Testament priest was not like everyone else. He was forbidden from touching the impure. You might remember an early Pope Francis homily, where he encouraged and exhorted the priests in the Church to have the “odor of the sheep” they care for.[4] This was unheard of at the time of Jesus! Suddenly, here comes Jesus, and He’s eating with tax collectors and sinners!

It’s helpful, I think, to linger a moment with this third splint from Hebrews. The author says, “We do not yet see” (2:8). What is he talking about? He’s talking about the fact that things are obviously not as they should be. Just pick a headline from any news site. Even though the Lord has come, even though He suffered, even though He’s been raised, and even though He’s ascended, things are not yet the way they should be. Injustice seems to reign, the wicked seem to prosper, nice guys finish last, the Church is a mess in so many ways, and our families are not what we would like them to be. We’re often afraid that if the people sitting next to us knew what was going on in our own families—or our own hearts—they would run.

We’re living in this in-between time. I find it helpful to think of the age that we’re living in as something like the time between D-Day and VE-Day. If you are familiar with World War II, D-Day was, for all intents and purposes, the end of the war in Europe. The moment that the Allies landed at Normandy and got through, the war in Europe was over. The Allies knew it. The Germans knew it. Everybody knew it. And yet the war didn’t actually end right away. The war in Europe went on for another year.

In fact, one of the worst battles of the whole war, the Battle of the Bulge, happened after D-Day. We’re living in a time just like that battle. The Lord has already risen, He’s already ascended, He’s already conquered the powers of Sin and Death, and yet our world is obviously not yet fully the way it’s supposed to be.

It will be one day. The Lord is going to make all things new. He’s going to return—not to take us away from here, but to make a new heaven and a new earth. Our goal is not “to get out of here.” Our goal is to do everything we can to collaborate with Jesus, to continue the work He began on Easter day, to do what we can to transform this world as best we can—even if it costs us our lives— until that day when He comes back and recreates it entirely.

For now, we don’t see things yet as they should and will be. Here’s what we do see: we see Jesus. Now you might ask, “We do?” How do we see Jesus? We see Jesus through faith. What does that mean? Well, faith is a way of knowing. Faith enables me to see. We often hear things like “Faith is blind.” No, it’s not! Faith is not blind. Those who do not have faith are blind. They can’t see. They can’t see who God is. They can’t see who they are. They can’t see what the point is.

Faith gives us access to things we cannot see on our own. We have to keep our eyes firmly fixed on Him.

I have a plethora of religious images and icons in my office and in my house. The main reason for all of these is that I rarely feel anything. I need to see in art and icons who Jesus is and what He’s done. I need to see a cross. No, not just a cross. I need to see Jesus on the cross so that when I don’t feel anything or when I feel confused or when I feel tempted to get discouraged, I can see Him on the cross and say, “Oh, that’s right. You’ve done something about this. I don’t have to be anxious right now. You’re not anxious, so take my anxiety away.”

The author of Hebrews goes on to say, “that . . . he might taste death for everyone” (2:9). What does this mean? It means a number of things, but two especially. First, it means that Jesus came to be in radical solidarity with us. Again, this was not at all the way priesthood was understood or exercised in the Old Testament. The Lord has become like us in all things except sin. Despite all I’ve done in my life, He calls me “brother.” And no matter what you’ve done in your life, He calls you “brother” or “sister.” We all—that is, us and Jesus—“have one source,” Hebrews says (2:11). We all call God “Father,” us by adoption and Jesus by nature.

The author, though, intends to say more than radical solidarity, as great as that is. The second meaning of the expression “that he might taste death” means something like “that he might swallow death.” That’s what Jesus did on the cross. Jesus deceived the deceiver on the cross. Jesus isn’t the victim on the cross. Jesus is the aggressor on the cross. Jesus isn’t the hunted on the cross. Jesus is hunting on the cross. You can’t nail God to a cross. He can only get there if He wants to be there. And He wanted to be there to show us the Father’s love, to make atonement for our sins, and to destroy the power of Satan, to bind the strong man, and to free us from the captivity to the powers of Sin and Death. That’s what “taste death” means.

Some of us are held bound by the fear of dying. If that’s you, Jesus wants to free you of that. Right now! Yes, death will still happen to us, but it can’t hold us. It has no power over us. Not because all things just magically turn out well, but because someone’s done something about it.

Some years ago, I was talking to a good friend of mine who lost his son in a tragic accident. At the time we were speaking, I had lost my dad and my brother within a few weeks of each other. We were, understandably, talking about death and grief. At one point in the conversation, he turned to me and said, “John, I want answers!” I said, “Really? I don’t want answers. Answers won’t help me. I want somebody to do something about Death. That’s what I want.” And that’s what Jesus has done. Jesus is the answer to Death. He swallowed it so that it has no power anymore over us.

About the Author

Fr. John Riccardo is a priest, author, syndicated radio host, and Executive Director of ACTS XXIX, a Detroit-based Catholic apostolate. The youngest of five siblings, he was born and raised in Birmingham, Michigan. In 1996, he was ordained in the Archdiocese of Detroit and served as an associate pastor in Dearborn, Michigan, until 1999. He was then sent to continue his studies at the Pope John Paul II Institute for Studies on Marriage in Washington, D.C. and received his Licentiate in Sacred Theology (S.T.L.) in 2001.

After returning from Washington D.C., Fr. John was assigned Director of the Cardinal Maida Institute for Marriage and Family at the St. John Center in Plymouth, Michigan. While there, he was invited by Ave Maria Catholic Radio in Ann Arbor, Michigan, to develop a program focused on catechetical teachings of the Catholic Church. In 2002, Ave Maria premiered Christ Is the Answer, which was then picked up by EWTN and distributed to a national audience. For the next decade and a half, Fr. John served in parish ministry as pastor of St. Anastasia in Troy, Michigan, and then Our Lady of Good Counsel in Plymouth, Michigan. In 2019, Fr. John founded ACTS XXIX, a nonprofit Catholic apostolate whose mission is to renew and transform the Church by unleashing the power of the gospel, equipping ordained and lay leaders, and mobilizing the Church for mission. Under Fr. John’s leadership, ACTS XXIX missionaries are currently active in dioceses and parishes throughout the United States and in more than 20 countries around the world.

About ACTS XXIX

ACTS XXIX is a non-profit Catholic apostolate based in Detroit, Michigan. Founded in 2019 by Fr. John Riccardo, ACTS XXIX is comprised of clergy and lay missionaries of hope called by God to renew and transform the Church. We think and believe that transformation in the Church comes through practicing three essential principles : 1) “Reacquire a Biblical Worldview,” 2) “It’s Not Enough to be a Staff,” and 3) “Restore the Initiative to God.”

Flowing from these principles, ACTS XXIX engages in four missions, each uniquely focused on a compelling and attractive proclamation of the gospel: 1) The Rescue Project, 2) reviving and equipping clergy, 3) leadership immersives, and 4) leveraging media and events. Please visit actsxxix�org for more information.

The Rescue Project is an eight-week video experience that proclaims the gospel in a compelling and attractive way. Launched in 2022, The Rescue Project is a global movement whose goal is to create an opportunity for people to be overwhelmed, brought to a decision to surrender their lives to Jesus, and mobilized for mission.

The Rescue Project is intended for use anywhere—in parish ministries such as OCIA, sacramental preparation, evangelization, discipleship, men’s groups, women’s groups, youth ministry, and more. It can also be run in homes, restaurants, workplaces, schools, and prisons. The Rescue Project appeals to those who have been walking with Jesus for years, as well as to others for whom Jesus is only a figure in ancient history. In other words, The Rescue Project is for everyone, everywhere, whether inside or outside the Church.

All the resources needed to run The Rescue Project are available online free-ofcharge at https://rescueproject�us. Additionally, The Rescue Project is available in Spanish at https://rescate�us as El Proyecto Rescate�