Editor’s note: An ACTS Retreat is a four day, three night retreat, designed to help people enter into a new or deeper relationship with Jesus and with their faith community. The acronym ACTS is derived from the talks and activities that focus on Adoration, Community, Theology and Service. Summer provides a great time for teens to slow down a bit and spend time with the Lord. Several parishes offered Teen ACTS Retreats this summer and some of the teens shared their experiences below.

    Every summer, teens from my parish come together for one purpose: a common need in all of them, to know and grow in their faith with Jesus Christ. “I thought I knew my faith and who I was, but I didn’t, and it took my testimony and the retreatants to help me realize that,” discovered Jarrett Lee, a team member. The teens all learned about themselves and their faith when they came together for the Teen ACTS Retreat.
    The retreat theme this year at St. Peter the Apostle Parish was “Broken for Christ.” It taught the teens to examine what it means to break away from their “own will” to truly follow “God’s will.” “The retreat helped strengthen my relationship with Christ,” said teen Emily Galliart.  “I have always been really strong in my faith, but I feel like it renews it and gives me a fresh feeling.”

    The teens here, young, vibrant, and full of life, all had one thing in common. Whether they chose to come on the retreat themselves or a loving parent pushed them to come, by the end of the retreat they all yearned for that chance to get to know others, others who, like them, want and need to feel acceptance as Catholics. The teens from St. Peter’s laughed together, learned together, cried together and bonded together, in an amazing experience some would call life changing. Some of them shared: “I am looking at life differently, loving life more, thanking God for what he has to offer to me, appreciating people, appreciating my health and all my gifts and every person that I’m blessed to have in my life. Just when I thought I was about to fall off track with God, he caught me. I felt a lot cleaner as a person I guess, because I opened up to others in my testimony and I allowed other people to become more of a part of me. I allowed myself to be more loving to others and to care for what they have to say. 

    This year, this retreat led us all to understand our own role in building a solid relationship with God. It is not necessarily what we want, think we need, or the direction we wish our life would go, but really just learning to stop and listen to what God has to say. Learning and challenging our own perceptions of the purpose we have and being aware of our simple act of devotion to our relationship with God helps us to break free from boundaries, while letting real emotions and deep thoughts become exposed and free of fear or shame.

We came together maybe “lost,” but now we aspire to be open to all the wonderful blessings we can receive, when we are “broken for Christ.”
— Sarah Selix, St. Peter the Apostle Parish, Boerne

My retreat was a heart-touching experience that I had with others and especially God! The retreat takes all your stress and the weight of the world off your shoulders. — Jocelyn Stewart, Our Lady of Perpetual Help Parish, Selma

Our retreat moved along so fast that I nicknamed us the “78 rpm group.” — Stephanie Cook, Shrine of St. Padre Pio, San Antonio