​'Where is the Holy Spirit blowing in your local area?'

I put this question, or at least a version of it, to a well-travelled clerical friend of mine recently, and his answers were perplexing.

He mentioned a recent ordination to the priesthood. While that is truly wonderful, and an extraordinary grace for any parish; it is the fruit of the Holy Spirit's work over a ten year or longer period.

He mentioned the good work the nuns were doing in the parish. Again, that is awesome. But it too is the fruit of the Holy Spirit's work in the hearts of women born some 10 years ago or more.

Then he mentioned a rather exciting regional meeting of bishops from several countries happening within the next 12 months. Absolutely wonderful, and it will hopefully be very fruitful for the whole region, but that's the Holy Spirit's work at a hierarchical level and not a local level.

Next year his parish celebrates 50 years of existence. This is a wonderful opportunity to give thanks and praise to God for the blessings and achievements of the past 50 years. Many special graces can come from an event like this, especially if time is taken to think through how the Holy Spirit has worked historically in this local area with a view to discerning His longer term plans. But again, it's not really about what the Holy Spirit is blowing on at the moment.

Why was I perplexed? Because his answers focussed on the activity of priests, religious and bishops who are a tiny proportion of a parish containing thousands of lay people in it. Because there is a big difference between serving a parish and empowering and encouraging a parish to respond to what the Holy Spirit is calling them to do.

It is really difficult to co-operate with the Holy Spirit's plans if you are having trouble noticing where He has been active. A pastor is best placed to notice these things, because he usually gets the best information.

For example if there has been a noticeable uplift in the numbers of couples coming to talk to him about how to grow in their marriages – that's a clue that the Holy Spirit is working locally in the area of marriage. If you notice that, you can put more emphasis on marriage enrichment courses and programmes and can preach more on communication, listening, forgiveness and showing love in daily acts of kindness.

For example in confession there has been an increase in people returning to the sacrament of penance and confessing struggles with addictions of various kinds – that's a clue that the Holy Spirit is wanting to do a major work to set people free in this area. If you notice that, you can invite people into the parish who are gifted by God in setting people free from addictions. Also you can put on an afternoon of prayer inviting the whole parish to come and pray that their loved ones be set free from addictions, and see what happens. If it goes well, and people testify to God setting them free, do it again in a month's time.

But if you are not noticing and paying attention, how can you even begin to co-operate with what the Holy Spirit is blowing on?

Some things might take a bit more digging and research to uncover.

For example, do you know what spurred your recent batch of RCIA candidates to begin the final leg of their journey home to the Catholic Church? Maybe over half of them had an encounter with the Mother of Jesus. If so, put extra effort into the next major Marian feast day, do a parish novena leading up to it, put on a free movie about an approved Marian apparition on the feast day, and a talk about how to pray the rosary.

For example, do you know what spurred your newest arrivals at daily Mass to attend? Go talk to them and find out. Maybe they were all positively influenced by another parishioner. If so, go and talk to this parishioner about how God has been leading him/her and see if there is any way you can support them in their efforts (eg books, pamphlets, rosary beads to give away, or direction to good resources for the most common questions people ask him/her).

Other clues to the Holy Spirit's action in your parish could just come up in conversation, or could be relayed to you by staff members. For example two women having opportunities to meet with long estranged family members could be a clue that the Holy Spirit is currently working on the restoration of family relationships. Finding a third person in this situation would be a call to action. One way to partner with this movement of grace would be to let parishioners know that the next Saturday morning Mass would be offered for the restoration of family relationships, and use one of the Eucharistic Prayers of Reconciliation, the Proper set out 'for family' or 'for relatives and friends', and specially written prayers of the faithful.

Another way to get an idea of what the Holy Spirit is blowing on; is to have a listening session. What you want to do is to identify people in the parish who have solid prayer lives and sacramental lives and are in various service roles in the parish. Invite them in groups of ten for morning or afternoon tea. Then when you are together, ask them what God has been doing in their lives recently, and pay close attention to any patterns that emerge or murmurs of agreement when something is shared that the rest can relate to. If you hear common threads of God asking them to slow down and spend more time with Him, organise a one day retreat. If you hear common threads of God asking them to trust Him more, find some stories from the internet or elsewhere about how God worked wonders when people trusted in Him, print them off, and share them around as encouragement.
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Obviously if you can pick up on the Holy Spirit's clues, what you do to partner with His action in your people's lives is going to be many times more effective than a 'let's try this new programme and hope it works' approach.

Here are just a few of the photographs from the #CCRNSW Retreat weekend at St Agatha's Parish, Pennant Hills on 19-20 Jan 2019.

​The first one is of Jim Murphy, president of ICCRS, as those gathered for the retreat prayed for him, invoking the Holy Spirit to help him teach what we needed to hear.

In the background you can see the big poster with the theme for the retreat weekend on it, 'Not by might, nor by power, but by My Spirit says the Lord' Zech 4:6

The next one is Jim Murphy teaching on the first day of the retreat. 

And Fr Hugh Thomas CSsR preaching the homily for Mass on the Sunday of the retreat.

After lunch each day, and before the final afternoon session of the day, there was opportunity for Eucharistic Adoration in the parish church. The monstrance on the altar isn't easy to see, but it is there.

While Eucharistic Adoration was going on, several priests were hearing confessions. Many, many people took advantage of both opportunities.

And our last photo is from the final session of the weekend.

Jim Murphy is straight in front of you with his guitar, playing hymns of praise and worship. It isn't easy to see, but above his head you can see the top of the monstrance. The people standing up are the prayer teams praying over the seated people, specifically over the areas where our backs (areas of weakness) had been targeted by the enemy. 
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It was a taste of a deo-centric culture, albeit in microcosm, but still united to the worship of God going on in the throne room of heaven.

Mass, Sunday 20 Jan 2019, CCRNSW Retreat

Fr Hugh Thomas CssR was the celebrant for this Sunday Mass during the #CCRNSW retreat weekend. You can learn a bit more about him here and here.

The readings were taken from Sunday Week 2 in Ordinary Time, Year C.

The first reading came from the Prophet Isaiah beginning, 'About Zion I will not be silent'. The Psalm response was, 'Proclaim His marvellous deeds to all the nations'. The second reading came from 1 Corinthians 12 about the variety of gifts of the Holy Spirit. The Gospel came from the section of St John where Jesus changes the water into wine at the wedding at Cana.

Fr Hugh Thomas

Today in most churches we talk about marriage because of the setting of the Gospel at a wedding feast. The ministry of Jesus began by His attending a marriage of a man and a woman.

Bride and bridegroom is a theme running all through Scripture beginning in Genesis when He made them male and female. God uses this image of marriage to illustrate His love for us.

We are a people constantly unfaithful to God, but constantly called back to Him. God only chose one race at that time, the Jewish people, yet they were rebellious and inconstant. Sometimes He had to punish them to bring them back to their senses. Despite everything, He still loved them. He still delights in them, and in us. He never took back His choice.

Marriage is important in God's eyes. That's why it is under so much attack.

God loves marriage so much! Is it irreparably damaged? God is able to change things. How? Through us.

Even if you have been wounded, you still have a part to play.

Our witness shows that Christian marriage is still possible, whether it be 15 years to 58 years.

Jesus wanted the guests at the wedding and the wedding couple to have a good time, because marriages are worth celebrating.

These things equally apply not only to Israel but to each of us individually too. In God's eyes we are a princely crown, 'not forsaken, My delight'. God delights in us, even when we are messing it all up.

Some of the Saints have had the mystical marriage experience. He has this for each and every one of us.

It was the Mother of God who noticed that there was a problem with the wine supplies. She knew He would never refuse her. We ask her to pray for all the families who are here – especially for those who are struggling and for families broken but still loved. One day He will restore everything. Believe it!!
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The final session of the CCRNSW Retreat wasn't exactly a prayer meeting. The chairs were rearranged into circular formation with an altar-table in the middle. After a brief explanation, Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament in a monstrance was brought in and put on the altar-table, and participants were free to just have some 'me and God' time, or to join in the praise and singing that accompanied the Eucharistic adoration. Passages from Rev 5 about the throne room of God, and from Rev 21 about the new heavens and new earth were read out. 'You are the people of Revelation. This is now.' Sometime later prayer teams went around quietly praying over the targets on our individual backs. Following that prayer time people were invited to give testimony to how God had been working in them and speaking to them during the retreat.
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​And here is the PDF of the notes from the whole Retreat weekend. They run to 18 A4 pages. 

Session 5, Sunday 20 Jan 2019 with Jim Murphy, president of ICCRS

Sometimes even when we know what to do, it is still not easy to do it.

Sometimes we feel we can't jump that high – that's why He gives His Spirit.

When Jesus says, 'Take My yoke…', we know that the yoke goes across the shoulders of two animals. Normally an older more experienced animal is joked with a younger animal. The older one calms the younger one down and communicates, 'Just walk with Me, I know how to do this.' On our own we are not capable of doing what God is calling us to do.

How does the Spirit work? It starts with you and me.

God is responsible for the great revival – no one else – and He will deal with us first. Pay attention to your own piece of real estate, and only then together look at the big picture. However if you wait until you are perfect to help anyone else, you will die of old age before that happens.

This is a both/and, not either/or, and we need to seek balance. God wants to give you the power to do the things of the kingdom, and also to be and to become holy. Both are essential and necessary.

Charisms flow from the generosity of God; they are undeserved gifts from the ridiculous generosity of God. God knows how to give good things to His kids.

Have you ever sat in a car-park of a hospital, nursing home or funeral place and said, 'I don't want to go in. God help me.' and you eventually got up and went in. That was His grace at work.

Priesthood is a special example of this; God working in the man, with the man, beyond the capacity of the man.

There was a farmer's wife who came to a prayer meeting with her very reluctant husband. He had a speech problem that made putting a sentence together a laborious effort. He was prayed with for the baptism in the Holy Spirit, and nothing seemed to have happened. However at subsequent prayer meetings, he would be prompted by the Holy Spirit to stand up and speak – and out came this divine poetry. The farmer had been given an extraordinary prophetic gift that only operated under the influence of the Holy Spirit. At all other times he continued to have speech difficulties. This was an unusual charism chosen to show forth the surpassing power of God.

So don't limit God by saying, 'I could never do that', because we put our faith in the God who can do it in us.

Human effort cannot fix the world – only God can save us now.

Do not count yourself out – let Him use you to do something extraordinary – that the rest of us really need.

If God calls you to do something – do it. But you don't have to go it alone, seek out and talk to experienced people about ways to move forward in responding to that call.

Prayer groups are not the only place for charisms, they are for the water cooler interactions too. If someone at the water cooler shares what they are struggling with, seek the Lord for that person, and if there is openness and permission from him or her, take the opportunity to pray together about that situation.

Don't ever be afraid to minister in the Spirit anywhere.

The Spirit gives us the power to be something else – to be the sons and daughters of God.

Galatians 5:22 give us the fruits of the Spirit which flow from the Isaiah 11 gifts of the Spirit. When the Spirit of God fills and dwells in you, His personality starts rubbing off on you. Then the Holy Spirit's capacity for courage, wisdom etc start becoming our qualities, forming us into the likeness of Christ.

You are the temple of the Holy Spirit. Can you believe that?

When we think gift, we normally think of objects, but 'the' gift is the person of the Holy Spirit.

With some people, the room changes when that person walks in, and that person – just by their presence – brings everyone closer to God.

More people are converted by character than by charism: pick both!

This inner work in us cannot be done except by the Spirit of God.

We all need to be more open to the Holy Spirit. Ask Him, 'where is the bulls-eye on my back?' He wants to shine light on it. He will show those areas of weakness to you for the purposes of love and healing.

Human beings don't co-operate well together – but the Holy Spirit can make unity happen and can make team-work happen.

Without the Holy Spirit, there is no vision to unite us.

I invite you to journey with the Holy Spirit. Ask Him, 'what do I need to pay attention to from this weekend?' Reflect on it, but keep inviting the Holy Spirit into the process.

The only way restoration happens is by the Spirit of God.
There is no other way, no other option.
We have been called by God, to be with God for this great restoration.
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When all the talks are transcribed and blogged, a printer friendly version will be provided. There is still the Homily to go.
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My thoughts

There is outward and inward work to be done, and all under the guidance and power of the Holy Spirit. As missionary disciples, the charism gifts are the missionary part, and the character gifts are the discipleship part, and we should earnestly desire both types of gifts from God's goodness.

To think that we can do anything (prayer groups, children's liturgy, parish leadership, soup kitchens, evangelisation through social media, teaching as a catechist, youth groups, welcoming ministry, raising a family etc) without the Holy Spirit and His charisms – is sheer lunacy. But with Him all things are possible, fruitful, and effective.

If there isn't room for the Holy Spirit's charisms to operate in your corner of the restoration work – make room. Get your team together, collectively surrender your whole ministry to His leadership, beg the Holy Spirit together for the charisms your team needs, and spend time in prayer each time you come together seeking His guidance and direction, and be open to changing your plans according to His.
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Make room in your hearts and minds too. Get hold of resources that have experiential knowledge of how charisms operate, and study them. Visit ministries in similar fields to yours where charisms are operating, and let the possibilities of what God can do get you on your knees seeking Him with all your heart.

Session 4, Sunday 20 Jan 2019, with Jim Murphy, president of ICCRS

This session began with an invitation to people to share what from yesterday's input resonated most with them.

Jim Murphy

God speaks to the community and He speaks through the community.

Things can be very unfair and unjust, and that's real, but we have to avoid a victim mentality. Remember the bear in the cage? We have to change how we see ourselves.

Some years back Jim met a girl who had been very badly treated for 7 years by her mentally ill mother, chained up and neglected. He asked her, 'How did you forgive your mother?' She answered him by pulling her sleeves back to show the damage still remaining on her arms and wrists and said, 'If I did not forgive her, I would still be in her chains'. This girl became a person of forgiveness and mercy. It is not easy to do. It doesn't mean forgiveness is easy to do. We need grace from God to do it. The only influence we have is on our own hearts.

Do you remember the 3 beliefs from yesterday: Restoration, Role, Providence?

Principle no.1: God is number 1. Either God will do it, or it isn't going to happen.
Principle no.2: The reality of opposition. Ultimately God always wins. Hold onto that.

God is calling you and I to build. 'Unless the Lord builds the house, the builders labour in vain'. Psalm 127:1

Stop doing things for God. Start doing things with God.

If you think of any New Testament miracle, you would be hard pressed to find one that didn't require the practical assistance of others.

We see the obedience of the servants in filling the water jars at Cana, and we see faith as they bring the dipper to the boss of the wedding feast. When did the miracle happen? Was it after the jars were filled, or was it when the dipper was being taken?

Then with the multiplication of the loaves and the fishes to feed some 40,000 people, the 2 fish and 5 loaves didn't belong to Jesus. He blessed and broke the loaves and fishes, and handed them to the 12, who each walked out to the groups who sat ready.

When Jesus goes to raise Lazarus from the dead, someone has to roll back the grave stone, and others have to unbind him.

There are a few exceptions.

Jesus prefers to work in the context of His people.

God wants us to be part of His work.

We need the power of vision to do the work of building. The book of Zechariah contains many visions, promises and hope for that purpose. I encourage you to read Zechariah and Nehemiah.

Nehemiah showed a special motivational gift in his speeches to the people. Some people have this gift of giving vision to others.

A modern example is how Churchill spoke to the people of England when things were bleak indeed in 1940, 'We will fight them on the beaches….' etc. This gift changed the situation from bleak to determined and hopeful of victory. Napoleon put it another way when he said, 'a leader is a person who deals in hope'.

We need to restore vision in 3 ways.

•The vision of God: Many have a distorted vision of God, so we need to share with them the true vision of God.
•The vision of self: People need a true vision of who they are in Christ. Treat them like a child of God, whether they see it or not.
•The vision of the world situation: Most people don't really get it that they are in a massive battle between Light and Dark.

Nehemiah's vision enabled the people to rise up and start building, and he brought order and teamwork to the process. He set one group clearing the rubble. He set another group rebuilding the north gate. Another group were sent to rebuild the south gate and to watch out for lurking enemies. Another group were given the task of getting the eastern wall up quickly.

Everybody had a specific job to do, which allowed them to focus on their own job and to do it well. We need to marshal our resources like this. The gift of administration and organisation is far from mundane.

This concept of the diversity of work in the re-building means that we don't have to worry about the other projects that the designated groups are doing.

Everyone has a gift, something to give and to contribute to the work of restoration.

And it doesn't have to be a charism.

On a trip to the Middle East, and an Islamic country, I came across men with a 1967 Ford Galaxy. We were able to bond over our shared love and appreciation of this car. They were surprised that a Christian was as car-mad as they were, and this was a 'meeting point' the Holy Spirit used to enable me to talk to them about Jesus.

You are more than your charism; your personality, your temperament, your hobbies, your work can all be 'meeting points' that the Holy Spirit can use to bring people to God.

Each person is essential, not only for what you do, but crucially for what you are.
………………………………………………………………………….When all the talks are transcribed and blogged, a printer friendly version will be provided.
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My thoughts

God wants us to work with Him. It is His preferred way of doing things. But of course, we have to wait for Him to initiate and invite us in. It doesn't work if we start off ourselves and expect God to catch up.

Isn't it a breath of fresh air to hear how important gifts of wise administration are, and how they help the other gifts to work at premium capacity?!

As long as there is a God gifted person in the leadership/gift-co-ordination role, then that frees those called to do works of mercy to concentrate on assisting those in need, while the evangelists do the outreach and the teachers and pastors do the discipleship.

It might also stop us loading each other with guilt for not being gung-ho at everything. Have you noticed how evangelists want everyone to be great evangelists, and prophets want everyone to be great prophets, and preachers want everyone to be great preachers?

It is OK to not be the same. It is OK to have different callings from God. We should be helping everyone to find their unique God-given calling; and not assuming that if God has been calling me in this particular direction that God is calling you in the same direction too.
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Every gifting has levels: there's the ordinary level that God can call upon anyone at any time to exercise; there's a ministry level or area where a charism is frequently used by God; then there's an office level for gifts recognised by the community as having far more than local reach and authority (city, regional, national, international)

Session 3, Saturday 19 Jan 2019 with Jim Murphy, President of ICCRS

The story of God's people is also our story and my story.

The first theme, putting the Lord No. 1 is essential. Our God can do the impossible. Regularly we go down to Mexico to minister to people in the rubbish dumps. We took 418 food bags with dried goods in them, and 650 people came, and they all collected food bags. He multiplies food. Don't ever tell God what He can't do.

If God is the main thing, then we should be a deo-centric culture, with praise and worship at the heart of all we do. There is a danger in ministry where we let ourselves get busy doing things for God and neglecting our personal time to be with God. The main thing is God. Try not to let the secondary role become the primary role.

Is my whole life deo-centric, built around Him, in all aspects?

When God is at work, you can bet money there will be opposition from the enemy of humanity (that's what St Ignatius calls him).

Zechariah chapter 3 gives us an example of this opposition.
Then he showed me Joshua the high priest standing at the altar of the Lord, with satan standing beside him accusing him. The angel said, 'May God rebuke you'. Joshua was standing in filthy garments. The angel said, ' Take off his filthy garments and clothe him in festal garments and a clean mitre. See, I have taken away your guilt.'

This is very similar to the story of Isaiah saying, 'Woe, is me, I have unclean lips', and an angel taking a hot coal from the altar and touching Isaiah's lips with it to remove his guilt.

Joshua represents not only himself, but also the people. Standing beside him is the father of lies, the accuser of the brethren, dumping accusation upon accusation upon Joshua. Be aware of this tactic of accusations. The purpose of them is to increase discouragement and hopelessness, often by playing tapes of past hurts and failures back in your head. They don't even have to be of past sins, any stupid comment of condemnation will do. God wants to remove the old and replace them with garments of celebration and marks of office.

God wants to remove that brokenness and clothe us in righteousness and to equip all to do the work of the Lord. This is God's desire for each man, woman and child. Everyone has a call and a vocation. There are no spectators in the kingdom of God. Everyone has something they were literally created to do.

The Lord silences the accusation, then God removes the gunk. He gives you your true identity and dignity. The evil one wants us to look down, the Holy One wants us to look up.

People often start acting out what they believe about themselves. Teachers look forward to school photo day, because that day being dressed up for the photo the students treat each other differently, and act differently.

In Texas there was a great teacher who left her cushy job and went to teach in a school for troubled kids. Before starting, the teacher asked to read the basic files on all who were to be her new students. In those files the teacher discovered that all of the new students had very high IQ's, genius level ones. So when the teacher met them for the first time the teacher was gushing, 'How excited and privileged I am to be working with you this year. I am going to push you. This is going to be a great year. There will be extra work for you, but you are so capable of it.'

Sure enough the year was transformational for these students. They discovered that they were capable of more than they ever dreamed they could be. What were hoodlums were changed into stars. It was only a long time later that the teacher discovered that it wasn't IQ scores in those basic files, but locker numbers (183, 184…). This teacher treated these students in a way that helped them find who they really were.

Do you treat everyone around you like a genius?
Do you treat everyone as a child of God?

Some years back I was in youth ministry at a parish, and there was this really difficult kid. I didn't like him at all. But God said, 'I want you to hang out with this kid more'. So I did. Then one day this kid says to me, 'What are you doing? Are you trying to change me? I am not worth your time. My Dad has told me I am nothing and will never be anything.'

Be mindful of how we treat others. Don't be an unwilling accomplice of the evil one.

God wants to restore the true authentic image of His will for us.
Take it on faith, whether you feel it or not.
God is bigger than the opposition.

Let's look at another kind of opposition. When Nehemiah brought the exiles back there were all kinds of other people living in the Holy Land. There were a whole lot of people who didn't want the Israelites back, and who exhibited hostility and enmity, overt and subtle towards them. No one was happy to see them come back.

For a host of reasons there are people who will oppose what you want to do, for all kinds of motives. Even our friends will oppose and resist.

Nehemiah did an interesting thing, he ordered the people to do two things. The first one was for everyone to sleep with their weapons in their hands. Then he set half the people to building the wall, and the other half to shielding and protecting the builders.

So this kind of opposition is dealt with in 2 ways; we carry our own weapons and one half of the group protects the other half.
You have a responsibility for your own life- only you. It is really easy to slide into a victim mentality, and very hard to get out of it. It is easy to stay trapped.

There was a new zoo in Germany, custom built habitats without cages and separated by moats. The bear exhibit had been created to delight the bears as much as Disney world delights children. To populate the zoo, the zoo was buying up circus animals. They found a circus bear who lived in a cage, and spent most of its life going 5 paces forward and 5 paces backwards. The zoo was so excited about this bear seeing the habitat for the first time that they called in the video cameras. They opened the cage, and the bear looked out, and then paced back and forth in the cage. The bear had to be lured out of the cage with bits of meat and a cattle prod. Now this massive bear was out of the cage for the first time since it was a small cub. What did the bear do? It still kept going 5 paces forwards and 5 paces backwards. The bear might have been out of the cage, but it was going to be much harder to get the cage out of the bear.

Even if you were dealt a bad hand in life like that bear, it is not the end of your story.

What are the weapons Nehemiah wants us to sleep with?

There are 5 things that together lead to spiritual prosperity:
Prayer
Scripture
Sacraments
Community
Service

These are the 5 normal ways God works in our lives. You will languish without them. They are the weapons we need to fight for ourselves.

When I am a victim, the whole world is about me. Serving helps us see the needs of others.

If you make these 5 things part of daily life, they are the best weapons for self protection.

We need this sense of belonging to each other. If half of us build and half of us protect, then we get it done together.

Gossip and criticism, we all fall into it.

Do you realise that each time we talk about each other and have a joke at each other (especially about that other person's weakness) we paint a target on them, and we are not protecting them. In fact we are giving the evil one the GPS co-ordinates of their weaknesses.

We are called to bear with each other. As long as we are alive, we will misunderstand and hurt each other. The trick is, what mechanism do we have to talk it through? We can get past this if we ask the Lord.

We have lots of superficial relationships. We don't know how to deal with disagreements. Something goes wrong, and people are not seen again.

Reconciliation comes from the Latin: re for again, con for with; cilia for eyelashes. When you are at odds with people it is hard to look at them. It is the human condition. Find a way to be reconciled to one another. What can't be done humanly can be done spiritually.

Say I have a problem with pride. Everyone knows about it except me. Wouldn't it be good if someone stood between satan and me, and stood in a spirit of prayer, fasting, compassion and mercy? Will you cover me instead of expose me?

Jesus did that. Jesus died for us in the weakest area of our lives, the places that drive our nearest and dearest nuts. Will you stand with Jesus there?

Doing this lets God help people to see their faults rather than letting satan know where those faults are. It is such an important principle!

Opposition during restoration. The people who came back with Nehemiah got discouraged and overwhelmed. They began the work of restoration, days, weeks, months, years of it. At some point the people just got tired and discouraged.

There are times when we too go through the motions without enthusiasm. It is OK that we get tired and weary. It is OK to say, 'Lord we are tired, we need restoration, renewal and refreshing'. God has got to stir something up that we just don't have.

Together let us seek how to turn back to the Lord and find the pulse and fire again.

God wants us to have that enthusiasm again, but we must ask for it.

Nehemiah's builders started fighting each other – which wasn't real smart given they had enemies on every side – but it is a normal human tendency. We feel freer to be meaner towards the people that we love. Why is that? Under pressure we start snapping at each other.

The Lord pleads with us for unity and for us to love each other. We have enough opposition out there, we don’t need the internal stuff.

Even as they rebuild, the people start to go back to their old ways and to go off track again. How do we hold up the vision of what God wants, aware of the gap of where we have fallen to? There is tension between 'what God wants' vs 'where the people are'. Sometimes God says, 'stir them up and correct and rebuke them', and sometimes we need to gently walk with and accompany people.

May the Holy Spirit give you guidance about how to cover that gap. You can't yell at people to change – that doesn't work. You can't lower standards either – that doesn't work.

Nehemiah began the restoration work with provisions from King Cyrus. However sometimes the supplier ran out of supplies or the enemies cut off the supply chain.

Know this: If God has given you a project to do, He will give you the means to do it. It may not match our ideas of how it should look, but He will give you all you need to do the job according to how He wants it to look. If things you think you need don’t come, then they may not be needed. Trust in the provision of God. His plans are not always as flowery and ornate as we like to imagine them to be.

Dare to dream that God wants to do a work of restoration in His people.

If you believe in God's plan of restoration, do you believe that you have some role in that plan?

If God wants to do a restoration work, can you believe God will equip His people with all that is needed to do the job?

Pray about these three things:
God is doing a work of restoration.
In some way, you play a role in that restoration.
God will give you and us all that is necessary for that restoration.

Let them percolate in your heart. Tell God about the one you have the greatest trouble believing.
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When all the talks are transcribed and blogged, a printer friendly version will be provided.
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My thoughts

Do you get the impression that the work of restoration that God wants to do is bigger and more extensive than we can imagine? It is much bigger than our parish's plan for this year. It is much bigger than the diocesan 5 year plan. It is about bringing a whole civilisation back to Him, and making it Christo-centric.

We can't do it alone; we can only do it in co-operation with God and as a community.
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The restoration work occurs under battle conditions, and can only go ahead if our personal spiritual weapons are battle ready and if we protect each other. Every builder needs a prayer warrior-intercessor. How we treat each other and talk about each other matters.

The Gospel for the weekend of 9/10 February 2019, 4th Sunday in Ordinary Time, Year C, is taken from the beginning of Chapter 5 of St Luke. It tells the story of the miraculous catch of fish that St Peter experienced, but it is much more than that. It is also the story of Jesus going fishing for a big fish (Peter) and the series of mission-aptitude tests Jesus put him through before he was accepted. It also has a lot to say about what Jesus might be doing with many of us it this season of grace.

This is a much longer and detailed reflection on this Gospel passage than was possible via Instagram.

The scene opens with Jesus loitering along the lake-side one morning. Gradually a bit of a crowd gathers and He begins to preach to them, but they aren't the main event today, Peter is.

So Jesus preaches while He waits for Peter's boat to come into shore.

We can take it for granted that Jesus and Peter already knew of each other, most residents of a small lake-side town do. Peter may have been sufficiently curious about this new preacher to pull in to shore where he could do things at once, wash and clean the fishing nets and surreptitiously listen to Jesus.

Now Peter and his crew (see, he already has leadership skills; tick) have been out fishing all night and they have caught nothing; absolutely nothing.

To get a better understanding of this, reading the Wiki Bible page on 'Fishing in the Bible and the Ancient Near East' is invaluable.

Here are two very useful excerpts from it:

There are three main components of a net; the head rope, the netting, and the foot rope. The head rope or “lead” rope is a thicker rope at the top of the net that usually has cork attached in order that this would be the rope closest to the surface of the water. From the head rope the net itself is attached. This net can vary in size depending on the targeted species of fish. A much smaller mesh net would be required to catch sardines, whereas a larger mesh would be used for larger species of fish. This netting material would be composed of smaller diameter line weaved in such a way to make many small squares. At the bottom of this mesh netting would be attached the foot rope. The foot rope would be of a similar diameter as the head rope, but attached to it would be stone weights. These weights would ensure that the foot rope would be the rope at was the closest to the bottom, thus stretching the net between the head and foot rope.

The Cast-Net is a type of net circular in shape, measuring from six to eight metres in diameter. There is no head-rope on this net; however, it does have the foot-rope that is attached to the outside diameter of this net. Attached to the foot-rope there are weights attached, to allow the net to sink quickly. As the name may imply this net cast or thrown by a single person either from a shallow area or water or from a boat. As this net is cast it spreads out and lands on the water like a parachute, descending quickly trapping any fish that are underneath of it. After the net is on the bottom there were two approaches to retrieving the fish from the net. The first way was that the fisherman would dive to the bottom and retrieve the fish individually placing them in to a pouch. The other method for retrieving the captured fish was to dive down and gather the foot-rope and bring up the catch all at once.

So the fishermen would head out at night, using the moonlight to help locate shoals of fish, and use a cast-net or a trammel net. They would wait for the net to sink, and then one of them jumps overboard to locate the foot rope and bring it back to the boat, and then the whole crew would use the foot rope to haul the net in. Each pay-out of the nets took time. The diver had to be fit and be a bit on the fear-less side.

Most people if they had 2 or 3 hours of fishing like this with no result would write the night off, go home get some sleep and try again the next night. But Peter and his crew fished the whole night long and caught nothing. Each time they got their hopes up, and each time they were disappointed. Are you getting an idea of Peter's capacity for endurance and perseverance? (tick) Are you impressed that the rest of them didn't mutiny? (tick) Are you also wondering what was so important that they needed a good catch of fish that night and were willing to do whatever it took to get it? Me, too. There was something extra specially important about the need for this catch of fish to be good.

The disappointment, dejection and tiredness of Peter and his crew would have been glaringly obvious, and yet they all had enough discipline (tick) and professionalism (tick) to clean and wash the nets before heading for the bliss of sleep.

Jesus knows all this, and still He does this very Zacchaeus-like thing – He gets into Peter's boat and asks if He can use it as a pulpit. Great! Now it is going to be even longer before Peter can head for snooze land. Yet Peter does it, are you impressed with his generosity? (tick) This was very much 'going the extra mile', wasn't it?

Now Jesus has what He wants, a captive audience in Peter. I think we can be very sure that when Jesus was preaching from the boat, that His primary focus was on what would touch Peter's heart and His secondary focus was on the crowd listening.

'Yay, Jesus is wrapping up His talk, maybe I can get some shut-eye now.' Uh-uh. Jesus asks even more of Peter. Jesus asks Him to go back to the fishing area, (more rowing!), and to go out into deeper water than Peter was comfortable diving in. This is, according to Peter's experience, a most futile endeavour, and yet Peter now has enough respect for Jesus to call Him 'Master'. Peter states his objections, and goes against every one of his instincts, and gives it a go. That's even more generosity (tick) and bravery (tick).

Jesus is still in the boat. If you had set up such a huge 'gotcha' for Peter, you would have wanted to see Peter's reaction first hand too.

Over the side of the boat Peter goes to get the foot rope, and there's fish! Hold on, there's lots of fish. Gulp. These fish could sink the boat!!!! Can you imagine the frantic panic that overtook Peter then as he tied to get the attention of his mates way off back on the shoreline?

Mind you, why were his tired mates still lake-side? Did they care enough about him to keep watch, or were they fascinated by this latest harebrained activity and wanted to see what happened, or a bit of both?

So there's a lot of 'Can we make it out of this alive?' thoughts crowding out the thoughts of the catch of fish, until the other boat comes to help. Now there's two boats at sinking point.

Archaeological finds suggest that Peter's boat was around 9 metres long, 2.5 metres wide and a metre deep. A rough estimate would then be 7 cubic metres of squirming fish per boat.

At last the 'Are we going to have a watery grave' crisis is over, and the size of the fish haul penetrates Peter's brain. Jesus did this? Where's Jesus? Sitting among the 7 cubic metres of fish, enjoying Himself to the full, with an incredible smile and total joy.

Peter slip, slop, slides over to where Jesus is on one of the rowing benches. He can't get to Jesus' feet, there's so many fish, but he can get to His knees. Peter's gobsmacked response is 'Leave me, Lord, I am a sinful man'. Jesus has gone from 'Master', to 'Lord', a term of divinity, in Peter's vocabulary. Jesus has all of Peter's heart and all of Peter's attention.

Mission accomplished.

Now, only now, does Jesus reveal Peter's new mission as a fisher of men. Peter has passed all the pre-mission aptitude tests, here is Peter's promotion.

They still have some qualms getting back to shore with these two dangerously full boats, but they get there. Full to the brim, just like the water jars which contained the miraculous wine. Just enough to fill; not enough to overfill.

And how does this relate to us?

Have you been working away at something with no results for what feels like forever?

Then Jesus might have something very special in store for you; but it is going to ask more of you when you feel like you have nothing left; and maybe more than once. It is going to include getting out of your comfort zone and doing something at His orders that on the surface of it makes no sense whatsoever. You may feel swamped and like you are even on the brink of losing everything, including your life, but it will be worth it.

It all comes down to, 'Are you willing to keep on saying Yes to Jesus, no matter what?'

That is what will get you through to the other side, from desert, to break-through to new mission-mantle.

Keep that look of joy and approval on Jesus' face before you, to keep you going.
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St Peter, pray for us, we are going to need it big time.

Mass, Saturday 19 Jan 2019, CCRNSW Retreat

Fr Hugh Thomas CSsR was the celebrant for Mass during the #CCRNSW retreat weekend. You can learn a bit more about him here and here.

I include the notes from the Mass because so often the readings for the day amplify or underline themes that have been in the talks, as does the homily. To exclude them would be like serving a dinner without a quarter of the main ingredients.

The readings were taken from Saturday Week 1 in Ordinary Time, Year II, and the proper of the Mass was for Saturdays in honour of the Blessed Virgin Mary.

The first reading came from the Letter to the Hebrews beginning, 'The Word of God is alive and active'. The Psalm response was, 'Your Words Lord are Spirit and life'. The Gospel came from the section of St Mark where Jesus calls Levi to follow Him out of the customs house.

Fr Hugh Thomas
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The Word of God is something alive and active. Jim has been giving us the Word of God this morning: Zechariah, Nehemiah, Haggai, Maccabees. The Catholic Charismatic Renewal has brought to us the importance of the Word of God; all of it is precious. Vatican II reminded us of the words of St Jerome, 'Ignorance of scripture is ignorance of Christ'. Is the Word of God still as important to you as in the first days of your baptism in the Spirit? We still need the Word of God every day.

We are all familiar with the Gospel scene. Levi (or Matthew) being a tax collector was despised by decent people. They considered tax collectors to be crooks, and hated them. There is a famous painting of this Gospel scene by Caravaggio. Pope Francis was inspired to take his motto as a bishop 'having mercy and choosing' from this painting, 'The Calling of St Matthew'. Jesus is pointing at him, and Matthew is looking up in amazement: 'Me??' Because of the mercy of God, and still He chose me.

There is some mud sticking around – we all have this – no one can pretend we haven't, and yet we are chosen. Of the billions of people in this world, how many of them know God? Of them, many may know God, but don't know Jesus as Son of God. We are so blessed and chosen. Are you better than them? No. Some of them might be more honourable than us. We are not deserving, yet by His grace he has taken pity on us, chose us, and says, 'Follow Me'.

Matthew invited all his mates to have a big meal with Jesus. What's He doing mixing with this crowd? 'The sick need Me'.
We are all sinners here. Now we've got to go out and spread the fire. It doesn't require a soapbox, but people down the street are in need. We ask Mary to help us receive His message and to live it so to set our city and state on fire.

Session 2, Saturday 19 Jan 2019 with Jim Murphy, president of ICCRS

This is not a conference, but a retreat; so slow down and relax.
In Session 1 we had a look at the historical perspective. I encourage you to read Haggai, Nehemiah and Zechariah. What I've given you is but a snap-shot.

In them are a handful of themes or principles, with universal application.

The first is the sovereignty of God.

Human beings, due to original sin, have a hard time trusting God.

Before the original sin came the original lie. We were created in perfect love, with nothing to hide, with dignity and the strength of relationship. God walked with Adam and Eve in the cool of the evening, in a relationship of intimacy. Death, suffering and sickness are not part of God's original plan.

The original lie tapped into our desire to stand on our own two feet – just in case God doesn't come through for us. Maybe the most honest prayer in scripture is 'Lord, I believe, help my unbelief'.

We all fear, worry and doubt – despite seeing God's miracles. How is that?

Every sin, big or little, has in common choosing self over God, built on the foundation of pride. It happens when we choose 'What I want' over 'What God says'. God, have mercy on us.
Why is it hard to trust God? Will He be there for me next time?

When cancer strikes, when a loved one is going through a hard time, we struggle with this on both personal and community levels. When we are afraid, and desperate to find an answer, the temptation is to set up our own power base. Giving in to this temptation leads to failure, because pride comes before the fall. In trying to bring order into the chaos of our lives – if we don't turn to God – we get ourselves into troubles.

Trusting God is counter-intuitive. It goes against our instincts to want to manage our troubles. It is actually a lot like sky diving. Sky diving instructors drill into their students, 'Don't look down at the ground, you have to look up'. If you look down at the ground, you will instinctively bunch up, bunching up leads to broken bones. Don't bunch up.

Instinctively when in trouble we tend to pull in to a tight ball. When something or someone touches a raw nerve we all pull in, it is a natural human reaction. God says, 'Look at Me instead'.

You have new laws about slowing down when passing emergency vehicles with flashing lights. In other parts of the world, you must change lanes. The laws are to reduce accidents caused by vehicles veering into emergency vehicles. Why? Because we tend to move towards what we are looking at.

What are you looking at? Your past, your brokenness, your failure, whatever grinds your teeth. Whatever that is, you are heading towards it deeper and deeper. We have to set our eyes back on the Lord. We have to look at our problems against the backdrop of God's great love. When we focus on God and worship God, therein lies our healing.

We were built to praise and worship God. More healings happen during praise and worship than at healing services.

Helen Heller, who was physically blind, said: When you look at the light, the shadows fall behind'. Even if we feel nothing, it is still the right thing to worship God. 99 out of 100 times, when we praise and worship God amazing things happen.

Let us turn our eyes back to God. God can do so much in a twinkling of an eye.

The book of 2nd Maccabees was written about a 150 years before Jesus. It was written to encourage the Jewish people not to give up against the Greeks, and to not give up on God. In chapter 1 some of that encouragement comes from celebrating the re-dedication of the temple, the anniversary of Nehemiah dedicating the altar and fire, and recalling what God did back then.

When the Babylonian deportation took place, a few of the priests took some of the sacred fire from the altar, and hid it secretly in the hollow of a dry cistern. It had been requested by God that this fire never go out. Only 2 or 3 people knew where this hiding place was.

Many years later, 70-100 years, when it pleased God – in God's time, Nehemiah began the search for the sacred fire. He got the descendants of the priests who had hidden the fire to go look for it in the ruined city. They did find the hidden cistern/well, but there is no fire. Muddy water is all there is to find. Remember, this fire symbolised the presence of God, it was a sacred fire that had burnt for hundreds of years since the time of Moses and Aaron. The 'fire' is gone. Their hearts sink.

Yet Nehemiah, who is not a priest and only a lay man, is inspired. He tells the priestly descendants, 'go get a bucket and scoop up the muddy water'. That's faith. Then he tells them to prepare the altar, and to put the sacrifice on it. So far, so good. Then he tells them to do something absurd. 'Take the muddy water and pour it over the altar and the sacrifice. Just do it'. So they have a new altar covered in mud. Then Nehemiah says, 'Let's wait. Let's wait for the Lord.' So they wait, looking at the pile of mud.

Then at the hour of sacrifice, suddenly out of the mud….a little wisp of smoke. The fire is back! The sacrifice is being offered. They are gobsmacked, and begin to offer the prayers of petition, sacrifice and offering. Wow! We can do nothing without You! Then the priests begin to sing the hymns.

Nehemiah ordered the rest of the muddy liquid to be poured upon stones, and a flame blazed up. But the light cast from the altar was brighter, another light brighter that all these fires, not set by them but by God, a supernatural light that out-shined everything else.

God can do the miraculous in our lives. Sometimes we feel that the fire has gone out and all we have left is mud. It is never too late for God to bring light back into your life. There is still fire coming into the mud and mess and dead stuff in your life. There is still the Spirit of God bringing healing, redemption and freedom. God's plans are for our welfare and a future full of hope.

A friend of mine was driving home from his mistress's home to his wife, quite happy with his life. At some point he reached over to the glove-box, and heard on the radio station, 'My friend, you need God'. He started sobbing for 30-40 minutes, and realised that his life was actually mud. He said, 'Then my car filled with light. I knew I was in the presence of God, who loved me and who was bringing fire to my mud'. That's when God moved.

Don't ever underestimate the power of God when all you have is mud and it is too late. Stop saying 'it's too late', and don't say it anymore.

A fire is coming, of healing and mercy. You do have a future full of hope – not confidence in your mud, but confidence in God's fire. It is coming to all of us.

Maybe we have dumped our mud on the altar, several times and we are waiting. How long did Nehemiah wait? How long would you stand with Nehemiah? How willing are you to stand before Him and say, 'I'm at a complete loss of what to do, I'm at a loss'? How long? We have to ask ourselves this; how long before you write it off as a failure?

Daniel was crying out and asking God for help. The moment God heard your prayer God jumped into action. So why the delay and the anguish? Why don’t you do it right now? Why prolong my agony? Our sense of time and God's sense of time are different – we don’t see the divine perspective. God is never too quick and never too late.

'If you had been here our brother would not have died'. Are we able to get off Chronos time and get onto Kairos time? Doing that means believing that all things are working for good for those who love God. As humans, we want things and we want it now. But we are not God, so we need to choose to believe.

It feels like an eternity between pouring the mud and the time of fire. Those that wait upon the Lord renew their strength. Waiting is one of the greatest disciplines of the Christian life. Waiting says: that I know my Redeemer lives, whatever He does it will ultimately be for my benefit (through the waiting may be with clenched teeth and without feeling). It is a choice, to believe.

God is in charge. He knows our personal and communal situation, whether we see it or not. He is already on His way, according to His divine timing and His divine will. I love it the days I feel it; I proclaim it the days I don't feel it.

Your mud is part of your story, surrender it to Him who can change the ordinary bread and wine (which represents us) at Mass into the body, blood, soul and divinity of His Son Jesus.
…………………………………………………………………………When all the talks are transcribed and blogged, a printer friendly version will be provided.
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My thoughts

It is so hard to believe in the fire when all you have is mud and ashes.

Why we have to go through these valleys of death befuddles us, but it seems to be God's pattern to have this 'dead as a dodo' stuff before resurrection.

If Jesus had come while Lazarus was still alive, his healing would have been an ordinary miracle. But Jesus let them go through the death, the burial, the morning and grief, and only then did He give them the most extraordinary miracle. If you were able to choose, which miracle path would you select? Are you glad Jesus chose the latter? Are you willing to put up with the extra pain to receive God's extra gain, and the higher and wider purposes that go with it?
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The two images, of the sky diver looking up and of the muddied altar waiting for God's fire resonated strongly with everyone gathered at Pennant Hills, and many took advantage of handing over their mud to God through the sacrament of reconciliation over the 2 days of retreat.