From the Acts of the Apostles and other writings in the New Testament we learn that the charisms of the Holy Spirit were in widespread daily use by the early Christians for evangelisation and building up the body of Christ and extending the kingdom of God.

In our own era we have seen the beginnings of a return to that 'normalcy', and as we expect grace to superabound where sin abounds, Romans 5:20, it means that as our world slips deeper into moral darkness, manifestation of the charismatic gifts of the Holy Spirit will increase.

It is therefore prudent for information about how the charismatic gifts operate to become more widespread in the church, so that if God starts working in your life that way then you can embrace it and co-operate with Him more fully, and if He starts working in someone else's life and they come to you bewildered you will have the knowledge to bring them peace, encourage them and give them effective guidance.

That's why the International Catholic Charismatic Renewal Service (ICCRS) ran a Charism School in Melbourne in March 2019. Presented was a compendium of what has been learned about the revelation and power gifts of the Holy Spirit over the past 52 years.

A 32 page transcript of that Charism School is provided below. For those who prefer video or audio, contact the Melbourne CCR office for details https://www.ccr.org.au/ or centre@ccr.org.au

The titles of the talks given are:

Charisms, Gifts and Fruit
Co-operating with the Charisms
Workers in the Harvest

Gift of Tongues
Gift of Wisdom
Mass Homily: Spiritual Warfare
Spiritual Maturity and Inner Freedom
The Gift of Leadership

Gifts of Revelation and Inspiration
Prophecy and the Word of Knowledge
Mass Homily: Mercy and False Guilt
Hearing the Voice of God
Discernment

The Charism of Faith
Healing
Mass Homily: Surrender to God's Will
How to Pray for Healing
Deliverance

Mass Homily: Interior Life
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Please read the document and share it widely, especially with former and current members of prayer groups and people in Christian leadership. Fluent readers will take around an hour to read it, unless they digress down one of the hyper-links or wish to compare bible translations.

Upon this document, dear Holy Spirit, we seek your unction.
May the prayers of Mary, the mother of Jesus, who prayed so ardently with the Apostles and Disciples as they waited for the promised gift of the Father, accompany it.
May Blessed Elena Guerra, Pope Leo XIII, St Philip Neri, and all the Saints who had special devotion to the Holy Spirit, intercede for each person who reads it.
May the holy angels guide the distribution of this document far and wide, especially to those who most need it.
​Amen.

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.
……………………………………………………………..
When all the talks are transcribed and blogged, a printer friendly version will be provided. There is still the Homily to go.
……………………………………………………………….
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.
​
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.

The Gospel for the weekend of 8/9 September 2018, 23rd Sunday in Ordinary Time, Year B, is taken from the end of Chapter 7 of St Mark. It tells the story of a group of people bringing a man, who is both deaf and unable to speak clearly, to Jesus. In response Jesus takes the man well away from the crowd, to where he can have a very personal encounter with Jesus. As part of this encounter Jesus sighs as He commands 'Be Opened'.

This is a much longer and detailed reflection on this Gospel passage than was possible via Instagram. (@pcav3473)

Jesus is back on home turf in the ten towns of Galilee after an absence. Are the people who bring the man to Jesus hostile or friendly towards Him? Either is possible, but the more we understand what it meant to be deaf and unable to speak clearly in Jewish culture, the more the balance swings towards friendly.

Being deaf is a very isolating experience at the best of times, but it was even worse for someone living in a culture based on oral tradition. To participate fully in the religious life of a Jew you had to be able to hear: in particular to hear the sound of the shofar, the blowing of the ram's horn that is part of several important feast days, and used to sound warnings. You also had to be able to speak: in particular to recite the Shemar at the prescribed times of the day, (viz, 'Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God is the one Lord …). Some rabbinical teachings said it was enough to try to recite it accurately, others said it didn't count unless it was recited perfectly.

There were special laws that decreed that those both unable to hear and unable to speak clearly were to be treated as minors, ie without legal status. Think about how much haggling was part and parcel of most business transactions and you can begin to understand why. Thus unless you were able to find a sympathetic advocate who took the time to question you in the approved manner, a person deaf and unable to speak clearly was unable to buy and retain property and unable to marry.

Even if this man had somehow been able to learn who Jesus claimed to be, having no legal status he would have been unable to request healing from Jesus. That is why people had to bring him to Jesus and he could not approach Jesus on his own. To do that for the deaf man, in the absence of any obvious axe to grind eg healing on the Sabbath, would require a significant level of compassion. Hence the likelihood of friendly.

Due to these known difficulties of life for a deaf person, it is no longer a surprise that Jesus does not hesitate to come to this man's assistance.

What is interesting is that Jesus takes him somewhere private. It feels like there is more to it than just needing to be away from eyes that might class these actions of Jesus (putting fingers in his ears, and spittle on his tongue) as weird. There is a layer of intimacy and personal encounter that feels just as essential as the weird stuff.

Here's the kicker.
What if this story doesn't only relate to the earthly realm, but also relates to the supernatural realm?

The citizens of the supernatural realm are able to hear God in that realm and to speak forth from that hearing for Kingdom of God purposes. These are people we would class as having prophetic gifting (prophecy, visions, dreams, word of knowledge, discernment of spirits etc). God regularly shows them His mind, His heart, His plans, His secrets. They co-operate by speaking forth these things according to God's timing and thereby bringing the active power of God to bear in the earthly realm. For example, in the passage from Ezekiel 37:1-14 about the dry bones, God commands that the prophet speak to the bones in His name.

What if access to the supernatural realm was supposed to be normal, as normal as hearing and speaking in the earthly realm is?

We know that Moses desired that everyone prophesy and be filled with the Holy Spirit (Num 11:29). We know that God promised through the prophet Joel (Joel 3:1-5) that a time would come that everyone would prophesy, dream and have visions. On the day of Pentecost St Peter declared that this promise from Joel was now a reality. Could this sigh of Jesus be an expression of His longing that this be true for everyone?

The adage 'sheep make sheep, and shepherds make shepherds' has had fresh resonance recently. Sheep making sheep is the laity going out into their daily tasks and evangelising and making new disciples of Jesus. Shepherds making shepherds is the role of leaders to not be bottlenecks but to notice those with leadership potential and to call them forth and train them to be good leaders and to surpass their mentors.

Consider the normal way people come into a living relationship with the Holy Spirit. It is person to person, a person (or persons) infilled by the Holy Spirit praying over someone who hasn't yet been filled with the Holy Spirit. But there could be around 5-10% of people for whom God acts sovereignly, infilling them with the Holy Spirit without any active human co-operation. Consider Ananias praying over the future St Paul vs the Holy Spirit coming down on Cornelius and his household while St Peter was still speaking.

Is it possible that prophetic gifting is transmitted in a similar way? For sure there are still sovereign acts of God, a la Amos and his prophetic call, and young Samuel under Eli the priests's care. But what if the usual way is for someone with prophetic gifting to pray over someone without prophetic gifting? What if the usual way is how it is described in this Mark 7:31-37 passage?

Those of us deaf to the ways of the supernatural realm have no legal standing there. We are helpless unless a group of people with prophetic gifting have enough compassion to bring us one by one to the Lord Jesus in prayer, asking Him for citizenship for us. Then knowing His ways, taking each one to places of prayer and quiet where that profound personal encounter with Jesus can happen in His timing. Extended times of personal prayer with Jesus precede the activation of those prophetic gifts and flow from those prophetic gifts.

Why is this so important?
Because in order to come into alignment with God's will, we need to have some certainty of God's will, and that comes from the prophetic gifting. Otherwise we are like deaf people trying to lip read what God is trying to communicate to us, and unable to release the kingdom power that flows from that alignment. Even the best of lip-readers only catch around 30-45% of the message through lip-reading alone.

If this is God's usual way of doing things, then it makes sense for those young in prophetic gifting to have those mature and experienced in prophetic gifting contactable during the journey to maturity in those gifts.
​
But it begins with groups of those with prophetic gifting having deep compassion for those unable to function as citizens of the supernatural realm and praying for them, one by one.

This blog-post is a compilation of a few off-line emails about the topic of the charismatic gift of tongues. Maybe they might go some way to answering your own questions on this topic.

Firstly, here is some recommended reading.

The first book I’ve recommended is They Speak With Other Tongues by John Sherrill
It is a classic book, which he recently updated for its 40th anniversary. In the early 1960s he began to research this phenomenon, and obtained interviews and information and put it all together in the book. Because it is written as an outsider looking in, you can follow along and make your own conclusions. If you have read it before, go back and re-read it. I re-read it last year and have recently finished rereading it again, and I am appreciating nuances of it today that even 12 months ago would have gone over my head.

The second book is As By A New Pentecost by Patti Mansfield Gallagher
It tells the story of how the Catholic Charismatic Renewal began, and how it was preceded by the actions of Pope Leo XIII and the various Pentecostal movements of the first half of the 20th century. I have yet to read it, because it is only available in hardcopy, but I have watched a few video-clips of Patti telling the story, and it is both an inspiring and a sad story. Sad because the Catholic Church would have received this gift much earlier if it had responded to Pope Leo XIII’s requests with vigour; inspiring because it shows that God responds magnificently when we call out to Him in faith.
Here is one of those video-clips https://youtu.be/twizOkRIzLo

Primarily the Catholic Church provides holistic support for the gift of tongues because in Council under the guidance of the Holy Spirit the canon of Scripture was put together by the Church in the 3rd/4th centuries, which includes the New Testament writings about speaking in tongues. If this gift wasn't considered real and relevant we wouldn't have the Gospel of Mark, the Acts of the Apostles or 1 Corinthians in the canon of Scripture.

How do you know it’s the Holy Spirit? Usually it is an act of faith and trust, and sometimes there is evidence of God’s fingerprints. The same can be said for any method of prayer.

In the ‘They Speak With Other Tongues’ book there is a story of the author making recordings of people praying in tongues and one woman said that for her she needed to pray about a specific situation in order to do so. The author knew his wife had been having trouble writing an article with a deadline, and he suggested this situation, and the woman used the author as a proxy for his wife. She prayed over him in tongues, and he felt something spiritually and emotionally, and his wife completed the article in record time. Whether the praying woman felt anything is unknown. God's fingerprints are all over this situation.

There is an effect that St Paul talks about in 1 Cor 14:4, ‘The one with the gift of tongues talks for his own benefit’, but there are other translations eg ‘Anyone who speaks in a tongue edifies themselves’ or ‘A person who speaks in tongues is strengthened personally’.

Patti Gallagher Mansfield talks about praying in tongues as refreshment for the soul/spirit, and others writers speak about health benefits. This effect is one way you can tell that the Holy Spirit has been at work in addition to the classic signs of the activity of the Spirit of God in Gal 5:22, love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, trustfulness, gentleness and self-control.

The gift of tongues is one of those situations where the adage applies, ‘For those who believe, no explanation is necessary. For those who do not believe, no explanation will be sufficient’. That blessed leap of faith is the gap between.

John Sherrill talks about an interesting experiment in his book. Together with the recordings he made from people who believed they had the gift of tongues, he added in two recordings that were pure gibberish, and then asked some linguistic experts to comment. The former mostly had discernible structures of language, the gibberish did not, and it was quite obviously different.

Do people when they pray in tongues know whether they are praising God or interceding for a situation? Not for sure they don’t. If they have formed an intention to do one or the other, then the expectation is that language will flow according to that intention. If no intention has been formed, then sometimes the rhythms and cadence will give a clue. But do we know for sure? Not unless someone is around who can interpret.

I think this is what St Paul meant when he said that you have to be willing to look foolish before you can truly be wise (1 Cor 3:18). There are few things as foolish looking as someone taking the early steps of yielding to God and letting Him control the vocal chords. But it is extraordinary and necessary training, because the same willingness to look foolish and to yield to God is necessary for the gifts of prophecy, miracles, healing etc to happen.

In preparation for the 1967 weekend at the Ark & Dove, the student group read through the first 4 chapters of the Acts of the Apostles, and also ‘The Cross and the Switchblade’. David Mangan was drawn to the Greek word used by St Luke in Acts 1:8 that gets translated ‘power’. In the Greek this word has the same roots as the word we use for dynamite. David wanted to see the dynamite power of the Holy Spirit in action, and he prayed for this.

David Mangan had reasoned it out this way. He wanted to experience the dynamite of the Holy Spirit, and he wanted to hear someone speak in tongues, but he was intelligent enough to know that he’d never believe if it was someone else, there would always be some doubt if it was someone else, so he wrote down in his notebook, ‘I want to hear someone speak in tongues: me’.

The charism list in 1 Cor 12:8-10 are all gifts that have the power to change lives dramatically: preaching with wisdom; preaching instruction; faith, healing; miracles: prophecy; recognising spirits; gift of tongues; ability to interpret them.

The gift of tongues is in that list. It wasn’t left out.

There are plenty of gifts of prayer (vocal, mental, contemplative) and many acceptable forms of prayer (liturgy of the hours, lectio divina, rosary, prayer before the Blessed Sacrament, spontaneous prayer, the Jesus prayer, singing hymns, novenas etc) and they all have their impact according to the mysterious co-workings of our efforts, His will and His grace.

But there is something about the gift of tongues that aids a connection with the dynamite of the Holy Spirit that has no comparison. When individuals and groups pray this way, the spiritual climate changes, and in some way access to the other charisms in the 1 Cor 12:8-10 list becomes easier.

Re-reading Romans 8:26-27 in the light of the gift of tongues is worth doing:

The Spirit too comes to help us in our weakness. For when we cannot choose words in order to pray properly, the Spirit Himself expresses our plea in a way that could never be put into words, and God who knows everything in our hearts knows perfectly well what He means, and that the pleas of the saints expressed by the Spirit are according to the mind of God.

This is true of all prayer, but it is especially true of the gift of tongues.

Any prayer that God Himself prays in us is going to be according to His will, and is going to have a swift answer.

The gift of tongues underlines in a dramatic manner that it is the Holy Spirit who prays in us, who causes us to call out ‘Abba Father’ (Romans 8:15)

We see human analogies of this gift in families, both with youngsters who communicate their needs quite well without words and sentences, and with adults who with insider family jargon can communicate with a specific grunt and gesture a whole page worth of meaning.

I thought the story from John Sherrill’s book was instructive, where someone gets called to a hospital to pray for a seriously ill girl, and this person has no idea whether to pray for death or for complete healing, so the decision is made to pray in tongues, because God knows what is needed and what is perfect. This person prays for a while and as the prayer continues the impression that the girl will make a full recovery grows. She indeed made a full recovery. The praying in tongues was the equivalent of praying ‘May Your kingdom come in this situation’.

We know that the pleas of the saints as expressed by the Spirit are according to the mind of God, so God is not going to curse Himself, and likewise when under His influence we are not going to curse Him either. Sons and daughters of God don’t do that.

You could say that prayer in tongues is more effective at getting God to answer the prayer the way God thinks it should be answered, especially in emergency and spiritual warfare situations.

Each of us has a multitude of weapons of prayer in our private arsenals. We turn to some forms of prayer when seeking discernment. We turn to other forms of prayer when praying for healing. We turn to other forms of prayer when we want to study the life of Jesus more closely. We turn to other forms of prayer when praying for big miracles.

You can think of the gift of tongues as just another weapon in your prayer arsenal. Like any weapon in that arsenal we can choose to use it, or ignore it. We can use to learn it well and skillfully, or bumble-footedly.

To use the same prayer weapon for every situation would be loopy, just like using a bread knife is loopy if you need to carve meat and you possess a carving knife.

If you are still on the outside looking in, the arguments boil down to:

Is God good? Mark 10:18

Does He only give good gifts? Matt 7:11

Why would God give the gift of tongues to so many people as described in the Acts of the Apostles (eg Acts 10:44-46, at Pentecost and elsewhere) if it wasn’t a good and necessary gift for the Matt 28:19-20 mission?

Are speaking in tongues a gift of the Spirit? 1 Cor 12:10

If the answers are Yes, then we have to believe that speaking in tongues is a good gift, and a worthwhile gift to have, otherwise it would not have been so widely prevalent among believers in the early Church. We know for a fact that St Paul spoke in tongues, (1 Cor 14:18), and that he thought it was a good gift, otherwise he would not have provided teaching on it. We also have him saying, 'Imitate me as I imitate Christ' (1 Cor 11:1).

If you are willing to let God be God, and to let Him be able to do things in you that are beyond your ability to comprehend, then all you have to do is ask and wait:
 
Holy Spirit I believe in You. I believe that Your power to save is mighty indeed. I believe that You bestow good gifts for good purposes among the members of the Body of Christ. Although I struggle, I believe that the gift of tongues that I have so much trouble wrapping my mind around is also one of Your gifts. If You want to give it to me, I want to receive it. I don't want to be without Your heavenly weapons in the battles that I must face against the enemies of our souls. You know my fears, You know my reluctance, but You also know that I am willing to trust You and follow where You lead me. Help me. Amen.
St Paul, Apostle of Jesus, pray for me.
 

Some of you may have been at a talk by Patti Gallagher Mansfield or watched one online. Quite frequently if the day has been long she will get everyone to stop, and to stand, and then invite the participants of the day to pray in tongues so as to refresh their spirits.

Interesting, yes?

There is scriptural back up for this idea. St Paul says (1 Cor 14:4) 'The one with the gift of tongues talks for his own benefit.' Other translations use the word edification, but the net result is the same, using this gift of God is good for us and beneficial.

Patti obviously understands this at a level that the rest of us don't. But don’t dismiss it. Recently I read a short tract about the gift of tongues written from a Protestant perspective, and it contained a story about a sick person who had been asking God to heal them for a long time. However it wasn't until that sick person prayed in tongues that the healing happened.

Interesting, yes?

It is something that surprises us, but it shouldn't. When we open ourselves up to the Holy Spirit in that way, our spirit aligns with the Holy Spirit and our spirits, our souls, our emotions and our bodies benefit.

I recall Colin Sutton (may he rest in peace) often inviting people to pray in tongues for 10 minutes every day for a month and to compare their lives before and after. Take his challenge, and compare your well-being levels before and after. At minimum, the things that currently send you into an emotional pit won't nearly have as much effect on you.

If we believe that God only gives good gifts, then we shouldn't be surprised when this much maligned gift actually has far reaching impact.

What do we fight against most? Discouragement, tiredness, anxiety, monotony, feelings of abandonment by God? This charismatic gift of God is an effective weapon against these attacks. Use it regularly. Use it daily.

As Damien Stayne says "We have to pray to move beyond the idea that the charisms are an optional extra, like having a sunroof in your car or tinted windows. Charisms are as essential as the steering wheel and the accelerator. There is no work of God, so spiritual work of God among the people of God that is not a charismatic act. Without the charisms, the mission of the Church is over".

Take the situation of a group of people with strong prayer lives. They gather for prayer each week. Just about all of them have been baptised in the Holy Spirit, and yet none of the charisms are being overtly used. They are praying with holy hearts. Of course God is listening to them. But they are still largely in control, and the options for God moving in and through them are very limited, as limited as a group of bricklayers trying to build a wall with both hands tied behind their backs.

The charisms of God are good; they are beneficial,
they are necessary.
Let them out, let them flow, allow God to take control.
Only then will we see more than we could ever ask for or imagine happen.

This is a transcription of the workshop held in Rome on 1 June 2017 with this topic as part of the celebrations for the 50th anniversary of the Catholic Charismatic Renewal #ccrgoldenjubilee2017
 
The speakers were Deacon Christof Hemberger and Jim Murphy, with translations in English and Portuguese.
 
Deacon Christof Hemberger is part of the ICCRS leadership team http://www.iccrs.org/en/dn-christof-hemberger/
 
Jim Murphy is the new president of the ICCRS Council http://www.iccrs.org/en/james-murphy-president/
He is the founder and president of Vera Cruz Communications, and has been involved in youth ministry on parish, diocesan, national, and international levels. In 1992, inspired by the American Bishops' letter 'Heritage and Hope', Jim undertook a 4200-mile journey on foot across America, carrying a six-foot cross in an effort of prayer and evangelization.
 
This is the link for the video recording: https://youtu.be/H68UKXNat4E
 
Deacon Christof Hemberger: Welcome to this workshop. It is a great pleasure to see so many of you, especially – and we know this – it is very early in the morning for many of us. I want to make, use a little while, to ask, where do you come from? Asia and Oceania? Africa? Northern and Southern America? Many Brazilians! Europe? Welcome home. Welcome everyone to this workshop. It might be that some of you – sorry I forgot – Middle East? Who have never led a prayer group. With this workshop we would like to encourage you to learn how to do it. Some are leaders of prayer groups for a very long time and would like to learn how to get the group vibrant again. You will also get some tools and hints to do this. Jim and I are involved in leadership since many years. But still we are learning. And it is not, and we can never come to a stage where we can say that we know everything.
 
But we are going to use this time ahead of us to share with you what we have been learning and experiencing in the last years. I will start with some basics, some general outlines that every leader needs to know about and Jim later on will give some more practical experience.
 
No matter whether you want to start or whether you are already leading for a long time, I think the main task of a leader is to know the vision of the group. You need to have the vision clear in order to reach your goals. What is the purpose we are meeting for?
 
In every prayer group usually there is two end groups. One part is searching for a spiritual home. The people are coming and they are asking for teachings, for good prayer times, for experiences to grow in the discipleship. They are searching for 'koinonia', for community, and they regard the prayer group as a discipleship training centre for their spiritual journey.
 
But there is also a second end group, the people who are not there yet. Prayer groups also have a goal to evangelise, to make a space for those who can be brought along. Many years ago I had a conversion experience and my sister who was a member of a prayer group just told me, 'Come along'. I didn't know anything about how to live with God in my daily life. I needed teaching, I needed experience, I needed training, explanations, before I was actually able to become a disciple.
 
So when I speak about we have two end groups, leaders and those involved in prayer groups need to understand there is discipleship and the purpose of evangelization always in a prayer group. When we only focus on the first, we will start pleasing those coming for many years and we will become a cozy club. But if we only focus on the second we will not give food to those who are coming and after some time they will search for other places where they can get food.
 
Maintaining living charismatic groups means to be open for discipleship and evangelization.
 
A second aspect: Know Your Identity. 10 years ago my wife and I have moved into the village we are living now. Some man came to us, approaching us, and he said, 'Well I am responsible for the rabbit club in this village' and I said, 'What's this? What rabbit club?' And he said, 'Well, we are the ones that raise rabbits. But we are also open for those who have horses and chickens, open for all, but we are the rabbit club.' Well, I didn't have rabbits, I didn't have chickens, so I never became a member of the club. But I was thinking, why is he inviting everyone raising anything if he is the chairperson of the rabbit club? Sometimes our prayer groups look the same.
 
There is lots of space in the kingdom of God and the Church is wide and bright, but if we are Catholic charismatic prayer groups your prayer group needs to have a Catholic charismatic identity.
 
Some prayer groups have lost their Catholic identity. They do a lot of Holy Spirit things but they don't teach and live anymore Catholic identity.
 
Some prayer groups have lost the charismatic identity. They are very faithful, true followers in the Church but you can't hardly see anything charismatic in their meetings anymore.
 
I encourage you to live your identity in fullness.
 
Personal relationship to the living God. You need to teach about this and you need to live it, the reality of the baptism in the Holy Spirit and the power of the Holy Spirit. Teach and speak and share about this.
 
Receiving and using the gifts of the Holy Spirit. So often I come to prayer groups. Somebody is there who is sick and the people say, 'let's intercede and when we go home during the next week we are going to pray for you. No! Interrupt your meeting. Take this person to the front, lay hands on, and pray for the outpouring of the Holy Spirit for healing and deliverance, and for everything else.
 
Praise and Worship. In the Church the Renewal is known as the movement that is known for praise and worship. Ten years ago I was involved in the preparations for the World Youth Day that took place in Cologne (Koln) Germany. There was a meeting of many, many people in the Church and I had to introduce myself and I said, 'I am Christof, I am from the Charismatic Renewal'. One person said, 'What's this? I have never heard about this?' Another person gave the answer. 'Oh, those are the people who are always singing when they start their programs'. It is part of our identity to praise the Lord, to have praise and worship.
 
The love for the Word of God and the Sacraments. So many people say, 'After I found a renewed relationship to the Lord I suddenly understood the bible in a personal way; the sacraments became important for me.'
 
Evangelisation and Mission. If we focus on ourselves we will forget the task we have been given by Jesus. We are called to evangelise. We are called to bring in our friends, neighbours and colleagues.
 
And also part of the Catholic charismatic identity is the heart for the whole Body of Christ.
 
Why am I saying this? I say this because I want to encourage you to live your identity in fullness. If you are a member or a leader of a Catholic charismatic prayer group, make sure your program is Catholic charismatic and is seen as Catholic charismatic. Don't only know about the charisms, use the charisms. Don't only know about the personal relationship to the Lord, live the personal relationship to the Lord.
 
Some people ask, usually in those meetings, 'give us a structure of a perfect prayer meeting'. I can't. You need to find out your perfect structure for this evening.
 
But I can give some recommendations:
 
Have some time for welcome. A prayer meeting is not just a program we are running. It is a time of relationship and community. Make sure people feel welcomed. Draw in those who are new and don't know how to behave. Explain what is going to happen.
 
Usually we start with some time of praise and worship. We focus on the Lord. We give Him our honour and our glory. This helps us because we come from our daily life to focus on the greater thing that is been given to us.
 
Usually afterwards we have some time of bible study, teaching or preaching. We want to learn from God.
 
I usually ask the people in my prayer group, 'What is the Lord saying to us today?' for our situation, in our time, for the next week?
 
You can follow by a time of sharing of your experiences. Some people will have experiences with God and can give a testimony, or you can share experiences that you have been doing long ago but can help others understand what to do and how to live. I spoke about that prayer groups is community is koinonia, it is not that the leader is standing in front telling the others what to do. 90% of the things that I have learned for my Christian life I have learned by the testimonies of friends.
 
Never finish without having a time just for the Lord. Sometimes this is related or lined to the praise and worship time. Sometimes it is linked to the preaching or to the intercession time, no matter, but don't leave without having a time asking the Lord to speak to us, speak into our situations. What shall I do now personally? What do You want to tell me?
 
I would like to speak one minute about the tasks of a leader.
 
Of course we need to prepare and moderate and lead the prayer meetings. Did you hear properly? Prepare the meetings. This is some work. It is very easy to say, 'O the Holy Spirit will do everything'. Maybe the Holy Spirit is using you as a leader to do the things. You don't need to do everything by yourself and you don't need to take the tasks that are the Holy Spirit's but you need to take your tasks, and your task is to prepare, moderate and lead the prayer meetings.
 
Be an example to the others. You are not responsible for their personal lives. You are also not their spiritual directors. You are not responsible for the decisions they are doing in their personal life, but you should be a good example as a disciple of Christ.
 
One topic we could spend a whole weekend about is establish a team that can support you, and establish a next generation of leadership. It is a bit naughty when I say a good leader makes himself not needed any more from the same day he took on leadership. Those leaders after many years don't find successors have not done their job in establishing new leaders early enough.
 
A last task of a prayer group leader. You are the watchman of the vision. Keep in mind the charismatic and Catholic identity and division of your group and once in a while take some time asking yourself, 'Are we still living according to our vision?' 'Are we still open for new people to come in?' 'Do we still help others to grow in discipleship?' 'Are we still living our charismatic identity?' 'And are we still living our Catholic identity?'
 
My last thought, because I think it is essential for many, many prayer groups. The use of the charisms. Know and teach and use the charisms in your prayer group. Charisms are not medals for personal holiness. They are gifts to us for the sake of building the kingdom of God. They don't fall from heaven like apples. Ask for the gifts. Use the gifts. Make space for the gifts in your programs. Once in a while go to the music ministry and talk to them, 'How can we establish charisms in praise and worship?' Try to find out what is the charisms of my people? And find possibilities where they can bring them into the group.
 
Teach and train the gifts and their use. And ask for the charisms. Pray for the outpouring of the Holy Spirit. Foster a mature use of the charisms among your people. When you are thinking about the program of the next prayer group evening keep times of silence during the evening. So often we do this and this and this, and sometimes the Lord doesn't even have the possibility to talk to us. If prophecies and words of knowledge are coming, find a way how to discern them. Is the prophecy a real prophecy? Is it for everyone or just for a few? How do we need to react to this word of God now? One practical hint, singing and praying in tongues helps to open for the other charisms. Teach and use the charisms in your prayer groups.
 
And I am very happy now that Jim is with us. He is a very experienced person and I am very keen on listening on what he is going to say about practical aspects of a prayer group.
 
Jim Murphy: Before I begin I would just like to share a personal note. I feel it is a great honour to be speaking to you today, because I really believe in the value of Catholic charismatic prayer meetings. I believe that prayer meetings are one of the foundational pieces of the Renewal and I sincerely want to thank all of you who have invested so much of your life to building up good prayer meetings. I know many of you have invested your life into this and at times it gets difficult, but what you are doing is important and it is an honour to speak to you today.
 
I'm also honoured to speak with my good colleague Deacon Christof. He's a very good teacher and he's a good friend. Our time is very short today and I wish we could talk about everything but we can only cover a few basics. But Christof has written an excellent book* and a lot of the material he has covered today is found in his book. And this will be on the table later if you want to find out how to get it. Also you can go to our ICCRS website and find out more about our various leadership training programs, which I hope could give you a lot more information. (* 'Living Charismatic Groups: A Handbook for Leadership Formation' by Christof Hemberger, 2016, New Life Publishing)
 
Deacon Christof gave us some very important foundational aspects of vision. I'm just going to focus on two points this morning. One is how to maintain dynamic praise and worship at a prayer meeting and the second aspect is how do we give a good teaching. Due to time constraints I am going to leave out most of the theory and just talk about practical points.
 
So let's first talk about dynamic praise and worship. In my estimation praise and worship is the most essential part of a prayer meeting. To me everything flows from praise and worship. And when the praise and worship is weak everything else falls down. In this conversation when I use the word worship I am not speaking of quiet adoration before the Blessed Sacrament but dynamic praise and worship. There is absolutely a place for quiet adoration before the Blessed Sacrament, but in this conversation we are talking more about a charismatic experience.
 
So where do we start? One thing that I believe is essential to praise and worship, we need to educate people on the biblical principles of dynamic praise and worship. We have to be fair to our brothers and sister fellow Catholics, as Catholics many of us were raised using very traditional prayers. Look the prayer style of Catholicism is usually quite rote. They are more used to a traditional style of prayer. So when people join us in these very dynamic meetings they're really not quite sure how to respond. One of the first times I went to a prayer meeting I turned to the person next to me and said, 'Is this Catholic?' And I think we have to be careful, we've become very comfortable with this, but this is a new experience for others.
 
And I believe it is essential that we teach people what is the scriptural background and even in Catholic tradition where this fits in. Wouldn't you love to go to a prayer meeting led by St Francis of Assisi? So charismatic praise and worship is very much in scripture and in tradition, but that's not known by many Catholics and even some charismatics.
 
Our time now does not allow me to exactly give this teaching, but I would urge you to study on this topic. There's a lot of good material out there. As a prayer group leader you have to help people understand why we do it this way. It is not enough to lead praise and worship, but we have to become advocates of praise and worship. We have to be able to explain it to others.
 
So the first step is to be an advocate for and to teach people about praise and worship. Prepare good teachings to give your people on why we do it this way.
 
The second step is we need to get people engaged in prayer and worship. A prayer group leader is not supposed to praise and worship for the people, but the leader's job is to encourage and aid and help the people praise the Lord. A leader doesn't praise God for the people. A leader praises God with the people.
 
So how do we get people engaged? A very practical way is the physical proximity of the leader to the people. In a situation like today, because of the nature of our program, this is how things are arranged. If I was leading a prayer meeting here I'd be out there with you, and we'd all be close together. A leader helps by making eye contact with the people, by literally reaching out to the people.
 
In too many prayer groups there is a group of people leading and everybody else is just watching. We have to change that. We have to connect with the people and then encourage them and lead them. 'Come one, let's do this together'. The people are not there to watch you pray. You are there to help them pray. Don't let the group become passive spectators.
 
Now music can be a great way to help people praise God. But let me offer a caution. In some places prayer meetings have turned into concerts. The music is great, but it has almost become a performance and they're fantastic, but we all sit there and watch them do the music. It's really a nice event, but it's not praise and worship because the people are not engaged.
 
Don't just play one song after another, after another. There should be music, but then the leader should be encouraging spontaneous praise and worship. And the leader should be saying, 'Come on, come on, let’s go', encouraging people. Usually when a group of people start worshipping God we often experience praying in the Spirit, praying in tongues. Encourage people to keep going with that, because when the whole group is praying or singing in the Spirit, then they're engaged; they're invested; they're doing something. And then when that dies down we do another song and we start the process again.
 
And usually when we enter into this kind of prayer we start receiving prophetic words or scriptures, and the job of the leader is to keep all these things in balance. So when a scripture is given, maybe there is a song that is perfect as a complement to the scripture, or maybe the leader feels we should respond by standing and praising together.
 
But a prayer meeting leader has to be able to focus on many things. It's not just music. It's not scripture only. It's not a particular dynamic. All of these things are happening at once. And the leader has to be discerning this. It's a dynamic process, you can't just do it off a schedule.
 
It's also important as a worship leader to be able to summarize what the Lord is doing. Maybe there was a strong prophetic word, maybe somebody had a scripture, there is a particular song that really moved people. It is the leader's job to make all of these connections and present to the people what it seems the Lord is doing. And then encourage the group to respond.
 
There's a main principle here that we have to keep in mind. A leader of a prayer meeting has to be connected to God and connected to the people at the same time. Sometimes as a leader you just want to pray and get lost in heaven, but you are leaving the rest of us out. And some leaders are so busy keeping everybody happy they're not even paying attention to what God is doing. So you have to keep these two things in balance. What is the Lord doing or saying? But how are the people doing? And to keep these two in balance is important.
 
So let me summarize this section:
1. We must be advocates of praise and worship. We want to teach people the principles but also the methods.
2. We must engage the people. We stay close to them. We stay connected to them. We work with music and encouraging the people.
3. A worship leader must be able to manage many things at the same time.
4. A worship leader must be attentive to God but also attentive to the people.
 
Let's take a few minutes now to talk about giving a teaching. There's three things necessary to give a good teaching: Proper discernment of what teaching to give; Preparation of your material; Proper delivery of the teaching. These three elements are essential.
 
If you look at our friends with their cameras, the cameras are sitting on tripods. One of the jobs the cameraman has is to ensure all three legs are extended. If all three legs are not correct, the thing tilts over. It's the same with a good teaching. You need these three elements to make the thing stand right. We'll quickly go through these three elements.
 
The first one is proper discernment of what to teach. Why do we give teachings? Are we just trying to fill in the time? Hopefully not. We're giving teachings because we are trying to impart the word of God. We're trying to share a word with our brothers and sisters. So it is very important that we know what it is God wants us to say.
 
So how do we know what God wants us to talk about? I think there's three normal ways that we understand what to teach on. Sometimes people in authority give us the assignment. And if you are part of a group and the pastoral leadership says, 'Would you give us a teaching about this?', well then, do it. Sometimes we just get – we sense what the people need. They might need some encouragement in an area, or perhaps they need some correction. So sometimes a theme is not given to us by divine revelation but our pastoral instincts show us what the people need at this time. And sometimes, the third way, God puts in our heart what we need to teach about. An idea starts forming in your mind, and then you go to Mass on Sunday and the scripture speaks to that, and then you hear a song on the radio that fits with that very thought. God's probably trying to tell you something.
 
So whether somebody is telling us what teaching to give, or our pastoral instincts give us some direction, or we just get a sense in our heart – these are three common ways we know what to teach.
 
Now the best way to prepare your material is what I do is I keep small pieces of paper with me – an index card – and I always carry these cards with me. And I find a scripture that speaks about that teaching, I write it down on a card. I'm having a conversation with a friend and they say something that fits in with that teaching, I write it down on that card.
 
So I am constantly looking for how the Lord might be speaking to me. And I keep collecting these cards with these ideas. Then I sit down at home. I take all my cards and I put them on the table. Lord, what are You saying with all this? In my cards I have many different scriptures. I might have a particular story. And I just pray with this material. And then I start organizing the ideas.
 
One of the problems most of us have; we try to put too much material in. You can't use everything. But all these things help us to prepare our material. And then I take a blank piece of paper and just put down my key points. So when I give the talk I'm not reading all these cards, but they just help me remember what order to go in.
 
And then finally when we actually give the talk, be sure people can hear you. Be sure people understand what you are saying. Be sure to stay connected to the people. Be sincere. Be focused on Christ and then when you are done, sit down. I'll sit down.
 
(A third person then gave a rough summary of both talks, thanked both men, and invited them to give a final prayer before a final song.)
 
Christof: Thank You Lord, thank You Lord for this morning. Thank You for everyone who came. Thank You for everything we have been learning this morning. And Holy Spirit I ask You to come and to fill everyone who is here. Help us to become leaders and members of the prayer groups that You have intended us to be. Help us to be watchmen of the vision. Teach us and worship us according to Your Heart. Holy Spirit we can learn a lot of things but most important is to receive everything from You. And so we ask You Holy Spirit, Come. Come and fill this place with Your glory. Come and fill our hearts with Your presence and grant us everything You want to give to us.
This workshop took place in a church, and as always in a church we will get the final blessing and the final song.

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Below is a printer-friendly edited transcript, 6 x A4 pages 

Please print it out and share this document, because it would be very hard to find a prayer group that couldn't benefit from reading it.

This is a transcription of the workshop held in Rome on 1 June 2017 with this topic as part of the celebrations for the 50th anniversary of the Catholic Charismatic Renewal #ccrgoldenjubilee2017
 
The speakers were Fr Dario Betancourt and Damian Stayne, with translations in English and Spanish.
 
Fr Dario Betancourt is a Colombian priest working in New York and active in the Renewal since at least 1977. There isn't much online about him in English. He does have a Facebook page.
 
Damian Stayne is a founder of the Cor et Lumen Christi community and runs Charism Schools. He too has a Facebook page.
 
This is the link for the video recording: https://youtu.be/PXLkeNGXa9o
 
(Ed. The translation for Fr Dario's talk wasn't as good as usual, due to a variety of factors, so the transcription for it won't be exact.)
 
Fr Dario Betancourt: Good morning. We are fighting against the time. I would like to share with you many texts from the Second Vatican Council, but we don't have the time. I would like to emphasize the second part of Lumen Gentium.
 
The Holy Spirit gives the gifts as He wills for the good of the Church, brothers and sisters, for the life of the Church. Jesus will infuse the healing gifts to those who believe in Him.
 
I encounter this in Chapter 9 of the Gospel of St Luke. The Lord Jesus sends His apostles to evangelise and to heal. It is important that Jesus did not send them just to evangelise, but to evangelise and to heal. And in the same Gospel of St Luke in Chapter 10 we see Jesus sends out His disciples to evangelise and to heal.
 
Let us not confuse apostles and disciples. Those are two different things. The apostles are disciples, but the disciples are not apostles. There were many, many disciples, but not many apostles.
 
It says in Luke 8, that Jesus had many followers including many women, including Mary Magdalene, Susanna and Joanna. It is very important that we understand what it means to be a disciple. It is a word, discere, that comes from Latin and discere means to learn. And to learn what? It is to learn the life of the Master, to live the life of the Master and to learn what the Master knows (eg about geography and other such things.)
 
But the most important thing is to live the life of the Master, not just learn what the Master knows.
 
This is a very important thing to note in the life of Jesus: He heals people. When He encounters people He heals people not to prove that He is God, but because He was God, He is God. What I find fascinating is that He didn't just talk and teach. He showed His power through charisms and wanted to give the power to His disciples.
 
What I find marvelous is that St John doesn't say that we have to be a reproduction, a copy, a continuation of Jesus, but that we have to be Jesus completely in our souls, bodies and spirits, completely Jesus.
 
Between the 1st and 4th century the Church preached, evangelised and practiced the gift of healing, as a normal part of the church. Then in the 4th century the Stoic ideal of ideology came about and talked about the life that is about suffering, a lot a lot of suffering. That God was the mind for His people, and their reason. That God was at peace with the idea of suffering because Jesus suffered much physically. The idea was that people also suffered.
 
The suffering Jesus received was from the outside to the inside, and not suffering from the inside going outward. The suffering He endured came from the outside, came from persecution, misunderstanding and people not following Him.
 
What Jesus does not want is that we suffer from within. What does it mean to suffer from within? It is cancer, paralysis and epilepsy. He does not want us to suffer. What are the illnesses of the body that Jesus healed? Blindness, deafness, paralysis and He was called to heal.
 
But the suffering from outside to within, that's the suffering Jesus wants us to suffer, from outside to inside.
 
But the sufferings from inside to outside He condemns and He sent them to heal all these sufferings.
 
Before the 4th century there were no problems. Problems started to occur after the 4th century. So what happens after the 4th century is that our holy Catholic Church really focuses on going to preach throughout the world and then healing was not so important, not so emphasized. What was emphasized was Eucharist, Reconciliation and Confirmation and those things.
 
The healing gift appeared in the last century up till now, mainly with the Catholic Charismatic Renewal. Now it is natural for us to preach and then to pray for healing – it’s a natural thing.
 
But until the Catholic Charismatic renewal, the Catholic Church, let us say the truth clearly, I want to be helpful, so that all can see that they have the gift of healing.
 
This from Jesus in Mark 18:18 That those who believe in Me will lay their hands on the sick and heal them. Raise up your hand if you believe in Jesus. Consequently if you believe in Jesus you have the healing gift. Alleluia!
 
In John 14:12 Those who believe in Me will perform the same things I do and even greater ones. Jesus! Jesus! John 14:13 Those who believe in Me, ask whatever you want and you will receive it. John 14:14 Ask and the Father will give you whatever you want. Alleluia!
 
In the Gospel of John it says, 'If you believe in My name I will give you whatever you ask for', so you have to believe in My name.
 
Acts 4: 3 shows the disciples conscious of the necessity of the charisms to evangelise and it says they performed miracles and extraordinary signs in the name of Jesus. Alleluia!
 
Damian Stayne: Alleluia. Jesus is Alive. Jesus is Alive. Are you Christians in here or Muslims? Jesus is Alive (Response: Jesus is Alive).
 
We have been asked to speak about growing and moving in the charisms and I am going to share with you very quickly some Keys that we have found to growing in the supernatural. Because we have been so privileged by God's grace to see so many miracles; in healing, in prophetic miracles, in liberation miracles. So we just want to share these keys with you so you can take them away. OK?
 
First Key. Absolute Conviction. What Fr Dario has been speaking about. We have to pray to move beyond the idea that the charisms are an optional extra, like having a sunroof in your car or tinted windows. Charisms are as essential as the steering wheel and the accelerator. OK. There is no work of God, so spiritual work of God among the people of God that is not a charismatic act. Without the charisms, the mission of the Church is over.
 
If you want the mission of men – good luck to you.
If you want the mission of God, you must have the charisms.
So we must pray for a revelation of absolute conviction that the charisms are non-negotiable.
 
Second Key. Bigger Vision. Bigger vision. Say that back to me. Bigger vision. We are getting little because our vision is little. You see small vision gives us small prayers and small prayers give us small answers. If you have a big vision then you pray big prayers. When you pray big prayers you get big answers. Amen? (Clapping)
 
Third Key: Faith. How many of you believe that miracles are happening in God's Church today? Hands up if you believe in miracles, in miracles happening in God's Church today. Now keep your hand up if you are performing miracles regularly. Ohhhh. So what's going wrong? You have faith that miracles can happen and you wonder why they are not happening. People come to me and say, 'Damian, I believe miracles can happen today but when I pray with people I am not seeing any miracles. What's going wrong?'
 
I tell you, it's very simple. Believing that miracles can happen today is an assent of the mind only. An understanding only in the brain. But the faith that makes miracles is an empowering of the Spirit and we have to pray each of us that God will give us the faith that empowers the Spirit to miracles. In my opinion this is the one single biggest confusion about the power of God in the charismatic renewal in the world. We thought that if we knew it, we had it. But as the Catechism of the Catholic Church says, we must beg the Lord to increase our faith.
 
Feed your faith. If you want to grow in the charisms, feed your faith. If you want to grow in the charisms, you must feed your faith. Read books about miracles, watch videos about Christian miracle ministries, listen to testimonies. Get alongside people who are seeing more than you are. Because often the experience is that faith is caught. You catch it from being close to it.
 
You know, if I want to see more miracles in an area of my ministry, like if I wanted to see more blind people healed, then I read and read repeatedly stories about the blind being healed, until my mind is full of the vision of the blind being healed. Then I pray and I pray until my spirit agrees with my mind. And then when I tell the blind eyes to open, the blind eyes are opening.
 
The same with the deaf and the lame. The same with cancers and tumours. I have seen tumours the size of my fist disappearing in 5 minutes. And I saw a man with a tumour like this (coming out from the area between the ear and the shoulder and sizeable) and I said, 'God, we've got to see victory over that!'. So I started reading stories of saints and early pentecostals who saw huge tumours disappearing and then I prayed and I prayed for that. Since that time I've seen tumours the size of your head disappearing in 5 minutes.
 
At one of our services 51 people, 51 people after the word of command to cancers and tumours to vanish, their cancers or tumours shrank, shrank or disappeared completely. There is always, there is always more. If you are here (below the knee), pray to  be here (above the knee); if you are here (above the knee) pray to be here (hip); if you are here (hip) pray to be here (shoulder); if you are here (shoulder), pray to be here (head); if you are here (head), pray to be there (above your head).
 
Fourth Key. Prayer and Fasting. We've got to become more holy. It is nearly impossible to become holy unless you are praying deeply. You see, people will not fall in love with Jesus if they only see His hand. They must also see His face. They will fall in love with Him if they see His character revealed in us when they see His hand.
 
Fifth Key: Purity. St Paul says, if you want to be used as vessels of silver and gold in the house of God you must purify. If we want that, Paul says we must purify ourselves from the impurities of the world. Don’t expect the privileges of the kingdom if you are playing with sin in the film, the television, in the internet, in the kind of music you listen to. You cannot be friends with the world and expect the supernatural anointing of the New Testament.
 
Sixth Key: Family. If we don’t put first in our lives what God has put first in our lives our ministries will lead to misery. Our ministries will lead to misery. What is it that you evangelise the whole world and your children go to hell? Jesus says there are those who take what should have been given to their parents and offer it to God and call it korban, so that they do not have to give it to their families. Many of us charismatics, we have done that with our time, our energy and our affection. We ran away from the duties of love in our family because we wanted to have a big ministry. Let me tell you. You put your family first, God will put your ministry first. Since my children were tiny, I'm a very busy man. I have 2 children. I spent an hour playing with each of my children every day of their lives since they were 2 years old. Playing, loving, saying 'you first'. After Jesus, you are my first mission. So when I go away, my children bless me and send me. Now they are both radically on fire for Jesus and both of them are performing miracles. Actually they have been performing miracles since they were little children.
 
Seventh Key: Humility. What can I say about humility? Yes, we're not very good at it. OK. There is no way in to humility, except begging for it, and letting your good friends tell you your sins and thanking them when they do. You see, love demands that I beg for humility because if I do not beg for humility God can't trust me with the glory. The quickest way into the glory is through the door of humility.
 
Eighth Key: Love. Make love your aim and earnestly desire the spiritual gifts. We desire the spiritual gifts for one reason, because we are aiming for love. Because I want to love like Jesus loved. And I want to tell you that if I had the gift of miracles I would be so happy. I can tell you from experience, miracles don't make you happy, love makes you happy. I could heal everybody in this church, but if I don't love any of you what joy would it give me? So when you are pursuing the gifts, pursue them for love. God's word says this: Earnestly desire the spiritual gifts. And if God's word is saying 'Earnestly desire the spiritual gifts' it must be that God is earnestly desiring to pour them out. God has a bowl of gifts tipped to the brim in heaven, just waiting for your faith.
 
So we are going to see some of the gifts now. We have been seeing lots of people being healed by getting the congregation to proclaim Jesus is Alive. Even big healings. How many of you here have got something wrong with your body? Put your hand up. The power of the name of Jesus has overthrown the power of hell. If you would believe that Jesus can heal you now when we make this declaration many of you will be healed in this church in the next few minutes. Say Amen if you believe that. OK. I'm going to break you up into 4 groups, 1, 2, 3, 4. When I point to your group, you stand up and you declare with your arms stretched, with the top of your voice and all of your faith, 'Jesus is Alive'. OK. And as you do. As you do many of you are going to be healed. And we will ask you afterwards – 'Who has been healed?'
 
This is not a game. When you say the name of Jesus with faith, the power of the kingdom is detonated. Are you ready? (It begins…a holy competition of proclaiming Jesus...can you do better than this?).
 
Now those of you who have something wrong with your bodies, try and move it now. If you had healing in your body, wave your hands at me. (He stopped counting at 18, but there were more). Alleluia. Jesus is Alive!
 
Questions and Answers
 
Q. When you talked about family first, then you will do God's will for you, right? But at which level do you put family first when you decide what you will do for your whole life, when maybe family does not approve it, in terms of vocation?
 
DS: If you are obedient to God, this is the way to love your family. But each day I am called to radical love, and if I want to inherit the land, if you want to take back your countries, what is the promise? Those who honour their father and mother will take the land. If we love our families, this doesn't mean to disobey the radical call of Jesus. It is a matter of working out priorities of time and not running away from our duties to do something a little bit more exciting. So I could go away every weekend of every year but while I have small children I made the decision to only go away once a month. And this purchased the loyalty of my children to Jesus. And in our community every child who is old enough to join our community has chosen to join the community because the community's discipline about family gave them brilliant parents. Do you understand what I am saying? Did I answer your question?
 
Q. Yes, but you talked as a parent. You already chose to be a parent. But when you haven't yet made that decision, how does family fit in?
 
DS: In your situation you must discern your calling with Jesus. Even if you are called to be a hermit, you never turn your back on your parents. So there is no vocation that says my parents matter nothing to me. Even if you are called to be a missionary on the other side of the world. Do you understand? OK.
 
Q. What should I do if in my family or community, if criticism starts?
 
Fr D: We must talk about Christ, as the centre of our lives. We have to be witnesses of Jesus Christ.
 
Q. When we pray for the healing of the people, how can we distinguish the leading of the Spirit?
 
Fr D: I believe the answer is when Jesus Christ healed our blind. Jesus asked the blind, 'Can you see?' 'Yes, I can see, but it is not clear, like trees walking'. So like Jesus, I have to pray a bit more. If Jesus had to pray twice for the blind, maybe you and I have to pray more, maybe 20 times, maybe 200 times. Maybe Jesus is also testing them. Remember Jesus also said to the blind, go and wash in the pool of Siloam – then we can see that Jesus put a test to the people, to see the faith of the people. I believe that we cannot be worried if the healing is now, tomorrow or afterwards. The most important thing is to pray, and God will do what He thinks is right, today, tomorrow or afterwards.
 
Q. Christ will see what is inside us, but sometimes we can have inside what is coming from outside, eg from curse or witchcraft.
 
Fr D: My experience is that I believe that Christ wants us healed from inside to outside. These are all the physical disease. But there are also the spiritual illness that are hate, fear, remorse and (something that wasn't translated). Difficult to explain, The priest sees many illness caused by external means like witchcraft. That's why it is very important to make a diagnosis. To do a diagnosis like a doctor does. The doctor will ask you questions, date of birth, family medical history and other information, and finally he will give you an answer, a medication or specific recommendation. Is it physical or spiritual? Possible causes of it. There can be many obstacles inside us, and when we pray away the obstacles, the healing happens. God can do it in a greater way, here and now, physically cured. It is very common to cure physical illness, but there are many that we cannot see – because if you hate someone you cannot see it.
 
We don’t have time to give the testimony of many of you. But I would like to see who has a medical brace because you couldn't move without needing this brace. You are here. The woman came forward and showed how freely she was moving.
 
Jesus is Alive. Jesus is Alive. We need to sing that Jesus is Alive.
..................................................................................
​An edited 4 x A4 PDF version of these talks is given below:

From many sources there is a prophetic expectancy that God will move in great power very soon. But He cannot do that unless we do our part and go deeper in our prayer, our trust and our surrender to Him. This talk of Damian Stayne gives very practical ways of doing this essential preparation for co-operating in what God wants to do supernaturally in our world.

​This Pentecost, 4 Jun 2017, is going to be an extraordinary one. Read the long version of why here. The short version is that this year marks 100 years since Fatima, 50 years since the start of the Catholic Charismatic Renewal, 120 years since the Pentecost Novena requested by Leo XIII began, 1950 years since the martyrdoms of St Peter and St Paul, and it is within the time frame of the Azuza Street prophecies.
 
If, as believers in Jesus, we are going to take back the strongholds of the enemy, then we need a massive outpouring of the power and gifts of the Holy Spirit. Nothing less can bring lasting change, but we have to do our part and go deeper in our relationship with God, and call out to Him for the gift of the Holy Spirit from the deepest places of our hearts and recognition of our need for Him.
 
It is a lot easier to do that together, than it is to do it on our own. So let's pray this Pentecost.
 
What do we pray for? Our deepest need is for charisms of preaching and teaching. When someone preaches under the charism of preaching, we forget who the preacher is because he has made Jesus real for us and we are enabled to focus on Jesus and our hearts are touched by Him. This is something far beyond any natural gift of rhetoric. When someone teaches under the charism of teaching, we feel that it is Jesus Himself teaching us. This brings about an infusion of divine understanding in students and is far beyond any natural gifts of teaching.
 
Why do we pray? Can you think of the last time any preaching or teaching 'cut you to the heart' cf Acts 2:37? Or made you feel that God was talking directly into your heart? How often do we make our way home unmoved by what we have heard and unable to recall it even a day later? Without these precious charisms of the Holy Spirit we cannot extend the Kingdom of God. Paraphrasing Romans 10:14-17: Faith comes from what is preached and taught, and since people cannot begin to believe in Jesus unless they have heard of Him, and they won't hear of Him unless a preacher or teacher is sent, we profoundly need the Holy Spirit to empower and send us. For this the Holy Spirit needs willing helpers, and the gauge of how willing we are is the depth of our prayer and asking.
 
What matters is that Jesus is preached, and that Jesus is taught. Believers of any denomination or non-denomination can agree with that. There are people that the Baptists can reach that the Anglicans cannot, and vice versa. There are people that the Presbyterians and Uniting Churches can reach that the Catholics cannot, and vice versa. But together we can unite in praying for these charisms of the Holy Spirit for us all.

When: Sunday 4 June 2017. Formal prayers from 1pm-2pm. Informal prayers from 2pm onwards.
Where: St John the Baptist Catholic Church, Woy Woy, NSW (wheelchair accessible)
Who should come? Everyone, but especially those with a ministry of preaching or teaching, and those who regularly intercede for others in their prayers: That's priests, deacons and pastors, catechists, Sunday School teachers, Kids Club teachers, Children's Liturgy teachers, primary and secondary Scripture class teachers, those who prepare children and adults to receive sacraments, those who teach newcomers and those who help adults grow in faith. If you long to be used more powerfully by God to bring people to Jesus through your regular preaching or teaching, come!
I want to come, but I am unable? Find a friend who is coming, and give them a photograph of yourself to bring with them. They will act as proxy for you.

So that there is no visible confusion between preachers and teachers, we ask that priests, deacons and pastors wear some visible sign of their office eg, clerical collar, metal crosses on lapels of shirts etc

Please use #Letuspray2017 when you spread the news about this on social media.

Here's an A4 flyer to print and share:

And here's an 8 A4 page PDF of the Formal Prayers that will be used:

​And a larger print version of them (11 A4 pages):

Print them off, and consider praying some of these prayers daily in preparation for Pentecost Sunday.
 
PS. If you live more than 100kms away, you have full permission to use the same PDFs to host a Let Us Pray 2017 in your own region as long as you 1) try to make it as ecumenical as possible and 2) do the right thing with regard to music licensing.
 
Now some of the hymns that we will use may be unfamiliar to you. Most have been chosen because they have been used by centuries of Christians before us. When we pray and sing these ancient hymns in a sense we truly pray and sing with those generations of believers who have prayed and sung them before us. So here are some recordings to listen to:
 
Veni Creator Spiritus
http://gregorian-chant-hymns.com/hymns-2/veni-creator-spiritus.html or
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VnUJWDEQDW4
 
Come Holy Ghost, Creator Come
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VSsQ8lfgF2M
 
Litany of the Saints, John D. Becker
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kId0NBvNiCk
 
Our Father (this version is sung very flat, but I couldn't find one closer to how it is actually sung)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3-QNZHL6gR8
This version is close, too, but it has a few extra notes and differences in syllable emphasis to how it is actually sung
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=egar8MKQrUA
 
Sub Tuum Paesidium (although it is odds on we will say and not sing this one)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ws2b7-6OmZ8
 
Magnificat – Amazing Grace tune
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MQjrrwoflEk
 
Holy God we praise Thy Name
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TVBQYnfkiBM
 
God can do it again
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PYPAcEDYNjU   (a bit flat)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mwo5zLP0Pek  (a big high)

​Frequently asked questions
 
Will someone who is uncertain about the whole charismatic thing feel comfortable?
During the formal hour of prayer from 1pm-2pm there will be nothing overtly charismatic. The closest we will come is during the prayers for various groups of preachers and teachers. At that time those present will be invited to pray in unison using English or any other language. For some people it is more comfortable to pray in their native language or in a prayer language.
From 2pm onwards - which is optional - we will try our best to respond to the promptings of the Holy Spirit and be open to any charismatic gifts.
 
Haven't I already received the Holy Spirit in Baptism, Confirmation (and if applicable Holy Orders)?
You have indeed received Him in those sacraments. No question about that. The question is not how much you possess the Holy Spirit, but how much does the Holy Spirit possess you? How much do we live under His direction and guidance? We can always grow in greater responsiveness and surrender to Him. The Holy Spirit is always willing to give us fresh gifts to help us grow in holiness and to build up the Kingdom of God Eph 4:11-13. Those gifts have results beyond what is humanly possible Acts 8:4-8. The Holy Spirit acts like a gentleman, and never forces His gifts upon anyone, but we are invited to ask for them. Luke 11:9-13, 1 Cor 12: 31a, 1 Cor 14:1
 
Why the Latin hymn to begin with?
Because when you are serious about calling on the help of the Holy Spirit you dust off the very best bits of your prayer arsenal. This hymn has been used for over a millennium and for the most important occasions. It is part of our shared Christian heritage. But even more than that the melody has a lot to teach us about the respect, adoration, intimacy, longing and reverence with which we should seek the Holy Spirit.
 
What's with asking the saints for prayer?
This is another of those very best bits of your prayer arsenal. It, too, has been prayed in various formats by Christians since at least the late 3rd century, and for the most important occasions. All of us at some time or other have asked our earthly friends to pray for us. If that is OK and normal, surely it is OK to ask our heavenly friends to pray for us. Jesus Himself said, 'For to Him all men are in fact alive'. Luke 20:38b We know that the pleas of the saints expressed by the Spirit are according to the mind of God Rom 8:27b, and surely that is truer for the residents of heaven than for our holy friends on earth. The scriptures teach us that while God can act sovereignly and sometimes does, He prefers to collaborate with us. Take that strange story in Ezekiel 37 about the dry bones as an example. God could have done it all Himself, but he kept giving words to the prophet to say. When in John 12:20-22 the Greeks went to Philip and said, 'We would like to see Jesus', and Philip went and got Andrew, and together they went to Jesus – was the glory of the mediation of Jesus decreased? Of course not! Wasn't Jesus more glorified and honoured this way than if the Greeks had gone to Him directly? Didn't more people share in the good work of bringing people to Jesus? Asking the saints to pray for us and to pray with us is concretely acting upon the belief we share as Christians in the Apostles Creed: 'I believe in the communion of saints'. This particular sung version of the litany of the saints is an easy tune to pick up.
 
Can saints hear prayer? Can they answer prayer?
1 Sam 28 where king Saul decides to consult a medium rather than one of God's prophets. He wants to hear from the deceased Samuel. In the dialogue that follows Samuel knows what is going on (so yes saints can hear prayers) and God has permitted him to bring an answer to Saul (albeit one that Saul doesn't want to hear). Matt 25:21 'You have been faithful over a little; I will set you over much' is a promise fulfilled on earth and in heaven. There are far too many Christian shrines dotted over the world with the testimony of crutches and other aids left behind when people were healed to deny that saints hear prayer. They hear our prayers just like any true friend would, they add their prayers to ours and take them together to God on our behalf, and when God permits they have a role in delivering God's answer back to us. Does it make you happy when your good friend gets honoured? Then why is it so hard to understand that it makes God happy when we honour His best friends? Is it hard to believe that it delights God to see His friends, earthly and heavenly, working together for the good of His Kingdom? Any honour we show them redoubles to God's glory, because God is the source and origin of their holiness.
 
Is the presence and intercession of Mary important?
Without her 'Yes' to God, Jesus would not have become incarnate for us. When it comes to collaborating in the works of grace, the mother of Jesus has no equal. She was there at the foot of the Cross of her Son when He entrusted all of the disciples He loves to her maternal care John 19:26-27. Who else but the woman overshadowed by the Holy Spirit in Luke 1:35 can best teach the believers in the Upper Room awaiting the promised Advocate about Him? Would the Holy Spirit do anything important without collaborating with His spouse? We take Jesus for our model. We know that He kept the commandments perfectly, and He kept the commandment to honour His mother. We honour her because Jesus honoured her first. He chose to involve her in all the most important parts of His life, and all of the most ordinary and hidden parts of His life too. With this example, how can we do otherwise? If God Himself wanted Mary at conception and birth of His Son, He also wanted her at the conception and birth of the Church, His body, the body of Christ. How then could we fail to take this Godly hint to invoke her presence and intercession at crucial times in the life of the Church?

What is a charism? Why would you want any?
A charism is a free supernatural gift from God for the building up of the kingdom of God on earth. Eph 4: 7,11-12. Think of the difference between a hand held paper fan and an electric powered fan as an analogy between a natural gift and a supernatural gift. Both move the air around to make it feel cooler. The hand held paper fan has a limited range, and eventually your hand tires and you stop and rest. It does a good job for the one or two people within its range, but there will eventually be burn-out. The electric powered fan is plugged into a power source (the Holy Spirit) and switched on by prayer and consent. It can cool down a whole room, will not burn-out and the amount of power released is proportional to how surrendered our lives are to God – we can set it to low, medium or high depending on our surrender and co-operation with God's grace. Our free will is never compromised, we always have the choice to decrease the power, switch off, and unplug. When a charism is operating people see Jesus in action, and hearts are changed.
 
Maybe a story will help:
St Vincent Ferrer lived in Spain between 1350 and 1419. He became a priest of the Dominican Order. He had a special God-given charism of preaching. Many people were converted to God just by listening to him preach. St Vincent counted on God. He also asked for the prayers and penance of many people for the success of his sermons. He knew it was not his words or his talents that won people over. That is why he prayed before every sermon. But one day, when he knew that a very important person was going to listen to him, he worked harder than usual on his sermon. He ran out of time to pray. This sermon which he had prepared so carefully did not affect the nobleman much at all. God let that happen to teach Vincent not to count on himself. Another time, this same important person came to listen to Fr Ferrer preach. But this time the priest did not know it. He prayed and counted on God as usual. The nobleman listened to the sermon and was greatly impressed by what he heard. The nobleman explained it like this: ‘In the first sermon it was Vincent who preached. In the second sermon, it was Jesus Christ.’ From 'Saints for Young Readers' Volume 1, April 5
 
Is it OK to feel excited and scared at the same time?
Yes. God is very generous with His gifts, but He never ever forces them on anyone. Having a charism doesn't mean you are holy, but it can be a means to help you grow in holiness. Many of them only operate when God wants them to.
 
Do you have to have experienced 'the baptism in the Spirit' to have charisms operate?
No. Sacramental baptism or the desire for sacramental baptism is sufficient, together with a desire to bring people to Jesus and the desire to respond to the gentle promptings of the Holy Spirit. Often it feels like St Peter felt when Jesus said, 'Come' and invited him to get out of the boat and walk across the water in Matthew 14: excited and scared at the same time, but trusting in the One who says, 'Come'. There is an argument that Joel 3:1/Acts 2:17 implies that the promise to pour out the Holy Spirit on all mankind covers the non-baptised as well. At the same time it must be acknowledged that the asking and yielding/surrendering to the Holy Spirit that are part of the baptism in the Spirit experience have frequently been responded to by God with the outpouring of charisms.
 
So I don't have to worry about turning into a raving loony if I ask God to give me the gifts needed for me to serve Him better and be more effective at bringing people into His kingdom?
That's right. You will still be you, just more supernaturally equipped for ministry. And you will still need to do your part to provide the raw material for God to collaborate with (ie prayer, study, preparation of lessons and/or homilies, and seeking holiness). 

Let's dream for a minute about what a diocese would look like if each of its priests was in a place of ministry that played to their strengths. Less burnout. More joy. More effectiveness.
 
This is possible.

It no longer has to be a 'seat of the pants, gut feel, let's hope the Holy Spirit is inspiring our choices' set of decisions. It will still require prayer, and pondering, and skill, but the chances of getting the right match of priest to place of ministry are dramatically higher with the following tools.
 
…However you will still have to take into account musical and artistic ability, relevant hobbies, and attempt to match priests to socio-economic areas that they can relate to.
 
First Tool: Clifton StrengthsFinder – Catholic Edition. If you know the top 5 signature themes of your priests you will make better decisions. Think of them as transferable skill sets. 
 
Second Tool: Strengths based Leadership. The 34 possible signature themes can be split into 4 domains, Executing, Influencing, Relationship building and Strategic thinking. If all 4 areas are covered by a leadership team, then the place is going to hum. If one or more domain area is missing, the blind-spot areas will reduce effectiveness and cause troubles. For example, if you have two priests in a parish and neither of them has people skills (relationship building skills) attendance at Sunday Mass will fall and complaints to the bishop will increase.
 
Third Tool: Knowing how parish size impacts on the gifts the pastor in leadership needs to be effective. This gem was highly recommended by Fr Mallon in Divine Renovation. It is 14.5 pages long, but its implications are huge. A small parish will thrive with a pastor in leadership who is high in relationship building skills. A medium size parish needs a pastor in leadership with administration skills, who can do a bit of everything domain-wise. A large church needs a pastor in leadership with a drive for vision and mission, who will focus on preaching and strategy and do very little individual pastoral ministry. A very large church requires more of the same, with an emphasis on articulating vision.
 
This will make sense if we look at some mythical examples.

I grabbed a random number generator and found 5 numbers between 1 and 34, and then matched the numbers to the 34 signature themes in alphabetical order. This produced mythical priests A, B, C and D.
 
Mythical Priest A:
Harmony/R, Analytical/S, Empathy/R, Individualization/R, Developer/R
That's 4 themes in Relationship building. If this priest had to take charge of a parish, for both to thrive it would need to be a small one.
Empathy is the number one skill needed to be effective in pastoral care.
​Empathy plus Harmony means you would shine in hospital based pastoral care.
But this person has even more than that. He'd be absolutely in his element in prison ministry, and ministering to those with addictions or dealing with domestic abuse victims.
If you trained him up to spot the 34 themes, he would be brilliant at getting parishioners into the ministries that God made them for.
 
Mythical Priest B:
Belief/E, Responsibility/E, Strategic/S, Communication/I, Command/I
That's no people skills, but a powerful leader who could take on a large complex parish.
Sadly without the people skills he's not likely to ever get a pointy hat.
He would be a very good preacher. However dissuading him from erroneous beliefs would not be easy, so it would be important to give him good formation from people he can respect.
Belief, Command and Strategic are the building blocks for a good exorcist, so it would be worthwhile sending him to exorcist school in Rome to test whether he is called to that ministry.

Putting Priest A together with Priest B as an assistant would cover all 4 domains, and they could bond over analysis and strategy. They could make a very effective team, as long as it was explained to both of them that they were chosen to complement each other, and how they could best connect with each other.
 
Mythical Priest C:
Discipline/E, Connectedness/R, Learner/S, Communication/I, Maximiser/I
If this person wasn't a priest he would have the raw material to be a best-selling author.
Having a foot in all 4 domains he could lead a medium parish.
However he would shine as a faculty member of a seminary, and could write a book a year. The rhythm of seminary life would suit him, students would enjoy listening to him, he'd be the one to keep the Old Boys union going and maintain contact with past students, he'd be very good at social media, and his desire to learn would fuel the next book while the maximiser will ensure it will be full of excellence.
He has the raw material to become the next Fr James Martin SJ.
 
Mythical Priest D:
Includer/R, Maximiser/I, Analytical/S, Activator/I, Restorative/E
Having a foot in all 4 domains, he could lead a medium parish too.
But if you really wanted him to shine, you would send him into broken parishes to get them on their feet again. He'd analyze the root causes, delight in the hard work needed to make the healing happen, get parishioners involved in the process, get started quickly and enthuse people to aim for excellence and show how possible it was to achieve. It is possible that he would be frustrated in any assistant priest role, because he needs to make things happen
 
Do you agree that if these priests were given places of ministry like these, that the mythical diocese they belong to would be a couple of steps down the road from maintenance to mission?
 
Conversely, can you imagine the disaster if you sent mythical priest B as parish priest of a small parish?

​For a print friendly version....

Workshop 2D – The Joy of Love: Evangelising Parishes though the Family and the Couple.

This workshop was led by Francine and Byron Pirola, directors of the Marriage Resource Centre. For 28 years they have been married, and have been blessed with 5 children and an international ministry.

You can follow them under Smart Loving MRC on Facebook and Twitter.

Thank you for coming to this workshop. Why did you choose us?
•We want more for the families doing baptismal preparation, to help plug them into parish life
•We belong to Teams of Our Lady, and are looking for more input
•The topic of the Joy of Love was enough to get me here
•I have a young family, and I'm feeling alone
•Our parish has lots of young families
•Family is the domestic church, so family is crucial
•I'm looking for tips on how to help 3 adults in my life to choose Jesus
•I want to know how to improve on 42 years of marriage
•I want to find out how to engage the families who only seem to show up for sacraments and are never seen again.

In this workshop we'd like to achieve 3 things:
•Give you a fresh mindset for family and parish
•Reflect on Pope Francis' post-synodal apostolic exhortation Amoris Laetitia
•Get practical with ideas for what you can actually do in a parish
Family as a force for Evangelisation

Gifts vs Needs.
We can choose to see the families in our parishes as gifts and resources, and not as consumers of resources. The charity model breeds dependency and encourages people to say, 'What's in it for me?'. We have grown up seeing ourselves as consumers, rather than seeing ourselves as co-responsible for the mission of the Church.

'What's in it for me?' thinking actually encourages criticism and comparative evaluation. We can't win that kind of competition. The lure of the beach or the sleep-in eventually wins out.

We need to see families as agents for evangelisation. This requires lay leadership. Inspired by priests, supported by religious, - but done by laity. For this shift in thinking to happen, we have to start searching for the gifts.

Families evangelise in the ordinary
•They disciple their children, and pass on the faith to them
•They disciple the friends of their children, and the families they come from
•They give hospitality and welcome

Our family homes contain the expression of our faith as the domestic church. Somehow we seem to have forgotten the impact of opening up our homes and have got into the thinking that our homes are not good enough and that everything has to take place in parish meeting rooms. Why is it that we seem to have lost the art of hospitality? Let's start seeing our homes once more as places for evangelisation.

When we go to a zoo, we see the giraffes and lions in artificial environments. It is only when you go on safari that you get to see them in their natural environments. The way we experience those animals and the way we relate to them in those environments is completely different. In the same way, a parish meeting room or gathering area is an artificial environment for experiencing and relating to family life.

In our homes, every day, there are at least a dozen evangelising opportunities: tradesmen, postman, passers-by while gardening, children, relatives, phone calls etc.

A friend of ours who believes in the sacrament of marriage has a dream. He'd like to stand at the door of the church on Sunday mornings and ask each married couple how they would rate their passion for each other on a scale of 0 to 10. For anything less than an 8, he would send them home to the bedroom to work things out – so they could come back and celebrate Eucharist properly.

With happily married couples in our pews, our churches would be full with the people who want what they can see we have in the joys of married love.

Our primary evangelising unit is the family.

When we go to Mass we sit together, we go up to Communion together, and we are warm and responsive to each other. Just doing this makes us witnesses to God's love in a gentle natural way.

However we do have to stop and remember what we are about. We have to make real choices. I can choose to pick at the faults of my wife every day OR I can be surprised that this wonderful woman is still with me.

The families in our pews are the biggest gift we have.

Amoris Laetitia by Pope Francis
What an extraordinary document! It is not a hard read, but it is a long read.

Pope Francis uses two images of the Church. The first is the Light on the Hill, where truth is emphasised: teaching, doctrine, vision, ideals for holy living. The second is the Field Hospital, where hope is emphasised. A Church that ministers to the wounded, and accompanies them, and embraces the process of gradualism (it will take many steps in the right direction, but we'll take it one step at a time). Imperfect love is still valuable. A field hospital deals with the reality of life as it is.

There is a gap between our ideals (Light on the Hill) and the reality (Field Hospital). There is a gap between teaching and practice. What are our options?
•Change the teaching? No
•Shout it louder? Make it clearer? No
•A third way, according to the call of Pope Francis.

Archbishop Prowse uses the analogy between referee and coach.
Referee: defines the rules, pulls up players when the rules are broken.
Coach: encourages and supports, seeks to help players improve performance.
We need BOTH.

Anyone who has raised a child  - is a skilled evangelist.
That's because they understand that there is a process: Just as there are stages in teaching a child how to cross a road safely there are stages in bringing someone into full relationship with Jesus: 1) Don't cross the road 2) Look right, look left 3) Be careful 4) Go for it. The process works because we take them on a journey, and we share our life with them.

If we really understood the Eucharist, we would crawl on our knees in unworthiness. Yet so many of us look at the Eucharist with the wrong lenses: 'It is a right. I've earned it.' We are worried sick about those who do not understand, but we choose to love them and work with them.

When you hear a homily at Mass on Sunday, are you listening with the ears of criticism or with ears open to being challenged?

Back in the Parish: Practical Tips
It is time to see more married leadership in the Church. It will be good for the couples, and good for the Church because it will utilise the charisms of marriage that don't burn out.

We have to see marriages as evangelising opportunities.

Go looking for the sacramental charisms that come from the sacrament of marriage, and that become operative when the couple is ministering as a couple.

It is no longer the case that just showing up is the right qualification for any kind of ministry.

The gift of charisms is part and parcel of the sacrament of marriage. There is the inner dimension for the couple, and the outer dimension for the Church. The graces are given not just for us as a couple, but for the whole Church as well.

How many married couples are on your parish council? How often do we put individuals into roles of service and not the married couple he or she is part of? It happens because we don't think of the married couple as an evangelising unit. Their sacramental witness of their married love is what makes them God-like – because there the power of the Holy Spirit is active.

When we do things from our own skills and strengths, we burn out. However, if we minister from spiritual and sacramental charisms, we don't burn out.

When we are together, we are nicer together. We pull each other up gently and effectively. For example, if a wife is present at a meeting with her husband, and he is beginning to ramble, by a gesture she can get that message through and acted upon - before the others at the meeting get restless. We are much better people together than individually.

How to find them
Pick busy people, because they are natural leaders. Look for couples that radiate energy, joy and love. Affirm them. Tell these couples that you need them, and why you chose them. 'You have a gift. We need you'.

Don't ask for volunteers. If you do that you won't get the best, you will get people with spare time.

Seek people who are joy-filled. Don't get old grumpy-pants.

Think about picking married couples to lead ministries.

When faced with a choice between couples with the sacramental impact of holiness or couples with secular skills, go for the ones with holiness. You want the ones that make you say, 'They are great to be around', not the ones who make you say, 'I'm so glad I'm not like them'.

Marriage Mission Team
Every parish should have a Marriage Mission Team, who can plan, build and grow the marriage mission.

To begin with you need at least 2 married couples in each parish. No committees and no reports are required. What are needed are eyes that are out and about seeking talent in other married couples: Couples that can recruit other couples as parish mentors for younger couples, and who will continue to affirm and support the recruited couples.

Initiatives can be added. Events for anniversaries, Valentine's Day, Blessings for the Engaged (we need to celebrate them and pray for them).

On average couples spend 30 seconds a day in personal intimate conversation. Aim for 4 minutes a day. The biggest impact is from 0-10% not from 90-100%.

Tell your families in the parish how stunning they are. Tell them.

The best most dramatic results come from marriage preparation that is married couple community based. The resources are there, not just in the couples already in your parish but also the very good married couple community based programs that are available to help them.

Affirm your married couples in their greatness.

Smart Loving is the result of 20 years of work developing parish based marriage preparation courses. This couple to couple mentoring program is now available in an online version, accessible cheaply and easily. The programs for both the engaged and the married are successful in helping them as couples and in engaging them in parish life.

50% of separations happen in the first 5 years of marriage. That's why a safety net for the newly married in their home communities is so desperately needed. Marriage Mission Teams and Smart Loving programs are ways to provide this.

A question was asked about how to deal with the battle of weekend sport and keeping the family unit together for Sunday Mass. The answer was to start small. It really helps finding another family, and working out which Mass both families could go to together.
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My response

This was an eye-opening workshop.

So what are the charisms of marriage, and what should we be looking for?

"Some people have an extraordinary gift of making people feel welcome, at home, and loved. When I was a seminarian, a Catholic family welcomed me and several others from the seminary into their home for fellowship and relaxation each Friday evening. The experience of their home had a significant effect on my life. They welcomed us as if we were Christ and we were all built up in the Spirit as a result. Hospitality flowed from their charism of marriage (see 1 Cor. 7:7) which they regularly nourished and exercised. It was the first time I saw married life with Christ as the centre, lived out as a prophetic sign. Their life together was so radical and open to others that on feast days they could sometimes have up to 22 people around the table basking in the warmth of their home." Marcellino D’Ambrosio 11 May 2016

Unity: The gift of being one in mind, heart and body.
Procreation: The gift of welcoming new life.
Reconciliation: The gift of restoring relationship.
Hospitality: The gift of welcome and belonging.
Nurture: The gift of care and education.
Fidelity: The gift of faithful dedication.
Generosity: The gift of sharing without reserve.
Mercy: The gift of forgiveness.
Friendship: The gift of companionship and encouragement.
http://cathfamily.org/the-charisms-of-marriage/

And it might look like this: (from the same link given above)

Sarah and Henry are passionately committed to growing deeper in intimacy. Following prostrate surgery that left Henry impotent, they persisted in seeking new ways to express their unity. Their joyfulness is contagious.

Michelle and Mark have four children. Their home is an open door for the parish youth who are often found at the family table talking to Michelle and Mark about important life decisions.

John and Barbara are the focal point of their parish community, welcoming people each Sunday by name and serving refreshments afterwards. They are often the first ones people call when there is a pastoral crisis.

But there definitely isn't enough research around into the ways that the Holy Spirit gifts married couples as married couples for the good of the Church. There must be other charisms of marriage that we have yet to discover because we haven't been looking for them, calling them forth and celebrating them.

I do think they are right, and that the time has come to treasure the couples living out the sacrament of marriage among us, to call them forth, and to help them to shine and put their married charisms at the service of the Church's mission to make disciples. They are our very best response to the crazy political ideologies of our day.

Our homes should be the hubs of where the evangelistic action is, with less reliance on the parish office and parish meeting rooms. Romans 12:13b 'You should make hospitality your special care', is a call from God through St Paul that we need to be more responsive to. It is something that I have been doing less of, and that needs to change.

What a difference it would make to the effectiveness of our parishes in bringing people to Jesus if we took seriously 'our primary evangelising unit is the family'!

Big positive changes would happen too if we kept on the lookout for people on whom the Holy Spirit is bestowing charisms (individuals and married couples) and encouraged them to use those special gifts for the good of others.
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Marriage Mission teams sound like a very good, very workable and very fruitful idea to implement in parishes.
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In the next issue will be notes from the keynote speech of Dr Susan Timoney on parish outreach to neighbourhoods.