This is the resource material I had collected for the expected Topics of Controversy for Theme 6. Much of it has to do with the role of women in the Church, which probably deserves a whole theme on its own - although whether it could be done justice in so short a time frame as the Plenary Council has is questionable.

I seem to have collected more in the way of counter arguments to popular thought, than supporting arguments, but that might be a good thing, since some of these counter arguments haven't crossed our minds in decades. 

The resource material should be useful for choosing people to interview and lines of inquiry for research, and providing common language to talk about these ideas.

NB. I have not repeated the relevant material from the pre-requisite reading list which you can find here 

Topics of Controversy

https://www.smh.com.au/opinion/celibacy-isnt-the-cause-of-sexual-abuse-20160725-gqd7g4.html
25 July 2016 Jack Green
This is a very useful article for developing responses to the requests for married clergy as an antidote to child sexual abuse.

https://www.mercatornet.com/above/view/clerical-sex-abuse-in-australia-can-you-believe-the-statistics/19332  
9 Feb 2017  Michael Cook
A rare and detailed look at the Royal Commission's statistics on child sexual abuse in the Catholic Church, showing that it was a much wider problem than priests only. It is actually a family problem, and priests come from families.

https://thembeforeus.com/marriage-isnt-about-god/ 
12 Jun 2017 Katy Faust
Therefore, every community throughout history has wrestled with the same problem: 
How do you require of men what biology makes optional? 
Interestingly, nearly every religion has come up with the same answer: society-wide expectations that a man commit to a woman prior to sex and remain committed to her, and only her, throughout his life. And up until the last ten minutes of history, we have all called this “marriage.”
 
'12 Rules For Life' by Jordan B. Peterson, Rule 11, pages 298-299
'Girls will play boys' games, but boys are much more reluctant to play girls' games. This is in part because it is admirable for a girl to win when competing with a boy. It is also OK for her to lose to a boy. For a boy to beat a girl, however, it is often not OK – and just as often, it is even less OK for him to lose. Imagine that a boy and a girl, aged nine, get into a fight. Just for engaging, the boy is highly suspect. If he wins, he's pathetic. If he loses – well, his life might as well be over. Beat up by a girl.
Girls can win by winning in their own hierarchy – by being good at what girls value, as girls. They can add to this victory by winning in the boys' hierarchy. Boys, however, can only win by winning in the male hierarchy. They will lose status, among girls and boys, by being good at what girls value. It costs them in reputation among the boys, and in attractiveness among the girls. Girls aren't attracted to boys who are their friends, even though they might like them, whatever that means. They are attracted to boys who win status contests with other boys. If you're male, however, you just can't hammer a female as hard as you would a male. Boys can't (won't) play truly competitive games with girls. It isn't clear how they can win. As the game turns into a girls' game, therefore, the boys leave.'
Ed. Have we not seen this in action when female altar servers are permitted to serve?
Could this be one of the many reasons why Israel, Jesus and Catholicism have restricted priesthood to men?
 
https://www.catholiceducation.org/en/culture/other-topics/cultural-climate-change.html
Sep 2017 Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks
This is an acutely perceptive analysis of modern culture, including the following gem:
'Having children or raising them involves enormous sacrifice of time, money, effort and energy. Religious people understand the concept of sacrifice.  We live by it.  It's part of our lives.  But people in a secular, consumerist, individualist culture find it much harder to live by sacrifice.  Nothing in the culture says sacrifice, and throughout history that is the reason why when a culture begins to lose its faith, its birth rate starts to decline.  This is not just happening now.  It has happened throughout history.  It happened in Ancient Greece in the second century BCE.  It happened in Ancient Rome.  It happened in Renaissance Italy.  The people who've done the research say there is no case on record in which a secular society has been able to maintain its birth rates.  Within a century, every society, when it becomes secularised, starts to decline demographically.  So the 21st century is going to be more religious than the 20th century even if not one person changes his or her mind from being non-religious to religious.  It will happen for a simple reason: throughout the world today the more religious you are, the more children you have.' 

https://noplaceforsheep.com/2017/12/17/notes-from-an-expert-survivor/
17 Dec 2017  @noplaceforsheep
The claim that celibacy is an indicator of paedophilia comes about as a result of the Catholic church winning hands down in the numbers of sexual abusers in institutions. People are, quite reasonably, searching for explanations and the most glaring difference between the Catholic church and other institutions is its demand that its priests are celibate. This demand, it is argued, leads to priests sexually abusing children because they have no other outlet for their needs. However. Hundreds of thousands of children are sexually abused in non-institutional settings, and by members of their families and family friends. The overwhelming majority of the male abusers in such situations have access to adult sexual partners, and they are not celibate. It is gravely misleading to peddle the suggestion that celibacy is an indicator of or a precursor to the sexual abuse of children. The Catholic church and its celibacy protocols enable paedophiles to enact their fantasies, however, they do not cause paedophilia.
Likewise, the notion that more women in positions of authority in churches will somehow prevent child sexual abuse is not borne out by the experience of victims in non-institutional and familial settings. There are women aplenty in these settings, mothers, sisters, aunts, cousins, friends, grandmothers, the majority of whom are unable or unwilling, for very many complex reasons, to prevent a child being sexually abused. The notion that parachuting women into middle management in the churches will stop any paedophile in his tracks is insultingly ludicrous. It will not.

https://www.firstthings.com/web-exclusives/2018/04/from-the-heart-of-a-young-father
18 Apr 2018 Archbishop Charles J. Chaput, excerpt from letter by a young father:
'We crave the truth, no matter how blunt or difficult it is for us to swallow or for the shepherds of our flock to teach. Our culture is roiled in confusion concerning the basic tenets of human nature: From a very young age, we’re deluged with propaganda that distorts basic scientific truths about gender, paints virtue and chivalry as “toxic masculinity,” denigrates the family, and desecrates the nature of sex and its fruits, especially the unborn child. We urgently need the Church’s clarity and authoritative guidance on issues like abortion, homosexuality, gender dysphoria, the indissolubility of matrimony, the four last things, and the consequences of contraception (moral, anthropological, and abortifacient). My generation has never, or rarely, heard these truths winsomely taught in the parishes. Instead, we hear most forcefully and frequently from our bishops' conference and our dioceses regarding the federal budget, border policy, net neutrality, gun control, and the environment.'

https://www.patheos.com/blogs/throughcatholiclenses/2018/12/hiding-priestly-misconduct-makes-problems-worse-2-anonymous-priests-share-their-experience/
18 Dec 2018 Fr Matthew L Schneider LC
Excellent analysis on why serious priestly misconduct gets covered up:
'Some time ago, I was in a similar situation and discussed it with a friend who had also found himself tied into an abusive situation in his place of employment. He laughed and said, “You know what? You’ve got only three choices: 1. Tell them exactly what’s wrong. Shout it from the rooftops and demand change and prepare to be crucified 2. Smile, resign and walk away. 3. Accept your lot. Put up and shut up.”'

https://www.pbc2019.org/fileadmin/user_upload/presentations/23feb/23_Feb_3_Valentina_Alazraki_PBC_ING.pdf 
23 Feb 2019 Valentina Alazraki
Her extraordinary analysis:
As a journalist, as a woman and mother, I would like to tell you that we think abusing a minor is as contemptible as is covering up the abuse. And you know better than I that abuses have been covered up systematically, from the ground up. I think you should be aware that the more you cover up, the more you play ostrich, fail to inform the mass media and thus, the faithful and public opinion, the greater the scandal will be. If someone has a tumour, it is not cured by hiding it from one’s family or friends; silence will not make it heal; in the end it will be the most highly recommended treatments that will prevent metastasis and lead to healing. Communicating is a fundamental duty because, if you fail to do so you automatically become complicit with the abusers. By not providing the information that could prevent these people from committing further abuse, you are not giving the children, young people and their families the tools to defend themselves against new crimes.
I think it would be healthier, more positive and more helpful if the Church were the first to provide information, in a proactive and not reactive way, as normally happens. You should not wait to respond to legitimate questions from the press (or from the people, your people) when a journalistic investigation uncovers a case. In the age we live in, it is very difficult to hide a secret…. Report things when you know them. Of course, it will not be pleasant, but it is the only way, if you want us to believe you when you say “from now on we will no longer tolerate cover-ups”.  
If the accusation is shown to be credible, you must provide information about the ongoing processes, about what you are doing; you must say that you have removed the guilty party from his parish or from where he was practicing; you must report it yourselves, both in the dioceses and in the Vatican. At times, the Bulletin of the Holy See Press Office provides information about a resignation without explaining the reasons. There are priests who have gone immediately to inform the faithful that they were ill and not that they were leaving because they had committed abuse. I think that the news about the resignation of a priest who has committed abuse should be released with clarity, in an explicit way.

Excerpt from Instagram post from @jenny-uebbing around 25 Jul 2019
'I actually think it is up to us, the laity, to rise up to meet the biggest challenge facing the Church today: a deep and real understanding of God's plan for our sexuality, and a radical turning away from the toxic sexuality embraced by our culture'.

New book, 'Into the Deep: An unlikely Catholic conversion' by Abigail Rine Fayale
https://www.amazon.com/Into-Deep-Unlikely-Catholic-Conversion/dp/1532605013
And an interview with her about her conversion:
https://www.catholicworldreport.com/2019/07/18/from-evangelicalism-to-feminism-to-catholicism-a-conversation-with-abigail-favale/
Now let me address the second accusation: that Catholicism is patriarchal. I grew up in a patriarchal religious setting, as mentioned above, where the feminine elements of Christianity were more or less blotted out. Feminist Christianity, in many ways, is the inverse twin of this approach; it seeks to root out and upend what is masculine, reading it as marked by domination. The Catholic cosmos, in contrast to both of these, is cosmos of harmonious synergy—masculine and feminine entwined together in fruitful spiritual union. When feminists look at Catholicism from outside, they look through the lens of temporal power, and all they see is a male priesthood and hierarchy, mistakenly thinking that is the Church. They see Mary as a passive, docile symbol, rather than the Mother of God, the representative human being and first Christian, who crushes the serpent underfoot. They see the male priest at the altar and overlook the gathered women who are living icons of Christ’s body and bride, a counterpart to the priestly iconography of the bridegroom. They misinterpret courageous female saints like Hildegard of Bingen and Catherine of Siena as rebels, rather than faithful daughters (and Doctors) of the Church. They disregard completely the profound insights on the question of gender from twentieth-century Catholic writers. I completed a doctorate in contemporary feminist theory and women’s writing and yet never encountered writers like Edith Stein, Prudence Allen, Adrienne von Speyr, Gertrud von le Fort, and John Paul II, because their contributions are completely ignored in the discipline of women’s studies. There, only one kind of conversation is allowed, and it happens in an echo chamber.
I first became a feminist because I was seeking an answer to this question: what is the sacred meaning of womanhood? Ironically, what I found within feminism was deep ambivalence toward the very concept of womanhood. I found a much more compelling answer in Catholicism. I have never had my dignity and purpose as a woman so celebrated and affirmed than under the mantle of Holy Mother Church.

Example of ministry of lay woman, formerly a prisoner in China
https://www.ncronline.org/news/people/once-imprisoned-chinese-woman-now-guides-others-catholic-faith 

https://www.amazon.com/Women-Rise-Up-Fierce-Generation-ebook/dp/B07F3BH55L
This book by Cindy Jacobs is about pathways for women gifted with charisms from God on more-than-ordinary levels and what light scripture gives to those pathways. Not everyone is called on that path, and it comes at a high cost. The method of exegesis used, 'interpret obscure scripture passages in the light of clear scripture passages', is of concern because very few people will agree on what is clear and what is obscure, so treat the conclusions with caution especially conclusions based on the interpretation on the meaning of a single word or name. The safeguarding measures she recommends are very good and of benefit to any woman who travels for speaking engagements.
 
An edited account of Fr Finet's first visit in Feb 1936 to Venerable Marthe Robin
from page 76 of Marthe Robin: The Cross and the Joy by Fr Raymond Peyret
https://www.amazon.com/Marthe-Robin-Cross-Raymond-Peyret/dp/081890464X
'She told me about the great events that were going to take place, some of which would be very bad, others very good. In particular she said there would be a New Pentecost of Love, that the Church would be renewed by an apostolate of the laity, even saying that the laity were going to play a very important role in the Church, many would be called to be Apostles. She said that the Church was going to be totally rejuvenated, and that there would be many methods for formation of the laity, but outstanding among them would be Foyers of Light, Charity and Love. https://www.lesfoyersdecharite.com/en/
 
Edited from the Introduction to 'The Way Home: Beyond Feminism Back to Reality' by Mary Pride https://www.amazon.com/Way-Home-Beyond-Feminism-Reality/dp/1453699309
'Feminism is self-consistent; the Christianity of the 1950s wasn't. Feminists had a plan for women; Christians didn't. Motherhood in the 1950s had been reduced to a five or ten year span, lasting until the youngest of the two or three 'planned' children was in kindergarten. With an empty house full of labour-saving devices and a family which no longer seemed to need her, it was understandable that a woman felt trapped at home. All the action seemed to be out there in the men's world, while she felt bored and useless. The sad truth is that the 'traditional' role which feminists attacked had already lost its scriptural fullness. Christian women were staying home out of habit, not out of conviction. The Christian churches had actually paved the way for feminism to succeed. Denominations endorsed family planning and 'therapeutic' abortion. Church meetings were scheduled for every night of the week, giving out a clear message that family life was unimportant. Ministry was considered more worthwhile than motherhood, as missionaries were expected to leave their children in boarding schools as a matter of course. Church life centred on the church building, not the home. Even in the church building, children were whisked out of sight into the nursery, children's church, and their own Sunday school program. At every turn Christian women found that their biological, economic and social roles were considered worthless. Role obliteration is the coming thing in evangelical, and even fundamentalist, circles. All because two or more generations have grown up and married without ever hearing that the Bible teaches a distinct role for women which is different from that of a man and just as important. We are not called by God to stay home, or to sit at home, but to work at home! Homeworking is a way to take back control of education health care, agriculture, social welfare, business, housing, morality, and evangelism from the faceless institutions to which we have surrendered them. Homeworking, like feminism, is a total lifestyle. The difference is that homeworking produces stable homes, growing churches, and children who are Christian leaders. Every great fire starts with one spark. It is my hope and prayer that this book will be the 'spark' which leads Christian women to fall in love with their families again and to determine to be working wives – in the home!'

And a short excerpt from Chapter 1 of 'The Way Home': The Great Con Game
'What else do the 'biblical' feminists want? Ordination for women, of course – which oddly enough is coupled in their minds with careers for wives. 'If a woman has been called and gifted by God to be a pastor or a priest,' writes Virginia Mollenkott in 'Women, men and the Bible', 'it is a fearful thing for the organised church to block her from that ministry. And if a Christian woman has been called and gifted for some career outside the home, and her husband blocks her by refusing to assist with the care of their mutual home and their mutual children, isn't he frustrating the work of the Holy Spirit?' Mollenkott elsewhere makes it clear that if a husband refuses staunchly to become Mommy's little helper, the wife has a right to make the 'difficult decision' to 'abandon the relationship in search of a more affirming lifestyle.' So careerism justifies divorce of an uncooperative husband. Children, sex roles, biblical church government, and now marriage itself are all targets of the 'harmless' evangelical feminist movement. Stop and think calmly about this for a minute. We are being asked to embrace a lifestyle which unbelievers would have considered perverted only forty years ago. We are being asked to kill our babies, endorse homosexuality, nag our husbands to do our job so we can do theirs – under threat of divorce – and all in the name of Christ!'
 
An excerpt from 'What's Wrong With The World' by G.K.Chesterton, Chapter 3 of Part 2: The Emancipation of Domesticity
https://www.amazon.com/Whats-Wrong-World-G-Chesterton/dp/1533696632
'Supposing it to be conceded that humanity has acted at least not unnaturally in dividing itself into two halves, respectively typifying the ideals of special talent and general sanity (since they are genuinely difficult to combine completely in one mind), it is not difficult to see why the line of cleavage has followed the line of sex, or why the female became the emblem of the universal and the male of the special and superior. Two gigantic facts of nature fixed it thus: first, that the woman who frequently fulfilled her functions literally could not be specially prominent in experiment and adventure; and second, that the same natural operation surrounded her with very young children, who require to be taught not so much anything as everything. Babies need not to be taught a trade, but to be introduced to a world. To put the matter shortly, woman is generally shut up in a house with a human being at a time when he asks all the questions that there are, and some that there aren't. It would be odd if she retained any of the narrowness of a specialist. Now if anyone says that this duty of general enlightenment is in itself too exacting and oppressive, I can understand the view. I can only answer that our race has thought it worthwhile to cast this burden on women in order to keep common-sense in the world. But when people begin to talk about this domestic duty as not merely difficult but trivial and dreary, I simply give up the question. For I cannot with the utmost energy of imagination conceive what they mean. When domesticity is called drudgery, all the difficulty arises from a double meaning in the word. If drudgery only means dreadfully hard work, I admit the woman drudges in the home, as a man might drudge at the Cathedral of Amiens or drudge behind a gun at Trafalgar. But if it means that the hard work is more heavy because it is trifling, colourless and of small import to the soul, then as I say, I give it up; I do not know what the words mean. To be Queen Elizabeth within a definite area, deciding sales, banquets, labours and holidays; to be Whiteley within a certain area, providing toys, boots, sheets, cakes and books, to be Aristotle within a certain area, teaching morals, manners, theology, and hygiene; I can understand how this might exhaust the mind, but I cannot imagine how it could narrow it. How can it be a large career to tell other people's children about the Rule of Three, and a small career to tell one's own children about the universe? How can it be broad to be the same thing to everyone, and narrow to be everything to someone? No; a woman's function is laborious, but because it is gigantic, not because it is minute. I will pity Mrs. Jones for the hugeness of her task; I will never pity her for its smallness.'

.......................................................................................

The next blog-post in this cycle will be the first of two sample answers to questions raised in the submissions to the Listening phase of the Plenary Council for Theme 6: Open to Conversion, Renewal and Reform.
#PlenaryCouncil #PlenaryCouncilTheme6

​At the very end of the cycle I will put it all together in a printer friendly PDF.

​My son and I have been meandering through the hugely enjoyable 'Knight of the Holy Ghost: A short history of G.K.Chesterton' by Dale Ahlquist. So much of what Chesterton wrote is still so fresh and so relevant to our world today. However it was a few lines from Ahlquist's introduction to Chesterton's 'What's Wrong With The World?' that stopped me in my tracks.

You can find them of pages 73-74 of the paper edition:

'What's wrong with the world?'
There are four main things wrong with the world: big government, big business, feminism and public education. Why? Because they all undermine the family, which is the basic unit of society, the thing that must be stable for society to be stable, the thing that must be strong for society to be strong, and the thing that is most under attack in our society today.

What's the solution?
It must be to restore the family to its proper place. We need a family-based economy and a family-based social system, where both state and commerce are subordinate to the family.

So what does this look like? What could it look like?

A starting point is Abraham. Even further back we recall that in Genesis, marriage and family is God's idea: God's plan. God took Abraham and tested him many times before beginning a family through him that would become a nation: a nation unique in the world, because it is a single family and structured on family.

When Israel left Egypt, the 12 tribes marched tribe by tribe in order. Each tribe had its designated position when they camped. Each tribe was subdivided into clans, and each tribe and clan had a leader who could speak for the whole tribe or for the whole clan. When they went into battle, they went into battle as family groups co-ordinated together these leaders.

It took WW1 for the British to re-discover that the battalions composed of 'pals' from the same region achieved more and had fewer casualties that battalions composed of people who were initially strangers to each other. https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p06d87pz

Even centuries later at the return from Exile, Nehemiah excluded anyone who could not prove membership of a clan. The vast majority could do this, which is impressive indeed, and shows that descent from a great-grandson of Abraham was a source of pride, value and identity. It also shows the lengths they went to keep meticulous records. All the so called 'boring bits' in scripture listing genealogies upon genealogies proclaims that God is faithful to the promise He made to Abraham, and these are the ongoing witnesses to God's faithfulness to that promise.

This gets even more interesting when it comes to the Levites, where even choirs and gate keepers are according to the membership of a particular family line. Traits and giftings of talent run through family lines like a pulse. Watch a few episodes of 'Who Do You Think You Are?' if you need to be convinced.

Even ancient cultures knew this:
https://www.enhancetv.com.au/video/who-do-you-think-you-are-charlie-teo/50588
In ancient China families had centres for ancestor worship that kept records of family membership. Families that consistently produced outstanding warriors, administrators etc were given plaques of official recognition by the emperor. Charlie Teo is a case study for saying that they still are.

If you are still not convinced that family matters to God, recall the immediate preparation God did in Israel before Jesus began His public ministry. The angel that visited Zechariah before John the Baptist was even conceived had this to prophesy about John's ministry: 'He will bring back many of the sons of Israel to the Lord their God. With the spirit and power of Elijah, he will go before him to turn the hearts of fathers towards their children and the disobedient back to the wisdom that the virtuous have, preparing for the Lord a people fit for Him.' Luke 1:16:17

Which in turn is a reference to Malachi 3:23-24, the last verses of the Old Testament, 'Know that I am going to send you Elijah the prophet before My day comes, that great and terrible day. He shall turn the hearts of fathers towards their children and the hearts of children towards their fathers, lest I come and strike the land with a curse.'

This then, is the kind of preparation for a major move of grace that matters. Restoring family relationships is the key, par excellence, to opening up hearts to receive the Gospel.

Should you need further convincing, recall that the 4th Commandment is to honour your father and your mother. In God's economy it is more important than the 5th Commandment, you shall not kill, and the rest of the 10.

Family matters. Family matters greatly to God.

When you look after what matters to God then blessings flow. Read about the positive impact that pro-family policies are having in Hungary: https://catholicherald.co.uk/dailyherald/2019/04/25/the-west-can-learn-a-lot-from-hungarys-pro-family-policies/
https://cruxnow.com/church-in-europe/2019/03/26/hungarian-minister-convinced-pro-family-outcomes-are-linked-to-policy/
https://www.christianpost.com/news/make-families-great-again-hungary-seeing-more-babies-less-abortions-through-pro-family-policies.html

If we are serious about being a Church 'Open to Conversion, Renewal and Reform', then explicitly pro-family initiatives have to be a part of that, especially initiatives that help estranged family members be reconciled with each other.

Yet, at the moment, when it comes to the majority of Plenary Council submissions that fall under the 'Open to Conversion, Renewal and Reform' theme (a.k.a. Theme 6), anything to do with family is barely on the radar.

This is the theme most likely to have to address the child abuse scandals. However the focus has been on its clerical manifestations, when it isn't a church issue as much as it is a family issue. If you go back and look at the origins of a perpetrator's abuse, in many cases the perpetrator was himself or herself abused by a relative, and some in a chain going back generations. Unless with God's grace we are able to out-root the evil at the family level, we cannot hope to remove it from the clergy level.

Family is far more important to God and His purposes than we can even begin to imagine. Chesterton saw that over 100 years ago. Maybe reading 'What's Wrong With The World' will help us begin to comprehend that.
​
#PlenaryCouncil #PlenaryCouncilTheme6

Because this testimony of Laurie's contains so many important things, it deserves its own blog-post. This was the testimony given prior to the morning plenary session at the 2016 Divine Renovation Conference #DR16.

​As usual, this is an imperfect transcription.

Music lyrics:
'Jesus, let Your kingdom come here, King of heaven, come now.'
'O our Lord, how majestic is Your Name in all the earth…We behold…Your Name is a light in the darkness'.

Testimony
Fr James Mallon (FJM): We want to take a few minutes this morning to introduce to you another parishioner. Let's give Laurie some welcome. Where were you 5 years ago?

Laurie* (L): I was not on any spiritual journey 5 years ago. I was a cradle Catholic and had fallen away from my faith in my early 20s.    (*The spelling of this name could be incorrect. If so, my apologies.)

FJM: So how come you are now standing in front of 600 people? We had 2000 views on Livestream from yesterday morning. So there's a lot of people watching out there as well. Let's give them a wave. (they wave to the viewers) So that didn't make you nervous at all?

L: I'd do anything for Fr James. That's true.

FJM: So what happened? What was the beginning of your journey?

L: I had a very tragic marriage that ended in divorce. I am the mother of 2 beautiful children, a son 17 and a daughter 12. I'd done all the secular things to try and heal from my divorce. I went to counselling and I sought other relationships. None of these things worked. I actually woke up one morning at my boyfriend's home and I walked into the living room and I was hit so quick that I knew that I had to find God. I ended the relationship from that moment and I went on a search for God, and the only place I really knew to find God was in the church. I didn't really want to come back to the Catholic Church because I was divorced. I could never reconcile being divorced and Catholic. So I sought out a couple of non-denominationals and they were very nice, but didn't seem right to me. So I spoke to a co-worker and said, 'You know, this church search is not going so well' and her parents were members of this parish, and she said, 'You know, you should really try St Benedicts', they have a young progressive priest'. That was 5 years ago.

FJM: I was reacting to being called a progressive. We aim to be very traditional here, you know like apostolic traditional right?

L: So I decided to come to Mass one day. I could not tell you what happened that day except for when I came into this church I was given a huge sense of peace and just sat in the pew and sobbed my eyes out. I did that for about 2 months. I did not reach out to anyone in the parish, I came in and left. And finally I knew God wanted me to do this for my children – and I really, really had no idea how to do this. The only minister my children knew was the Prime Minister. So anyways, this is when I reached out to someone and asked about how to get my daughter baptised. This came with huge shame and guilt because I never baptised my daughter. So someone from the baptismal committee called me and she loved me on that phone. She did not judge me, she was just so full of joy and said, 'I cannot wait to tell Fr James this story' and we made arrangements to meet, and of course I was scared to death to meet a priest. And again, praise the Lord, Fr James was the same, he just loved me, he did not judge me, he gave me 3 directions, and he said, 'Laurie, I want you to start taking the kids to Mass (1), put your son in youth group (2) and your daughter in catechism class (3), (at that point he was 12 and she was 8), and I promise you God will do the rest': and, He has.

FJM: So what was the next step after that?

L: So my children received the sacraments, and during that year my daughter was baptised and my son received his first Holy Communion, they did it together. That was very special. My son joined the youth group and he as well was loved by the youth ministers and had a powerful experience of the Holy Spirit through a youth minister. And we just became active members in the parish, and the parish just loved us. Eventually, due to a lot of talk about Alpha in the parish and the encouragement of my priest, I did take Alpha and had a powerful experience of the Holy Spirit on the retreat weekend, and again the profound thing for me during my Alpha experience was being loved by the table helper. My table host was pretty cool, (Ron Huntley), but the table helper loved me, and that just made me want to come back.

FJM: So after Alpha, what kind of impact did that have on your life?

L: Well Jesus became my Lord and King, I gave my life to Christ, and I want to share that. My family saw complete transformation in me, including my brother who was away from his faith, both my parents were away from the church as well. So I prayed that the Lord would help me evangelise my family, and eventually my mother did take Alpha, and she had a profound experience as well, on the weekend away, and at the Holy Spirit retreat.

FJM: And what's your mum's name?

L: My mum's name is Gail*.

FJM: Is she here today? Gail, get up here. (clapping) Come and stand beside your daughter, Gail.

L: So yes my mum eventually went on to serve on Sushi Alpha and both my parents (my Dad's not here today) are active members of St Benedict's.

FJM: That's an Alpha we run in a Sushi restaurant, in case you were wondering.

L: And so my so is quite an invitational disciple, he has invited my father to prayer breakfasts, his father – who is not a Christian – to prayer breakfasts. He even brought his father to Mass on Easter, which was very healing for our family. He invited my brother to a men's prayer breakfast where there was a very profound witness shared at that prayer breakfast, and it started to stir things into my brother's life, and he started to ask me questions, and praise God he texted me in September and said, 'I just went to Mass these last 2 Sundays'. So I tried to act really cool, I went 'Cool', but I was jumping up and down in my kitchen, ecstatic, praising God. The kids thought I was crazy. And so he returned to his faith. And since then my niece, who is 10, was baptised in January, and she just had her first Holy Communion. I'm a godmother for the first time, and my son is a godfather.

FJM: Speaking of your son – well he's here. He's supposed to be at school, but he's here. We're not going to tell them. Come up here.

L: So my dad, who is a very devoted husband, came back to church with my mum, and so they attend Mass every week and it's just awesome.

FJM: Gail, can I just ask you, what difference has Jesus made in your life?

G. Well I feel it helped me understand my relationship with Jesus, and also He is the light in my life.

FJM to L's son: The first time I met you, you were about that height (double that now). What difference has Jesus made in your life? This guy had a job interview a few months ago and he invited the lady interviewing him to come to church. And she came. What difference has Jesus made in your life?

L's son: Well, I had let anxiety and fear stop me from following Christ, and when I threw that all away and got on my knees I really felt I had a purpose to be a missionary disciple, and I let that run my life now. It's amazing how I've changed. (clapping)

L: So when I completed Alpha I knew God was calling me to apply for an annulment. This as many know, is a very painful process but to me it was so healing. The Lord brought so much healing to my life through that, and then the boyfriend that I talked about before, when I woke up at his home, we always maintained contact and we'd bump into each other once in a while. So we happened to have this conversation, and he was struggling with some things related to his father having dementia, and he was asking me questions and I said, 'You should really think about taking Alpha, you might get your answers there'. And there just so happened to be an Alpha Come and See the next week, and it was just perfect timing. And I asked him to come, and he did, and he took the Alpha course – and he as well had a profound experience of the Holy Spirit on the weekend away, and again the helpers and the people on that team just loved him and just showered him with non-judgment and love, and he as well has returned to his faith. He was just confirmed this Easter.

FJM: And just to be clear. This is the boyfriend you dumped, and now you've got him back. Alan*, come up. Alan, what difference has Jesus made in your life?

A: Oooh, big question. Calm. A lot of glory, and He has let me realise that if anybody is going to bring you through anything – it's Jesus.

FJM: You know, the remarkable thing is that 4.5 years ago (family photo on screen) not one single member of this family was connected to church, and now they are all not just connected, they're living as disciples, as missionary disciples. It is an amazing grace and it doesn't stop there. Laurie, tell us a bit about what the Lord (we talked yesterday about passion and vision). What did the Lord put on your heart?

L: When I was applying for my annulment, I really wanted to know what the Catholic church said about me being divorced. So I was on the internet and I came across this beautiful website called divorcedcatholic.com , and I saw a ministry there called Journey of Hope (now called Recovering from Divorce). It is a Catholic cased ministry for divorced Catholics and there's a book on there, and I thought, 'Oooh, that looks interesting'. I applied to get the devotionals from that ministry to my emails. And those devotionals are written by people who have taken this program. So I was getting them for about a year. They were very, very powerful, very healing. This was all around the time I was going through my annulment, and a year later one of the parish staff, she saw the ministry on another church website and she said and asked me, 'Laurie, would you do this?' And I said, 'Absolutely!'. God has healed me of my deep pain of losing my marriage and He wants to use me to help others, and that is my mission.

FJM: And what has happened since then?

L: So the ministry was launched at St Benedict's 3 years ago, God provided the perfect person to help me launch it. We will be finishing our 3rd year next weekend, and through this program people who have taken it have become leaders in the ministry, and it has been a profound healing for the women who have taken the program. Also some of the women who have come were disconnected from the church, and last year in particular, 4 of the women who were disconnected from the church came to take the ministry, received some profound healing, went on to take Alpha, and one of them actually was just on our Alpha team.

FJM: What's your vision? What's your hope? Your desire for this ministry?

L: First, that the Lord will raise up male leaders, so we can have a group for men. Secondly, I would love the ministry to be offered in the community, because for a lot of people coming to the church is scary, so I would love for that to happen. And also that perhaps some leaders here would have it on their heart to take that ministry home.

FJM: Thank you so much to you Laurie, and to all of your family, thank you.
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There are many important things to notice about this testimony.
Firstly, it is the action of the Holy Spirit that initiates it. The first action was the desire which came out of left field of a desire to find God. It was His work again that gave Laurie the restlessness in other places and the huge sense of peace in the pew at St Benedict's. His action again was in the urging to bring her children to the sacraments and to take the step to do Alpha.

What we don't have in this testimony is the story of how this grace was won for Laurie. Was it the answer to the prayers of a deceased holy grandmother? Did someone meet Laurie and commit themselves to praying for her? Was it the general prayers of the parishioners of St Benedict's praying for people to come and do the Alpha course? Maybe it was all of the above, and more.

Secondly we have a series of moments of truth, which could have gone badly wrong, but in this case were extremely positive.

Laurie had to get up the courage to find someone to ask about the process of getting her daughter baptised. The person she spoke to is unnamed, but this person was obviously approachable and helpful, and followed through and obtained contact details from Laurie and got them to the right person on the baptismal committee. This sounds like it may have bypassed the parish office, and if so, it was probably a good save because the average parish office receptionist is trying to juggle many things at once. However, the first point of contact for many people is the parish office, so any time invested in choosing warm, friendly people with hearts filled with the Holy Spirit's love in these positions is well spent. (NB. When you pray for your priests, remember to pray for the parish staff as well).

The baptismal committee member may have been given a brief description of Laurie from the person passing on her contact details. Every bit helps. Certainly it made a difference that the baptismal committee member could choose a time to phone when she wasn't stressed and had prior experience welcoming people into the baptismal program. It made a difference that this person chose to build a relationship with Laurie in preference to just giving her details about what to do and where to go for the program. It made a difference that this person was excited about what God had done in Laurie's life to bring her to this point, and that she was sure the priest would share this excitement – setting things up for a positive priestly interview. At the end of this conversation Laurie felt wanted and loved, and not like a number to be processed through a conveyor belt.

Fr Mallon was in to building relationships too, and listened to Laurie's journey. She was met with joy, welcome and genuine interest. Did you notice that he gave her three 'easy to remember' achievable goals? He didn't bring up annulments, he didn't bring up Alpha. He set her up for success knowing that if she could achieve these three things, she would give God the time and space to do the rest. At no point did she get the feeling that the priest was itching to get back to tasks he considered more important.

Laurie's whole story illustrates one of God's maxims, 'You just love them, and leave Me to do the business of converting them'.

Another thing to ponder is how long this conversion process took. It takes time to get from 'I need to find God' to 'I need to check out a church this Sunday'. It takes time to shop around for a church. It takes time to get up the courage to enter the doors of a Catholic church. It takes time to go from being a passive church attender to asking a question. It takes time to go through catechism classes, to go through an Alpha program, and it definitely takes time to go through an annulment process. So when God sends us someone it is right and just to acknowledge the workings of grace in his/her life that have preceded this new step along the journey of faith. Can this process be hurried along? Probably not. Although it would have been interesting if someone had noticed Laurie crying during her season of tears at Mass and did more than just pray for her from a distance.

Pope Francis has spoken about how we need to learn the art of accompaniment. The table helper at Alpha is one example of how to do this, and the daily inspirations emails from the divorcedcatholic.com website is another. Those daily inspiration emails filled a need that the parish at that time was unable to fill; they put Laurie in connection with others on the same journey of healing from the wounds of divorce.

Did you notice that St Benedict's had several options for outreach to people happening outside the church walls? The sushi restaurant; Alpha: prayer breakfasts, and hopefully the ministry to divorced persons too. Each was meeting people where they were at, and in non-threatening and non-scary locations.

Another lesson we can learn is to not despise small beginnings. If that first phone call from the baptismal committee member had not gone well, a whole family could have missed out on the transformation Jesus brings into people' lives.

May God bless and protect Laurie and her whole family as they seek to live out all that God has called them to be and to do.
St Benedict, pray for them. Amen.

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Lest you think that a ministry to divorced people is an optional extra, these excerpts from Wendy Alec's 'Visions from Heaven' Part 3, from the chapter entitled 'The Minister' will hopefully make you rethink that.

'There is no wound on Earth as terrible as a wound inflicted by a husband on a wife, or a wife on her husband. The marriage covenant is eternal. By rejecting the wife of your youth, you gouged your own entire body in such a manner that it was almost impossible to recover. My children who suffer the most are those who reject their spouse and then they themselves feel that they experience no pain. Divorce has become commonplace in My Body. There are many, many of My children who walk at this time literally gouged and bleeding from the wounds of separation, divorce and rejection. I long to heal them. You felt little pain as a result of rejecting your wife on Earth, and yet your wounds were even more desperate than your wife's. You were the one whose wounds were so desperate that they led to an early death.'

Write Non Fiction In November : #WNFIN Day 16
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More prayers from the pit for guidance: If they resonate with you please make them your own. If they don't resonate with you, please pray them on behalf of the rest of us.

Yes, that's right. Still absolutely no change is on the horizon. The waiting (and sometimes praying) game continues. Today we invoke the intercession of St Gertrude the Great, since it is her feast day, and because she was never afraid to ask God questions and audaciously bold in all that she asked of Him (and obtained too!!). May she pray with us, and for us.

Family

If Your prophets are to be believed Heavenly Father, then You want to bring big breakthroughs in our family relationships. There's a really important family event coming up soon, and there's a really important family member who at this point is not going to attend. It is hard, this feeling of no account, since this family member has been able to rearrange the schedule to attend other events this year. Please bless this family member. Only You can change this heart, and if it is Your will, arrange things so that attending becomes both easy and something desired. Only You can give me the power to forgive the hurt and the rejection, and the needed compassion for what this family member deals with in secret.

If we are going to ask Heavenly Father, we may as well ask for even bigger things too. Between a father and a son there is a really big rift, a rift that only got worse last year when opportunities for rapprochement were rejected. Neither one of them is getting any younger. Due to the rift there are grandchildren growing up without any knowledge of a grandfather. The stubborn streak runs strong in this family. Only You can undo the damage of past misinformation. Only You can help an adult reconsider adolescent years from a more objective perspective. Only You can put the will and the desire into both sides to mend the rift and forgive and open up communication channels. Please work this wonder.

Wisdom

Heavenly Father our country rather publicly rejected Your plans for marriage and family yesterday. We are so sorry about that. Please forgive us. Please guide our parliamentarians and give them Your own wisdom to enable them to balance fairly the needs of those who embrace alternative lifestyles and the needs of those who desire to maintain the freedom to think and say and act without penalty according to Your plans for marriage and family. Grant to them divine wisdom in drawing up and approving legislation and amendments to that legislation. Please take away from their minds and hearts any blinders preventing them seeing the holy path of Your will and following it.

We also need the wisdom that You gave to young King Solomon, Heavenly Father. In light of the national plebiscite results and the rush to get legislation through parliament, many of us are going to receive invitations to wedding ceremonies that could never be sacramental. How do we balance our affection for these friends and relatives, and our respect for the love that is between them and their intendeds, with our love for You and for Your holy will for marriage and family? How do we show our love for the persons, and not implicitly condone actions contrary to Your will. Please, please, please grant us Your holy wisdom. Only You can help us find the narrow path, and the strength to walk it. How we desperately need Your holy wisdom in this!

Unity

Your desire for unity is so strong, Heavenly Father. But our desire for it is so weak. Only You can change that. Please change that. All of our efforts to obtain opportunities to sit down and chat with leaders of other churches have come to nothing. Do we do as the persistent widow, and ask yet again? Should we do the dust shaking thing, and see if efforts to initiate meetings of laity from other churches come to something? Are we as David, with too much blood on our hands for this kind of work? Should we be praying that You raise up a Solomon to spearhead this work of unity locally? All we have are questions. We don't have the answers, but we know that You do. At the moment all we have is fear that if we step out and try and initiate anything, that we will both fall on our faces in the spilt milk and ruin whatever delicate plans You already had in train. We need Your wisdom, we need the clear unequivocal guidance of Your will for our concrete local circumstances. Please, please, please, show us what You want us to do, and just as clearly what You don't want us to do.
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For all the unanswered emails and unresponded to messages, we thank You and ask the grace to forgive and not to bear grudges. For all of our efforts towards unity that have backfired, we seek Your pardon and the restoration of what was lost. For the times that we failed to seek and achieve peace when squabbles broke out among our own, please forgive us. Please forgive us our own local petty jealousies and misunderstandings and prejudices. Please bring in the healing and unity and peace that we cannot achieve on our own. Only You can do it. Only You can break us out of our silos and cliques and into service of the whole rather than our private fiefdoms. Please do.

Employment

Dear Heavenly Father, our young people are finding it so hard to find employment, and it is even harder for those seeking their first job. How can we truthfully say that You are watching out for them, that You have everything in hand, and that it is all going to turn out OK, when week by week and month by month so opportunities for them appear on the horizon? Us older ones, we can take the uncertainty and the perplexity a bit better. But these young ones are vulnerable in a special way to the whispers of the evil one that You don't care for them, and that You are never going to provide a way to make a living for them. We confess that we do not understand Your ways. We confess our anger and frustration at the delays in seeing Your answers especially for these young ones. They have so much self-doubt as it is. How can we ask them to believe that You are a loving and provident God, when in such an important area we have no proof to show them? Please Heavenly Father remove all the delays that hinder the answer to our prayers for employment for our young people. Don't make them wait, and lose even more hope, any longer. They are so vulnerable to exploitation. Please grant them good holy and wholesome employers, just wages and work that develops their unique skills and talents for the benefit of all humanity. Only You can do this. Please come through for them and for us. Only You can provide the connections, the happy meetings, and the opportunities that have holy flashing lights over them. All of our own efforts have failed. We look to You as our only hope. Please Lord show us that our hope and trust has not been misplaced or in vain.

Amen.