Yes a book review is a little unusual for this blog, but the book reviewed is also a little unusual. I came across Kim Meeder’s writings some time ago during my regular internet meanderings, but it has only been recently that I’ve actually read some of her books. All of them thus far have been good, wholesome and inspiring. Her book ‘Bridge Called Hope: Stories of triumph from the Ranch of Rescued Dreams’ is a good place to begin to read her books.

258 pages, Kindle; 256 pages, Paperback
https://www.amazon.com/Bridge-Called-Hope-Stories-Triumph/dp/1590526554

Each chapter is usually a stand alone story, although there are some chapters that form a story arc, so it is suitable for read aloud time with children and grandchildren.

Kim Meeder runs a horse ranch dedicated to rescuing and rehabilitating abused horses, and dedicated to assist the healing process for disabled children, youngsters in juvenile detention centres and women who have suffered trauma. It is a safe place to try something new and become a little stronger after taking the risk of learning to ride on a pony or of touching and learning to groom a horse.

The book contains (at least for me) some eye-opening knowledge about horse management, a living example of what it means to live guided by the Holy Spirit, examples of God’s plans being much bigger than our own, and plenty of take-home quotes to chew over.

Horse management
Not ever having gone through a stage of horse-crazy, I learnt a lot about communication between horses and horses and horses and humans. It was a real eye-opener on what it takes to keep a horse healthy, food, water, shelter, sufficient space to move about in, hoof care, medications to deal with worms and other nasties. Likewise it was an eye-opener on the barbaric practices to obtain ingredients for beauty products from pregnant horses. Truly it takes an extraordinary amount of painstaking work to bring an abused horse back to physical and emotional health.

Guided by the Holy Spirit
Time and time again through the stories Kim’s first recourse is to prayer. Then she does expectantly wait for answers, and is also responsive to moments when she is invited to stop, listen and look deeper at situations. Willingness to drop everything at a moment’s notice to serve others in need is another part of that responsiveness to the leading of the Holy Spirit.

God’s bigger plans
Two stories in particular stand out for me as examples of this. One is the sudden death of a much-loved horse, and the bigger plan was to teach a youngster about how to open her heart to new love after a time of grief. The other is the tragic house fire suffered by a single parent family, and the bigger plan was to provide not only a better home, but also a whole new set of supportive relationships.

Quotes to chew over
Horses are incapable of lying.
‘I trust You Lord, I trust You, even though it doesn’t make sense. I trust in You.’
Being loved changes us all.
If God is in it, He will provide for it.
Faith like the wind, is invisible … but what it moves is not.
Words from a father, ‘Maybe sometimes I treated my daughter too much like a princess…but that’s only because when I thought of her as my daughter…I felt like a king.’
Just because we’re not where we want to be…doesn’t mean that God has abandoned us.
Instead of asking, ‘Lord, how can I get out of this season of pain?’ ask ‘Lord, what can I get out of this season of pain?’
Everything changes when we choose to release our grip on ‘my plan for me’ and rest in God’s plan for me.
It never was about serving me… it always was about serving You.’
Hope is not only something we should aspire to attain…it is also something we should aspire to give.
It might not be how you think… but the Lord does answer prayer!

The Gospel for this Sunday, the 27th Sunday in Ordinary Time, Year B, is taken from the beginning of St Mark Chapter 10. In it a group of Pharisees set a trap for Jesus on the controversial issue of divorce.

The trap was set as this question for Jesus, ‘Is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife?’

We have to assume, since this is a trap, that there was some controversy about this question.
If Jesus says Yes, they will refer to the 10 Commandments re adultery.
If Jesus says No, they will refer to Moses and Deut 24:1-4, and He will also have to endure the displeasure of the crowd – human nature being the same then as now, having a ‘get out of marriage’ option would have been popular.

Jesus responds, in true rabbinic fashion, with a question.
‘What did Moses command you?’

For Jesus this question is a stepping-stone to discussing deeper truths, but their answer will also tell Jesus how well this group of Pharisees understands the law of Moses; or more precisely the law of God as given through Moses.

Their answer was, ‘Moses allowed us to draw up a writ of dismissal in cases of divorce’.

While this is true, it isn’t the full truth.

Deuteronomy 24:1-4
If a man marries a woman, but she becomes displeasing to him because he finds some indecency in her, he may write her a certificate of divorce, hand it to her, and send her away from his house. If, after leaving his house, she goes and becomes another man’s wife, and the second man hates her, writes her a certificate of divorce, hands it to her, and sends her away from his house, or if he dies, the husband who divorced her first may not marry her again after she has been defiled, for that is an abomination to the Lord. You must not bring sin upon the land the Lord your God is giving you as an inheritance.

This passage from Deuteronomy is more about deterrents to divorce than permission for divorce.

The first deterrent is the writ of dismissal itself. Only the very educated could write this kind of legal document, so a scribe would have been involved, and he’d have to be paid for his services. The scribe also would hopefully ask, ‘do you really want to do this?’ and point out the pros and cons.

The second deterrent is that once he has dismissed his wife he can never, ever take her back again. Therefore he has to be very, very sure that he will never change his mind on this. It is also a deterrent to dismissal on trivial pretexts. It is highly likely that any sent-away-wife will become defiled.

This law is also a protection for wives, preventing any ‘yo-yo’ scenario where two or more men swap wives on a regular basis.

Then there is the stern warning that God cannot abide defiled relationships. That the very land on which they live will be adversely affected by such sins.

Extremely serious stuff, that deserves far more pondering than is possible here.

Although we know from history that places and civilisations with strong family values prospered, and that places and civilisations where strong family values eroded and were lost entered a downward spiral ending those places and those civilisations.
Which is yet another major deterrent.

Divorce was a matter of life and death, particularly for the wife.

Without a husband, a woman had no home, no security, no income, and became extremely vulnerable. Poverty, being reduced to begging, prostitution, and all the other evils which can befall the vulnerable, were the lot of a dismissed wife, as well as the ruin of her reputation because ‘she was a horrible wife’ is going to be believed more than ‘he was an unreasonable husband’.

To be clear, a writ of dismissal was a message from husband to wife that meant, ‘I don’t care anymore if you live or die, in fact I hope you die’.

How do you get to such hard-heartedness?

By degrees; a harsh word here, a derogatory comment there, which leads to treating her as less than a person worthy of respect and honour, and little cut by little cut, love gradually dies, concern for the welfare of the other, dies, and generally we are oblivious to it happening until the loss of love is so stark that it cannot be ignored.

But no matter how bad it has got, God can resurrect it.
Resurrecting marriages is one of His specialties, and something He takes great delight in doing.

You may object, but what about arranged marriages?
True, some arranged marriages would have been arranged better than others, but they were still entering into an intimate partnership. If you are a man with a farm or a business, what’s the easiest way to get ahead in life? A large family, since children are unpaid labour, and the easiest way to obtain children is to found a family with a wife. The wife also takes care of all those details that make a husband’s life easier; meals, managing household servants, interior decorating, shopping, clothing, the needs of children etc.

It would still take a hard-hearted brute to be lacking in appreciation for such services.

How do you stop going down that ‘growing less in love’ spiral? Forgiveness.
Regular forgiveness, forgiveness from the heart, for the little hurts received, real or imagined.

All of us have foibles and little habits that rub each other up the wrong way.
None of us are exempt.
Without regular forgiveness and looking for the good in each other, our hearts gradually grow coarse and hard, our ability to love grows cold.

Jesus tells them, and us, that from the beginning, God’s plan was that the male and the female become one flesh; and a more accurate translation would be, to exist as one flesh. This is a reality in truth and in God’s eyes, even if we find it difficult to perceive.

Jesus also says, ‘What God has united, man must not divide’.
The word used for ‘united’ is ‘synezeuxen’, which means to yoke together.

When you put a yoke on two farm animals to do a task eg plowing, the best result is achieved when the two farm animals are evenly matched. That means that marriage is a team of two, put together specifically by God, for a common purpose, a common mission, with a common vision. Two yoked animals must needs look in the same direction at the same time.

Wow, what a vision for marriage as God sees it!

Divorce destroys that team of two brought together by God as a team with a single existence, and also destroys the God given purpose and mission for that team.

Divorce also disfigures the man and the woman. You cannot destroy a union like this without some destruction of both the man and the woman. It produces gaping wounds where seamless unity used to be.

In God’s eyes, divorce is a horrible evil that He never ever wants any of His creation to experience.

Yes, sometimes separation is necessary for a short or longer time, with a view to reunion.

Unless violence of the grievous bodily harm variety is present, in which case the separation could be life-long, but still holding out the hope of God’s grace of conversion upon the one prone to violence.

No wonder the enemy of our souls wants to destroy and disfigure marriage as much as possible.

Jesus then goes on to tell the Pharisees, and us, that divorce followed by marriage to another, no matter whether you are male or female, is adultery.

Thou shalt not commit adultery is one of the 10 Commandments.

Any infringement of the 10 Commandments calls down the curses of Deuteronomy 28 upon a person.

God is very serious about His plan for marriage.
That’s because it is the vehicle through which He can bless us, and our society, abundantly.

Like divorce, adultery conveys the same message to the repudiated spouse, ‘I wish you were dead, and I’m going to act as if you were dead, and as if I was free to marry again’.

That’s bad enough, but as we’ve just seen, adultery is also saying a very big No to God’s plan for that married couple and a very big No to God’s mission for that couple.

It isn’t ‘just having a fling’; it is a very serious rejection of the spouse, of God, and of God’s plan for the couple’s greatest happiness and greatest fruitfulness.

Just like the other time the Pharisees confronted Jesus, (Mark 7, 22nd Sunday Ordinary Time Year B) they got far more than they bargained for.

We’ve all been mightily challenged.
God cannot bring full healing to our land until marriages are fully restored and reconciled.
This matters more than we can possibly fathom.

So let’s turn to God and ask for His help:

May God bring healing, reconciliation, forgiveness, and flourishing to those marriages that are hurting and to those marriages that are under threat of divorce and under threat of adultery.
May God bring healing to all those whose marriages ended without their consent.
May God grant repentance to the hard-hearted who initiated divorce.
May God forgive us for the times we supported divorce and didn’t pray and encourage reconciliation.
May God grant to married couples the grace to discover the mission and purpose for which God teamed them up together, and to fully co-operate with it.
May those tempted to divorce and to adultery be given the grace to permanently turn away from these temptations and to take measures to prevent such temptations growing again.
May God grant us His help to value and honour marriage as He does, and to valiantly protect it.
May God grant us the grace to soften our hearts towards each other, and towards our spouses, through acts of kindness, love and forgiveness.

Thank You Almighty and Eternal God for the amazing wonder that marriage is in Your eyes.
Amen.

Mary, mother of Jesus, Help of Christians, pray for us.
St Joseph, protector of families, pray for us.

The Gospel for this Sunday, the 15th Sunday of Ordinary Time, Year B, comes from the next part of Chapter 6 in St Mark’s Gospel, immediately after last week’s passage about the visit to Nazareth. This next part of Chapter 6 has the Twelve move into a new stage of their discipleship with Jesus.

It seems significant that this new phase happens almost directly after the disappointing visit to Nazareth, as though the lessons to be learnt at Nazareth were a necessary pre-requisite – perhaps to prepare them for when the response to their preaching would be far less than enthusiastic.

So Jesus calls the Twelve apostles to Himself, and commences to send them out two by two to preach the necessity of repentance for entering the kingdom of God. In sending them out Jesus imparts to them a share in His own authority over unclean spirits. This indicates that there is a co-dependence of preaching with delivering people and situations from evil (and vice versa) for either to be effective.

They had seen Jesus preach, heal and deliver sufferers from evil spirits, and now they had a test run of doing it themselves.

The passage doesn’t say what Jesus did while the 6 teams went out in different directions on this mission ‘with training wheels’. Probably Jesus spent that time alone in prayer interceding for them and for the people they were to preach to; waiting for them to return to a previously agreed rendezvous place and time.

But the thing that strikes all of us is how little Jesus permitted them to take on the missionary journey. They don’t have to go bare-foot; but may wear sandals. Perhaps that is because heavier shoes may slow them down and increase fatigue. Apart from that, all they can take with them is their missionary companion, the authority Jesus has given them, and a staff.

The word used in Greek for ‘staff’ is ‘rhabdon’ and is does mean rod or staff, but it can also mean sceptre or staff of authority.

Any kind of walking stick is useful when traversing rough terrain, and for keeping up the endurance on long distances. I’ve followed the journeys via social media of some friends walking the Camino, and they all start out without walking sticks, and they all have walking sticks before the end of the first week.

A good solid rod or stave is also useful for protection against brigands and wild animals.

Maybe the aspect of a staff also representing the authority Jesus has given them now seems more plausible, especially remembering how God used Aaron’s staff and Elisha’s staff.

However we cannot forget that travelling light permits a person to travel much faster than if they have anything on them to weigh them down. This has something to say about the urgency we should feel for spreading the good news of Jesus, and the urgency Jesus must have felt to issue such instructions – that anything that slows us down has to be jettisoned.

To our surprise, and definitely to the Apostles’ surprise, they were very successful on this training mission; they preached, they evicted devils and brought God’s healing to others.

That’s the difference going out with the authority of Jesus makes.

We shouldn’t even consider going on mission without it; without some kind of commissioning by those in leadership in the Body of Christ.

Our other surprise should be that these three things are considered by Jesus and by the communities who were the seed ground for this Gospel of Mark as Normal on a missionary journey to proclaim the Gospel.

Please God, may our New Normal when this time of pandemic is over be this kind of Normal – Your kind of Normal. Amen.

Holy Apostles of God, please pray for us, and especially for all bishops, since they are particularly authorised by Jesus for mission, and to lead mission in His name. Amen.

Holy Apostles of God, please pray for us too, that preaching repentance, healing and deliverance from evil may return to being Normal for all believers in Jesus. Amen.

Holy Apostles of God, please pray for all whom Jesus is calling to Himself at this time, that they be given the grace of a whole-hearted Yes when He sends them on mission, thoroughly dependent upon His providence and authority. Amen.
​
Holy Apostles of God, please pray for those who have been given a missionary mandate by Jesus, but who have not yet gone where He has told them to go, or who have become disheartened and discouraged along the way. May they be given fresh hope, and fresh anointing from Your Holy Spirit to completely fulfill the mission You, Lord God, have given them. Amen.
……………………………………………………………………….
P.S. I came across this excellent blog-post on the ministry of the prophet Elijah, it is well worth a read: https://www.awmi.net/reading/teaching-articles/lessons_elijah/

.... above is a print-friendly version, 4 x A4 pages, of that blog-post - since it deserves to be shared more widely.

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.
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​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.