The Gospel for this Sunday, Pentecost Sunday, Year B, comes from the two segments of St John’s Gospel, Chapter 16, containing promises about the coming of the Holy Spirit.

These promises go some way to helping us understand why Jesus ascended to the Father, and sent the Holy Spirit.

If Jesus was still present on earth in His glorified body, we would all be pre-occupied with everything He said and did, and would never get around to doing what God wants us to do. Think of the biggest celebrity you know, and multiply that pulling power by at least 100. Yet on earth, Jesus continually refused anything to do with celebrity in favour of building long-term personal committed relationships. Superstar celebrity is not the modus-operandi of Jesus.

What He did is very different, and far more effective. He sent each and every one of us who have committed our lives to Him the gift of a Master Tutor, a.k.a. the Holy Spirit.

At the time these promises were given at the Last Supper, the disciples had not been through the crucible of the death and resurrection of Jesus. So there were plenty of things at that level that they had no hope of understanding until after they had experienced His risen presence.

But the ‘I still have many things to say to you but they would be too much for you to bear now’ went even deeper than that.

A young child is incapable of understanding anything at an adult level. A lot of growth, maturity and learning about the world we live in is necessary before anyone attains an adult understanding of anything.

Similarly if you started to explain the finer points of performing a Beethoven symphony to someone who has only just learned to play ‘chopsticks’, it is going to be completely lost on them. To get them from playing ‘chopsticks’ to giving a credible performance of a Beethoven symphony is going to require many lessons that build on each other, and lots of homework, practice, tests, and time.

The same is true for the difference between someone learning the first 10 nouns and the first verb declension of a new language, and someone reading and writing literature in that language; or the difference between someone who has just begun to learn how to do a plie and a tendu and someone who dances as prima ballerina in Swan Lake.

Everyone begins at the beginning.

When we hear ‘Advocate’ or ‘Paraclete’ to describe the Holy Spirit, it may be useful to translate that into Master Tutor.

Because that is exactly what the Holy Spirit is, and what He graciously does. He takes us step by step, lesson by lesson, from baby steps in our relationship with God and our ability to administer His love to others, on a perfectly designed individual learning plan, to heights of relationship with God and ability to administer His love to others that we can’t even start to imagine. And there’s always more that He wants to teach us, and far more that He is capable of teaching us.

But He is a perfect gentleman, and He adjusts everything to our pace, and to the degree of co-operation and trust we give Him, and to our diligence (or lack thereof) in doing the necessary practice and homework to get to the next level/lesson.

Is it not absolutely amazing that God gives us this Master of Master Tutors in the Holy Spirit?

That promise, ‘He will lead you to the complete truth’ is both personal and corporate. If you look carefully at Christian history, you will notice that each era was learning something extraordinary which built on the lived response and understanding of previous eras and generations in the Church. eg. The monastic orders grew out of the desert fathers, the mendicant orders grew out of the monastic orders; devotion to the Divine Mercy was not possible before devotion to the Sacred Heart had permeated the Church.

There are things the Holy Spirit is leading the Church into in our times, that could not have been done in any earlier era. Over the past 120 years some of that has been a rediscovery of the charismatic gifts of the Holy Spirit, which is an ongoing process. We can also see a greater openness to ecumenism led by the same Holy Spirit over the last 50-60 years.

There is always more He wants to lead us into, point the way to, and teach us about.

Are we willing to diligently co-operate with Him?

Let’s pray….

Dear Holy Spirit, I am so sorry for how much I have been underestimating Your work in my life and in the life of the Church, and the superabundantly enormous gift You are from Jesus and the Father. I am so sorry for grieving you, and for being an unwilling, unappreciative, lazy and un-co-operative student. Please forgive me. I want this to change from today onwards, and forever. I want to learn and co-operate with anything and everything You want to teach me. In particular I ask your special help to attain competency in those areas where I have been resisting You the most. I don’t want to do that any more. Please forgive and help me. Amen.    

A strange thing happened on Good Friday; an email asking if I’d like to pen 600 words of an inspiring nature about my 2021 Paschal Triduum experiences. At that point the Holy Thursday ceremonies had been sub-par and disappointment was beginning to creep in. With this unusual time in history and the unusual confluence of Passover coinciding with Easter, I had dared to hope for some of the more dynamic manifestations of the Holy Spirit during these holy days.

Rants I could provide.
Inspiration – not so much.

But the consideration did clarify some of what I wanted to see during these holy days:

I'm never going to be happy until I see signs of God's supernatural action during the Triduum.

That means:
*Homilies that are beyond human wisdom and convict and uplift the heart at the same time.
*Pandemonium because people have come back from Holy Communion and have found themselves healed.
*People sitting in the pews long after the ceremonies are over because they have been caught up in God.
 
Things like that.
 
But I haven't seen it yet, so I remain disappointed, because that's how Easter is supposed to be.
 
The Triduum liturgy has the structure and the capacity to hold and channel Resurrection power.

I don’t know about you, but I believe in an Almighty God who can do far more than give me uplifting emotions, and I want far more than that. Emotions come and go. Action changes the status quo. I want action, not only for me and my loved ones, but for everyone present and their loved ones.

I want the newspapers filled with testimonies about what happened during the Triduum.

But I know we can’t get there if the homilies are lacking the anointing of the Holy Spirit.

“Everyone who calls on the Name of the Lord will be saved. But they will not ask His help unless they believe in Him, and they will not believe in Him unless they have heard of Him, and they will not hear of Him unless they get a preacher…. Faith comes from what is preached, and what is preached comes from the Word of Christ.” Rom 10:13-15a,17

The first homily spoke primarily of the gifts of the eucharist and the priesthood, and didn’t speak much about the Giver, on His night of nights.

The second homily was long, but began to improve mid-way, touching many of the right notes but without any power riding on or through them.

The third homily didn’t mention any of the banquet of scripture readings, and could have been a replay of similar homilies given in different locations; did say all the expected things, but didn’t have Jesus as the primary focus.

When a homily is as it is supposed to be, it makes Jesus present, and enables us to encounter Him.

But that takes not only study, and time, but assiduous prayer and more than ordinary levels of holiness, and it also requires responding to the inspirations of the Holy Spirit (no matter how ‘out there’ they might feel) both in the preparation phase and in the delivery phase.

We also can’t get there without intercessory preparation, i.e. a parish army praying daily all through Lent for those who will attend the Triduum (in whole or in part), that their hearts and souls will be good soil for the Gospel, and further, for the Holy Spirit to act upon them to convict, save, heal, direct and commission those attendees according to His holy will.

Truly inspired parish armies will also pray afterwards that the good seed sown in hearts and souls will come to full harvest under the action of the Holy Spirit.

Yes, God can act sovereignly without these levels of human co-operation, but generally His modus operandi is to work with us rather than without us – as long as we take all our cues from Him.

In all honesty we can’t expect Him to show up and take our plans from good to great without seeking His input in the planning – even though planning without seeking His input (but, perhaps, for a brief 30 second prayer at the beginning of a planning meeting) appears to be our normal modus operandi.
​It takes more intentional effort than that!
​
Please God, may He make us so dissatisfied with our Triduum experiences that we put Him first, front and centre next time, and ever after. Amen.

​The Instrumentum Laboris (working document) for the first session of the Australian Plenary Council was released on 25 Feb 2021, and I eventually finished reading it sometime in mid-March.

You can read it yourself:
https://plenarycouncil.catholic.org.au/instrumentum-laboris/

It wasn’t an easy read, despite it being beautifully presented. Penitential, it was. Firstly it takes a very long time to set the scene and give a situational analysis of the Church in Australia. Many times I wondered if the document would ever get to the point. Secondly it uses lots of ambiguous language that feels like it was written by a combination of church bureaucrats and school teachers. It would be easy to decode for them, but not for me. I longed for some footnotes that gave situational examples to aid understanding.

In particular I longed for concrete and contextual explanation of this passage from 166:

“Not infrequently, Catholics and their family members find themselves in an uneasy situation regarding particular Church teachings or disciplines, not because they identify any less as Catholic, and not because their attachment to Christ has grown “lukewarm” (Rev 3:16), but because of shifts in cultural norms and expectations that they once relied on to support their Catholic faith. Very often, however, this tension between people’s lived experience and the teachings of the Church reaches the point where people withdraw from parishes or communities, and no longer identify as Catholic.”

Is this about going to Mass on Sundays, cohabitation, same sex attraction, blended families, or about some, all or even more than this? How do you even begin to discuss this passage without knowing what the original catalyst for the passage was? How do you begin to frame questions that ask, ‘prove to me how attachment to Christ hasn’t grown lukewarm despite being out of synch with Church teachings, disciplines and practices…by what other means can you show strong attachment to Jesus Christ (John 12:26, James 2:17-18)?’?

I admit I was struggling to reconcile the somewhat rosy view the Working Document paints compared to what I am seeing in the pews. Then Philippa Martyr’s article came up while I was trying unsuccessfully to find any online commentary on the Working Document which wasn’t a clone of the official press release. It is well worth a read:
https://gaudiumetspes22.com/2021/03/05/stranded-under-the-southern-cross-news-from-a-shrinking-church/

I found it a more accurate analysis of the Catholic Church in Australia 2021.

In particular I found her imagery of a carapace to be valuable, viz:

“I tend to see the Church in Australia as consisting of the ‘real Church’ and an unpleasant outer structure that I call The Carapace. The Carapace is like The Borg in Star Trek, if it helps. It attaches itself to the real Church and feeds off it. Its principal purpose is to employ people, and its mission is to protect the Church’s assets at all costs.”

What bothers me greatly is that the Instrumentum Laboris seems to be written by the carapace, and the vast majority of the delegates for the Plenary Council sessions will come from the carapace.

What else bothers me is that God seems to be a minor stakeholder among many instead of the One and Only opinion that matters.

Why else would there be so much virtue signaling about sexual abuse, indigenous issues, women in leadership issues, ecology, etc? I’m not saying that they aren’t important, just that they pale into insignificance against the urgency of saving souls from eternities in hell. Dealing with these things of necessity will be part of that primary mission, for the salvation of the people in these minorities, but they should never overshadow that primary mission.

Which matters to God the most?

What matters to God the most?

I put it to you that growth in relationship to Him (holiness), family (His plan that predates Scripture), and bringing people into relationship with Him (mission) and co-operating in expressing His love to others (service: which is the natural overflow of increase in holiness and mission) are what matter most to God.

On everything but service we are not doing well at all, and even our service is usually human powered service rather than Holy Spirit empowered service.

My view from the pew looks like this:

Everything starts from Holy Spirit inspired preaching. But for Holy Spirit inspired preaching to happen lots of prayer, study of scripture and sacred tradition, openness to the charismatic workings of the Holy Spirit and surrender to the workings of the Holy Spirit are necessary; and the preacher has to be able to effectively use the language and language idioms of those he is preaching to.

It is ‘hymns, hospitality and homilies’ or ‘music, ministry and message’ that either engages a newcomer and keeps them returning or turns them off for good. Generally we are mediocre when it comes to hymns and hospitality with the occasional flash of brilliance, but where we consistently fall down is in homilies.

When was the last time a homily encouraged you to pray?
When was the last time a homily invited you to go to confession? (and made it available)
When was the last time a homily opened your eyes to how good and great God is?
When was the last time a homily made you want to know Jesus better?
When was the last time a homily kept you awake and hanging on every word?
When was the last time a homily contained anything memorable that wasn’t a pre-prepared joke?

Every day I pray that God will use the words of the homilist that day to touch hearts. Often I wonder if God hears me because even I can only decode on average 3 words out of 5 from our overseas-born priests, and the most common question when Mass is over is ‘What did he say?’.

But a preacher doesn’t have to be in a pulpit. We pew dwellers are just as bad because we talk far more about parish politics, weather and medical ailments than we ever do (if we ever do) about Jesus, about inspiration we have found in Gospel passages, answers to prayers, and about living out the vocations we have been called to.

There is such laser focus on encouraging priestly vocations that you could be forgiven for thinking that vocations to family life, religious vocations, career vocations and vocations to special non-ordained ministries aren’t important at all. Yet apart from a very few exceptions to the rule, priestly vocations grow in strong families and in devotionally vibrant parishes.

When was the last time you saw any parish-based initiatives for encouraging and supporting marriages and families?

Did you know that Australia has no (nil, nada, ziltch, zero) Retrouvaille ministry/weekends for marriages in crisis?

Schools. Shudder. They are supposed to be places where the Catholic faith is taught and flourishes. Yet they are places where those who do teach the demanding parts of the Gospel are persecuted in various subtle and non-subtle ways. But these days no one in the parish knows anyone with children at the local Catholic primary school, and vice versa, and about the only person who visits both places is the parish priest and any assistant priest. What we actually have are non-government schools. At what point do we call a halt to the massive investment in schools that don’t evangelise, barely catechize and consistently churn out students indistinguishable from atheists and agnostics?

Families with faith have been choosing not to send their children to Catholic schools, many have chosen to home-school, some have chosen Christian schools, and the rest are sending their children to state schools partly because the cost/benefit analysis has swung the other way. In times past parents were willing to pay the extra cost of the Catholic school because it helped support the development of faith in their children.

The view from the pew can look very different from the view of the carapace.

An example may be useful…
In recent years the St Vincent de Paul Society went through a centralization process, and created regional hubs for furniture and other items. The people managing the hubs were happy. Some of the people in the local outlets were happy ‘it’s great, we refer them to the hub’. But those who knew how things worked pre-hub, and the people in need were not happy. Locally there used to be a room where furniture could be stored on a temporary basis. For the hubs to work, they were told rooms like these had to be stopped. The thing is, those rooms enabled society members to respond quickly when needs became manifest. With a hub, you have to send requests up, wait for decisions, and for action to be sent down, and sometimes have to follow-up the requests, all of which means many days, if not weeks, before needs get met. As for the person in need who had enough trouble asking for help the first time, now they have to travel to the hub to get help; and ask for help a second time. How many of them don’t take the extra step? For some the transport costs alone would be prohibitive. For others it was so hard to admit they needed help, it would be a long time before they attempted to admit it again. Or they would seek other alternatives with quicker responses to their urgent emergencies.

Even more seriously, the local outlet loses the opportunity to begin a relationship of accompaniment with that person in need, and the probability of needy people falling through the cracks increases. But the hub managers will only see the turnover of furniture and other items, and fluctuation in staffing levels, and never record or quantify these other losses, and will assume everything is going great guns.

Thankfully there have been moves towards decentralization again.

There are very good reasons why the Church values the principle of subsidiarity, and why any moves towards adding bureaucratic layers for co-ordination of smaller entities has to carefully make sure that the principle of subsidiarity is not violated.

Pope Francis has encouraged leaders to take on the smell of the sheep, to take time to be with those on the fringes and on the front lines. It is the only way to find out what is really going on.

An example may be useful…
A person serving at the diocesan curia has responsibilities for parish support. Most of this person’s time is spent liaising with parish staff and with parish members who voluntarily take on co-ordination roles. The parish support team puts together a Lenten discussion group programme, sends it out to the parishes. Some groups will meet every year regardless. Other groups will only form if there is active encouragement from the pulpit, and some recruitment and engagement of group leaders. Some parishioners will use the contents of the programme privately.

The parish support team will know how many programmes got sent out, and have a rough idea how many groups formed and how many participated. But they don’t usually get information on how many programmes were thrown out because they were still on the display table several weeks later, nor information about why parishioners left them there, nor information about why groups didn’t form, nor why anyone gave up part way through (individually or group). The only way you get that information is by talking incognito (without them knowing what your role is) with people in the pews whom you have never met before and truly listening to what they have to say, even if it isn’t what you want to hear. (eg. “I picked it up, but I put it back when I saw you needed to download stuff. I’m not that good with computers, and there’s no one at home who is any better at it than me, no one who could help me if I got myself into computer trouble.”)

Can you see how from a curial vantage point everything could look rosy, and better than last year? And yet from a pew dweller’s view point it could look very different indeed?

That’s why I am so worried that the Instrumentum Laboris seems to be written by the carapace, and the vast majority of the delegates for the Plenary Council sessions will come from the carapace who haven’t taken on the smell of the sheep.

A few passages from the Instrumentum Laboris caught my eye:

Passage 74 page 27
Rather, Pope Francis, echoing the thoughts of his predecessors since the Second Vatican Council, insists that an authentically Gospel-inspired renewal of the Church flows from a renewed encounter with Jesus Christ and His Holy Spirit and gives rise to a ‘pastoral conversion’ of the entire Church, a renewal that is expressed in a ‘missionary option’ or ‘missionary impulse’ for making the saving love of God known in every place.

Amen. Amen. What we all need more than anything is a deeper encounter with Jesus, and a deeper encounter with the Holy Spirit. Without that, nothing, but nothing changes for the better. We can’t make it happen, that is up to God Himself. But we can make the conditions and environment more conducive for those encounters to happen. Things like encouraging private individual prayer, corporate prayer (prayer meetings, public devotions, liturgy), scripture study, reconciling strained relationships, forgiveness of wrongs done to us, getting to know each other better so as to grow in unity, self-discipline, generosity to others, encouraging more frequent visits to the sacrament of penance, and asking God (individually and corporately) to grant us these precious encounters.

Passage 123 page 41
Submissions to the Council also raised what Pope Francis, among others, has identified as the danger of an unhealthy culture of clericalism within the priesthood and in the wider Church. At its most extreme, this has been identified as a significant factor in the sexual abuse crisis in the Church. It can also undermine the mission that belongs to the entire Church and discourage the exercise of gifts within it. Some fundamental questions arise in light of this concern: What are the causes of such a culture of clericalism? What are the theological, structural, psychological or spiritual influences that can contribute to it and how might the Church better equip its clergy and laity for mission today and for increasing co-responsibility in the decades to come?

Clericalism encourages an ‘us and them’ mentality, with ‘us’ being far superior to ‘them’. Sadly our seminaries are still full of it. We have seminarians visiting parishes on placement and making the assumption that no one in the parishes knows how to use incense properly except for them. That assumption most certainly gets up the noses of parishioners who have been serving at the altar and using incense for decades. Then there’s the practice of getting 2nd year seminarians and above to always wear soutanes at Mass, even if they are sitting in the congregation. That’s visibly making an ‘us’ and ‘them’ distinction well before the vocational discernment process has scarcely begun. It is very difficult to get to ‘we’ and ‘team’, albeit with different gifts and vocational callings, if from the ‘get go’ seminarians are treated as heroic and special. For the mission of the Church to proceed, ie the making of disciples of Jesus, clerics can’t do it without laity, and laity can’t do it without clerics. We vitally need each other. It is one of those ‘both/and’ things. Mutual respect will get us much further in that mission than clericalism.

Passage 131 page 43
There is not a well-developed understanding and practice of the Church as a community of missionary disciples. The Plenary Council offers the Church in Australia an opportunity to consider carefully, and prayerfully, what steps must be taken to awaken this awareness of the missionary vocation of every Catholic, for all the baptised are called equally to live and proclaim the Good News of Jesus Christ for the transformation of the world.

This is true. Although there are sub-groups within parishes that have this awareness eg catechists. Vatican II speaks eloquently of the universal call to holiness and the universal call to mission and so have subsequent papal documents. Encouraging us pew dwellers to read these texts is one thing, helping us to understand how to respond in our own lives is quite another since most of us have no idea what that looks like, nor what it feels like. A possible way forward is gathering and sharing testimonies of how God has used pew dwellers to make disciples, with particular emphasis on how pew dwellers came to understand what God was calling them to do, and how that mission developed over time.

Not everyone is going to be called to be an evangelist (nor to the same evangelistic mission field eg family, co-workers, young people, PSTD sufferers etc); not everyone is going to have a calling to specific works of mercy; not everyone is going to have a calling to accompany people through the RCIA process. So there needs to be intentionality about gathering a wide range of stories, and in presenting them with an openness to the multiplicity of God’s callings. It is really easy to unconsciously fall into the trap of ‘God has called me to be a preacher, it is so wonderful and exciting, therefore God is calling everyone to be preachers’, thereby putting unnecessary burdens/guilt on listeners who may be called to very different missions.

Passage 135 page 44
Underpinning such renewal of practices and methods within dioceses, parishes, migrant communities and movements must be the renewal of sacramental life and prayer among all Catholics for it is the encounter with Christ in the midst of the Church that rekindles hope and makes genuine renewal possible. This is seen in the Emmaus story in Luke’s Gospel (24:13-35) where, in the midst of the disciples’ difficulties and even disillusionment, the faith of the followers of Jesus is restored and a new future opened for them by this encounter.

Without prayer and the sacraments, there is no fuel for mission. We can’t give what we don’t have. What we most need to give are God’s love and access to Jesus. Prayer and the sacraments give us access to the infilling of God’s love, and to experiential encounters with Jesus. We haven’t done a good job of proclaiming this truth about prayer and the sacraments, by and large it has been a well-kept secret, when it should have been ‘shout it from the rooftops’ stuff. Again one of the best ways to renew sacramental life and prayer is to gather testimonies from pew dwellers who are living as missionary disciples. We need to share with each other what a difference prayer (personal and communal) and the sacraments (baptism, penance, eucharist, confirmation, anointing of the sick, marriage, holy orders) make in our lives. It is good news, in fact it is great news. All of them make a big impact. But again, sensitivity is needed, because some people feel and experience lots and some people feel and experience little even when God’s grace is just as active in both. It is all too easy for a focus on feelings and experiences to get us chasing them rather than God, and for this focus to make those who barely feel or experience anything to rate themselves as second class citizens of the kingdom of God. For this reason it is always wise to focus more on the fruits eg growth in patience, generosity, peace, trust, improvement in relationships etc.

Passage 197 page 67
It is this assurance that should encourage us and empower us to speak and act with that parrhesia, that boldness and courage, which are a gift of the Holy Spirit: We need the Spirit’s prompting, lest we be paralyzed by fear and excessive caution, lest we grow used to keeping within safe bounds. Let us remember that closed spaces grow musty and unhealthy. When the Apostles were tempted to let themselves be crippled by danger and threats, they joined in prayer to implore parrhesia: “And now, Lord, look upon their threats, and grant to Your servants to speak Your Word with all boldness” (Acts 4:29). As a result, “when they had prayed, the place in which they were gathered together was shaken; and they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and spoke the Word of God with boldness” (Acts 4:31).

It is my dearest desire that when the delegates gather for both of the sessions of the Plenary Council that they dedicate somewhere between a half day and a full day as representatives of the faith communities of Australia to imploring this parrhesia for Australia – and that they do so before they start any discussion of the Working Document. What this needs to be is heartfelt spontaneous prayer ebbing and flowing as the Holy Spirit prompts. Apart from an introduction and a conclusion, it needs to be totally unscripted. It needs to be allowing God to dredge up from the depths of our soul’s expressions of our personal, corporate and national desire for Him and for the dynamic action of the Holy Spirit in our midst, in words, songs, groans and anything else He inspires. It needs to include our leaders begging pardon of God for the ways we have failed Him personally and corporately, to include confessing our failures and our shortcomings, and asking God to step in, to take control, to take leadership and give us sure guidance and the courage to respond with an active Yes to everything He wants us to do.

Without this, nothing else will really matter.

Come Holy Spirit, Come!,
and through this Plenary Council
make of this nation Australia
the promised great south land
in complete synch with You.
Amen.

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​A printer friendly version is available below, 6 x A4 pages:

On Pentecost Sunday 2020 the Reports from the Plenary Council’s six Writing and Discernment Groups were released. I have read Philippa Martyr’s and Fr John Miechels’s commentaries on these Reports. Both commentaries are well worth reading. But they do make a person reluctant to read the Reports themselves.

But read them I sadly must.

Before I do that, I wish to outline the lens from which I am approaching these documents.

From the start I thought that the process was flawed, because we know what God wants us to do – it has been outlined in Novo Millennio Ineunte and in Evangelii Gaudium. The question is how to do it authentically in an Australian context.

While the phases of the Plenary Council up till now have had paperwork reminding us to ‘Listen to what the Spirit is saying’ and ‘What do you think God is calling us to do’, in practice people have been answering very different questions, viz ‘What do you think the Church ought to be doing?’, ‘What would you like to see change in the Church?’, ‘What could we actually, concretely do, towards these themes at diocesan, deanery and parish level?’. Notably absent has been any question about what God wants me to do to contribute, and likewise absent any consideration about where all these mythical people and unlimited resources who are going to make it happen are going to come from (and how to motivate them). In practice people have been told, ‘This Plenary Council is your chance to change things, speak up for what you want, the more vocal you are, the more likely something will happen’.

In such a climate, consensus is not a reliable indicator of the will of the Holy Spirit.

Further absent, and most disturbing, is how often God’s action is left out of the deliberations: it’s a kind of, ‘He can join in if He wants to’ mentality, instead of seeking His input, guidance and power first and foremost. How strange it is when we say we are guided by the Holy Spirit, and then act as though only more committees and layers of hierarchy are needed to achieve anything.

God’s will and purposes have not changed. Always He calls us back to the original blueprint. Even before the Bible existed, family was the foundation of God’s plan. The Bible is the story of the family of Abraham, and it contains the accumulated wisdom about how God wants that family to live in fulness of life. As the family goes, so goes the Church. Where do we get the power to live as members of the family of God? From the Holy Spirit. A new evangelisation is not possible unless there is a new Pentecost, and there is no Pentecost without the Holy Spirit.

Thus for me, Scripture, Family and the Holy Spirit are the non-negotiable essential keys for discovering what God wants us to do in this Great Southern Land of the Holy Spirit. However none of them were referenced in the titles of the 6 Themes of the Plenary Council, and this continues to disturb me greatly.

So as I read (plough through) the 6 Reports, I am going to tally up any references to Scripture, Family and the Holy Spirit, and if I come across any ideas worth pursuing, I will list them.

Obviously it was not an easy task for the Writing and Discernment Groups because they had so many answers to the wrong questions to sift through.

Scripture references are counted when they occur in the body of the text (not in the footnotes) and are recognisable quotations (not cf.’s). Family has to be specifically referenced, references to parts of families eg women, children, elderly etc do not count. All too often we do not view families holistically, which is strange if we believe that each family is a domestic church, and when there is plenty of evidence in the Scripture for God entrusting specific ministries to specific families in perpetuity. Recently during the pandemic lockdown without the usual institutional church structures, we had to live church as domestic churches and began to rediscover this ancient reality. Both ‘Spirit’ and ‘Holy Spirit’ are counted.

Please take these as ‘about right’ numbers and not as exact tallies. Your own tally is likely to be different to mine, but definitely similar.

Theme 1: Missionary and Evangelising
Scripture references: 23
Family references: 6.5
Holy Spirit references: 10
(from page 6) The renewal of our world begins with personal renewal of our lives lived according to the Gospel which invites us to a personal encounter with Jesus, who offers us the gift of God’s love.
(from page 12) For our sacramental initiation to bear fruit, our journey will be one of growing in our relationship with Jesus, the community of His followers and our wider society. This growth is facilitated through the family, the school and the parish community.
(Prioritised Question 6) Given the importance of the family for the missionary and evangelising activity of the Church, how can we best promote a Catholic vision of marriage and family?

Theme 2: Inclusive, Participatory and Synodal
Scripture references: 16
Family references: 4
Holy Spirit references: 7
(from pages 6 & 10 ) Inclusion recognises that every person is a doorway into the mystery that is the Body of Christ.
(from page 9) Our society has become increasingly indifferent, sometimes even hostile, to family life in all its stages, and to those who make family a priority. At each stage of the growth of their children, families experience unique joys but also struggles which, if left unattended, can lead to disengagement and rift, both with each other but also the Church.
(from page 16) Catholics must tirelessly and fearlessly affirm the unique dignity of each and every child, and the inestimable value of the labours of every parent.

Theme 3: Prayerful and Eucharistic
Scripture references: 15
Family references: 6.5
Holy Spirit references: 11
(from page 7) The family is the usual birthplace of faith and the Church recognises that parents are the first and foremost educators of their children (Gravissimus Educationis
(from page 12) When we are formed in the Gospel, God’s people recognise Jesus in daily life.
(from Proposals for Change 1b) Equip each of our Church communities and organisations to support the creation of small communities of faith and life, centred on prayer with Scripture and sharing heart to heart. Encourage these small communities to gather regularly for the development of faith, the sharing of life over a meal and for spiritual nourishment.
(Are not families also small communities?)

Theme 4: Humble, Healing and Merciful
Scripture references: 13
Family references: 1.5
Holy Spirit references: 5
(from page 11) We are invited to witness the wounds of Jesus in those who have been wounded by the Church.
(from page 12) God is asking us to recognise it is restoration to the family of God that brings true wholeness, and that all the faithful have a role to play in the healing of the wounded.
(from page 12) We cannot separate Christ from the wounded: “just as you did it to one of the least of my family, you did it to me” (Mt 25:40).

Theme 5: Joyful, Hope-filled Servant Community
Scripture references: 3
Family references: 5.5
Holy Spirit references: 1
(from page 5) Australia is a land that prizes freedom, equality and egalitarianism, a ‘fair go’ and mateship. However, mental illness, sickness, loneliness, family or financial pressures afflict many Australians.
(from page 8) “the joy of love experienced by families is also the joy of the Church.” (Amoris Laetitia)
(from Challenge 1, page 11) Particular attention should be given to the reasons why so many young people and their families are absent from our parishes, and how schools and parishes might address this concern.

Theme 6: Open to Conversion, Renewal and Reform
Scripture references: 5
Family references: 3.5
Holy Spirit references: 3
(from page 5) “...if the parish proves capable of self-renewal and constant adaptivity, it continues to be ‘the Church living in the midst of the homes of her sons and daughters.’” (Evangelii Gaudium 28)
(from page 11) The consultation highlights the importance of a personal encounter with Christ as the basis of the life of faith, and the need for a supportive and faith-enriching Church community in which to deepen and live out our Catholic identity. Catholics sense a call for greater integration of faith and life, for discerning ways of discipleship — at home and at work, online and in local communities.
(from Question 2a on page 15) How can the structures and ministries of the local churches reach out and be more connected to today’s Catholics in their family life, communities, workplaces, culture and leisure?

                         - - -    - - -   - - -  

If we believe that the Holy Spirit is the soul of the Church, and the goal of the Christian life is the acquisition of the Holy Spirit (St Seraphim of Sarov), then is it not exceedingly strange that the charisms of the Holy Spirit were not referenced in any of the Theme Reports? How can we possibly do the work of the Kingdom of God without prophecy, healing, intercession, discernment of spirits, words of knowledge, words of wisdom, miracles, deliverance, signs & wonders, and those with anointings from the Holy Spirit to preach, teach and evangelise? Working out how to make room for them in normal parish life, and normal family life, is what we need. Because without God all of our efforts will be fruitless, and utter wastes of time.

It is said that where you have been under the greatest attack from the evil one is the very place to expect the greatest victories. All aspects of family life, from conception to the grave, have been under extreme attack. Is not this where we should no longer be on the defensive, but positively placing our resources to assist the growth of families as domestic churches and households of grace?

And neither can happen without returning to the Scriptures and sincerely studying how God relates to families, and how to co-operate with the Holy Spirit.
  
To focus on family, on the Holy Spirit, and about what God has to say about them in the Plenary Council deliberations, with those two aforementioned papal documents for guidance, now that would be truly worthwhile.

#plenarycouncil  #plenarycouncil2020

​In my roving internet travels I came across a post that grabbed by attention. The gist of the post was that an intercessor wanted a seat at the leadership team table, and the response was 'No', with the major argument being all leaders are intercessors but not all intercessors are leaders.
 
It struck me that the situation was handled poorly, when it could have had quite positive outcomes if handled better. The context seemed to imply that the leadership felt a bit threatened and weren't too keen on the personality of the intercessor.
 
So I want to come at this situation from 2 angles. The first angle is where intercession sits in the body of Christ, and the second angle is 'Why would a request like this be made in the first place?'
 
Each believer in Jesus Christ who has been incorporated into His Body through baptism shares in the priestly, prophetic and kingly ministry of Jesus. The priestly ministry is offering up prayer and sacrifice for others, the prophetic is telling of God's good news of salvation, and the kingly is service of the needy and vulnerable (eg traditionally widows, orphans and strangers).
 
We know that Jesus is continually interceding for us. Heb 7:25 'His power to save is utterly certain because He is living forever to interceded for all who come to God through Him'. We know that we are to follow Him and to imitate Him, our leader and Head.
 
This means that intercession for others is an expected and normal part of being a Christian. But just as with the prophetic and kingly ministries of Jesus, we share in them in various degrees according to the call of God upon our lives.
 
There is the ordinary call as given in 1 Tim 2:1-2, 'First of all, there should be prayers offered for everyone – petitions, intercessions and thanksgiving – and especially for kings and others in authority so that we may be able to live religious and reverent lives in peace and quiet'.
 
To some the Holy Spirit gives a charism of intercession, which can take the form of a gift, ministry or office.
 
The gift normally manifests itself in an impulse or nudge from God to pray for a certain person or situation, and that impulse or urge lifts when the breakthrough is obtained. These tend to be short in duration and carry a degree of urgency eg You get woken up in the night with the need to pray for your nephew, you pray until peace comes, and the next day you find out he had been in a life and death situation. God can operate a gift like this in anyone at any time. You have a certainty that God wants you to pray for this person or situation, to pray right now, and even an understanding of how you are to pray – including what tools in your prayer arsenal you are to use in prayer. This is far beyond sitting in a circle and praying one after each other for your best guess at what the greatest needs are and your best guess at what prayers are aligned with God's will.
 
The ministry is the next level of charism where the Holy Spirit places prayer burdens upon a person, with some regularity and frequency, and involves responding with fasting and commitment and can include the experience of travailing in prayer. Generally the community catches on that when this person prays, God seems to answer quickly and powerfully, and those with a ministry of intercession get invited to intercessory prayer meetings.
 
The office is the next level of charism where it becomes increasingly obvious to the person and to the community that there is a special anointing upon their lives to pray for 'big stuff', think John Sanford and his intercessory metron for weather patterns and natural disasters. Other metrons could be for a city, a region, a nation or for particular groups of people (law enforcement, catechists) or particular situations or causes (cessation of abortion, conversion of teenagers, prayer partnering a ministry of the community). Those with an office like this usually develop mentoring and impartation roles to others less experienced in being used by the Holy Spirit with this charism.
 
If we recall the parable of Jesus about the persistent widow and the unjust judge, Luke 18: 1-8, then you can expect those with this charism to be people of perseverance, 'pester power', a bit intense at times, and maybe even a little pushy (think Abraham in Genesis 18:22-33). But if you remember that God made them this way for His special intercessory purposes, then you won't take too much offence at them, and give them a bit of leeway because you don't know just how heavy a burden God has placed upon them, and such a burden makes a person less able to see the big picture and wider perspectives. That is why they need good and understanding leadership which takes time to really listen to them - when the temptation is to fob them off at the first opportunity because they feel like an annoyance.
 
All leaders have a duty to intercede and pray for those who have been entrusted to their leadership. It is part of the job of a leader. Often those prayers are at the ordinary level unless there is a major threat or opportunity coming towards the community, when the charism at gift level will manifest. Leaders with prophetic gifts will have associated intercessory gifts because many times the promises of God require long term intercession in order to come to fruition.
 
Frequently a prophetic charism will lead to growth in intercessory charisms and an intercessory charism will lead to growth in prophetic charisms.
 
Why would a request like this be made in the first place?
 
It could be a genuine request according to the Will of God.
It could be a symptom of something lacking in the way leadership is conducted.
Or a bit of both.
 
A good leader will know whether the person claiming to be an intercessor has the charism of intercession and at what level he/she has it. If you don't know, then you will have to ask questions, listen carefully, and pray for discernment. It is part of the task of a leader to see the beginnings of ministry level charisms, to notice them, to nurture them, and to put boundaries, protections and communication channels in place to enable them to grow safely.
 
A wise leader will have communication channels in place so that regular updates of what God is doing in and through the prophets and intercessors in the leader's community are received. If independent reports from your intercessors show a shift to several intercessors praying for unmarried mothers, then that's probably a heads up from God about where He wants to develop the community's next outreach ministry.
 
If your leadership pipeline has stalled, and there have been no changes in senior leadership team in the last 5 – 10 years, then this request could be a symptom of not raising up the next generation of leaders.
 
If there has been a leadership emphasis and community culture of honouring those in visible positions of ministry leadership (preachers, pastors, worship leaders, youth leaders, administration) and not giving honour to the invisible positions of ministry (intercession, street evangelism, caring for the infants, sick and elderly, hospitality), then there is going to be various levels of frustration and not feeling valued among those in invisible positions of ministry and corresponding desires to be seen and appreciated. There is a human tendency for this imbalance to happen, and it has to be consciously fought against on a regular basis.
 
The request could be a disguised plea for help in discerning where God wants them to serve and/or the manifestation of a desire to be more involved and committed.
 
Therefore the first thing to do when a request like this comes to your leadership is to see it as a gift and opportunity, and not as a hassle.
 
Then you do your due diligence and work out whether at what level of charism the person is experiencing God's action in his/her life. The higher the level, the more likely God is in the request.
 
Then you do your due diligence and determine whether there are other charisms of the Holy Spirit regularly active in his/her life. The more there are, the more likely God is in the request.
 
Then you obtain some objective assessment of leadership potential. The StrengthsFinder questionnaire is a very good tool for this. The presence of influencing themes means that he/she should be in some form of leadership. Your task is then to work out where that should be happening, and the other theme results will give good clues to that answer. For example if the person is high in empathy and harmony, and has a theme from the influencing domain, then leadership of a hospital visitation or aged care visitation group might be the answer.
 
However the absence of influencing themes doesn't let you off the hook. You then need to look at the mix of themes of everyone on your senior leadership team and compare them with your intercessor requester. If the themes of the intercessor requester fill in the domain weaknesses of your senior leadership team, then God is in the request and you need to at least give it a 3 month trial and see how it goes.
 
If there no influencing themes and the themes they do have will not bring greater balance to the senior leadership team, then that's not where they are called at the moment. But there could be other ministry teams in the community for which they are a perfect fit. Work out where that is and plug him/her into it, reminding them that every leader is only as effective as the team they have around them, and every 'supporting the leader' role is important.
 
The bottom line is that if a person comes to you with a request to join your leadership team, you do them, yourself and the community a grave disservice unless you help get them into the ministry role that God has uniquely equipped them for.

The next stage of the Australian Plenary Council 2020 https://plenarycouncil.catholic.org.au/ has begun with the release of the 6 themes aggregated from responses across the country. Here they are:

Missionary and evangelising
Inclusive, participatory and synodal
Prayerful and Eucharistic
Humble, healing and merciful
A joyful, hope-filled and servant community
Open to conversion, renewal and reform

It is a significant feat to have found 6 themes, especially since the earlier iterations of the website expected 20 themes.

Of themselves the themes seem innocuous enough. The trouble starts when you look at the quotations grouped on the sub-pages of the website. Many, many of those quotations show how poorly the ancient deposit of faith has been presented to our current generations.

While I can understand the argument that what people actually said has to be acknowledged, it does give the false impression that these things will be discussed. I doubt that those preparing the Plenary Council want it reduced to a lengthy session of catechesis.

I am just as sure that many of these quotations answered the questions, 'What do you think? 'Where do you think the church in Australia needs to change?' and 'What do you want to tell your bishops and those in leadership?' and not the actual question: viz, 'What is the Holy Spirit calling the church in Australia to do?'.

I know that the preparation session I attended was a travesty of what it was designed to be. We were supposed to independently write down our answers to that fundamental question, and then share them. Similar answers were then supposed to be grouped together, and the biggest group (consensus) was to be discussed in depth. The leader of my session didn't do that at all; the leader rattled off a long list of controversial themes and encouraged people to make personal submissions on those themes. Several attendees didn't get a chance to say anything. We were supposed to be listening to the Holy Spirit and to each other, but we really only got to listen to the leader of the session.

I have heard that some places did it properly, and for that I am very grateful.

But I have also read the results from one parish's feedback, around 200 individual responses, and none of them began 'I think the Holy Spirit is calling us to……'; they were all comments on what mattered to them. Of those responses, the biggest consensus was a profound concern for effectively handing on the faith to the young.

That this overriding concern was not a theme of its own is a worry.

It is the very first thing Jesus asked Peter to do if he loved Him, 'Feed my lambs'.

I find that correlation of the sensum fidei rather consoling.

Before I go any further, let us put some matters to rest
•Women priests. If Jesus did not ordain His mother and Mary Magdalene, then He didn't want women ordained as priests. If Jesus didn't do it, then we have no mandate to do it.
•Married priests. This is not a solution to the vocations crisis, nor a solution to the child abuse crisis. It might make the married priest less lonely than the celibate priest, but it places enormous burdens on the wife and children. What happens if he dies? What happens to them, then? What happens if they divorce or one of them is accused of adultery? Your wife is ill and you get a call to visit a dying parishioner – who do you put first? – and how to do live with the consequences?
•Support same sex marriage. It isn't going to happen! God made them male and female and said be fruitful and multiply, He designed our bodies, He created family and marriage.
•Restore the 3rd Rite of Reconciliation. After all the abuses that happened while it was permitted…it isn't going to happen. The 3rd Rite was designed for emergency life and death situations faced by a group of people eg. going into battle, going into a rescue situation where your own life is at risk, sudden situations where there just isn't time to hear the confessions of everyone, with the expectation that if they survived they would make a proper personal confession afterwards. Did you see any of the multitudes coming together prior to Christmas and Easter for the 3rd Rite going to a personal confession in the weeks afterwards? Me neither.

Another worry is this refrain, 'We want more …..', 'We want better……', 'We need to do better at ……..'. It is a worry because at no point did I ever see a 'and I am willing to do the hard work to make it happen'. There's this strange expectation that all I have to do is ask, and someone else will dedicate themselves to making it happen. Call it a consumerist mentality if you will. Perhaps we may have received more quality responses if the question was, 'What is God calling me to do?' rather than 'What is God calling us to do?'

But then what God is calling us to do is already clear: to be missionary disciples of the Gospel. The real question is: how is He calling us to do this effectively in our lives as Australians and as His church in Australia? What we need is to seek His strategies that will engage our Australian culture and bring Australians into a life giving encounter with Jesus. That is the true work of the Plenary Council.

Yet it isn't enough to seek God's will and His strategies, because if we don't also ardently seek His power to accomplish it we are doomed to failure.

To see a theme about growing in responsiveness to the Holy Spirit and about ways of accessing and releasing His charisms for ministry, and learning how to use those precious and powerful charisms in teamwork would have excited me. It is the only thing that really matters. If a gift of preaching gets released multitudes get saved, not just a few hundred. If a gift of discernment of spirits gets released, spiritual battles get won and the rubble is cleared away for many conversions to take place. Without His charisms, without His power, we can achieve nothing. With His charisms, with His power, the whole nation can be converted.

May the Holy Spirit mercifully take control of this whole Plenary Council process. Amen.
​
Only with Him in charge do we have any hope of avoiding the numerous pitfalls along the way. 

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
​
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.

​Notes from Day 1 of The Ark and Dove Week Online Conference 11 Feb – 15 Feb 2019

These are rough notes only; very rough in places; that convey the gist of what was said.

Day 1, Monday 11 Feb 2019

Talk 1: Memory, Hope, Vision and Mission by Johnny Bertucci (video 12:51 mins)

Greetings and welcome. I am the chairman of the Ark and Dove Worldwide.

In 2015 the CCR (Catholic Charismatic Renewal) in the U.S.A. was notified that the Ark and Dove site was up for sale. Trusting in Providence, we figured out a way to procure the property. We simply could not not buy it. On 18 Dec 2015 we signed the act of sale.

The Ark and Dove was built in 1924, as two buildings, for the Bell Telephone Company, as a place of rest for female employee, and the smaller building was for the caretakers. Later on it became a boarding school. In 1964 the diocese of Pittsburgh purchased it, and invited nuns from Holland, the Ladies of Bethany, to run it. They were the ones who renamed the property, 'The Ark and Dove', and they operated it as a retreat centre.

As you know the 1967 Duchesne weekend took place here.

In 1979 the Sisters of Divine Providence purchased the property and named it 'Providence Villa'.

We have reclaimed the name, 'Ark and Dove'.

The CCR now having ownership of the property, we looked at each other and said, 'OK, now what?' It's ours. How could we use this place for unity and for passing on the grace of the Baptism in the Spirit?

No one would be excluded, it is considered as belonging to all in the CCR.

We were excited that we had the property in time for the 50th anniversary of the CCR (Feb 2017), and to be able to celebrate the Jubilee here, including that sense of people being restored to their land that the biblical concept of Jubilee has. We had a big celebration and fitted some 120 people into this place.

On that Jubilee weekend there was a prophetic word from Genesis 7:11, 'In the 2nd month, on the 17th day of the month, the fountains of the great deep burst forth and the windows of the heavens opened'.

It meant a lot to us that it was part of the story of Noah, the Ark and the Dove, and that both the original Duchesne weekend and this 50th anniversary were held 17 Feb 1967 and 17 Feb 2017. We felt like it was a note from God underlining just how special this day was.

Unity is to be our calling card. Unity is to be our mantle and our cry.

On that Jubilee night in 2017 Patti retold the story of the Duchesne weekend, and we crammed 45 people into the chapel with her, in that upper room, and we recorded it. On Friday 15 Feb during this Ark and Dove Week you will get to see that recording. It is a great love story. It was also a great night of praise and worship.

The mission we have been given is far from over.

The Ark and Dove is poised to be a beacon and clarion call for unity.

It is your place, your home. When you come to visit, you come as a member of the family coming home. Come and be refreshed.

We need to foster this unity.
........................................................................................... 

Talk 2: The Holy Spirit outpoured at the Ark and Dove by Patti Mansfield Gallagher (video 6:51 mins)

When I was a little girl I would ask my mother to tell me the story about how you and Daddy met. I never got tired of hearing it.
In a similar way how God started the Catholic Charismatic Renewal is a love story, and I get to retell the story.

That retreat weekend somehow I left my makeup at home. That helped remind me that I wasn't here for a new boyfriend, but for a spiritual purpose. This was by first ever retreat, and I went with a bit of fear and trepidation. I had a plan for my life.

Since I was from a poor immigrant family, all I had was a public school education. So this retreat for me was scary, but I was excited too. I was scared God might call me to be a nun.

I discovered I need to both ask of God and to surrender to Him. My prayer was 'teach me to follow Your Son Jesus'. Somehow my unconditional surrender was needed.

There were no chairs or pews in the chapel that weekend, just cushions.

When I went into the chapel that night I knelt and trembled at the awesomeness of God. I felt it.

I asked myself, what is happening? This is something we didn't plan.

Then I was flat on my face in the chapel, and somehow my shoes were off my feet. I experienced immersion in the love of God. My prayer was, 'Stay, don't leave me'. I was basking in the love and mercy of God.

Somehow I knew that if I could experience this, others could too. Jesus is alive. Jesus is real.

After visiting the chaplain and telling him my story I saw two girls on the retreat. They said my face was glowing. I took them up to the chapel with me. I had never prayed out loud in my life before, but I asked God to do for them what He had done for me.

There were about 12 of us that night, sovereignly drawn into the chapel.

I felt a tingling all over, like I was on fire.

I was there as a witness, but it's not my story, it is God's story.
.............................................................................................
 
Talk 3: The Holy Spirit outpoured at the Ark and Dove by David Mangan (video 11:13 mins)

I am delighted to be here. God has used what happened here at the Ark and Dove with me and others to advance His purpose in the Church and the world.

When I arrived at the Ark and Dove for that retreat weekend I was lacking in motivation. Having had a long day at work, all I wanted to do was sleep. I heard there was a lovely meditation on Our Lady that Friday night, but I missed it.

I knew I wanted to experience the Lord. We had been asked to read Acts Chapters 1 to 4 and 'The Cross and the Switchblade', but most of it went over my head.

I had been asked to do the talk on Acts Chapter 1, but I asked someone else to give that talk because I didn't know enough about the Holy Spirit. In that Acts Chapter 1 talk, the person who gave it said some things that changed my life. He said that the word in Greek translated as power came from the same root word as dynamite.

I wanted to follow God, but on my own steam. However I realised I was not tapped into God. I asked, 'Where's the dynamite? Surely the sacraments give us His Holy Spirit, so where's the dynamite?'

The second talk was on Acts Chapter 2, and the speaker said, 'This still happens today'. After that talk I wrote in my notebook, 'I want to hear someone speak in tongues – me.'

In the discussion after that talk, I was back to the dynamite question. Baptism is something we affirm later in life if we were baptised as infants. Confirmation, too, was similar. What about providing an opportunity to renew our Baptism and Confirmation commitments on this retreat? I was disappointed that when this idea was presented to the whole group there wasn't enthusiasm for it.

Then it was lunch time. After lunch I walked around the grounds of the retreat centre with Patti, continuing this discussion. I decided that even if no one else is interested in this, I'm going to do this. And Patti said, 'Me, too'.

Going back into the retreat centre, a leader said that the water pump had broken.

I knew I was on the trail of something, and I didn't want the retreat to end so soon. What about praying for water? OK, let's go to the chapel to pray, and a handful of us went off to do that.

I asked the Lord for water, and I was given a great burst of faith that God had given it – so I prayed in thanksgiving. I went down and turned the tap in the kitchen, and the water came out strongly. We discovered later that the repairman had a change of heart, and worked on it. God answered, it didn't matter how.

I went back to the chapel to give thanks, and the presence of God was so thick and tangible. I was on my face before the tabernacle, explosions in my body. I sat Indian-style on the floor, about to say thank you, and I started speaking a language I did not know.

I went down and talked to the leaders and asked them if this was a valid experience, and they said 'Yes'. As I left, one of the leaders asked if I had spoken in a non-English prayer, and suggested if I experienced it again, to let it flow.

God will do this for you, if you let Him.
.......................................................................................... 

Talk 4: And the Fire came to our Nations by Andres Arango (video 25 mins)

Special greetings to all of you.
(then invocation prayer to the Holy Spirit for grace for the talk)

My book, 'Catholic Charismatic Renewal: A Current of Grace' has recently been published in Spanish.

As part of the research for the book I went to Lucca in Italy where Blessed Elena Guerra lived and died. I was able to pray in her room.

The work of God in her was a precursor of the Catholic Charismatic Renewal, helping the world be aware of the Holy Spirit in our lives. Primarily this was done through her correspondence with and encouragement of Pope Leo XIII.

Because of this, Pope Leo XIII wrote an encyclical on the Holy Spirit, dedicated the 20th century to the Holy Spirit, and initiated the worldwide novena to the Holy Spirit leading up to Pentecost each year.

Pope St John XXIII, convened the Second Vatican Council and asked God for a new Pentecost. Elena was the first person he beatified during his pontificate. He called her the Apostle of the Holy Spirit. She wrote about the importance of crying out for a new Pentecost.

In 2015 Pope Francis quoted Cardinal Suenens about the river must be emptied into the sea, and the charismatic renewal as a current of grace.

In 2014 Pope Francis addressed the Renewal in these words: 'You, the charismatic renewal, have received a great gift from the Lord. Your movement’s birth was willed by the Holy Spirit to be "a current of grace in the Church and for the Church". This is your identity: to be a current of grace.'

When I was a child we went to a farm near a river, with lots of wildlife and fishing. We would spend time going to explore, and seeking the stream head for the river. It took some finding, because it was small and unassuming, and yet that is where the river began.

The Ark and Dove is like that stream head for the river, small and not well known, and yet the place from which this current of grace sprang for us.

May this retreat centre be a faithful instrument of God, helping us to fulfill the commission Pope Francis gave us to bring the baptism in the Holy Spirit to the whole Church.

How do we do this?

• By every day claiming a new outpouring of the Holy Spirit.
• As Pope Benedict XVI encouraged, make parishioners aware of the Holy Spirit. Ask them, 'Do you have the Holy Spirit?'
•Remembering that the baptism in the Holy Spirit is for all Christians, it is an instrument for ecumenism and unity and for collaborative evangelisation.
• By installing the culture of Pentecost as described in Acts 1:8 'You will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you, and then you will be My witnesses not only in Jerusalem, but throughout Judea and Samaria, and indeed to the ends of the earth.'

It is our task to carry the presence of Jesus, to enable people to encounter Jesus, to fall in love with Him and to be transformed by Him.

To grow in holiness is a life style, to be lived each minute, to be filled and moved by the Holy Spirit so as to live like Jesus.

(at the end of the talk there was a prayer)
...............................................................................................
 
Talk 5: Interview re CHARIS by Jim Murphy (video 5:53 mins)

CHARIS (Catholic Charismatic Renewal International Service) is the name of the new international body representing both the Communities (previously Catholic Fraternity) and the Prayer Groups (previously ICCRS) of the Catholic Charismatic Renewal.
Background information:
http://www.iccrs.org/en/charis-moderator-and-isc-announced/
https://www.nsc-chariscenter.org/charis-new-international-service-for-catholic-charismatic-renewal/
http://www.iccrs.org/en/new-charis-statutes-now-available/

Jim Murphy:

Pope Francis has a vision of a much broader community/family to live in the Spirit.

The current of grace of the Renewal is not something that can be controlled, managed or put in a box.

We have to get into the river of that current of grace and let it take us where it wants.

Let's go together, not in conformity, but unity in diversity, which requires an open heart.

All of us are invited into the current of grace, but don't tell anyone how they should swim. Let them swim their own way.

Start now and move slowly.

For example, 'Can we have lunch and talk about where God could be leading us?' We don't have to wait for the perfect plan. 'Could we just meet for an afternoon of prayer and discussion?' Let's start with that.

Then God can show us the next step.

Move slow, then it will be authentic. 'Let's get back together in 4 weeks'. Begin dialogue, call and invite, but do not push.

God is looking for the intention of the heart rather than the perfect plan.

God has to show up; because if He doesn't, then it is all over.
 
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​'Where is the Holy Spirit blowing in your local area?'

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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