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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

​This particular Pentecost has had a huge build up, and expectations are running high. Please God, this will be the breakthrough we have all been longing for, the long promised tsunami of grace.

So what should our final preparations be?

Firstly a recognition that this is God's work; not ours. The primary witness to the resurrection of Jesus is the Holy Spirit. The rest of us are secondary witnesses. Without Him we can do nothing.

Secondly a willingness to let the Holy Spirit surprise us; an openness to Him working in unexpected ways that might initially make us feel uncomfortable.

Thirdly, and most importantly, total surrender to Him. What does this consist of? What does it look like? Putting all your hopes and dreams and plans in God's care, and being happy if none of them come to pass - as long as God's will is done in us and through us. At the beginning of the rite of ordination to the priesthood, the candidates come forward, and lay down prostrate on the floor to symbolise that they are giving themselves completely to God for His purposes, and the renunciation of everything of their own will in favour of His.
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Our model and our hope in these final preparations is the mother of Jesus. With her assistance what is most difficult becomes easier, and whatever obstacles there are decrease and dissolve. May her intercession obtain for us the grace of complete co-operation with the Holy Spirit. Amen.

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

Firstly, here is some recommended reading.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Is God good? Mark 10:18

Does He only give good gifts? Matt 7:11

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

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

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

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

The main meat of the evening plenary session for #DR16 began after the offering for the work of Divine Renovation Ministries was taken up. This was a long session, so go and get your favourite beverage now, and settle in. As usual, this is not a precise transcription, and there's been some light editing of Peter Herbeck's talk and of the prayer session that followed it.

Fr James Mallon (FJM): We want to thank you for your support and we are going to ask you to continue to pray for us; to pray for us in the weeks and months ahead as we continue to see how best to respond to this call of God. But before we continue there's a particular thing that regretfully I have to acknowledge, and kind of make a public confession of…When I introduced the countries yesterday morning I left one out. So please (kneeling) humbly forgive me because, let's hear it from the people from the United Kingdom (cheers).

Dan O'Rourke then had some housekeeping announcements and a long introduction to the main speaker for the evening, Peter Herbeck. The short version is that Peter is on staff with the team at Renewal Ministries and has been married for 30 years, with 4 children and 4 grandchildren and that he has a special gift for recounting stories about the things he has seen God do. The video-clip that was shown was an even better introduction to him.

This is the link for that video-clip about how Renewal Ministries started, and some of the things it has done. It goes for a little over 3 minutes. https://youtu.be/NEwH_emDAso

Here's the transcript for that video-clip (but the visuals will tell you so much more):

Sr Ann Shields SGL: We got a phone call from the Holy Father John Paul.
Ralph Martin: I remember giving him a copy of my latest book at the time. He took the book and he said, 'You know, I've read it already'. I almost became speechless.
SrAS: Then he turned to Ralph and he said, 'Ralph, tell me, what is the Spirit saying to the Church?
RM: I think what the Spirit is saying to the Church is 'Jesus'. We just stood there for a couple of minutes saying the name of Jesus, and it was just a very, very special moment of communion with the Lord and communion with the Pope and just proclaiming the name of Jesus together.
SrAS: We just began to pray. We'd get together every week and just pray and say, 'Lord, will You help us? Will You lead us?' And that's when we got the sense of the first countries we should go to.
Peter Herbeck: So here we were in the basement of a house here in Ann Arbor. Sr Ann gets the sense we're supposed to go to Lithuania. We don't know anybody there. Two weeks later the bishop of the cultural centre of the country calls us and says, 'Would you come and help me?' And what we had heard prophetically from folks who prayed for us said. Don't. Only go through the doors that God is going to open for you. He will open doors for you. It started with Lithuania, and then it went to Slovakia, and then it went to Hungary, and then it went to Ukraine and now it's 40 countries around the world. Clearly God's calling us. What are we going to do? So we formed an organisation, Renewal Ministries. That's how it happened.
RM: The Holy Spirit is alive and well. He's active today. When people call out to Jesus and call out to the Holy Spirit, He's going to do things.
PH: The hour of the laity has struck. The Spirit seizes us, lays hold of us, and see that's exactly what we experience, and as he said, it's happening all over the place.
SrAS: What does God want from us, His sons and daughters? How are we called to live in this generation? In this time and all the challenges that we're certainly beginning to face?
RM: We're living in quite a time of conflict and decision. It is for such a time as this that we've been called to do what we're doing. I hope that Renewal Ministries can help people make the decision that they're going to be friends of Jesus Christ and they're going to be loyal to Him even in the midst of tremendous oppression and difficulties.
PH: It's now. It's time. This is it. We didn't come together to create a religious organisation so we could have jobs. I mean Renewal Ministries is just the form, it's the way we do it. But what it's all about is what's burning in us. It's what God has put in to us. It's what the Holy Spirit has given to us. And we want to give it away to other people, and we've seen it pass like a contagion to people all over the world, to countries all over the world. And just like the Word said, He brought people to us with that same fire, with that same exact conviction burning them and we've joined forces together, and that's why we've been able to do the work so broadly across the world, because the Lord has given other people to run with us.
RM: We use all different kinds of means and methods to secure the message. But the message, which is, 'God is', that's what we're about. That's what we do on radio, that's what we do on television, that's what we do in our conferences, the seminars, the clergy convocations, and the classrooms at the seminary and all over the world.

(Here ends the video-clip transcript.)

Dan: Join me in welcoming Peter Herbeck.

Peter Herbeck: Well good evening everybody. What a delight to be able to be here with you tonight friends. This has been for me an amazing couple of days. I think today for me, besides the testimonies which were clearly the highlight for me, one of the things I learned today, I learned about my friend Fr James. Because people ask me about him. What's he like? And I try to describe him. But between Laurie and Fr James, it was very succinct what they said this morning, did you get it? He's a progressive weirdo. That's what I took from this morning.

What Father asked me to do tonight is to talk about the power of the Holy Spirit. Luke chapter 24: where Luke tells us that Jesus told the apostles that He was going to clothe them with power. What I'd like to do tonight is talk a bit about that passage and then apply that passage to what we are seeing here these last 2 days. Because what's happening here is something I think is very prophetic for the Church. I think we're experiencing the realisation of the very thing that Luke was telling us Jesus spoke in Luke chapter 24, verses 44-49.

Now, setting the scene: This is the first time Jesus appears to the apostles after His resurrection. The apostles are hunkered down. The apostles are troubled, they're confused. They've been destabilised by what happened a week earlier. Some of them had a certain amount of faith that that was the way it was supposed to go. Others are wondering if the entire project, the hope that was in their heart in Christ was for nought. Jesus appears to them. And He says this: Then He said to them 'These are My words which I spoke to you while I was still with you, that everything written about Me in the law of Moses and the prophets and the psalms must be fulfilled' then He opened their minds to understand the Scriptures, and He said to them, 'Thus it is written that the Christ should suffer and on the third day rise from the dead, and that repentance and forgiveness for sins should be preached in His name to all the nations beginning from Jerusalem. You are My witnesses to these things and behold I send the promise of My Father upon you. But stay in the city until you are clothed with power from on high.'

We've all heard that passage many times, right? But think about the situation. The first thing Jesus did when He spoke to them in Luke's account, is He understood where they were, understood the confusion, the destabilisation, probably the anxiety and fear that was there – and what does He say to them? 'Everything that happened went exactly according to plan'. According to the Scriptures, the Messiah must die, suffer and die, and rise again on the third day. Everything went according to plan. Now, this is what it was all for. All this happened so that repentance and forgiveness of sins could be preached to all nations. You are witnesses to these things. And I'm going to send you, but you have to wait until you receive power. This is important.

I think this is something of what we are seeing here, a kind of renewal of the very promise that Jesus spoke about in the Gospel: You shall receive power. Pope John Paul II once said, when Jesus talked about receiving power He said what the Holy Spirit does, the promise of the Father when He comes, He released power and that power creates movement. He said, so you know that someone has received that grace of the Holy Spirit when they begin to move into God's purpose and God's plan for them.

So what's God's purpose and plan? The Catechism and the Council laid out it very clearly for us. What's God's fundamental plan, if you could reduce it for us? Universal call to holiness and universal call to mission. The universal call to holiness is what? Love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind and strength and love your neighbour as yourself. The universal call to mission is what? Go make disciples of all nations. So the Holy Father reminds us, the Holy Spirit is given to us to move us into the fundamental call for which we were made and the Church was born, to bring about holiness and mission. Right? Holiness and mission. We've been given power to grow and to do. Say it with me: to grow and to go; to grow in holiness and to go make disciples of all nations.

Pope Francis reminded us. He said Pentecost, the day the Church was born, friends, never forget he said friends, when the Church was born, it was born on the move. As soon as the Holy Spirit came, John Paul II said, the Spirit stirred the deepest energies of the apostles, the 'splankna', and then thrust them out into the marketplace.

What have we been seeing happening in the testimonies the last 2 days? Every single person encounters Christ. And where did they describe the encounter? What was the difference making experience for them? The Holy Spirit weekend. Right?
The whole reason this parish exists and the great prophetic witness they are to each and every one of us, is to bring about an opportunity for that experience to happen. For people to be able, for just a moment in time, to be present, to hear the story of Jesus - and to give the Spirit permission, to give the Spirit an opportunity. Because the fundamental mission of the Holy Spirit, the special mission of the Spirit, is to reveal to every human heart the glory and the majesty of Jesus. Amen? Amen. The glory and the majesty of Jesus.

Every single person who testified the last 2 days talked about how they were touched by love and they fell in love with Christ. Only Jesus can do that. Chris got up here earlier and he said, he had a hundred questions for his friend and what did this friend say? How did she have one answer? You've got to go to Alpha. You've got to go to Alpha why? Because the person we all know what that heart is seeking, the answer they're looking for is Jesus, is a person. Not just to have all their questions answered, but to literally meet Jesus. And so here you have people, ordinary Catholic people, who also have been touched by Christ. They know what that person is looking for, because they had been looking for Him. So just trust me, come. Just trust me, come. What you want, is you want to meet Him, and time and time again we heard it.

Now Pope Francis puts it this way. Instead of talking about a movement, he said what we are experiencing in our time is a special grace of the Holy Spirit, and he said that special grace is like a current. He said it's the current of God's Spirit and the key is to plug into the current.

The testimonies were a tremendous witness to that. One person came and got touched, and what happened? They extended it to another, and they extended it to another. Gemma. How many of you are still thinking about Gemma's testimony? I'm tracking her down. We're going to give a big conference in Toronto in March. She's got to talk about her story there, because that girl has been launched, hasn't she? You talk about movement, did you see her eyes? Did you see the conviction that that girl had? She stood up here and she's on fire for God. She not only met the Lord, but man she got the whole ball of wax, and she ends up bringing her whole family- and then she moves to Toronto and she's evangelising her peers in Toronto. Movement. Power. Current of Grace.

Why does it happen here? It happens here because there are people here who know how to set up an environment to help bring people in, and they have great expectation. They know it's not them. All of this is an excuse to make that connection happen. And I was touched so much watching her. She had so much fire and conviction.

It reminded me of when I was a young guy. When I was about 20. I actually came to the Lord when I was about 19 and I went to college. I was at a college seminary for a period of time, and between my first and second year I lived in an apartment with one of my buddies from high school – a guy who played American football. He was a really big guy. He had a very large head. Everyone called him buffalo head, he didn't mind that. He was just a big thick offensive lineman. He was an academic all American football player. And I was excited to move into an apartment with him, because I wanted to share the Gospel with him.

So the first night we came together we had to go to the grocery store, because we had nothing in the cupboard. And I can still see him pushing this cart, probably the first time he pushed a cart, 2 guys walking down the aisle. 'Hey Doug', and I started telling him some of the things God's been doing in my life, and he didn't pay any attention to me at all. And so after a few minutes I said, 'Hey Doug, how are you doing with your faith? Are you still going to church?' He was raised Catholic. He looked at me and goes, 'I don't want to talk about it'. He's big, so I said OK. He made it clear he didn't want to talk about it.

So throughout the summer I was praying for him. He has a class. I had a class. We lived in this tiny little apartment. Then one night about the middle of summer, about 11 o'clock and we're about to turn out the lights, go to bed. And the beds were in this little hallway between these two rooms. So they're kind of close to each other, and I flip off the light and lay down and I'm going to do a little night prayer before I go to bed. And after a few minutes I hear Doug say to me, 'Hey Pete'. I said, 'What?' 'Turn on the light'. I said, 'What for?' 'Turn on the light'. So I flip on the light. I said, 'What's up?' And he sits up in bed and looks at me and he goes, 'Is the devil real?' Huh, that's kind of a wild question. 'Yeah, why?' 'Is he real?' I said, 'Yeah'. He said, 'OK', and he laid back down. I turn out the light. I'm thinking, that's weird. A few minutes later, he said again, 'Pete, turn the light back on'. And so I flipped the light on, and he said, 'I'm going to ask you again, is the devil real?' And I said, 'Yeah, the devil's real, why?' 'Because I think there's something wrong with me, I think I'm being hassled'. I said, 'What do you mean?' He said, 'Well you know over the last couple of months I've been thinking, I've been feeling very depressed and thinking a lot about suicide'. Now I never would have known that, because here's Doug, an academic all American football player who looks like he's got it all going for himself. And here I am 20 years old, having no experience whatsoever in a situation like this. I remember the thought going through my mind, I wish there was an adult here now who could help us, for a minute, that there was a grown-up anywhere to do to. And I said, 'Doug, look, I don't know if it's the devil, but it sounds like it could be, but I do know this, we were baptized and Jesus Christ has conquered the power of the devil, and if we pray, we've got the power, we can drive him out.'
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So here we are in this apartment, and I was totally surprised. He's sitting there. He sits at the edge of the bed in his pyjamas, and says, 'OK, let's pray'. He's got this look on his face. I didn't know what I was doing, because I had never done it before in my whole life. I had never prayed with anyone. And I came up to him, and I said 'Doug, just think about Jesus and I'll pray'. And so, he's closing his eyes and I put my hand on his head. And I was trying to think of what to pray and so I just said, 'Jesus, You conquered the devil, and You're stronger than the devil, and in Your Name Jesus I take authority over anything that's beating up my friend'. And I'm just standing there. Inside I'm thinking, 'Get him Lord, get him now, get him, get him, while he's here, get him'. And I'm just waiting and after a few minutes I lean over and I look at him and I say, 'Hey Doug, is anything happening?' He looks up at me and he says – this is no joke, this is exactly what happened – he looks at me and does, 'You don't see it?' I go, 'I don’t see what?' 'You don’t see the light?' 'No, I don't see any light'. He goes, 'Come on, you don't see the light?' I said, 'I don't see any light Doug. What do you mean?' He goes, 'As soon as you started praying in Jesus' Name this light, this light just came through me. It's here, I can feel it and see it'. I said, 'Great, I don't see a thing'.

He gets up and he goes into the other room and we had this chest where we stored stuff in, and he flips it open and throws out magazines we shouldn't have had and things like that in there. And he reaches down and he pulls out a bible that his mum gave him when he went to college. And he sits down on the bed, and I'm watching this big oaf of a guy, and he starts paging through the bible and he starts reading bible passages. As he is turning page to page and he gets to the great 'For God so loved the world' he goes, 'Listen to this Pete: For God so loved the world He gave His only Son that whoever believes in Him…' and he goes, 'This is unbelievable!' I go, 'I've been trying to tell you that all summer, man, and you never listened to me one time'. (laughter) He then, he's so overcome, he gets on his knees in our apartment, he raises his hands and he starts shouting, 'God You're amazing! God, I love You!' I'm thinking, 'Doug, be quiet'. It's like 11:30 at night. That's all we need, some guy to walk in and see us in our pyjamas and he's on his knees holding the bible, screaming. That guy would say, 'What are these guys smoking in here?'

So he's literally in that position and he gets up on the bed and he's paging through scripture and I start praying like, 'OK God, this is great, this is like the stuff I've read about in books and stuff, this is really good', and I said, 'Lord, what can I do Lord? What should I do? And I felt like the Lord said to me, 'Wash his feet'. I said, 'What else would you like me to do?' (laughter) Seriously. So I'm thinking I'm being melodramatic, like this is just me, and I'm so excited about the moment I'm kind of going overboard, but I felt like the Lord say, 'Do it'. Doug's praying on the bed, and I go and I'm opening our cupboard. We had one pan. This is literally, one cake pan, and I got the cake pan and I went to the sink and I put water in it and I got a towel and I put it on my shoulder. And I went over to Doug, and he's sitting on the bed, he's got his eyes closed, he's been reading the bible. And I kneel down in front of him and I put the pan down and I said, 'Hey Doug' and he goes, 'What are you doing?' And I said, 'Doug, I'm supposed to wash your feet' (laughter) And he goes, he looks at me totally straight and does, 'Do it, Do it, Yeah, Do it'. This is no joke, and I'm looking down at triple Z feet and I feel myself blushing. Like we're the only ones in the room, and I'm totally red, I feel so stupid, you know? And he's got tears coming down his cheeks, OK, and it was crazy. So we were done. I dried his feet with the dish towel and Doug gets up and he says, 'Pete, do you realise how important this is?' And he fell on his knees, he just got on his knees and he said, 'Pete, the most important thing in human history is the crucifixion of Jesus Christ'. He said, 'I see the Cross at the centre of everything.' This is no joke. He's actually saying this to me. It's like the Holy Spirit is revealing to Doug a revelation that is coming to this guy right in our apartment, on the floor, and so I kneel down and we're praying.

We prayed for a long time. We started praying for friends and family, and it was literally like 12:30 at night. And I said, 'Hey Doug, this has been awesome, but I got to go to bed'. And he goes, 'OK'. So we go to bed. I'm laying down. I turn off the light and I'm just thinking, 'Lord, thank You so much', and I'm starting to doze and all of a sudden Doug goes, 'Pete, turn the light back on'. And I said, 'No, Doug, I'm not'. He goes, 'Dude, turn it on'. I say 'OK, I'll turn it on'. So I turned the light on. He goes, 'We're supposed to go over to the football stadium and pray right now'. I said, 'Come on, I've got to work in the morning.' It's about 12:30. He says, 'No'. So we get out of bed. He puts his jeans on and we go over to the 50 yard line at the football stadium on the field. And the dorm where some of the football players, his friends, live. We're supposed to pray for them. So here we stood, 12:45 at night, two guys standing praying towards the hall at the university where the football players live, saying, 'Lord, get those guys. Lord, bless those guys. Lord, save those guys, sober them up, do whatever it takes Lord to win them'. We were there. We prayed. We started singing (laughter….he nods his head). We actually started dancing – but not together. No, not together. We laid down on the field and looked up at the stars in the sky, and we were there literally friends, till the sun came up in the morning. We went to Mass, went back to the apartment, I called in sick, and I went to bed. (laughter).

About 6 years ago I was speaking at a men's conference in Northern Illinois university, and I gave my talk and I went to my book table, and I'm kind of wrapping things up and I look, and who comes walking down the hall? Buffalo head. Right? And he comes walking up and he goes, 'Hey, Herbs', I said, 'Hey Doug, how are you doing man?' He goes, 'I'm fine. I'm fine'. He said, 'You got a minute?' 'I've got to head to the airport, to O'Hare'. He goes, 'Can I give you a ride?' I said, 'Sure'. So I get in the car. We get in the car, he puts the keys in the ignition and he looks at me and he goes, 'Do you remember that night?' Just like that. I said, 'How could I forget it?' He said, 'Pete, a week hasn't gone by in my life that I don't think about that night' and he said, 'It's been a part of me my whole life, and since that time it totally changed and transformed me'.

The reason I tell the story, not just because it's so goofy, it's so unusual, but because I was 20/21, I didn't really know much about anything yet, but I had met Jesus, I had been touched by the power of the Holy Spirit, and friends I think back now in that moment when Doug started sharing the problems that he was having, and I felt I had a moment where I felt there was nothing I could do about it, like, what do I do? And then I thought, maybe pray. And in my mind I'm going, 'Pray?' What's that going to do?' What do you expect to have happen? What do you know about this stuff? And like feelings of inadequacy, or I was in over my head. Do you have them? Moments like these? Yeah, a couple of us have, that's good. I don't feel alone. Seriously. And this is where the power of God…You are clothed with power, you've been baptised, you've been confirmed, Jesus Christ the Lord lives in you. And He's given you His Holy Spirit and it's through the power of the Spirit of God that the kingdom is extended, one heart to the next.

Listening to the witnesses that we heard, yesterday and today, ordinary people encountering Jesus in the power of the Holy Spirit, and suddenly they're praying over each other. Who were the two guys? Mike and Alan. These guys coming together and now they're saying not only would I not have gone to a meeting like that, not only I would never let anybody pray with me, I could never imagine myself being in that situation. And now these guys have been delivered and released, are now bringing that same grace to these men in their parishes. Isn't that beautiful? (clapping) I mean the current of grace, it's the presence and the power of the Holy Spirit.

There is a woman named Mary Hagar, and a deacon Michael Thoennes, they live in Minneapolis St Paul. They came to an evangelisation school we did about 10 years go in Ann Arbor, and we talked about the kerygma. At the end of it she stood up, she's about mid-60s, she said, 'I've been a DRE (Director of Religious Education) for 28 years. I've led every program any parish could possibly run', and she listed them all. She said this to the whole class. 'And it dawned on me for the first time: in 28 years I don't think I've led one person into relationship with Jesus Christ'. And she said, 'I think I know why. Because everything we do presumes this person or these people have met Jesus'. She said, 'I got it all backwards. I wrote everything in the parish, from cradle to grave, I wrote every program for our parish. I'm going to go home and talk to the pastor'. She said, 'I'm going to tell him, let's tear up every course we wrote, and let's start over. And let's have as the goal of every course, whether it's confirmation prep or marriage prep or whatever, to meet the Lord Jesus Christ, to have an encounter with Jesus'. (clapping)

So she goes home. Two very ordinary people. If you saw them they wouldn't wow you at all, but they wow me now. She goes home and meets with her pastor. It’s the first time he's a pastor of a parish. She said, 'Let's tear everything up', and of course he was afraid, right? And so he called the archbishop and said 'Here's this proposal, and Mary wants to do this. What do you think?' And the archbishop knew Mary and said, 'Just relax, no problem. Go ahead and do it'. So they re-wrote everything.

She comes back 5 years later. I had very little contact with her. She came back to the same course. I said, 'Mary, what are you doing here?' 'We came back to get another shot in the arm'. I said, 'What happened?' She pulls out a binder with 500 individual testimonies in it. She had DVDs she brought me, DVDs of truck drivers in the parish weeping, talking about their experience on Alpha. They went back and said, 'We need to introduce people to Jesus'. And the priest said, 'How do we do that? What should we do?' So they looked around, they searched for different vehicles and well, this Alpha thing… So they did Alpha.

She stood up in front of this new class and she said, '5 years ago I was here and I came just after our parish fund raiser. At the time we had 2 parishes that are related to each other, we had a Catholic school that had to close because we didn't have enough people in it. We tried to get Eucharistic adoration 24/7, we couldn't get that to happen, and we had about 10 to 15 people going to Mass each day, and we were literally managing decline is what we were doing'. And she said, 'I'm here to tell you right now we just won the bronze medallion in the diocese, for our elementary school is completely full, we have a waiting list to get into the school. We have Eucharistic adoration 24/7. We've got almost 200 people gone through Alpha who are now on service teams with us. And the thing that Father really notices: 5 years ago we raised $25,000, this year we raised $100,000. And Father learned something: converted people give money' (clapping) They are now mentoring 25 parishes in the Minnesota-Iowa area, it's called CORE Ministries.

I called them a couple of weeks ago and said, 'How's it going?' 'They've put 1500 people thought Alpha', she said. 'We've got about 250 people who are engaged in mission, helping us build other parishes and mentor other parishes'. Ordinary people. And I said, 'How did it go?' She said, 'The crazy thing is nobody believes it when you tell them how simple it is. They just don't believe it. All we are is environmental architects', she said, 'We set up this opportunity and we invite people, in the kind of way that Laurie described this morning. 'I was loved, and nobody judged me, and they welcomed me and they loved me' – and they met the Lord. Amen? Amen.

This parish is a sign for us. The Lord is responding and helping us with the challenges that we are facing. It's a Caleb moment, like the pastor said. How many of you have experienced over the last few years of your life and ministry what he was saying about the 10 that said it just ain't going to work? Most of us are tempted to experience that same thing. And what we need to do and what we need to hear is not, 'Wow, Fr James is Superman', you know, I mean if he was in our parish, sure it would work. Did you hear what he said today? Wasn't it revealing, listening to them about their relationship? It was so great to hear about the push back on Fr James. That made my weekend. It was so good.

Look, we don't know everything, but what we do know is that we're called, and that the One who is calling us is faithful, and that He has the power to accomplish all that we can ask or imagine. And so they take that step of St Peter out of the boat, and they decide to live right here (balancing precariously on one foot). Friends, this is where the power of God gets released. Not when we're sitting in the boat, but when by His command we step out and we just decide, we're going to live the kind of faith that you spell R.I.S.K, a faith that will risk because we know the One who has called us is faithful.

That current of grace is already present in your parishes in various ways. But the Lord wants to ratchet up the voltage a little bit. He wants you to know that He has clothed you with power and is making you a conduit of this grace to be released in your parish, and to help your people come into that experience of the power and the presence of the Holy Spirit. Amen? Amen.

How many of you think we're facing new challenges in our culture? How many of you think the wheels are falling off around us? We are in an intense battle, aren't we? Pope Benedict XVI characterised our time like this: He said, 'Today the faith is in danger of dying out in vast areas of the world, like a flame which no longer has fuel'. He said, 'What we are witnessing is humanity is pushing God from the human horizon' and he said, 'As God is pushed from the human horizon, the light that is in God, what happens? Darkness begins to settle on the human mind and the human heart', and then he reads it perfectly – he says, 'As a result humanity is losing its bearings'. Do you see that? We don't even know what a family is anymore. We don't even know what sexuality is about. We are incredibly confused, our culture, and it is getting more and more confused all the time because people have pushed the light away. And what is God doing in the midst of it? He's pouring out His Holy Spirit, the answer friends to the dilemma of the time we are living in. Pope John Paul II said, 'You are the answer, the Spirit of Christ Jesus risen in glory in your heart is the answer to the moment that we're living in. So be the light of the world, and be the salt of the earth.' Amen? Amen.

We're going to take a few minutes to pray tonight, maybe a bit longer than we've had the last few sessions, and what I want to do first is to sing. Let's stand. We are going to ask the Holy Spirit to come and to lead us in our prayer. I want to begin with a song, to give us a moment to open our hearts, stretch out our hands, and open our hearts to the King, using this song as a prayer to invite Him again to pour out His Holy Spirit on us.

(If you want to join in with this time of prayer it begins at 1 hour 20 mins into the recording https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5I5nJ8T3QKE )

(Song: Lord, I need You)

Lord, I come, I confess
Bowing here I find my rest
Without You I fall apart
You're the One that guides my heart

Lord, I need You, oh, I need You
Every hour I need You
My one defence, my righteousness
Oh God, how I need You

Where sin runs deep Your grace is more
Where grace is found is where You are
Where You are, Lord, I am free
Holiness is Christ in me

Lord, I need You, oh, I need You
Every hour I need You
My one defence, my righteousness
Oh God, how I need You

So teach my song to rise to You
When temptation comes my way
When I cannot stand I'll fall on You
Jesus, You're my hope and stay

Lord, I need You, oh, I need You
Every hour I need You
My one defence, my righteousness
Oh God, how I need You

You're my one defence, my righteousness
Oh God, how I need You
My one defence, my righteousness
Oh God, how I need You

Songwriters: Christy Nockels / Daniel Carson / Jesse Reeves / Kristian Stanfill / Matt Maher

PH: As we were beginning to pray, Cilla had a sense from the Lord that she wanted to share with you

Cilla: The Lord gave me this sense that there were some people here tonight who feel like a well, but inside they feel like this well is deep and nearly empty. There's a little bit of water inside, but just very little. And when people are coming to the well they can't really draw any water. And I felt the Lord remind me of the picture that Fr James shared of the pump with the water pouring out, and then the picture of the church filling up with water and the water pouring out the windows. And I feel that God is saying to some of you who feel empty and nearly dry, tonight He wants to fill you. He wants to fill you with that life giving water, so that out of you streams of living water will flow and the thirsty will come and there is plenty of water to give.

PH: If any of you feel like that word is for you, would you mind raising your hands? Because we'd like to pray with you. Get them up high so people can see them, don't be shy. If people round them would be willing to lay their hands on them and pray for them for a moment as we ask the Holy Spirit to come. And those of you with your hands up, if you'd like to pray with me:
Lord Jesus Christ, You are my Lord, You are my God. Lord, come. Pour out Your Spirit upon me again. Lord, I am empty, I feel empty. Lord fill me, fill me.

Come Holy Spirit. Blessed be Your name Lord. We ask You to release the power of Your kingdom on our brothers and sisters. Come Holy Spirit.

(repeat of the song, 'Lord, I need You')

Let's pray together. Join me. Lord Jesus Christ, You are my Lord and my God. I love You Lord. I ask You Jesus to release the power of Your kingdom in my life in a new way. Pour out Your Holy Spirit. Send Your anointing. Release the power of Your kingdom. Come Holy Spirit.

Let's wait on the Lord together, just to be in His presence and to receive from Him. He's here. He loves you. He knows you by name.

Some of you are experiencing the Lord just touching you or filling you in some way. If you do, just raise your hand wherever you are, and sense His presence working in you and beginning to fill you with His Holy Spirit. I feel on my heart the Lord saying:
Receive My power. I'm with you. I am with you. I have called you. I've called you by name and I have anointed you. Receive My power.

(repeat of the song, 'Lord, I need You')

Receive His grace. Receive His power. He's here, welcome Him. Say Yes to the anointing He wants to give you. Pope John Paul II said, 'Pray for a rain of charisms'. At this moment, let's pray together, let's ask the Lord to send more of His charisms upon us, to give us the grace of a new Pentecost on us, and on your parishes back home. Give the Lord permission. Invite Him to work in you in a new way. Lord we stand with John Paul II and with Pope Francis who exhort us to cry out to You for a rain of charisms. Lord Jesus Christ, we stand with You tonight, and we ask You Lord to pour out Your gifts upon us anew. Lord, send us more apostles and prophets and evangelists and pastors and teachers, gifts of hospitality and leadership, gifts of prophecy and teaching, gifts of tongues and new ways of praying. Lord, new freedom in the Holy Spirit. Come Holy Spirit. Come Lord.

(song: 'Holy Spirit You are welcome here')

He inhabits the praises of His people. One of the things to look for, and the Lord wants to help you as you go home, is to help teach your people how to cry out to God. To help them, give them permission to be able to open their hearts to Him and to welcome Him. It's a sign of the presence of the Spirit, because the Spirit within us cries out 'Come Lord Jesus Come', and that is in their hearts. Cry out to God and to welcome Him in your homes, in your parish, in your ministry.

One of the things we want to do tonight was to ask the priests who were here and you brought your people with you, if you would be willing to let your brothers and sisters lay hands on you tonight and pray and to bless you. If you'd like to, pastors, just raise your hand, put them up so your people can see them, and we'd just like to pray with you. Feel free to join in, and ask the Lord to come and to bless these men whom you love.

Lord Jesus send Your power. Lord bless them, anoint them. Release Your power Lord. Let these brothers and sisters be a conduit of grace, a current of grace. Come Holy Spirit. Lord refresh our brothers. Lord drive away all fear and renew their strength tonight. Let them be Joshua and Caleb when they go home. Let them be men that say Yes, Yes, Yes, God is able. He can establish more here. He can break out His kingdom here in our parish.

Brothers as you're receiving prayer, any feelings of self-limitation, fear of discouragement, loneliness, just give them to the Lord. He knows you. In the presence of these people incarnate right here, He's loving you and speaking to you. He is saying, 'My sons, I have called you, I have named you, I have anointed you, and I promise I am with you always until the end of the age'.

Lord, we pray for a release of Your Spirit in a new and a fresh way in our brothers. Renew their strength. Come Holy God. Brothers, know that you're loved, that God loves you. These brothers and sisters love you, and you are not alone. Lord, we ask that you would forge these teams together. Help us. Come Holy Spirit. Lord we thank You for these men. We thank You for the gift of the priesthood. We thank You for how everyone of us has been loved and cared for and ministered to by priests since we were little kids. Men who have heard our confessions, consoled us when we were sick or dying. Thank You for the word they brought to us in the scripture. Thank You for Your call on their lives. Lord we lift them up to You and we say thank you tonight. Amen.

Now turn to somebody next to you and say, 'God is good' and give them a hug. You guys are glowing now, there's a glow here. Amen. Praise the Lord. Your faces look different. (clapping)

Something hit me earlier today and it's still in my gut, it's a kind of 'splankna' moment for me, and I'm going to give it to you. Say it with me, 'Where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom', repeat, 'Where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom'. It is time for the Catholic Church to be free, for brothers and sisters to rise up in love and mercy in the power of the Spirit without fear in the courage and freedom of the sons and daughters of God. Amen? Amen.

I want to drive out the enemy, who has tried to drive us down, to drive us in the back, to silence us. Amen? So with me right now, we're going to take authority over that spirit that always tries to steal our freedom. Amen? Say it with me: Lord Jesus Christ, in the power of Your Name, in the power of Your Blood, I cast out every spirit of fear, of timidity, of discouragement, and I receive the freedom of the Spirit, the freedom of the sons and daughters of God. Freedom! Freedom! Freedom! Amen. Amen. Amen.

Did you know that the Church has an infinite capacity for regeneration? Did you know that? Did you know that the Church has right now all the power, every resource it needs, to conquer every enemy strategy the enemy brings against Her. Amen? Amen. Because greater is He that is in you than he that is in the world. Right now many people in our countries are scared, aren't they? Because it is so strange what's going on, right? People are frightened, and lots of Catholics are frightened and confused, right? They don’t know what you know. What you know is that Jesus Christ is Lord and that Jesus Christ is enough. The reason we have strength in us that are stronger than the world is that Jesus Christ reigns in glory at the right hand of the Father. Amen? Amen. And He's given you a share in His glory. Amen. It's in you. The thing the devil is so afraid of is if we start waking up, if the Church starts waking up to what it's got – if we cast aside our idols and our lukewarmness and we wake up to Jesus Christ like that 17 year old girl that was here with her game face on. If we receive that Spirit, and the freedom, look out, we are actually the answer for United States, for Canada, and for the world. Right? Jesus Christ is what they are all looking for (clapping). He's it.

We prayed with our brother from Pittsburgh? Are there any other protestant or non-Catholic brothers and sisters we can pray with? Put up your hand if you're here. Get them up nice and high. Would you be willing to come up here, so that we can pray with you?

(around 15% of the participants responded to this)

When Father was interviewing Pastor Lee a few minutes ago, it was another very important sign that we can't miss of the grace that's present here. It's the Holy Spirit who brings us together. The Holy Spirit wants unity. He wants to bring us together. Amen.

You brothers and sisters, just receive. We are going to ask God's blessing upon you because we love you. We thank you for your Yes to Jesus. Come Holy Spirit. Let's sing again 'Holy Spirit you are welcome here' as we pray for them, just a united prayer of our hearts for you, and for God's blessing on you. (Song)

Lord Jesus we ask You to bless these brothers and sisters, with the power of Your Spirit bless them. Lord we cry out for the broken body of Christ. We cry out that You bring unity in this hour, in this critical hour in the Church. Lord, mend our hearts together. Release the power of Your kingdom. Lord forgive us for how our division hinders our witness, our witness to Your glory, Your majesty, Your love and Your power. Lord we don't want it anymore. We can't do it on our own power. Come and heal and unite, mend us together with one voice in this confused world, where we can say together Your name Jesus, we can say Jesus to the world united. Brothers and sisters, we love you. We thank you for being here. We thank you for the witness that you've been to us in so many ways; your faithfulness to preaching the Gospel. We pray tonight with united voice that the Lord would bless you, your lives, your families, your ministries, with a double portion of His grace, in power, for His glory, for the glory of His great name. In Jesus' holy name we pray. Amen. Amen.

Let's pray for the St Benedict's team. Amen? (clapping) Could the St Benedict's team come up here? The whole team that's here serving, not just the leadership team, everybody, and the staff. This is a big family. Amen. Let's thank the Lord for them (clapping) This is Jesus. This is what happens when we sinful broken people decide to be honest about who they are, even weirdos, and just give the Lord permission to reign. Amen. Look at all of you. This is amazing. Let's extend our hands, brothers and sisters, over them, and pray God's blessing on them.

(Song: Holy Spirit You are welcome here)

I can say on behalf of everybody who is here, thank you. Thank you for your Yes to Jesus. Thank you for your sacrifice and your love. You know, your little community is starting to touch the whole world because you are saying Yes to Him. We want to thank you. We have all been touched immensely this weekend. God is using you, He's commissioned you, He's empowered you, He's anointed you. He's given His authority to you because He wants to wield you like a sword. He wants to set captives free all around the world. You gave Him permission. What you have done this weekend is just beginning. This is not the end or a climax but a beginning of a move of God in you, if you just keep saying Yes. Amen? Amen.

I have to say a special honour to the women, because in these testimonies it started with a woman, right? It started with a woman, yeah. Amen. You are so special. God bless you brothers and sisters (clapping)

Dan O'Rourke: This is the St Benedict family all crushed up around the stage and we were all so excited to have all of you 600 people come and visit us. And like any proper family gathering where we've invited extended family from countries and from cities all over the world, we wanted to take some photos of our gathering. So we had our teams going around taking some pictures and shooting some video of the last 2 days and we've put it together in lightning fast speed so that we can have a chance to watch some of what we experienced.

(The video is 6.18 minutes long, https://youtu.be/ZxAuyuElKUM or search 'Divine Renovation Afterglow Video'. It contains snippets from the workshops, so it's well worth viewing.)

Father James Mallon: I said at the beginning that we didn't know who was crazier, us for doing the conference, or you for coming, but actually there were a number of people who were even crazier than that. The guest speakers here at this conference who came from far away…basically I called them and said, 'Hey, how would you like to come and speak at a conference that we don't know if anyone will come at, and pay your own way, and not get paid for it?' and they all said Yes. (clapping) We have a gift for you, a special Nova Scotia crystal Christmas ornament with the DR16 logo engraved on it. Thank you so much. (clapping)

There are 2 final people I wish to say thank you to, who put in an incredible amount of hours, Anne Marie Sime and Elizabeth Randell, who dealt with many of you over this last year. I think these 2 women spoke and emailed personally to almost every one of you over the last year. These women were sometimes working from 5am in the morning till 11 o'clock at night, working very passionately to make this a success. I also want to thank Louise and the organising committee that at the very beginning got things going. There's so many more to thank, you know who you are. Thank you so much. (clapping)

Our closing hymn is a kind of unofficial DR16 theme song, 'Open up the heavens', and that's what it's all about.

Open up the heavens
We want to see you
Open up the floodgates
A mighty river
Flowing from your heart
Filling every part of our praise     (chorus of the song written by Meredith Andrews)

...............................................................................................
Below is a print friendly version, which has had some extra editing. it runs to 12 x A4 pages.'

Feel free to share it around to anyone you know who needs encouragement in their work for the Lord.

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

Interesting, yes?

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

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

Interesting, yes?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

This is a rough transcript of a talk given by Lalith Perera from the Community of the Risen Lord on Sunday 19 February 2017 at Seven Hills, NSW, as part of a weekend conference marking the 50th anniversary of the Catholic Charismatic Renewal.

(Ed. I am revisiting this talk because some recent prophetic words here and here may make more sense in the light of this talk.)

God is looking for a person to host His presence, to carry Him to the world.

Often we ask, 'If God is love, why is this happening; why isn't that happening?'

God very much wants to be involved – but He needs someone to take Him to that place. If not, then the natural law takes over.

Matthew 9: 27-31. Jesus heals the two blind men. Jesus says, 'Do you believe I can do this?' They reply, 'We do'. Jesus tells them, 'Let it be done to you according to your faith.'

Moses hosted the presence of God. Mary hosted the presence of God. Jesus Himself, obviously, hosted the presence of God. Peter after Pentecost hosted the presence of God.

Moses hosted the presence of God so much that his face glowed and he had to wear a veil Exodus 34:29-35. When Mary visited Elizabeth, she didn't have to say a word, the presence of God in her touched her cousin. Acts 5:15 says that people brought out their sick hoping that the shadow of St Peter might fall on them and heal them, such was the presence of God that he carried.

We are called to host His presence.

If you are grateful for all that Jesus has done, but yet feel dissatisfied and have a desire for more. If your prayer is, 'Lord, I want more', then know that this restlessness is a gift of the Spirit.

If He could use Peter and the Apostles, He can use you and me.

Divine and human partnerships are God's preferred way of doing things.

Isaiah 57.15 'I live in a high and holy place, but I am also with the contrite and humbled spirit, to give the humbled spirit new life, to revive contrite hearts.'

This is the formula for hosting the presence of God.

God is in the revival business and He wants to do it through the contrite and lowly.

Three keys to hosting His presence:
•A heart of repentance; a contrite heart.
•Lowliness: an inner space within to hold Jesus: people not full of themselves.
•A life of praise and worship – to shift the clouds.

We are more prone to see other's faults and not our own (Matthew 7:3, Jesus compares this to the beam in our eyes and the splinter in someone else's eye.)

Go to confession. It is a lifetime journey to repentance. Even after Baptism in the Spirit, we change slowly. It is so easy to judge others – this is a trap. St Francis of Assisi spent a whole night in repentance. The Holy Spirit shines His light into the dark places of our hearts not to condemn or destroy, but to draw us closer to Himself.

When we are reconciled with God, there is a space within that we can fill with the Eucharist, the presence of Jesus, and space for the Word to rest in our hearts. I want Him to live inside me. I want to be sitting at the feet of Jesus. Every so often take a whole day, and spend that day with Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament.

A life of praise and worship is what we need to keep Him with us when we leave our time of prayer, when we leave the Mass. There is a cloud of unknowing, a covering keeping us from seeing God. Many of us are living as atheists who say they believe. The test? How much do you love God after a sleepless night?

Break the cloud above you with the gift of praise – not communal praise but personal praise. Without the power of God we are powerless in all we do. So double your prayer time, and use half of it for praise. Keep praising until worship happens and the cloud of God's glory comes over you. When that happens, everything becomes crystal clear and simple.

In 2004 we were on a 2 day retreat with 75 people. During the morning praise we were given a scripture passage to pray with. As we did, the presence of God descended on that place. Many were weeping under that anointing, with lots of repentance. At that time one of the retreatants was given the lyrics and melody of a song:

Help me climb higher, higher on Your mountain
Hold me as I rise, rise beyond my being
As I feel Your presence surround me
Lord I come to worship on my knees.

Take me from my footprints to Your journey
Take me from my heartache to Your will
Take me from my feelings to Your presence
Take me to the clouds so I may see.

(Ed. This isn't all of the song, just the part I was able to write down.)

God, He is ready to touch anybody anytime.
It is He who will do the work.

At another time we had a village retreat for about 100 people. A special stillness came over us. Then an unusual word of knowledge was given about a bent leg. It was responded to by a mother of a girl who had been in a dreadful accident. The girl was prayed with and her leg was completely healed and restored.

Write Non Fiction In November : #WNFIN Day 12
​
At the present time I don't have any one or any group to pray regularly with. Yet the need for prayer is urgent, and so many good things are delayed due to lack of prayer. So this one's going to be a bit like the long prayer of Daniel (cf Daniel 9), and I invite you to pray it with me:

Dear Holy Spirit, You have promised us that the floodgates of heaven would open and that the outpouring of grace would be greater than that of the flood of water in Noah's day that took 40 days and 40 nights to expend itself. Since You love to do Your great wonders with us rather than without us, You have invited us to pray from the depths of our hearts for this great outpouring of grace.

If we are honest, we prayed a bit at the beginning, and we prayed more intensely as Pentecost neared, and we've continued to pray at a regular level although it has been more through habit and gritted teeth than anything else. It has been the prayer of the long haul and each day the faith in Your promise gets tested when we observe no change. Please forgive us for giving up hope and becoming more and more half-hearted about our prayers.

In the beginning we thought all we had to do was to pray once and it would all unfold as You promised. If there was a message about praying in perseverance until it happened, well we didn't pick up on that one.

We don't get why you would test us with such a long delay, but You are God and You know best. If we had a better comprehension of how big the movement of Your grace is going to be, then maybe we would understand why it needs our hearts full of longing and our prayers full of trusting perseverance.

We confess that we have failed on both counts. Forgive us. We kid ourselves that things are okay as they are, and that a new move of Your grace would be a lovely bonus, because our hearts are paralysed with fear that if we risk our hearts in faith again that they will be broken beyond mending.

Only You can fix us and heal us so that we can begin to pray in true expectant joyful faith and not just in dry obedience.

Without You Holy Spirit we can do nothing.

Later at Pentecost You encouraged us that the harvest was both ripe and massive and that we would see You move in ways beyond all our hopes and imaginings, if only we were docile to You, and prompt in obedience. Our track record of docility to Your will, even of docility to the teachings of Your Church, is a poor one. Help us! Only if we know Your will can we begin to fulfil it, and how can we know Your will unless there are trustworthy prophets among us? Please send out charisms of prophecy, that we may have Your orders for our specific situations. Without Your guidance and Your strategies for the harvest, we will get nowhere.

O Holy Spirit, please grant that we would see what You want us to see, to hear what You want us to hear, to feel what You want us to feel and to dream what You want us to dream.

Without You Holy Spirit we can do nothing.

We can't even get others interested in praying that Your promised tsunami of grace would happen as You have said.

Only You can put into us both the motivation to pray and the commitment to pray on our own and with others. We could begin to see hope if there was a committed prayer group dedicated to praying for unity and for the massive outpouring of Your grace. But we don't even have that. Only You Holy Spirit can draw people together for prayer. All of our efforts up to this point have been in vain. Only You can bring together the prayer groups and prayer communities that will intercede for breakthrough and act as lightning rods to bring down Your grace upon our neighbourhoods and cities and nations.

Without You Holy Spirit we can do nothing. Please come!

Without You there is no thirst for holiness. Without You all preaching lacks power and effectiveness. Without You all of our evangelistic efforts come to nothing. Without You all of our catechetical efforts fall on stony hearts and yield nothing. Without You the weak and vulnerable cannot forsake the lures of the world and walk the way of righteousness. Without You nothing changes for the better.

Without You Holy Spirit we can do nothing. Please come!

Without You we have no hope of persevering. Without You we have no hope of healing. Without You the bound cannot be set free. Without you we are as uncoordinated and ugly as meaningful lyrics drowned in an inappropriate melody and chorus of silliness. Without You we cannot stand up to the forces that want us to deny God's plan for life, marriage and family from conception until natural death.

Without You Holy Spirit we can do nothing. Please come!

Without You all we yield is mediocrity and no excellence. Without You our young people only get rock concert festivals and social activities and no true sustenance for living out the Gospel of Jesus. Without You the unity that Jesus prayed for is impossible. Without You our days pass in barrenness and fruitlessness. Without You we have no hope of bringing a heart which hasn't given God a serious thought in decades back into the fold of Your family. Without You all we have are the ashes of our wasted efforts.

Without You Holy Spirit we can do nothing. Please come!

When will You at last come with power? When will we at last see Your signs and wonders? When at last will we see the sick healed and the dead raised? When at last will we see the missing generations return? When will we see Your people fully armed, and fully equipped for the battle to take back the gates of Hell and release the seats of government, media, culture, entertainment, sport, commerce, education and justice back to God's rule?
​
Without You Holy Spirit we can do nothing. Please come! Delay no longer. Amen.

Write Non Fiction In November : #WNFIN Day 9

This one's from the heart, and it probably will read like a lamentation. Thankfully there are such precedents in the Old Testament, and thankfully some of the psalms allow us to express our frustrations.

As you may have guessed today was another day of not seeing action from God on the horizon. Some days I cope with that better than others. Today isn't one of those days. Today being the feast day of the Church universal (a.k.a. Anniversary of the dedication of the Lateran basilica) was a day for renewed hope that something new and wonderful would start for the little corner of the Church where I live and further afield.

Nada.

The liturgy this morning, which should have been full of solemnity and prayer for the welfare of the whole church, and thanksgiving for her existence, was a disaster. A green chasuble was only narrowly avoided, two altar candles rather than the requisite 4 (despite a reminder to that effect yesterday) and we only had one reading prior to the Gospel rather than the 'in the rubrics' two. There's a special logic to this feast day being an octave distant from All Souls. 1 Nov we celebrate All Saints as in all the residents of heaven, 2 Nov we celebrate All Souls as in we pray for all the residents of purgatory, and 9 Nov we pray for the Church universal, which includes all the baptised (water, blood and desire), whether they are this side of eternity or the other side.

It wasn't a good start.

And nothing has changed that I am aware of. The telephone is silent. The emails are absent of opportunities, ditto for the social media feeds.

Where is this great and wonderful move of the Spirit of God that we have been promised?

It didn't help that we used Acts 5: 12-21 for lectio divina today. It tells the story of how the apostles and early disciples disrupted the regular temple worship so much that they got arrested and put in prison, and how an angel let them out and told them to keep preaching.

They really did cause a 'holy riot' by gathering in the portico of Solomon in the Temple and praising God loudly (read 'noisily' and 'with lots of shouting') and by drawing to Jerusalem all who were sick because news was getting out that everyone was getting healed, even if only the shadow of St Peter fell upon them. If there was order in this messy chaos, only the Holy Spirit who caused it could see it.

What it most certainly wasn't, was boring!

Yet how would we react if a group marched down the main street of our town shouting and singing God's praises, and healing people's sickness as they passed? How would we react if they came into our Church buildings to join their worship of God to ours? Would we applaud and join them, or would we huddle in a corner and pray fervently that they'd push off to another location as soon as possible?

If it has been the Holy Spirit's modus operandi in the past, are we ready for Him to do it again but on a much larger world-wide scale?

A lot of singing, shouting and healing goes on in Pentecostal and Charismatic circles, but usually within church buildings and at conferences, and definitely behind closed doors. But what if a line I read today is true, 'God's charisms weren't just given to be used in meetings, but every day of the week'. What if God wanted what is going on inside those church walls to start happening spontaneously outside those church walls, and not in some secluded place but in places of high pedestrian traffic? Could we see this as the Holy Spirit's work, or would we be calling the police to lock up the weirdos?

Since we're on a roll with scary thoughts, how about this one...What if God wanted you to be a ring leader for such a team of wonder workers?

The chief characteristic of this Acts 5 group was that it was one in heart. It was united in love and in full sync with the Holy Spirit. If we long to see these things in our day, it means that unity has to be a priority and not the 17th thing on a priestly or pastoral agenda after church maintenance, squabbles in the music ministry, seeking more catechists, fixing the printer, what to do about the youth group and visiting the sick etc.

So here I sit, at zero, feeling just how far away we are from those Acts 5 heroes. In the natural I see no way of changing this. But God is God, and He can do the impossible, and more than the impossible. We are talking Pentecost 33AD levels of transformation here.

Such mighty moves of grace don't happen without the preparation of prayer.
​
Would you commit yourself to praying each day for such a movement of grace?
Would you pray with others, regularly, for the same intention?
Please do.

​Write Non Fiction In November : #WNFIN Day 3

If I am honest I've had a dream for a prayer group that would take God seriously since February. When you hear a prophetic word that cries out for an active response, and the leadership doesn't lead everyone to that active response, the desire builds to be in a place where God's messages and instructions are sought and acted upon 'pronto'.

A little before that there had been a prayer group of three of us, but three isn't a good number. Too often with three members there are two strong and opposing wills and one undecided and that makes discernment and developing common vision very difficult. Six is far better as a starting point. Before you quote me Matthew 18:20, let me say that the Lord is still present but He's harder to find with less than with more.

There's been a time slot begging too, because the youth group meets fortnightly on a Sunday evening. On the off week, the venue is empty.

Why haven't I done anything about it? Good question.

Everything I have initiated in recent years has turned to custard, i.e. spectacular failure. The willingness is there to risk again, but I can't face another failure of stepping out and doing something I believe He wants done and going face first into the concrete again. There has to be a reasonable hope of success. At this stage the only way I can see that coming about is if several people came up to me and independently expressed a desire for an intercessory prayer group, and at least six of them had truly genuine desires that they would follow through on. That's as likely as a grade A 'mountain moving' miracle at the moment. If it is to happen, it has to be God initiated, not me initiated.

At Pentecost in Rome the workshop on Prophetic Intercession - which I watched online – was a revelation. We need to be as servants waiting for the master to tell us what to do. We need to be waiting upon the Holy Spirit for what He wants us to pray about, and how He wants us to pray about it. Nothing less will do. But it requires a big mind shift, we are all too pre-programmed to pray about what we want to pray about and generally we are not good at waiting and listening.

The only way around that is good preparation. Everybody comes with baggage, whether it is health issues, financial worries, relationships in crisis, a friend dying, a relative with addictions, or something else. We need to pray for each other, so that these burdens and baggage can be set down in order for us to be free enough for God to share His with us.

We all come with sin, too. Normally just the dusty stuff that a good foot washing would remove, you know, the hasty angry words, the moments of selfishness, the complaining, the impatience in traffic. For these we need to seek forgiveness, so that they won't be an impediment to the action of the Holy Spirit.

It is easy enough to pray for baggage and burdens of the person on your right, and to pray for cleansing and purification of the person on your left. Details don't have to be mentioned, it is enough that God knows what they are.

Intercession is warfare, so something has to be done about protection from the attacks and counter attacks of the enemy. Use the holy water, call on the power of the precious Blood of Jesus, enlist the assistance of the guardian angels and warrior angels, ask the great prayer warrior Saints to join their prayers to ours.

Then collectively beg of the Holy Spirit that He would help us see what God wants us to see, to hear what God wants us to hear and to feel what God wants us to feel. Turning everything over to the Holy Spirit we wait for Him to act and lead us in prayer. That time of invocation and pleading might be expressed in praying in tongues together. There will be silence and waiting. Because God is a God of order, it is OK after a period of waiting to ask for a brief report about what people have been experiencing. If more than one is experiencing something similar, work with that. But sometimes there will be observable things that we can respond to – if we keep our eyes open. I'm talking about the classic signs of God's activity that John Wimber noticed, eg a sheen of peace over the face, eyelids fluttering, trembling hands, tears, laughter, inner glows. If you observe any of them happening, go and pray with that person asking the Holy Spirit to complete and increase the work that He has already begun in them.

Should all we have done is wait, and wait, then so be it. God is the boss. Maybe we need that silence and waiting to increase our hunger for Him. Maybe that's a prelude to something extraordinary in future weeks, something that couldn't be given without persistence. None of us open up our deepest secrets to a new friend, they have to be proved worthy of trust before that can happen.

This is different to a classic charismatic prayer group. They usually begin with songs of praise and lead into worship. During worship and the times of silence that fall afterwards, prophetic words are often received, discerned and shared. Theoretically there is a time of response to the prophetic words, and then there's a short teaching and maybe a short testimony, followed by some time praying for individual needs and situations, and a cup of tea with conversation to end with.

Both types are needed.

But I long to pray with people committed to this type of intercessory prayer group.

Only God can bring that about.

After waiting months there was finally an opportunity to pray this way, but there were only three of us and it felt far more like a disaster than a blessing. Lesson learned, it has to be fully and 'clear as crystal' God-initiated.

Can God bring something like this in to being?
Of course He can.
But it's a long painful road of waiting and hoping in the meantime.
​
Will it ever happen? Only He knows. But if the wonders He has promised are to happen, these types of intercessory prayer groups will be the conduits through which the rivers of grace are released.

This is an edited transcription of this meeting and panel discussions held in Rome on Friday 2 June 2017 as part of the celebrations for the 50th anniversary of the Catholic Charismatic Renewal #ccrgoldenjubilee2017
 
(Ed. Some parts of the recording were hard to decode, so there's been some light editing to preserve continuity of thought. If anyone wants to translate the Italian and Spanish parts please do so; contact me via www.societyofsaints.net if you need the approximate times on the recording for them. I will update this transcription with the translations as soon as they get sent to me.)
 
This is the link for the video recording: https://youtu.be/w6NjoLJmYsc
 
To appreciate this meeting fully, some background reading is highly recommended because it will give you an introduction to most of the panelists and to the many places and organisations mentioned in the meeting:
 
Firstly this report on what God has been doing in Argentina.
http://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2010/june/25.38.html
Secondly the transcript of the workshop on spiritual ecumenism held the previous day 1 June 2017.
http://www.societyofsaints.net/blog/fostering-spiritual-ecumenism
Finally the translation of the address by Pastor Giovanni Traettino on the day after i.e. 3 June 2017 at the Pentecost Vigil.
http://www.ccrgoldenjubilee2017.net/pr-giovanni-traettino/
 
Introduction of the panel (edited)
Matteo Calisi, vice president of ICCRS for many years, and president of the Catholic Fraternity for years. He founded the Community of Jesus in Bari.
Sean Larkin, a member of the Community of Jesus in the Anglican tradition, and Anglican archbishop.
Charles Whitehead, a past president of ICCRS, married to Sue who is Anglican.
Giovanni Traettino, pastor of the Christian Fellowship of Caserta and Evangelical Church of Reconciliation
Norberto Saracco, part of the CRECES movement in Buenos Aires (CRECES : Renewal Communion of Catholics and Evangelicals in the Holy Spirit).

All of them have worked for many years for Christian unity, with God-given passion for this task.
 
Let us open our hearts to listen to them, and the Holy Spirit will come down and give us revelation of what this means. Who started ecumenism? Jesus did in John 17:21-23. This is why we are here. This is a journey that Jesus wanted from the night He was going to be imprisoned.
 
Giovanni: Welcome everybody. Why don't we start by giving a worship clap to our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ? (clapping) Thank you. The first thing I want to say is that I am amazed that we are at this point in history and I consider it a real Kairos of God, the season we are living in; and today, you know, to be together and even tomorrow to celebrate the vigil of Pentecost together, that's amazing! And I believe that this deserves a big clap. (clapping)
 
The second thing I want to say about our ecumenical encounter is that the word oikoumenismos comes from oikos which means house. We are here together on the basis that our oikos is filled with the Holy Spirit. So that the basis of our ecumenism has to do with the inhabitation of the Holy Spirit. Isn't it true in our lives? Amen.
 
On this basis I welcome Matteo, Sean, Charles and Norberto. We are basically going to listen to their experience, because what really puts us together is our experience of God, our experience of the Holy Spirit, which is what we would like to see all of the Church to experience – not only the Pentecostals and charismatics. We believe that this is, as Pope Francis says, a stream of grace, a current of grace for all of the Church, and I believe we should expand our paradigm and see that this gift, this visitation, is for all of the Church. Do you agree? (Yes)
 
Let's start with Matteo. Matteo and myself, we are very good and old friends and we still are after many years. We met together in the early '80s, '83 I believe, was it, and we've been walking together over all these years, and he has stayed Catholic and I've stayed Evangelical Pentecostal. But we are very good friends and I believe God has used us to bridge into the two different areas. So please Matteo, share with us your experience.
 
Matteo: (he spoke in Italian, which was not translated on the recording)
 
Sean: I would like to begin by the reading of two Scriptures. The first comes from Acts 20:28, and we won't look at the context, 'The Apostle says to the leaders, 'Take heed to yourselves and to all the flock in which the Holy Spirit has made you guardians, to feed the Church of the Lord which He obtained with His own Blood'. Jesus loves His Church. And the blood that He spilt for you is the same blood that He spilt for us. And if Jesus loves His Church, I must follow, when it is convenient and when it is inconvenience.
 
And in the Gospel reading of the day we get one of my favourite passages where the Lord prophesies to Peter and says this, 'When you were young, you fastened your own belt and walked where you would, but when you are old you will stretch out your hands and another will fasten your belt for you and carry you where you do not want to go'. This is not about us, it's about Him. Now that means we follow the One even in the resurrection and season of the ascension with nail prints. It means that if we are going to embrace His will for us, we will walk the way of the Cross. We don't walk the way of the Cross and then leave it. The way of the Cross is ours to live. So it's sacrificial, and it's very painful, but just like Jesus, the reason He went to the Cross, in part, was for joy, the joy set before Him. He wanted you. He wanted His Church. He died for that very reason. And so there is great joy, but along that pathway.
 
Jill and I were invited to become part of the Community of Jesus and as a good obedient son of the Church I said, 'No'. And Matteo being a good obedient son of the Church smiled and prayed. And then after a while the Community with others in the orthodox world came back to us and said, 'We believe that this is right'. And then they threw in a little, what we call, curved ball or kicker, and they said, 'The Vatican wants you to do this'. Now that's a bit difficult for a non-Catholic mind set. And so what we discovered was a new grace in following of obedience. It has opened some of the most remarkable doors to us. It has taken us to many places and God has filled us with joy for His Church, and I have never cried so much.
 
Charles: As I look at you all this morning, as I sat here, I was reminded of a scripture. It's 2 Cor 3:17 'Now the Lord is the Spirit and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom, and we who with unveiled faces all reflect the Lord's glory are being transformed into His likeness with ever increasing glory which comes from the Lord who is Spirit'. I think it's because you got in here and got a seat, but it's still glory.
 
I want to just say a few words in introduction about my own journey because I have been on an ecumenical journey for many years. I was educated at the Jesuits. And when I left school and went to university I had a head full of understanding and good teaching about my Catholic faith. And when we sat in pubs in England as students and people started discussing the Christian faith and God, I was always brought out to explain Catholicism. It was not easy, but I always had free beer, so it was a good opportunity. But I began to realise it was all in my head. It was an intellectual faith.
 
I met Sue, we got married, and we had our first two children and after a while we met – we were invited really – to join an ecumenical discussion group. At the time my wife was an atheist, but they needed a Catholic, so that's why they asked us. When I said to them, 'My wife will say terrible things because she is an atheist' they said, 'We'll just pretend she's another Catholic'.
 
Now what happened in this ecumenical group, it was Baptists, Anglicans, Methodists, we encountered a Baptist couple whose faith was alive in a way that mine was not. They had Jesus in their hearts and they talked about a personal relationship with the Lord. And I felt I had an ecclesial relationship with the Lord. And Sue didn't have any relationship with the Lord.
 
So to make it very short, after some time, Sue gave her life to the Lord. I was away in Scotland on a business trip for 2 days. I left behind a well behaved atheist. I returned home after 2 days to find I had a singing, dancing charismatic. It was a bit of a shock, but of course it confronted me with the reality of my intellectual faith, and my lack of a personal relationship with the Lord. So I started to search, and an Anglican priest prayed for me after some months. And he had a word of knowledge from the Lord, which is why he prayed for me and he told me, 'You don't know the personal love of Jesus'. And I was going to give him a good 'God loves everyone, Jesus died for us all', you know, but I didn't, I said, 'You're right', and he said, 'God is going to change your life.' And this was in an Anglican church where we had gone for a service for Sue.
 
And the next day I was working in London, in the city, and I went out for a walk to think about this, went into a small church, Catholic church, in the city of London, mid-morning there was no body there. I went down to the front, I knelt in front of the Blessed Sacrament and I said, 'Help', and the Lord just filled me with the knowledge of His love. I realised I was loved. I was on the floor repenting of sin, I was up singing and praising God, and as I walked back to my office after an hour or 2 hours, I was still singing. And everybody walking towards me was stepping to one side, and giving me a slightly strange smile. Well, I have to say in the city of London you don't meet a lot of people at lunch time singing praises to God as they walk back to their office.
 
So my simple comment to you really is that I recognise the gift that this Baptist couple had, of this personal relationship with the Lord, and by their example, they shared it with me. And from there I developed a love for the word of God, an understanding of evangelization, baptized in the Holy Spirit, and so it went on. I won't say anymore now but as we go through the morning I'm sure they'll be other opportunities, but it was sharing their gift. And today, our local church, we have a really close relationship with the Baptist church. We now have scripture study groups, they have communion 3 times a week instead of once. And we have shared our gifts. So it's the Lord through His Spirit working among all of us. And that's why your faces are shining this morning. Amen? Amen.
 
Norberto: (In Spanish, not translated on the recording)

Matteo: (In Italian, not translated on the recording)
 
Sean: Matteo said that we would be surprised. At the last Luna Park in Buenos Aires, Cardinal Bergoglio addressed us, all charismatics, Pentecostals and Catholics. He ended his talk. His third point was a question. Have we lost the ability to be surprised by the Holy Spirit? I think many of us have lost that ability. And we are here to be renewed by the Holy Spirit.
 
I love history, because it teaches us so many things, but God has made us to be alive today. This is where He has placed us. So we must not be robbed of the past, or by the past, not must we be robbed of the future or by the future because we live in this present moment.
 
I studied theology at Manchester University and had a wonderful time, and my friend the Rev Russ Parker and I were at university together. And Russ took me to a Catholic charismatic prayer group in the spirituality of St Teresa of Avila. And because in those days those charismatic prayer groups required leadership, a small leadership from a non-Catholic group, we were made leaders within 2 weeks. Not because there was a great anointing but because there was nobody else. So please don't wait to be anointed. You'll wait all day. Now this is the point. By going to that prayer group I was changed. By encountering the spirituality of others, I was broadened in my faith in Jesus. I learned to understand that we need one another and we cannot make it alone. It is not good to be alone. And from that group eventually the dear nuns sent me to be trained as an Ignatian director (shoulder shrug) I believe in penance. Anyway.
 
But I'm thinking just along those lines in the Body of Christ. You see, Jesus is not black and white. He is in His understanding and the doctrines and the truth. But in His grace together in the gifts He is multi-coloured, He is a variegated God. The book of Peter tells us that. God's variegated grace. And God wants you for you.
 
Now as I explored that, I began to go to other Christians. By the way my Catholic charismatic experience left me thinking this, 'Catholics are baptised in the Spirit. Did you know that?' I assumed they were all baptised in the Spirit. I had heard the word Pentecostal, they must all be baptised in the Spirit. Really? We need God. We need the reality of the Holy Spirit.
 
When I wanted to explore the healing ministry, I went to my priest friend in Buenos Aires and he let me minister with him in the Church. By the way, don't go to his healing services. You will be there 4 or 5 hours without a cup of tea. Ridiculous, absolutely ridiculous! God knows we stop for a cup of tea, 'cause He's English. But then there was a moment, and I asked the priest and his leaders, I said 'Would you bless me to follow in the way that God has given you?' Never the same again. Changed. Because I don't just want to be formed (pointed to head) I want to be formed (pointed to heart).
 
I look out on Brazilian bishops. I remember my time well in Brazil. I want to thank you. When you open your heart to others, you open the heart of Christ to us all. So as brothers and sisters we place ourselves in the place of the disciples and say, 'Lord, I am here to learn, teach me, and if possible could you use me'.
 
And then very quickly I have learned to pray for the grace of what we would call the virtues. Without the grace of humility, the Spirit would be upset – that's putting it mildly. It's a grace of servanthood, not control. It's the grace of the washing of the feet, not 'look I'm in charge'. It's also the grace, and you will hear Pope Francis speak about this, from Acts 4, we need to seek the Lord together as a Church for apostolic boldness. We need the courage of the Gospel to be ours afresh that in that humility and service we may run together.
 
And lastly, as Charles and I were sharing yesterday in the workshop, the devil uses ignorance. It is time to learn of one another and it is therefore time certainly to listen, even and especially when you don’t agree. It's all right not to agree. I don't agree with myself, so what is the point of dialogue?
 
Charles: Amen. And as a good Catholic I will start with a piece of scripture. I want to just read a few phrases from Ephesians 4, at the beginning of Chapter 4. Paul says, 'I urge you to live a life worthy of the calling you have received. Be completely humble and gentle, be patient, bearing with one another in love. Make every effort to keep the unity of the Spirit through the bond of peace.' Amen? Amen. You are supposed to be charismatics - an alleluia would be even better.
 
I'm very excited by the climate in which we are living spiritually. This really is a special time in the Holy Spirit. I honestly believe that. There is a framework for us, particularly I am thinking as I say this of Catholics, but it is true for others too, but there is a framework which makes work for Christian unity is actually totally the teaching of the Catholic Church. We are told in many, many, many ways since Vatican II that this work for unity is one of our absolutely primary tasks today. So we don't have any doubt about that, we shouldn't. And people who question it should simply be taken to scriptural texts, to the teaching of the Church, to the teaching of the last three Popes and Pope Francis, very much today which shows this very clearly.
 
But for me, I've enjoyed that, I like it. I've contributed to it in my own way at international levels. But for me, work for unity is always going to be locally based. It has to be with the people we know and share with in our local areas and in our own lives. And this is why the scripture I just read speaks about relationships, about love for one another, about listening, about humility, and for me this is crucially important.
 
I told you the story of Sue and me, and of course what happened was my atheist friend – sorry –wife returned…we've only been married 50 years, so I'm still learning. The Lord said to us in the first times when we were nailed together in relationship with Him, 'Bloom where you were planted'. Right? Now my wife prior to becoming an atheist because she was a scientist, prior to that had been brought up in the Anglican tradition, so that's where she went. And I was brought up Catholic, so that's where I went. So we've been living an ecumenical relationship now for 40 something years. And it still has its moments of tension, is one way of putting it. I won't go into it, but the virtues that I just read out, we still need those.
 
But what I think is the most exciting thing today is that building relationships with brothers and sisters from other parts of the Body of Christ is one of the most fruitful and rewarding things I know. It's quite remarkable. And in our local church situation we have relationships that have now been running for 25 years where we pray together regularly – the leaders of the churches, we share, we discuss, we go on retreat together for a couple of days once a year. We do a lot of things together. We do not agree about everything.
 
A few months ago I was sitting at a conference with the Archbishop of Canterbury, we were sitting together, and we were being interviewed in front of 3500-4000 people. And I was sharing some particular point when I got a sign from my wife in the front row. The person who was interviewing us gave her the microphone and she shared something that was actually very important. And the wife of the Archbishop of Canterbury at the end of this session comes up to me and says, 'I've never done that. I've never interrupted him when he's speaking', she said, 'but I think it's great. I'm going to start doing it.' So I have to say ecumenical relations took a little step backwards, because he put his arm around me and said, 'Dear brother, thank you so much for that'.
 
Sue's point, which is absolutely valid, is that we often come from a total misunderstanding of other people's Christian traditions. I was once flying back from Stockholm on an aeroplane and an American was sitting on my left and when we broke through the clouds I took out my bible and I was reading on of the psalms about the glory of heaven. He's reading it over my shoulder, and he says to me, 'You're reading a psalm.', 'Yes I am' I said. He said, 'I like the psalms' and he started to recite Psalm 23 very loudly. When he'd finished, he said to me, 'What kind of Christian are you?', and I said, 'I'm a Catholic'. And there was a horrified silence. And he said to me, 'You cannot be a Catholic', and I said, 'Well I am', and he said, 'But Catholics do not read the scriptures' and I said, 'Well I'm reading them', and he said, 'That's why you can't be a Catholic'. So I couldn't resist it, I said to him, 'Well, I have my bible here and I'm reading it. Where's your bible?' To which he replied, 'It's in my luggage', I said 'It's not much good there. What kind of Christian are you?' He said, 'I'm a Southern Baptist'. We talked for 2 hours on the flight, and he repeated everything I said, so the whole plane enjoyed our conversation because the Lord had gifted him with this very loud voice. But you know, when we got to the baggage collection point, two people came. One went to him and gave his life to Christ and a man came to me and said, 'You're a Catholic?' and I said, 'Heathrow airport is well aware of that'. He said, 'I am, at least I used to be. I haven't been to church in 30 years.' And I said, 'Do you want to come back?' 'Yes', he said. 'I'll pray for you'. Anyway, but it was very interesting, one of those God encounters, but thank you darling that's used up my time so I don't need to say much more.
 
Just very simply, that the key for me to ecumenical relationships is to invest time in them. We need to talk to each other, we need to pray with each other, we need to understand each other, and then we need to do things together. We can't do everything but we can do a lot, and public witness of churches together is so vital today.
 
And this is what we are doing locally. The clergy come to our house on the first Monday of every month and we pray together, we pray for each other, all the different churches. And we've just started a 24/7 prayer room in our village with all the churches involved. 24/7 prayer if you are not aware of that, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, people are in this room praying for the local area – and that is the fruit of co-operation.
 
So my request, a plea, would simply be to build those personal relationships, because they are the foundation, and the context for it has been laid out already. We know it is the Lord's will, know that the Church supports it, and so we just need to get on and do it. Amen? Amen.
 
Norberto: (In Spanish, not translated on the recording)

Matteo: (In Italian, not translated on the recording)
 
Sean: When Jesus spoke to Peter, and He spoke about the keys He said something that He will make good on, 'I will build My Church' and 'The gates of Hades will not win'. The more I walk in the ecumenical journey, the less I know how He will do this. But this I know. He will do this. So we turn afresh today with confidence to the One who is the head of the Church.
 
And my invitation would be in this season to place yourself afresh not only in the place of repentance which is ongoing, daily and necessary, but what I have learned with this word docility to the Holy Spirit. One of things in the early days of the Anglican renewal was this: Father Dennis Bennett, who was our father figure said this, 'It is not a question, 'Do you have the Holy Spirit?' If you're a Christian you have the Holy Spirit. The question for us today is, 'Can the Holy Spirit have us?'' And I pray that from this gathering in this season, there will be however difficult for us, 'Yes, Lord' and then tomorrow, 'Yes, Lord' and on Sunday, 'Yes, Lord'. The One in whom we place our confidence, who said He can do this, so He will do it. How? (shoulder shrug) Amen.
 
Charles: I believe today that as we build these personal relationships with our brothers and sisters in other parts of the Body of Christ, this takes us to a very important place, and we need then to bring our church congregations together, so we want the local churches to begin to catch the vision in a new way for unity. And I believe that's the challenge that faces many of us today, bringing the local churches together in acts of public witness to the area where we live. This is the most powerful thing I have experienced. People are amazed. The local media write headlines about us being together, and they are surprised because they don't think we can do it. But we can, and the reason we can is very simple, it's Romans 15:13 and it says there, Paul says, 'May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace as you trust in Him so that you may overflow with hope by the power of the Holy Spirit'. When we come together in individuals but more so in groups, the power of the Spirit flows and gives us hope for what we are doing in witness to our Lord and Saviour. Amen.
 
Norberto: (In Spanish, not translated on the recording)
 
Matteo: (There was some trouble with the translating, so he had a go in English, asking listeners to forgive his poor English)
 
Pope Francis shows us he is a model for unity in the Church. Not only as a teacher but through the gesture prophetic when he asked and gave forgiveness and visited the Pentecostal church and received different leaders of the different parts of the world, and it's incredible because in his person institution and the charisms are joined, not separate. It's an incredible model for us. Ecumenism institutional it needs to recognise its limits. It does not depend on documents, it's the work, very deep of the Holy Spirit, and depends from all us walking in holiness. The ecumenism it depends on interior space. Cardinal Kasper spoke about the phenomenology theology in the unity of the Christians. This dependence totally on dependence in the Holy Spirit, this the part mystical of the ecumenism. The whole depends from our roots, our life, joined with God in holiness. This is number one. This is Pope Francis, spoke about this.
 
The second, Pope Francis spoke many times about the theory of Oscar Cullman, reformation Protestant theologian, about the unity in the diversity – reconciled unity. One difference is not necessarily one division. But the difference, one difference is one richness for us. And John Paul II in his encyclical 'Ut Unum Sint' spoke the ecumenism is one exchange of gifts, one church give me its gift and my church is open to receive, with one heart reconciled. It's not obstacle for unity, it is one commitment for unity. This is another level.
 
And Pope Francis is not asking 'come back to Rome'. Ecumenism is not 'you come back to the Catholic Church' like in the past, but when every church is covenant to Jesus Christ, one Lord one Saviour. But for this our job is the need to confess, the most important to heal inner the memories like John Paul II. It is most important to recognise the division is the diabolic sins, because 'diabolos' in Greek is division.

(Mattteo then continued, but speaking in Italian).
 
Sean: Fr Dennis Bennett and his second wife Rita (his first wife died) were sent around the world with a particular proclamation of the baptism in the Spirit, and many, many people received the baptism in the Spirit from many different situations and circumstances. But then they discovered something – the baptism in the Spirit doesn't heal everything. The baptism in the Spirit is part of our entrance into the kingdom of God, it's just part of being birthed as a child of God's. And so they personally began a healing ministry, but with a particular emphasis within it – and we may argue about terminology, we're good at that – but effectively it was for inner healing, the healing of memories. Now whatever you want to make of that, at the root of inner healing is very simply this: it is taking to ourselves the reality of forgiveness. And we must learn to take the stories that very often are true and cruel and painful, and not say they didn't happen, history is littered with sin in the church, but at the same time, take to ourselves the actualization that God in Christ has forgiven me, God in Christ has forgiven you, and therefore as His forgiven people, we can ask Him to write a new page.
 
But where He brings us back to is the foot of the Cross. Until we keep coming to the foot of the Cross, kneeling, open hands, and waiting there, I believe that is the place that He wants us to position ourselves for the new life. So God in that sense I believe needs to somehow – whatever this looks like – He needs to heal us, in order that we can stop saying the same things, and just going around the same loops.
 
I'll end with this: I've had the privilege again of meeting many Christians from very different situations of circumstances who have taught me so much about Jesus. I say again, I don't necessarily agree with them and they don't agree with me, but this I have learned to do. When somebody else speaks about them and often speaks about them badly, I know better. They are my brother, they are my sister, and we will not speak ill of one another. We will defend one another. We will speak well of the things of Jesus and we will ask Him to bless our mouths to speak well of one another. Amen.
 
Charles: We are dealing with a culture of encounter, as it has been described, with those around us from other parts of the Body of Christ – and one of the primary things is to share our gifts. I think that is so important.
 
I remember when I first became involved with those from other churches. They were really good at spontaneous prayer. It was not part of my tradition. I mean maybe a couple of words, but not a good long spontaneous prayer. So the first time I was leading our ecumenical group I wrote my spontaneous prayer out, because I knew everyone when I said, 'Let us pray', they would bow their heads, join their hands and close their eyes, and I would (he mimed drawing out papers from his pocket). So with full confidence I said, 'Let us pray' and I put my hand in my pocket and discovered I had changed my jacket. It's a good way to learn to pray spontaneously. (laughter)
 
We have learned together how to really praise and worship the Lord with great freedom, which I believe is a wonderful gift.
 
Matteo spoke about greater holiness, and this too is something that we share together, a desire to grow in holiness.
 
The other thing that I think as Catholics we have often learned from our Protestant and Pentecostal brethren is the value of personal testimony. And trying to introduce that into our regular Mass is quite a challenge, but it is possible after Communion at Mass to have someone give a personal testimony. You need an agreeable parish priest. (laughter and clapping). Amen.
 
And then, of course, the love for the Word of God is something that we have so often been blessed with as Catholics and we have shared our love for the Eucharist, and seen a growth in interest in Communion in other churches.
 
Then we've shared our contemplative prayer. Now that's much easier because you don't have to say anything. It's the same kind of challenge we have with spontaneous prayer, but the other way round. I was invited to give a morning's teaching on contemplative prayer to a very evangelical charismatic church, and they loved it and clapped and cheered and everything. And then the minister came up, their pastor, and he said, 'Well, now, let's have a time of prayer', and they all were immediately praying and he said, 'Have you not listened to the last 2 hours?' It's just spontaneously is not what they do. But they have learned, and now it's very interesting because you go and you sit in silence sometimes. I am very moved by this.
 
But I think for me, the thing I have learned – apart from the personal relationship with Jesus, which of course is the key to beginning all this – what I have learned is a lot about being a missionary disciple. I've learned a lot about evangelization from my brothers and sisters in the other churches. How they do it. How they organize it. And it has given us the courage to step out in faith and do some public work out on the streets. But then of course to learn that, we have done it together.
 
So we've been out on our streets where we live, on a Saturday morning, half a dozen different churches together publically witnessing in some simple way to our shared faith, and people are amazed.
 
I don't know, for example, if in all countries you have St Valentine's Day. In many Western countries we do. And this is the day when you think of the person you love, your husband, wife, or girlfriend, boyfriend, and you give a special card expressing this love on Valentine's Day. And this is very normal and common. So we went on the streets, churches together, and we gave everybody a special card with a picture of a heart on the front, and they were very moved by this on Valentine's Day. When they opened it, of course it said, 'Jesus loves you' and then it quotes John 3:16 and then we gave them a little gift of a very nice chocolate wrapped in paper, and people were amazed by this. And they started going round and queueing up to have a second one. We should have had some cards that said, 'Jesus still loves you'. I'm joking. But I mean we have a lot to learn from one another and huge blessing flows as we share together. Amen? Amen.
 
Question and Answer time
 
Andre from Sword of the Spirit in Lebanon: We are in the middle of the East and the West, living and co-existing with Muslims. Alongside the ecumenism of the blood there is the ecumenism of the witness. We all can be witnesses to Jesus Christ to all religions, not just to Christians. Amen? Amen. So what I would say is, when we present the Gospel, present it in a spirit coming from an ecumenical approach. I don't preach my Catholic details to someone who doesn't know the Lord at all. And I present him with our divisions as soon as he walks in the door, come let me show you all our divisions? I show him Jesus Christ. Amen? Amen.
 
Rosa spoke in Italian and then broke into charismatic prayer. From Charles' prayer with her it seems she was asking for prayers for the work of unity to be done in Sicily.
 
Man from South American, Mexico maybe. He spoke in Spanish and Norberto responded to him in Spanish.
 
Nancy an evangelical Presbyterian leader from Pittsburgh: For 30 years I have helped lead, 'Pray Pittsburgh', we walk around in the neighbourhood, from the county jail to the abortion clinics and to the schools and we pray. And I find that unity comes in those kinds of prayer activities. So I have one question for you. How many churches are in your communities? How many? The answer is one. And we need to be together, we need to find unity, we are one body of Christ, we serve one Jesus. And so I would say also that I find unity in the opportunities of service to the poor and the vulnerable. People will readily come together for that kind of Christian service. What are your comments? Pope Francis tells us, figure out who else passionately loves Jesus and then journey with them. Do you passionately love Jesus? (Yes).
 
Bob from Alleluia community, an ecumenical covenant community: We've been together for 44 years and it’s a great blessing. I'm the overall co-ordinator. I'm an evangelical, but most of our community is Catholic. How does that work? It works very well as a matter of fact. I want to bring up one thing that I've heard it mentioned, but that's the absolute centrality of John 17:20-23. That we can become one. Now here we have 2 Pentecostals, 2 Roman Catholics and an Anglican whom you all know one another very well and I know each of you personally and have I not adopted you each as a brother? I feel very close to Norberto and Giovanni and each one of you – Charles, I had a wonderful time with you. This is an amazing thing that God will do. He will allow us to experience the unity in diversity that the Father, the Son and the Spirit experience, of complete difference but complete unity. We can adopt each other. I have 5 adopted children; they are not half-way my children, they are all my children. These brothers are not kind-of my brothers, you are really my brothers and if you have a need I will try to meet it. This message you have presented has fit together very, very naturally because it has demonstrated that we really do need each other to finish our witness to the world, and we can adopt each other and recognize that we are already brothers and sisters in Christ. We need to act that way. Amen.
 
Young man, possibly speaking in Spanish or even Portugese. At one point he quoted a line in English, 'There are many people suffering different pains'.
 
Carole Jones, Canada. I was raised Catholic, encountered Jesus and the baptism of the Holy Spirit under the witness of the Pentecostals. So for 35 years I served God in many capacities and walked with Pentecostals of non-denominational background. Then the Lord called me back to the Catholic church and that's when I realised what a huge problem we have in semantics. I came back but I did not understand the Catholic language or traditions anymore and the first Catholic book I read I wrote a 5 page glossary –typed glossary- of terms I did not understand and I would keep going back until I would Google it just to understand what the Catholics were saying. I think that there's a huge need for books, workshops etc to learn about each other's faith. I ended up going to a Catholic university, Steubenville, for 2 years, just to understand Catholic theology because I had so many questions and nobody really at the time to answer them. So have you developed material to help you in crossing this little language barrier, translate from Christian-ese to Latin-ese?
 
Charles: I think this is sometimes a difficulty we sometimes face in both directions. What exactly do we mean by certain things. I'm not aware of any book that translates Catholic into Evangelical, but I think as we work together we will learn that, and as you have done it, you've made a list that you needed to be translated. When I first brought together all the local church leaders in our area to share and talk together and to build relationships before we could do anything together, we had a lot of examples of people not really understanding. I remember our Baptist pastor, when the Catholic parish priest talked about having a special novena to the Holy Spirit, we went a bit pale – the Baptist pastor, and he said, 'I'm terribly sorry Hugo but you have to explain that, what is a novena?' So when he said it is a period of time – we can decide the time – when we pray daily to the Holy Spirit. The Baptist pastor said, 'We can do that, we'd love to do that, but please don't call it that funny thing because no one will know what it is'. So it is a question.
 
Young man: We haven't spoken about art in the ecumenical culture. You know there's basic symbols for the Holy Spirit in the bible, right? The cloud, the dove, the fire on everybody's heads, in our hearts we hope we have it. What is each of your favourite symbol for the Holy Spirit? And because we speak of the new evangelization, can each of you think of a new symbol that we can draw, paint (we have art above us here) that would inspire the modern eye, the modern heart to unity in our ecumenical work?
 
Matteo responded in Italian (not translated on the recording).

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