Recently I was asked by a relative to contribute to answering some of the Questions given in the Agenda for the Fifth Plenary Council of Australia 2021.

​plenarycouncil.catholic.org.au/wp-content/uploads/2021/06/Plenary-Council-Agenda.pdf
 
While I’m still very concerned that the Plenary Council process has been a waste of time, talent and resources, I did agree to attempt some answers. Here they are:
 
1.CONVERSION
 
How might we better accompany one another on the journey of personal and communal conversion which mission in Australia requires?
 
To accompany one another on any journey means that we have to get to know one another and spend time with each other.
 
The current culture of arriving just in time for Mass, and leaving as soon as it is finished (or even beforehand), does not lend itself to learning to accompany one another. What needs to be done is part of the shift that has to happen from church goers being consumers to church goers being participants in mission.
 
We know from the end of Acts 2 that it was the Holy Spirit who bonded the members of the early church together in unity, community and mission. Without the Pentecost experience of the Holy Spirit there is no impetus/motivation to accompany each other and to care for each other.
 
But the wine of the Holy Spirit needs to go into fresh skins, so some kind of structural shift is needed that celebrates, rewards and makes accompanying each other possible. From experience we know that morning teas after the last Sunday morning Mass are not sufficient. Even though we sit beside many of the same people in the pews each weekend, ‘breaking the ice’ with each other isn’t easy; and the cringe factor when we are invited to say hello to each other at the beginning of Mass or during the homily is palpable.
 
But unless that ice is broken somehow, and at more than a superficial level, then the courage to join any kind of discussion group won’t materialize. Yet it is only in small to medium groups (3-20 people) which meet monthly, or more frequently, that true accompaniment takes place.
 
God must have a plan for such a structural shift, but we are only going to find His answer through assiduous communal prayer.
 
How might we heal the wounds of abuse, coming to see through the eyes of those who have been abused.
 
First we have to recognise just how prevalent abuse is; the statistics are something like 1 in every 4 women, and 1 in every 10 men have suffered some kind of sexual abuse; and that doesn’t count any other kind of abuse.
 
It is a widespread problem that so many people in society and in our pews live with the wounds from that kind of trauma and in ever present fear of that kind of abuse happening again.
 
On the other hand that means there are also a significant number of people committing abuse, some because they can, others due to various kinds of compulsion stemming from abuse that they themselves suffered. They are in our pews too.
 
Both groups need the salvation and healing that Jesus Christ freely offers.
 
But when was the last time you heard a homily about the power of Jesus to heal these wounds? When was the last time you heard a homily about the power of Jesus to help you forgive those who have hurt you – and to forgive yourself – as well? When was the last time you heard anyone talk about how to bring the most shameful things to Jesus in the sacrament of Penance?
 
These things don’t go away with an apology.
 
They don’t go away with any kind of retribution or revenge either.
 
And people with the specific God-given natural gifts and training necessary to do the kind of deep listening that is therapeutic, they are rather rare. While they are effective; that effectiveness can only deal with the tip of the iceberg of this societal problem.
 
Obviously God must have a solution. It is a God-sized problem.
But has anyone or any group even begun seriously interceding for the revelation of His solution?
 
NB. Some people have suggested that something akin to a Truth and Justice Commission would be a way to deal with this situation. But the Truth and Justice Commission in South Africa was not as effective as people hoped it would be. Not everyone wanted to publicly recount the trauma they had been through; not everyone wanted to be identified as a victim, and many perpetrators managed to obtain amnesty when they should have been charged with crimes.
 
How might the Church in Australia open in new ways to indigenous ways of being Christian in spirituality, theology, liturgy and missionary discipleship? How might we learn from the First Nations peoples.
 
We can learn from their knowledge of relationship with the Great Spirit gathered over millennia;
  from the methods they developed to keep families and tribes together
  from their concept of stewardship, and temporary custody of the land
  from their methods of dealing with due punishment for crime
  from their lived experience of all things being held in common (both the good aspects, and the not so good aspects where advantage is taken of the vulnerable)
  from their balance between the need for times of community and for times of solitude (walkabout).

While there is greater openness to including First Nation cultural rituals into our community lives and liturgy, such things should only be done after very careful and thorough discernment of each religious ceremony; since not all of them arose from relationship to the Good Spirit.
 
How might the church in Australia meet the needs of the most vulnerable, go to the peripheries, the missionary in places that may be overlooked or left behind in contemporary Australia? How might we partner with others (Christians, people about the fate, neighbourhood community groups, government) to do this?
 
This isn’t something that pertains to diocesan and national leadership, except in terms of giving permission/encouragement and confirming/commissioning what is happening at grass roots (parish level)

These ministries spring up at grassroots level in response to local conditions and to local needs.

Two examples:

Mary Mac’s Place, Woy Woy
It began as a parish outreach to the homeless, with companionship, lunches, and a place of safety to go to. Over time Catholic Care and the St Vincent de Paul Society added input and degrees of oversight and funding. These days many of the volunteers aren’t parishioners and are from other Christian communities.

Food Bank, Dartmouth, Canada
Part of that parish has the lowest socio-economic levels in the region, and an opportunity opened up when a local Christian community lost their place of worship to provide not only hospitality for somewhere to gather for worship, but also to join together the two parish’s food banks into one, and become more effective together in meeting local needs.

You can’t ‘legislate’ for these things, but you can give pastors and their parishes permission and encouragement to take ecumenical options for works of mercy when opportunities arise.

Likewise you can give pastors and their parishes permission to explore how to best serve the neediest in their locality, but it will always be a matter for local research into local needs/conditions and of local response to how God is calling them to answer those needs in His way.

Thought could be given to the provision of seed-funding for new ministries and support funding for ongoing ministries from a diocesan level.

It is important to determine at a local level who the most vulnerable people are and then set up programs where we may be able to assist. But we must learn from the mistakes of the past and not impose solutions from without. To truly help means to listen with open hearts to what they need – not what we think they need. Any solutions must have significant input and ongoing guidance from those in vulnerable situations. For example: we’ve often patted ourselves on the back for putting in access ramps – but what good are access ramps if there are no accessible toilets for people to use once they’ve got inside the building?

How might the church in Australia respond to the call to ecological conversion?  How can we express and promote a commitment to an integral ecology of life in all its dimensions with particular attention to the more vulnerable people and environments in our country and region?
 
This has to be handled very carefully, and from a distinctly Christian and Catholic perspective.

For many people, anything with a tinge of Green lobby about it has become an instant turn off.
 
How do you answer people who say, ‘well I’m much better than I used to be, I am reducing, re-using, and recycling, - do you mean that’s not enough?’
 
2.PRAYER
 
How might we become a more contemplative people, committing more deeply to prayer as a way of life, and celebrating the liturgy of the Church as an encounter with Christ who sends us out to “make disciples of all the nations”?
 
This topic tends to be where pleas for the return to the 3rd Rite of Reconciliation are given.
Please consider:
 
Grace might be free, but it certainly isn’t cheap.
And we should never treat it as cheap.

Everybody loves the easy option that doesn’t really cost them any more than an hour of time. It is akin to the difference of saying with others ‘we believe in one God’ compared to saying alone before others ‘I believe in one God’.
 
There’s no risk with the former; commitment with the latter.
 
Isn’t that the difference between ‘we have sinned’ vs ‘I have sinned’?

3rd Rite also encourages the consumer behaviour that we want to replace with missionary disciple behaviour.

A shepherd watches over his flock, but he treats each sheep individually when medicinal care is needed (worming, sheep dip, shearing, hoof scraping, inspecting for ticks etc).

Our Good Shepherd is the same, individual care for medicinal needs (healing of sin) is His way.
 
All of the perceived benefits of the 3rd Rite are present in the 2nd Rite (communal preparation followed by individual confession), and the 2nd Rite, produces better fruit than the 3rd Rite.

Each of us needs to hear the ‘I absolve you (singular)’ for certainty of forgiveness.
 
…………………………………………………….
 
How many of us are actually praying every day?

Yes there are some who pray their daily rosary and chosen devotions, and there are some who pray parts of the Divine Office daily, and there are some who incorporate daily reading of the bible into their prayers times, and others who do a bit of everything

but,

the vast majority of people in the pews have no regular prayer life at all.

Once someone has begun to pray, then you have a hope of deepening it,
but the commitment to pray daily is a pre-requisite.

Even 10 minutes a day can make a vast difference in our spiritual lives.
Without prayer we can do nothing.

Sustained encouragement for everyone to pray 10 minutes a day would be a very good start.
 
How might we better embrace the diverse liturgical traditions of the churches which make up the Catholic Church and the cultural gifts of immigrant communities to enrich the spirituality of worship of the church in Australia?
 
Providing devotional space for our immigrant communities would be a good step.

An exterior shrine, or an interior chapel, for localities with a significant migrant population should be encouraged, as places where they can honour the saint/s that are so important in their country of origin.
 
The parish at Marsfield has a chapel for a statue of Our Lady of Graces donated by the local Italian/Maltese community. It is a way of sharing our cultural/spiritual partonomy with each other.
 
When WYD pilgrims visited Sydney, many of them brought images and icons of the patron saints of their localities and nations as gifts to the parishes that hosted them, enriching all of us, and visually reminding us that we are the Church universal whenever we gather to pray.
 
3.FORMATION
 
How might we better form leaders for mission - adults, children and families, couples and single people?
 
Should you happen to have active children, families, couples and non-retired adults in your faith communities count yourselves especially fortunate.
 
The vast majority of parishes no longer have age diversity in their congregations.

In a recent May headcount at a vigil Mass, only 2.5% of those present were aged under 70.

The focus should be on how to form teams, and leaders of teams for mission, from among our 70+ year olds, for there to be any kind of missionary success.
 
How might we better equip ordained ministers to be enablers of missionary discipleship the church becoming more a ‘priestly people’ served by the ordained ministry?

How might formation, both pre- and post-ordination, better foster the development of bishops, priests and deacons as enablers of the universal Christian vocation to holiness lived in missionary discipleship?
 
Guided practical experience in discerning whether something emerging in the parish is of God (or not) would be the most useful. Because if something hasn’t been initiated by God, then pouring resources into it is ultimately futile.

Learning how to support laity whom God has commissioned in the catechising, evangelizing and charitable works of the Church would be the next most useful thing. Moral support and financial support: ‘How can I and the parish help you to be more effective in your calling from God?’

Because otherwise two things happen; the priest becomes a bottleneck rather than a coach/cheerleader/enabler who with God’s authority gives permission and commissions for mission; and people forget that lay ministry is crucial for the mission of the church and begin/continue to think that ‘Father and the nuns do all of that’.

Understanding the charisms the Holy Spirit bestows upon His people; and learning how to help His people grow safely and effectively in the use of those charisms, is one of the greatest services to the Church (and to the mission of the Church) that can be done.
 
By and large ordained leadership has been guilty of ‘one size fits all’ when it comes to recruitment for ministry (eg catechists, altar servers) – if you are breathing, and seem reasonable, you’ll do – instead of taking the time and effort to find those who have charisms of teaching to be catechists and to find those who have charisms of service (helps) to be altar servers.
 
It isn’t overly difficult to work out who the naturally out-going people are in a congregation; the ones who have a genuine interest in new people, and to give them some extra training as welcomers and evangelists – because that extra training in techniques and listening to the promptings of the Holy Spirit will make them far more effective than they already are.
 
We have to comprehend that when we see parishioners we can no longer see pawns (ie. interchangeable worker bees), but we see that no one is a pawn, that they are all kings, queens, bishops, rooks and castles with very different God given callings and abilities. Likewise, we have to comprehend the double disaster of putting a rook in a castle ministry; the rook will burn out and be ineffective AND the castle that should have been there has had his/her talents unused.
 
But this goes for the ordained as well. A priest with a more than ordinary effectiveness in ministering to the sick should be placed in a position where he can use those gifts – and not moved to any position where that isn’t a major part of his regular ministry. Permanent deacons without people skills should not be put in situations where people skills are essential, but where the talents they do have can shine (eg livestreaming technology, events organisation, archivist)
 
This impacts preaching too: It is easy to fall into the trap of assuming that everyone else has the same calling that you do. That’s why we see priests gifted as evangelists in their preaching calling everyone to evangelise like them when maybe 7% of the congregation has the charism for that ministry, and the rest have charisms for works of mercy, for intercessory prayer, for teaching, for administration and other charisms. Yes, we all have the small ‘e’ calling to evangelise, (the church exists to evangelise) but some have the big ‘E’ calling. Preaching ‘let’s all be big E’ puts off and confuses everyone who doesn’t have a big E calling.
 
4.STRUCTURES
 
How might parishes better become local centres for the formation and animation of missionary disciples?
 
Just like each baptized person has a call to a particular mission of the church,
and just like we find that there are calls within calls among our priests and religious (some priests are more gifted at visitation of the sick than others; some religious are more gifted at being memory keepers/archivists than others; some religious are more gifted at spiritual direction than others)
 – so too does each parish have a particular call from God within the general call of being a parish.
 
For example, St Patrick’s Church Hill, understands that it is everyone’s ‘second parish’, either for Mass or Confession, or both, and that a degree of anonymity for those who walk through the doors is needed to preserve that special calling.
 
Only when a parish begins to know and come into agreement with its special call within a call from God, will it truly thrive and become a local centre for the formation and animation of a specific missionary calling (eg inner healing, evangelization of workers, promotion of the rosary etc).

NB these are long term callings, well beyond the lifespan of any pastor, and often linked in some way to the spiritual patronage of the parish.
 
For example the parish of Our Lady of Lourdes at Earlwood has long been known for its healing Masses; and is it a complete surprise that a parish under the patronage of St John the Baptist has retained 4 regular weekly opportunities for confession (when most other parishes only have one?
 
How might the Church in Australia be better structured for mission, considering the parish, the diocese, religious orders, the PJPs and new communities?
 
Most parish and other budgets only look at costs for maintenance of buildings and salaries, and existing ministries (eg sacramental programme/s).
 
Even 5% of budget set aside only for funding the start-up of new missionary initiatives would be a worthwhile beginning.

(Remembering that new initiatives often take until the 2nd year to bear fruit)
 
5.GOVERNANCE
 
How might the people of God, lay and ordained, women and men, approach governance in this spirit of synodality and co-responsibility for more effective proclamation of the Gospel?
 
How might we recast governance at every level of the Church in Australia in a more missionary key?
 
It would help a lot if what we reward and celebrate wasn’t so ‘parish building’ focused.
 
The real mission field is outside the church walls where the believers interact with the non-believers in various ways.
 
The visible ministries of choir, lector, altar server, sacristan, musician get far more regular kudos than the invisible ministries of mothering young children, caring for the elderly, taking Holy Communion to the sick, serving with the St Vincent de Paul society, facilitating small groups of bible study, and listening to the young. That has to change.
 
90% of the miracles Jesus worked happened outside the synagogue and Temple walls. Outside the parish building is where the laity should be focused on the mission to which God has called them.
 
Remember, we should be encouraging our nurses to become holy nurses; our carpenters to become holy carpenters, our shop assistants to become holy shop assistants so that they can have maximum impact in the places and careers, ie the specific mission fields that God has placed them in.
 
You’d much prefer a holy nurse who prayed for you and with you as she changed your wound dressings than a secular nurse, wouldn’t you!?
 
We have a duty to mutually encourage each other to both holiness and mission.
 
We have a duty to help each other see the missionary possibilities that are present in our existing careers and vocational callings, and to encourage and train them to act on the opportunities that arise.
 
Possibilities like taking the opportunity to pray with customers and work colleagues who are distressed, like asking the extra question (you’ve sorted out your legal/financial situation, but have you done anything towards sorting out your eternal situation?), like noticing patterns where vulnerable people are falling through the cracks of bureaucratic systems and working with others- together with prayer- to find an effective solution.
 
6.INSTITUTIONS
 
How might we better see the future of Catholic education ( primary, secondary and tertiary) through a missionary lens?
 
I honestly don’t know if the existing structures have a future.
 
Can we in all good conscience say that our schools at any level (primary, secondary, tertiary) are producing believers, missionary disciples? We see less than 5% of them inside our church walls in any given 12 month time period.

Shouldn’t we be putting our resources where there is good fruit, and pruning away that which is producing no fruit or bad fruit?
 
What we do have are secular schools with a Catholic veneer that are very good at inoculating young people from having any commitment to Catholic faith at all.
 
During this time of pandemic we have seen families cope with homeschooling their children with the ‘remote’ support of teachers and online resources.
 
We could let our already secular schools become fully secular, and instead invest in setting up hubs of teachers to support the homeschooling efforts of Catholic families. But those hubs of teachers need to be fully practicing Catholics with full adherence to the teachings of the Church. It is true that we learn as much from the character and beliefs of a teacher as we do their subject matter.
 
How might we better see the future of Catholic social services, agencies and health and aged care ministries as key missionary and evangelising agencies
 
We could look at them as current and future bastions against the evils of euthanasia, abortion, and care proportionate to the benefits of treatment vs the burdens of treatment.
 
In dire circumstances often hearts open up to the need for God. We are called by 1 Peter 3:15 to always have our answer ready for people who ask you the reason for the hope that you all have.
 
We would be derelict in our duty if we didn’t train our staff in these services, ministries and agencies to be able to do give their answers when asked.

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Towards a new paradigm for conferences
Something has been niggling at me for at least the last 10 years when it comes to conferences of all kinds, be they professional, community or church based. The prevailing model is that you get a well-known speaker, or group of them, and then get lots of people to listen to them. Up until the advent of YouTube and Livestream the prevailing model made sense. Now it no longer makes sense. Why gather a group of people together if you are only going to provide something they could access on YouTube?

Far too often we gather people together to listen to a well-known speaker, and the vast majority of people arrive and leave without ever making a meaningful connection with any other attendee or leader or member of the organizing team. Follow up beyond a feedback form is non-existent. As long as they came, and either paid for entry or gave a donation or offering, purchased books and merchandise related to the conference and thereby enhanced the reputations of the speakers and the organization putting on the conference (and their social media followings), that is considered success. Positive testimonials, healings and conversions would be a bonus.

This is a consumer driven model, not a participative or collaborative model.

It is definitely not tapping into the wisdom and experience of the people present, nor permitting connections to be made that could move careers, ministries and relationship networks to a whole new level.

This has to change, even though there are many vested interests that will resist such change.

And the change has to be well beyond the addition of a few discussion groups into the conference mix.

I believe that the Divine Renovation team are thinking along these lines, because when the DR20 conference had to be foregone due to the coronavirus pandemic, they didn’t rush out to replace it with pre-recorded video since they had been planning more ‘hands on’ experiences than guest speakers.

So here is my vision for how a conference could be very different:

At the time of registering for the conference, participants would need to fill out a reasonably detailed survey. The survey would require answers to where participants
* feel that God is most active in their lives (to get an idea where charisms might be, and there would be long lists to choose from),
* experience burdens or callings (eg Pro-life, mental health, evangelization, prison ministry, helping people with addictions, helping people in domestic violence situations, youth ministry, ministry to the homeless, political activism, etc)
* have creative, artistic and musical talents
* write about a project or ministry that is on their heart, but currently unattainable due to lack of funding, co-workers and prayer partners
* and provide their top 5 themes from the Gallup StrengthsFinder questionnaire

Each part of that survey will assist in the planning of the conference, and in developing groups with the greatest numbers of shared interests and experiences. If there is enough prayer in the preparation and planning parts of the conference, the groups will fall into place with the Holy Spirit’s fingerprints all over it.  
 
The conference facility would need therefore to have a large room where all participants can gather, as well as at least 6 smaller rooms for groups to meet in.

Each day of the conference participants will get the opportunity in groups to interact and collaborate with people with whom they have shared interests, callings or abilities.

As far as possible such a conference would be open to all age groups, and the more inter-generational the better.

The conference would start on a Monday, in time for lunch for those who have top 5 themes in the Influencing domain and in time for 5pm Mass for other participants. Day 2/Tuesday would be devoted to charisms, Day3/Wednesday to burdens and callings, Day 4/Thursday is a combined creative day and lectio divina day, Day 5/Friday is a vision day (or start up day), and Day 6/Saturday a half day to pause and reflect on the whole week, with time alone and with opportunities for free ranging conversation and swapping of contact details.

The idea is to have some basic structure to each day, and yet have plenty of opportunity for God to move as He wills.

A live-in location for the conference would be best, however a blend of live-in and 9am-10pm participants sleeping at home is possible if they live within an hour’s travel of the venue and have sufficient stamina.

The timetable for the full days would be something like this:
7.00am Morning Prayer, followed by personal prayer
7.40am Rosary
8.00am Breakfast
9.00am Praise & Worship, with outline of the vision/plan for the day
9.30am Break into groups, give more specific vision/plan for the day, and get to know each other
10.40am Morning Tea
11.00am Seeking God, what does He want to do with us, say to us today; praying for each other
12.00pm Mass
1.15pm Lunch
2.30pm Major work of the day
5.30pm Evening Prayer
6.00pm Dinner
7.00pm Team meeting
7.30pm Night session
9.30pm or 10pm Night Prayer and end of the day

Day 1 Monday
After lunch, special sessions with those who have top 5 themes in the influencing domain, because these people will be called on to lead at least one group during the conference. These special sessions will provide a vision for how we want the leadership of the groups to function during the conference, and a bit of additional leadership training. Before the others arrive to register, we will pray over these leaders asking God to help them.

Then the conference begins in earnest with 5pm Mass followed by 6pm Dinner and the first Night Session at 7.30pm. The Night Session will start with Praise & Worship, a short keynote talk of encouragement, followed by housekeeping information and guidelines for how prophetic words and words of knowledge are to be discerned, and only released when permission from the discernment team is given. That way there can be a small team of people assisting in the interpretation and praying about the best way to act upon and release the messages. As far as possible we need to avoid and discourage undiscerned messages of personal prophecy. In groups, the group leader will facilitate group discernment procedures. At the end of the Night Session participants break up into groups of around 4 people and pray for each other. Night Prayer ends the day.

Day 2 Tuesday
This Day is foundational, because the more the charisms of the Holy Spirit are activated in us, the easier it will be to co-operate with His leadings and promptings throughout the conference.

Today we want to group those who have similar charisms, so that they can share their experiences and learn from each other.

Ideally there would be a group for prophets, a group for intercessors, a group for evangelists, a group for those with the gift of discernment, a group for those with the gift of healing, a group for those whose charism doesn’t fall into these categories, and a group for those who have no idea what their charism is.

In the introduction part of the day, participants would be invited to share how they experience that charism (eg an urgency to stop and pray for a particular person or situation, tingling and warmth in the hands, dreams, changes in senses of smell etc), a story about a good outcome from the operation of that charism, and a challenge they are experiencing with regard to that charism.

Obviously if several people are experiencing the same challenge, then this is a sign that dealing with it is on God’s agenda. Before the next session starts do a bit of research, consultation and prayer for resources and wisdom on this challenge. This topic will then become the first thing the group does in the main afternoon session.

Then after Morning Tea each group spends time seeking God for what He wants them to do as a group. After a time of seeking such guidance, group members share any impressions they have received. There should be enough, ‘I felt that too’, to chart a course of action. Otherwise start with the first impression, give it ago, if it feels anointed continue with it; if not, try the next impression. Some groups may feel like God wants them to lead them in a time of repentance, or to seek God’s mind about a particular topic, or to pray for a particular group of people, or to just rest in stillness before Him for a while.

The main thing is to get a bit of consensus about what God wants to do with the group in the main session, (at least to start with) and then to pray for each other for deeper releases of the charism they already share. What to do is one thing, how to do it is another, so until the main session starts everyone should be seeking God individually for specifics. For example, if the general impression is to pray for Japan, is it for the leaders of Japan, is it for protection against natural disasters in Japan etc and how to pray, eg in song, in tongues, with the Rosary, with a map of the country etc. Where you start in the main session may not be where you end up, allow God to lead you step by step. It is OK for the leader to ask for feedback from time to time, eg should we go deeper here, or do you feel that the Holy Spirit is changing our direction? Is the anointing as strong as when we started? Or has it lifted? Remember to follow good spiritual hygiene principles before and after the main session.

At the after dinner team meeting, group leaders give a brief account of the day. Are there any common threads between the various groups? If so, then go deeper with that in the ministry part of the night session. Otherwise the night session will be a full on ‘whatever you want to do with us God’ prayer meeting, expecting God to give people practice in the various charisms.

For the group of people with less common charisms, the group times of the day should be very similar, just needing extra levels of open heartedness to listen to the experiences of others that are so very different from your own.

For the group of people who have no idea what their charism is, they will have more of an input day than a collaborative day. For them, bring in guest speakers who describe their own experiences with charisms, and growing in them. Some of the day should be one-on-one conversations about how group members have experienced God’s guidance in the past; from those conversations some nascent charisms might be recognized. If so, pray for them to become more manifest. By dinner time everyone in this group should be better equipped to recognize and respond to charisms, and have had a time before the end of the main afternoon session where everyone prayed for the release of God’s charisms within each other for the welfare of the church.

(For a conference made up of people mature in the use of the charisms, you could add a similar day breaking into groups of those with similar offices, viz, apostle, prophet, evangelist, pastor, teacher. We say people have an office if there is general recognition that a person has been used by God consistently in this area for several years, and with much fruitfulness.)

Day 3 Wednesday
This day is designed to bring people with similar burdens, callings and ministries together. The purpose is for mutual support and encouragement, the improvement of relationships between people with similar God-given passions, and the sharing of ideas. If at the end of the day people have been helped to avoid common pitfalls, if solutions to common issues have been shared, if a bigger vision for what God is doing in this ministry area is received, if mutual collaboration begins between ministries, then the day has been a success.

The break up of these groups will be determined by the answers to the registration questionnaire. Likely groups would be pro-life, youth ministry, ministry to the poor/disadvantaged; less likely but still possible groups could be catechists, prison ministry, drug & alcohol rehabilitation, social media apostles/evangelists, protection of religious freedom activists etc. The emphasis is on the burden of the heart more than where someone is currently in mission. For example, if someone goes to state schools as a catechist every week, but God wakes them up on a regular basis to pray for those tempted to suicide, then that person should be in a group with people sharing a passion for mental health rather than with the catechists.

The first group session of the day begins with prayer, and then time for group members to get to know each other through introducing themselves, how this calling or prayer burden first manifested itself in their lives, a story about a good outcome from this ministry, and the sharing of a challenge arising from the calling, prayer burden or ministry. Only if time permits, group members can share how they have dealt with some of the challenges the others are currently facing.

If there appears to be commonality among the challenges, then we see God’s hand in bringing people together with a common challenge, and the group leader in the break goes to seek out wisdom and resources through research and consultation with team members. This will be the first topic for the main session in the afternoon, and a videoclip for discussion starting, or role play, or bringing in an expert speaker, may be the way to start it off, but then collectively pray for God’s wisdom for the challenging situation, and share any impressions, ideas and scripture quotations that come. It could be as basic as producing a budget, or as nuanced as exploring ways of setting boundaries and saying no to those who are demanding more than can be given.

The second group session is about seeking what God wants to do with the group. So this will involve prayer. It could very well be that God would like to give the group a time of restful, soaking prayer to refresh and bring healing in this session, as a prelude to what He wants to do with them in the main session. It may become a time of collective repentance for the occasions that we failed to respond to His promptings, and/or failed to serve the people sent to us. If group members agree, it could also be about sharing solutions to challenges, and respectfully learning from each other. At the end of this session there should be general agreement as to how the main session will start. Before the session ends, pray for each other and for each other’s ministries.

The main afternoon session will start by dealing with all the things that arose from the previous group sessions. But this should take up no more than one third of the main session. Then the rest of the session is turned over to God, letting Him direct what happens next, with the group leader facilitating group discernment. It is likely that the various groups will be led into times of intercession for those for whom God has already given them a burden (eg youth, those who don’t know God, those bound in addictions etc). It is also likely that the various groups will be led to seek God for fresh vision and fresh strategies for their ministries, and for the deeper release of charisms with which to serve in those ministries. If a time of repenting for obstacles placed in the way of unity between ministries begins, flow with it. Allow God to share his heart with you, and to broaden your vision for what He wants to accomplish through you. Begin and end this time with proper spiritual hygiene practices, since the possibility of intense spiritual warfare is high. If God wants to use your group in prayer to help bring down spiritual strongholds that are holding back His floodgates of grace, do not resist and do not be afraid.

The group leader’s debrief after dinner is again crucial. If in the debrief and sharing you find that many of the main sessions prayed for the nation, or were led to pray for financial help to be released, then the night session should devote time to praying for these things as a whole conference body. On the other hand, if groups were led to pray for boldness, or for those in political leadership, then do more of that. So the night session starts off as a prayer meeting and covers those areas that came up as themes in the groups, and if time permits at the end, there will be a time of sharing of good outcomes from various ministries. To make that happen each group leader will go and invite the person who shared the best story in the group to share it with everyone, so that the evening ends with collective praise and thanksgiving to God.

There will be a group for those who have less common callings, for whom there aren’t enough to have a specific group for those callings. With extra patience and openness of heart to each other, there is every possibility that their group may be led by God in deep and amazing ways. Be on the lookout for any indication of being drawn together into new multidimensional or multidisciplinary forms of ministry. For example, it might be discovered on sharing, that while each has their own calling, many of those callings may have a ‘calling within a calling’ such as an interest in First Nations peoples or a tug towards South East QLD.

Then there will be a group for those who don’t yet think they have a calling, a prayer burden or a ministry. For them, at the first group session they will introduce themselves and share a bit about either the context for the strongest spiritual experience of their lives or about what they have seen God do in their lives recently, and then share something about what they are currently struggling with, be it having a regular prayer time or a fracturing relationship or a health battle etc. At the second session there will be input to help them understand how a calling, prayer burden or ministry begins to manifest itself. Group members will then recall and share about the top three intercessory prayers in their lives, about the kinds of charities that they give more willingly to, and why, and about the type of injustice that spurs them most to action. From the time of sharing in the first two sessions it might be possible to see patterns emerging in individuals and in the group. If so, work with that. The main session will be about asking God to reveal more of His plan for each of the group members, and lingering in prayer waiting upon Him to speak directly to each heart. Pray for each other, and over each other, and if all else fails use the remaining time to pray against the injustices shared and for any top 3 intercessions that some of the group members had in common.

Day 4 Thursday
By now conversations at break times and during meals should be well beyond small talk. Today is creative lectio divina day. For today everyone gets a copy of the Gospel passage for the coming Sunday, and groups are made up of people with similar creative gifts. So there will be a good of musicians (vocalists, song writers, those who can play musical instruments), there will be a group of artists/illustrators, there will be a group of wordsmiths (writers, bloggers, poets), there will be a group of dramatists (actors, playwrights, dancers), a group of digital artists (photographers, videographers, meme makers), a group of cooks/chefs, and if there are any who declare they have no creative talents, they will make up the intercessors for the day. Comedians can choose whether they prefer wordsmiths or dramatists. If perchance there are potters, sculptors, wood workers, people who create scenes with Lego, or anything else ‘hands on’ (eg knitters and those who can make amazing things come out of sewing machines) then they can form a group too – if they have brought their equipment with them.

For the first session of the day, group members share about the creative talent God has given them, and what they have been doing with it (eg hobby, volunteer, career, ministry), and a blessing they feel when they use that creative talent and a challenge they face (burn out, barriers to success, rejection, finding the time to practice/hone skills etc). Pray for each other.

The second session of the day is where each group seeks God and prays through the Gospel passage in a lectio divina way. Group members share what struck them afresh about this Gospel passage. Then members talk about how they could convey that message through the medium of their creative talent, and whether they want (or feel called) to do that solo, or in collaboration with others. It is time to brainstorm, and to help each other develop the initial ideas they have been given. The cooks will each be given an amount, say $20, to go shopping for ingredients with, in order to produce Gospel inspired nibbles to be enjoyed at the night session. By the end of this session everyone should have a plan for what they will be creating in the afternoon session.

In the afternoon session the intercessors will be praying while the creatives produce what they can in the time available, together with a written explanation if necessary (eg for art, instrumental music, nibbles).

Then in preparation for the night session, the creative work that can be displayed will be arranged around the room. Creative work that requires performance will go onto whatever stage-type arrangements can be made, like a variety concert, and the nibbles provide a celebratory feast afterwards. Those with computer/technical skills will be called on to help set things up for viewing where necessary, or to help get them printed. It should be an absolutely amazing night seeing the Gospel coming alive and depicted in so many various ways and mediums. Of course, someone will need to fill the role of M.C. for the night, and someone else will need to schedule the various performances into some semblance of order.

Writers can choose whether to read out their short story, poem, limerick, blog post, or article, or whether to print it and display it instead. It may even be deemed worthwhile for all of the displays to be photographed and uploaded onto a computer, and then projected onto a big screen while the artist/creator explains his/her work. If that is done, then you would need schedule a few displays followed by a few performances, and then a very short time for conversation and continue with that pattern until all of the creative individuals and groups had presented. No performance or display explanation should exceed 5 minutes. At the end, the intercessors should be called up to take a bow, because they were the powerhouse of prayer calling down God’s creative inspiration upon everyone and obtaining the grace of creative flow. Then God Himself should get a big clap for the gift of His Word and for the wide diversity of creative talents He has bestowed upon His people.

Day 5 Friday
This is Dare to Dream day, or Vision day, or Start-Up day. For today people will need to be able to set up their own computer technology in working groups. In preparation for today the team will have needed to contacted diocesan leaders, business people (eg lawyers and accountants), local political leaders and others who have links with entrepreneurs and large donors. These people are to receive invitations to the night session. The more that come, the better.

By now there should be a good level of trust and working relationships between the conference participants. The more there is of that, the more fruitful the day will be.
 
The first session of the day is the ‘Pitch it to me’ session. Anyone who wishes to pitch a project to the group has to notify the team the night before and be given some cardboard to write out the essence of the pitch upon. People can give multiple pitches if the ideas or projects are significantly different. Each person gets no more than 2 minutes to pitch their idea or project to the entire group. But they have to be ‘big’, ie they need to be well beyond the scope of one person to achieve (funding $10K+, require an ongoing team of at least 4 people, and prayer partners). Effective pitches generally present a community need and a solution to that need.
 
Some of the pitches will be pre-existing dreams that currently seem too far out of reach, others will have arisen out of the experiences of the conference. Catholic hospices, family-friendly retreat centres, initiating a new faculty at a Catholic university (eg Australian Catholic history), a project to translate a classic spirituality text into English, setting up a travelling troupe of dramatists to perform Passion plays are examples of possible pitches.

In the break between sessions, the cardboard pitches are set up around the room. Each person is given two red sticky dots and a green one. The red dots are to vote for pitches that you think are particularly worthwhile, and the green dot is to indicate which pitch you would actively like to work on. At the start of the second session, people go and place their dots. During this time of milling around, you can ask clarifying questions of the people who gave pitches.

The more dots a pitch receives, the more likely it is that a working group for that pitch will be formed. Hopefully this process of ranking pitches will take no more than 30 minutes, less if at all possible. The number of working groups will be determined by the number of smaller rooms for those groups to meet in, with one room set aside for those who have no passion for any of the selected working groups.

Once the top ranking pitches are chosen, people gravitate to the one they wish to work on and form working groups. The rest of the session is spent in the smaller rooms doing introductions, and learning about each other’s skills and professions. Each group will require someone with themes in the influencing domain if those giving the selected pitches do not already have an influencing theme. If any working groups discover that they don’t have all the domains covered, then they need to find someone who has themes in that domain to join them.

The main session for each working group begins with prayer, followed by a more detailed pitch from the pitch-giver. Group members ask questions. Then the group decides what needs to be done to improve the pitch, and works on that. Each group will get 7 minutes at the night session to deliver a better pitch, and 3 minutes to answer questions from the floor about the pitch.

Statistics, business plans, research, graphics, budget size, possible locations, any limitations via legislation and government regulations, staffing, legal and privacy restrictions considered, plans for how to attract both funding and clients/those in need of the project will all be required in preparing the better pitch. Also needed will be information about why this project is different to others already in existence, and whether or not it could be co-partnered or grafted onto an existing entity/ministry.

Since the 3 hours for the main session isn’t a lot of time for work like this, the group leader/s need to quickly set tasks for each member. They work as hard as possible for 30 minutes on those tasks, then the group reassembles and reports, and then refines what is needed, and sends members away for another 30 minutes. After the second re-group they will need to decide whether more information is needed, or whether the group has enough to begin preparing the presentation, or to let a few pursue more fact finding and the rest begin work on how to present the upgraded pitch. Allow enough time to practice the presentation. Prepare a handful of contact cards to give away to any invited guest who shows interest in the project.

Pitch-givers are encouraged to let the original vision for the project grow, be enhanced, and even be diverted. For example, a pitch might begin as a scheme to find employment for young people, but during the work the group discovers plenty of similar schemes for that age group, however there is almost nothing for the over 50s, and they decide to keep the basics of the idea and project but change the age group for whom it is targeted.

Remember to do due diligence. Contact actual people for whom you have the vision or project. Ask them whether it would actually help them, or whether they have more pressing needs. For example, the initial project may be to improve ramp access for wheelchairs and walkers at the local cathedral, but you may find that while that would be well, good and appreciated, what they really need is trained people to help them fill out National Disability Insurance Scheme (NDIS) paperwork.

Groups may decide to continue working between dinner and the start of the evening session.

Simplicity of presentation is better than complexity. Include what the need is, what the vision is to meet that need, why that vision is unique, and then detail that vision with plans and rationales for those plans. Don’t forget to include estimated budgets for the whole project, for each section of a project, or year 1, year 2 etc budget projections. If time permits outline the risks you are aware of, and your plans to deal with those risks. Make the vision as compelling as possible.

The night session begins with prayer, and the introduction of the invited guests. Then the detailed pitch sessions and associated Q&A begins. It would be better to have a random order of the presentations instead of a lowest initial interest to highest initial interest order. When the detailed pitch sessions are over it is time for a celebration to begin, and for invited guests to mingle and ask further questions about the pitches that most interested them. At the end of the evening, conclude with prayer asking God to bring into being those projects that most align with His will.

For those who ended up in the group without a selected pitch, they will do a similar skills and professions introduction to each other that will be led by a group leader. As part of that introduction, people will also include what topic would have motivated them to take part in a working group. Should there be any group members who have the same motivation, they will work together for the rest of the day. The rest get divided up into smaller groups that have all the theme domains covered, and then get to choose which of the non-selected pitches they would like to work on. Before the end of the main session, each smaller group presents a pitch to each other. Of them, the one considered by the group to be the best pitch will be presented as a ‘wild card’ pitch at the night session.

Day 6 Saturday
This is the final day, which finishes with Mass and lunch. The primary task of this day is to provide a time of prayerful reflection upon the experiences of the week. So after the morning praise & worship there are only two sessions.

For the first session everyone gets a small exercise book to take with them and to write down what they want to remember from the whole conference. Of primacy would be everything that they felt God speaking to their hearts. Questions that people may want to answer in this time are: What did I hear? What did I learn? What touched my heart? Where was God for me in the experiences of the week? What is challenging me? What questions do I have that I need to follow up on? What do I feel God is inviting me to do as a response to the experiences of this week?

For the second session everyone returns to the main room. This is a time to mingle with the purpose of going up and saying a personal thank you to those who helped you during the week, and for saying words of encouragement to those in whom you see great potential, or whom you have seen grow throughout the week. It is also a time to swap contact details with those you would like to keep in contact with. At the end of the session we gather for 5 minutes to stand and pray for the person next to us, that what God has done in them during this week and begun in them would be brought to perfect fulfilment.
​
www.societyofsaints.net   
Solemnity of the Sacred Heart of Jesus, 19 Jun 2020  

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A print friendly version is available below:
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​A few days after the last blog post I was driving home from something and as I reached the garage a stray thought appeared, 'You know those monthly small steps, it would be a whole lot easier to do them as a group, and a whole lot likelier that they would happen'.

My guess is that Saturdays between Morning Mass and Vigil Mass is a good time because it would suit those who work Mon-Fri, it would suit retirees who no longer like going out at night, and theoretically would be easier for parents with children to take turns at attending.

Your circumstances will be different, so adjust accordingly.
We have a 9am Saturday morning Mass, and a 5pm Vigil Mass.
The 9am Saturday morning Mass is preceded by the Morning Prayer of the Church and followed by a short time of Exposition of the Blessed Sacrament that culminated in Benediction around 10am. During Exposition, the Confessional is open for business.
After Benediction the Rosary is prayed.
We also have a large meeting room equipped with Audio Visual stuff, in the same building as the Church.

For our circumstances, that means morning tea starting around 10.25am in time for the Monthly Plenary Council Steps to begin at 10.45am should work. Start with a prayer calling upon the Holy Spirit and a prayer invoking the aid of Mary, Help of Christians.

Part 1: Missionary and Evangelising (30mins)
Either get a past graduate of an RCIA program in the parish to come and tell his/her conversion story in 15-20 mins with the remainder of the 30 minutes filled with question time or general discussion time. However it is going to more likely be question time, since apart from the conversion story itself, you will want to ask questions about what helped or hindered that 'journey home' and what were the catalysts that started opening up his/her heart and mind, and what they think would have been helpful to them as a newbie at Mass.

Alternately find one of the first Monday Journey Home programs from the Coming Home Network. They have the first half hour as testimony and the last half hour for question time. Find one of them and together watch the first half.

Part 2: Inclusive, Participatory and Synodal (30 mins)
In every parish there are people with hearing aids, low vision, walking sticks, wheelchairs, others recovering from surgery, or who have special needs children, or who are battling depression and treatment for cancer. Ask one of them, or two of them with the same set of difficulties to come, and to talk about their regular routine in getting to and from Mass, any struggles they have during Mass, anything they think would make access and participation easier for them. Use any remaining time of the 30 minutes as question time or discussion time.

Over time this should lead us to a greater awareness of the needs of others, a deeper compassion for each other, and maybe some simple practical improvements.

Part 3: Prayerful, Sacramental and Eucharistic (10 mins)
Send everyone off into the parish church for 10 minutes of personal prayer.
(Since not everyone is going to make it to the time of Exposition before Benediction)

Lunch Time (30 mins)

Part 4: Humble, Healing and Merciful (30 mins)
This is alone time with God and the aid of a notebook and pen.
Think about the people in your life with whom you are not at peace, write down their names, and ask for God's help to forgive them, and then seek forgiveness from God for holding onto resentments. Then pray a prayer for each person on that list, asking God to bless them and bring them closer to Himself. If there is anything practical that God prompts you to do for one or more of them, write it down, and make it a priority to do it.

If any time remains, make a list of everyone you know who is sick, seriously ill or suffering, and then pray for each one of them individually.

Part 5: A Joy-filled, Hopeful and Servant Community (30 mins)
With the same notebook and pen write down three blessings of the past week or month that you want to give God thanks for, and then write a paragraph about a time in the past month where you knew God was active in your life (eg saved from an accident, a chance meeting with someone who had the exact answer you had been looking for, an unexpected supernatural peace after hearing disturbing news). That should take no more than 10-15 mins, then share it with 2 or 3 others in the group, and listen in turn to their blessings and stories.

It is only when we stop and look back that we can more clearly see where God has been active in our lives. Gratitude leads us to joy, and sharing our reasons for gratitude increases our trust in God – which leads to hope.

Afternoon tea break (20 mins)

Theme 6: Open to Conversion, Renewal and Reform (1 hour)
From the Gospel passages for the next 4 Sundays, select a single chapter, and have copies of that Gospel chapter printed out. Give everyone a copy, and then direct each one to find a place to be alone with God, to slowly read through that Gospel chapter and then ask God what dreams He has for you, what things He would like to see happen in your family life, work life, ministry life, community life, and write down any ideas and out-of-the-blue thoughts that come, and write them down in your notebook. You may need to start by writing down your own dreams, and then ask God if they align with His dreams, or if they are big enough to match the dreams He has for you. Towards the end, place all the dreams in His hands and ask Him to confirm for you which ones come from Him and which you should work on, and which ones are not from Him and which you should gently let go of.

Conclusion: Come back together and pray a simple prayer, (eg Our Father) as a conclusion, and then invite anyone who would like to take the option to stay and talk, or who would like someone to pray for them to remain.

In more condensed form that looks like:
Morning Tea 10.25am
Conversion Story + Q&A 10.45am
Disability & Inclusion Story + Q&A  11.15am
Personal Prayer 11.45am
Lunch 11.55am
Praying for Relationships in tension 12.25pm
Sharing our Blessings 12.55pm
Afternoon Tea 1.25pm
Dreaming with God 1.45pm
Conclusion 2.45pm (prayer requests and having a chat might take that to 3.30pm)

A monthly period of recollection is something the Church encourages with a partial indulgence, and a monthly day like this would qualify.

Of all these things, if you could only do a few of them, make Dreaming with God and Praying for Relationships in tension the priorities.

If you wanted something like this to form the backbone of your parish response to the Plenary Council, go for it. You wouldn't even need to wait for the first session of the Plenary Council to begin. It is something that could start quickly and with not much to do for set up (pray, find speakers, set up meeting room, arrange tea & coffee, provide pens & paper, print off Gospel chapter, work out whether BYO lunch or a tray of pre-prepared sandwiches would suffice)and not much by way of cost.
​
Small do-able steps inspired by the 6 Themes, like the ones above, can have a very big long term impact.

​The discernment part of the Plenary Council is supposedly in full swing, although it seems only group submissions are being accepted. Since I don't have a group, and it would be a dishonesty to submit something from a group of one, I will blog it instead.

My catalyst for writing is reading through some 20 pages of a group submission a relative of mine has been involved in. Those some 20 pages cover the 6 themes, with a reasonable amount of overlap between the themes. Having actually read other submissions from the consultation stage, online and offline, it is substantially representative of what the discernment groups have been receiving.

The other catalysts are the recent message from Queen Elisabeth II that repeatedly mentioned small steps as necessary on the way to greater good, and some videos from Dr Henry Cloud on YouTube about leadership: in particular the notion about focussing on what we can actually control, and giving people permission to work on those things they can actually control even if it is as seemingly small as smiling at your customers.

As I see it, there's a problem with all the 'we should do this', 'we should have that', and 'we need/must do this's that form the backbone of most submissions -
a) it all sounds like it is going to be done by an eager group of nameless people with infinite resources, time and talents
b) it doesn't take account of the already depleted/overextended people currently trying to hold together all that the parishes are already doing
c) by and large it lets 'me' off the hook.

So I am going to do something novel and look at the 6 themes from the angle of what small step or steps could someone in the pew actually do towards making the vision of those 6 themes a reality. Lots of people doing one small step, and encouraging each other to do that one small step, could make much more of a difference than we ever would have thought possible.

All of them need to be, 'Hey, yes, I could do that!'

Just choosing one step from each theme would be a very good start.

Theme 1: Missionary and Evangelising
•Take the time to think about and write about a time where God was very active in your life; what was the situation, what did God do? how did you know it was Him? what changed in your life because of this. 1 Pet 3:15
•Pray a short prayer every day for a friend or relative to be given a life changing encounter with Jesus
•Simplify your life so that there is room in it to take up a hobby that brings you in to interaction with people outside your parish community
•Once a month sit down and watch an episode from The Journey Home programme produced by the Coming Home Network https://chnetwork.org/about how God brought someone home to the Catholic church. Doing that will teach you that God is active in everyone's lives, and give you some simple ways to explain why Catholics do what they do if someone asks you.

Theme 2: Inclusive, Participatory and Synodal
•Be connected to what is going on at diocesan, national and global level by adding feeds from your diocese, Australian Catholic Bishop's Conference and Pope Francis to your favourite social media platform.
•Do something intentional once a month to learn about the actual experiences of people with disabilities. That could be online learning: http://disabilityandjesus.org.uk/ is a good place to start, as is the #actuallyautistic hashtag. Or it could be offline learning: having a chat to someone is the parish with low vision; or who wears hearing aids; or who comes to Mass with a walking stick; or visiting (with permission) a family of a special needs child.
•Once a month get to know someone's full name at church, and something about them, because to a certain extent most of us don't feel like we belong unless someone notices those times when we are missing.
•Understanding increases participation. Once a week read a page from the Catechism of the Catholic Church from the section on the Sacraments https://www.vatican.va/archive/ENG0015/_INDEX.HTM, or a page from the documents of Vatican II or a page from a papal encyclical.
•If you are not already contributing to the parish community in some way (eg. choir, church cleaning, St Vincent de Paul society, counting team, taking Holy Communion to the sick, welcomer etc) seek God seriously about what how He would like you to contribute your gifts and talents, and then act on it.
•Smile at everyone whom you come across at church, particularly anyone who seems to be struggling or who seems uncertain about the responses and when to stand, sit and kneel, or at anyone who has made the extra effort to bring their children to church.

Theme 3: Prayerful, Sacramental and Eucharistic
•If you do not already have a regular daily prayer time, commit yourself to 10 minutes of prayer a day.
•If you do already have a regular daily prayer time, increase it by 5 minutes.
•Find 5 minutes to spend quietly with Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament every week. That could be before Mass, after Mass, or a special visit during the week to an open church or Blessed Sacrament chapel.
•Find a prayer of Spiritual Communion that you like, and pray it once a week, or more frequently if you wish.
https://www.ewtn.com/catholicism/devotions/act-of-spiritual-communion-339
https://www.ourcatholicprayers.com/spiritual-communion.html
•Do you have a holy water stoup at home? Keep it filled with holy water, and bless yourself with it every time you leave home. If you haven't got one, get one, and use it.

Theme 4: Humble, Healing and Merciful
•Make a commitment to listen whole heartedly to anyone who wishes to share their burdens with you, and to only offer advice if they ask for it.
•Start a regular practice of contributing to the lives of those less fortunate than yourself. It might look like putting some money in to the St Vincent de Paul poor box each Sunday, or finding a worthy charity and setting up a monthly direct debit donation, or volunteering to regularly do grocery shopping for an elderly neighbour.
•Once a month to take a few minutes to think about the people in your life with whom you are not at peace, and to ask for God's help to forgive them, and to seek forgiveness from God for holding onto resentments.
•Choose a short prayer you like that you could pray every day for all those you know, or have been told, who are sick or seriously ill or suffering from mental illness – and pray it daily.

Theme 5: A Joyful, Hope-filled and Servant Community
•Make a list every day of at least 3 things you are grateful to God for eg. quality time spent with a friend, being able to hear the birds sing, an answer to prayer.
•Go looking for a story every week about how God has been active in someone else's life. You might find that testimony on a video or blog, in an autobiography or over a coffee with a friend; and let that story nourish the hope within you that God is just as active in your life.
•If you are in leadership, start regularly asking your team members the question, 'What can I do to help you reach your ministry goals?' It might mean getting a light bulb replaced, or recruiting a helper, or diffusing an issue of conflict, or similar. And do it to the best of your ability.
•If you don't already know them, find out the dates of your baptism, confirmation, first Holy Communion and do something intentional to celebrate them every year; and make special effort to celebrate and acknowledge the wedding anniversaries, ordination anniversaries and religious commitment anniversaries of those God has placed in your life.
​
Theme 6: Open to Conversion, Renewal and Reform
•Read a passage of the Word of God every day, or two chapters from the Bible every week. Soaking our minds in God's truth will gradually show us where we are out of alignment with His ways and strengthen our wills to get our lives into alignment.
•Make a commitment to going to confession (Sacrament of Penance) monthly.
•Find a prayer to the Holy Spirit that you like, and make it part of your daily prayer time.
•Make a commitment to setting aside an hour every month to ask God what dreams He has for you, what things He would like to see happen in your family life, work life, ministry life, community life, and write down any ideas and out-of-the-blue thoughts that come, and share them with someone you trust who can help you sort out which ones have God's touch on them.

​Unless you have been hiding under a rock, you will have heard talk about God preparing to act in a great and mighty way. This expectation comes from many places and is clothed in all types of language. In Catholic circles we have 'In the end my Immaculate Heart will triumph', and talk of the Warning and the Chastisement. There is the 1947 Wigglesworth prophecy that when the Spirit and the Word come together, there will be the biggest move of the Holy Spirit that the world has ever seen. Others talk of a promised billion soul harvest.

As Peter Herbeck reminded us back in 2016, '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.' And it is precisely when the Church is looking the deadest and most bedraggled that we can expect the resurrection power of Jesus to come upon Her.
There are heightened expectations at the moment for something like this to begin before the end of 2019, with Brexit when it actually happens, as some form of a catalyst.

Consider:
https://lanavawser.com/2019/10/30/i-heard-the-lord-say-the-last-few-months-of-2019-are-going-to-be-explosive/
and https://www.openheaven.com/2018/07/10/three-waves-of-a-coming-baby-boom-and-strategies-for-preparation-by-christy-johnston/

Now for the chicken and the egg paradox: Are we in the 'if and when it happens we will deal with it then' camp or are we in the 'is some of this dependent on us being like Noah and taking God at His word and doing some practical stuff in preparation' camp? Is our lack of preparation part of the delay problem?

Consider the following scenario: an act of God causes 1000 consciences to awaken and they all rush to your church community to get themselves right with God. What do you do?

And what if it is 10,000 people? That's a lot of people who will expect us to know what to do to help them all.

When the active presence of God manifests itself in a place, people have life-changing encounters with God, and no one, but no one, wants to leave a place that is experiencing divine visitation. So expecting people to go down the shops to get supplies just isn't going to work, you need to have the supplies stockpiled already. Call it 'The Noah Storeroom' or the 'When God Shows Up Cache' or similar, expect to get laughed at like Noah was, but do it anyway. Also think long term, God is wanting to add these people to your community permanently. There is also no guarantee that you won't be overwhelmed by God and unable to function as a leader, marshal or administrator, so talk to your teams and make them aware of what your strategy is for when the Flood of Grace comes. Ask God what that strategy should be.  

So here are some thoughts, just looking at things from a practical perspective and a decidedly Catholic one because we need to do more preparation than anyone else.

The number one thing people will want is the sacrament of penance, and lengthy confessions. There might be a humungous crowd, but they each need to hear the blessed words of absolution personally. While they wait for their turn they are going to need some refresher teaching on how the sacrament works, how to prepare, what to confess, why the given penance is important etc. Many of them will be in a blubbering mess, before, during and after they get into the confessional.

A practical thing to do is for dioceses and parishes to audit how many non-active priests are within their diocesan and parish boundaries, get in contact with them, and have them on some kind of group alert system. They may be retired, if so, keep in regular contact with them. They may have been laicised for various reasons, but in emergencies, and this would qualify for an emergency, they can exercise priestly faculties. You are going to need them hearing confessions. If you are a bishop, then you should start working out what needs to be done canonically now to get laicised priests as sacramentally active as possible, as quickly as possible, in such a scenario.

The best people to do the refresher teaching on the sacrament of penance will be those who are already on the parish sacramental preparation teams. Parish priests should talk with the parish sacramental preparation co-ordinator about how to handle such a scenario. They would already have some experience in ushering primary school children for their first confessions.

Do you have brochures for people returning to the sacrament of penance after a long absence? Start looking for good examples of them online, or get new ones written. Have them ready to print. Put all the links and files you need in a special folder on your computer, so that you can quickly find them all in one place. Have a back-up paper version in your filing cabinet.

Begin a stockpile of tissues, a stockpile of scripture booklets (like the ones they provide for World Youth Day pilgrims, with a Gospel, another book from the Bible and a Psalm or two) and a stockpile of toilet paper.

Talk to your parish team about setting up triage protocols, because you are going to need to quickly ascertain who has never been baptised, who can't remember if they were baptised, those baptised under other traditions, lapsed Catholics, fringe Catholics and committed Catholics. Baptism (and conditional Baptism), could reduce the strain on the confessionals, but you will need a diocesan approved video presentation on what living out the Nicene Creed means as a minimum preparation for the baptism of those who have reached the age of reason and beyond.

Purchase additional baptismal registers and baptismal certificates at both parish and diocesan levels.

Space is going to be at a premium, so as quickly as possible, get all the cars out of the parish car parks and make them pedestrian access only. You could have several groups learning from different group leaders across the car park - weather permitting. 

People are going to want Jesus. Setting up a monstrance with a consecrated host in the church will help with that. If you have a spare or secondary monstrance, set up an additional adoration space in the parish hall as well. You may need to set up wardens or guards from the ranks of acolytes and senior altar servers around those monstrances to keep order. People under the influence of religious zeal have been known to do some mighty crazy things, especially if that zeal is coupled with ignorance. 

People are going to need to learn how to pray. Having an area set aside with a Marian shrine/statue and a continuous Rosary being prayed with scripture meditations prior to each decade mystery will help. Stockpile inexpensive sets of rosary beads.

If the repentance is Holy Spirit genuine, then practical steps to change lives will be needed. Wherever you normally have the paschal fire for the Easter Vigil can be the place people can bring unholy objects to have them burned, bad magazines, bad books, crystals, occult items etc.

People in non-married relationships may come under the conviction of the Holy Spirit to get married. You will need teams of people to listen to them, to ascertain if they are free to enter into sacramental marriage, and then organise groups of couples for marriage ceremonies and renewal of vow ceremonies.

Purchase additional marriage registers and marriage certificates, at both parish and diocesan levels.

Under a move of God of such a magnitude, people are going to start manifesting the charismatic gifts of the Holy Spirit. Make sure you have literature and links on hand for them to be able to begin to understand what the Holy Spirit is doing in them, and how to co-operate with it. You are going to need protocols for how to discern and release prophetic words.

Some people may also manifest demonic influence. To deal with that, the diocesan bishop should have a plan in place. He is the chief exorcist of the diocese, and should have already appointed other exorcists. Training should begin now to enable more priestly exorcists to be appointed, and for all diocesan priests to be trained in what they are already authorised to do in such circumstances, and in what must be referred to those with specialist training.

Once the Holy Spirit activates hearts in repentance, then they will experience a hunger for catechesis. Start researching now to discover what good programmes are out there, and purchase or subscribe to them. Then when God's grace hits, get a quality video series set up for viewing in a large meeting room with automatic repeat.

Mobilise those who have been on team for RCIA (Rite of Christian Initiation of Adults) to be the 'go to' people for those that have specific theological questions or hurdles that they need to overcome in order to take the next step on their journey of faith.

You will need printed and laminated lists of good books for people to download on their mobile phones and similar devices on topics such as prayer, sacraments, catechism, charisms, scripture, conversion testimonies that are highly recommended. The last thing you want is for people hungry for catechesis to find online teaching resources that contain doctrinal errors.

It is our duty to help people get to the best sources of teaching quickly. Many people have mobile phones with internet capability, help them use that technology to help them get the recommended teaching that they need.

People on fire with the Holy Spirit are going to want to be active in evangelisation, immediately. Remind them that even St Paul went off to pray, fast and study first. Work out in advance a way to get them into teams to do the necessary preparation, preferably each with an experienced evangelist as a leader, and then send them out in teams. Each sent out team should return together for debriefing, further teaching based on their experiences, and prayer for those they reached out to.

Real repentance will want to express itself in acts of penance, viz prayer, fasting, almsgiving, service to the poor. It will be far better to give people direction on how to respond to this call to penance and reparation, than to leave them without guidance. Think now about how best such holy responses could be channelled to the greatest good, and pray for divine wisdom as you work on that. Consider where the greatest needs in your community are, and which local service organisations are the best ones with track records of integrity and effectiveness. Some people will want to go beyond what prudence suggests, and they will need to be helped so that they bank that fire a bit so as to become sustainable rather than flaming out quickly.

People are going to need to tell their stories about how God's grace rescued them. So you will need teams of listeners and recorders. The better stories should be publicly told, as ongoing encouragement to the church community and in praise to God. Discernment will be needed for who, when, and how such stories are to be released, and whether his/her conversion has deepened enough for it to withstand notoriety.

When such moves of God happen, it can get very chaotic and messy in a good way. The more we can help people ground the profound God experiences they have had in daily prayer, reading of scripture, and frequent recourse to the sacraments, and in the accountability of regular sharing of experiences in small to medium groups, the more fruitful and lasting that grace will be within them. But it takes all hands on deck to steward extraordinary moves of the Holy Spirit like this, far more than just the priest and a handful of helpers. Training up people now who could be effective leaders of small to medium groups would be very prudent.

Many ministry teams will need to go on 24/7 rostering initially, in shifts, especially the music ministry teams. Whatever normal was will have to be suspended for a while until a new normal settles.

The chances of big increases in people asking questions about the validity of past marriages are significant. Beginning to train extra people for the diocesan marriage tribunals would be a wise thing to do.

What needs to be prevented is a decision making bottle-neck focused on the person of the parish priest. Start thinking carefully about what decisions can be devolved to trusted people in senior parish leadership positions and which decisions absolutely must go to the parish priest, and what kind of communication structures would facilitate that. For common requests maybe a pre-prepared checklist of requirements for approval could be very useful. 

The more preparation gets done, the fewer people will dissipate the extraordinary grace and slip through the cracks unchanged and without being incorporated into the parish community of faith and into the mission of Jesus.

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​I will add to this when I can, especially useful links and file downloads.
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​Examples of small booklets of scripture:

Act of Contrition
Three versions suitable for Sacrament of Penance
4 per A4 page

Prayer for a Good Confession
6 per A4 page

How to start (or re-start) praying the Rosary
With a crowd of people hungry for God, helping them learn to pray by learning to pray the Rosary and meditate on the various scenes in the life of Jesus is a good idea. This is also good as an inexpensive follow-up, for how to pray the Rosary at home.
Double sided, tri-fold A4 page

Miracle Prayer
This is a good prayer to lead people into a re-commitment to God with, or to recommend as a follow-up daily prayer for anyone who has just had a life changing encounter with God.
4 per A4 page  

Encouragement to return to the Sacrament of Penance
includes simple examination of conscience
​Double-sided, tri-fold A4 page

More encouragement to return to the Sacrament of Penance
includes excerpts from the diary of St Faustina
about how much God wants us to come and receive His mercy.
​Double-sided, tri-fold A4 page

Well known prayers in common use
Including most of the prayers required to pray the Rosary,
and other prayers that Catholics assume everyone knows 'off-by-heart'. i.e. this is a cheat sheet to help new converts and reverts get up to speed.
Single-sided A4 page

Stations of the Cross, Passionist version
True conversion is accompanied by a desire to reparate for sin, and praying the Stations of the Cross (any version) is useful as a start for satisfying that desire.
​Double-sided, tri-fold A4 page

Stations of the Cross, Everyman version
​In this version, Jesus talks to us as 'His other self' and encourages us to see how we can be united to His Passion in the regular events of every day life.
​Double-sided, tri-fold A4 page

Help for understanding charisms and manifestations of the Holy Spirit, and practical guidance in their use and ongoing development
If there has been a major movement of God, then the natural consequence is people receiving charisms of healing, prophecy, words of knowledge, discernment, speaking in tongues, deliverance etc. Chances are you will have significant numbers of people needing help to understand what God is doing in them and through them, and what is OK and what is not OK. This document which distills 50 years of wisdom from the Catholic Charismatic Renewal will help you get lots of people 'on the same page' quickly, and it will also reassure them that what they are experiencing is normal for the Holy Spirit.
If you haven't read it yet, read it now, so that you are familiar with the contents. That way you will be able to point specific people to the specific parts of the content that they need - when the time comes.
32 x A4 pages

Bible Study - Gospel of Mark
This is the shortest of the Gospels, and is particularly useful for helping people come to a decision about who Jesus is.
At the link below you will find a simple 16 week Bible Study of this Gospel with discussion starters.  
Resources - Study Group

​'Where is the Holy Spirit blowing in your local area?'

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

​There are a lot of 'high expectation' prophetic words flowing around online in Protestant and non-denominational circles at the moment. Gauging what is happening in prophetic word from Catholic circles is very difficult, because it doesn't get shared online unless there has been some heavy duty discernment. However the more I read, and ponder and pray, a possible interpretation emerges that has implications for both sets of circles.

Of course, I could be completely wrong, and maybe something even more wonderful is afoot behind the scenes.

Some of the recurring themes are increase, acceleration, breakthrough, harvest, letting go of the old and taking hold of the new, surrender and humility as the path to these treasures, an army prepared for battle, the opening of doors and deep wells, an invitation to more, an invitation to intimacy and lingering with God, hunger for God, sudden divine appointments and sudden divine alignments, new mantles of gifting and of authority, huge release of resources, growth coming from unexpected directions.

What if you looked at all of these themes through the lens of the journey home to the Catholic church?

Under this lens the need for acceleration makes sense. Why? The process of the journey home to the Catholic Church is normally slow and gradual stretching over 5, 10, and in many cases 20 years or more. With special grace that process can be accelerated.

The same can be said for the initial process of conversion to Jesus, it is usually slow and gradual too. Sudden conversions like what St Paul experienced are infrequent. But since the messages are for those who are already Christian, maybe God does want to accelerate the process of the journey home to the Catholic Church.
​
Part of that process is the stirring of the heart to want more of God, and to be dissatisfied with anything less. I'm going to quote from Nate Johnson here, because he describes it well:
I want to be honest...I haven't been satisfied for a long while now, and I could pretty much say I have been like this my whole life. Always peering around the corner, curiously wanting to see what was to come and living in the tension of what is now and what is to come. But there is a LONGING for more that myself and many others are experiencing right now which has been very different.
One morning in early December, I was so overcome with the presence of God that out of me came this cry of: "I want more Jesus, I want more!" I was not saying that He was not enough or that I was ungrateful, but it was something He was doing in me to reveal the untapped vastness of His person – His glory – that I was not yet experiencing or seeing others experience.
It was a dissatisfaction that ran so deep that it seemed like all other appetites evaporated or waned instantly in light of the hunger that was erupting from my spirit. God began to show me that in this season He is rolling back the curtain and the veil, so we can see what is available. He is calling the Church out of stagnancy and "church as usual" to develop the appetite we were designed to have...for the unlimited riches of His glory!

Does this feel to you like a hunger that could only be satiated with the Eucharist?

It does to me.

Another part of that process is the discovery of ancient sources of renewal that are available to all, but few people know how to find or to value them. For example, the places hallowed by the prayers and lives of the Saints, the writings of the Early Church Fathers, the writings of the Doctors of the Church, the Sacraments, sacramentals (medals, holy water, icons, scapulars etc), the hymns of St Romanos the melodist and St Ephrem. Could this be what the Holy Spirit is referring to in these words from Michele Stickells?

I saw an angel stirring the waters, then I hear, The angel is stirring up the waters of ancient wells, that have become dry and redundant. I see it's time that God wants to restore the wells that hold the ancient anointing, to bring forth the end time anointing that will bring revival. I also see mantles lying in the dust, waiting to be picked up; they also carry past and ancient anointings. The Holy Spirit is moving across the nations looking to see who will see what He is doing, and be ready to receive from past ancient anointings that have remained dormant and hidden for an appointed time, for it takes an ANCIENT ANOINTING TO RELEASE THE END TIME ANOINTING !!!

At the same time there are various calls to lay down our own agendas and ideas and those things that have worked in the past, and to pick up God's plans. Nate Johnston explains it like this:
I had a vision of a hot air balloon that is being fired up to take-off, but it was being held down by sandbag weights all around it. I heard the Lord say, "You have to lose your sandbags to ascend." Then I began to see many obstacles in the spirit that many of us experience when God is inviting us to ascend. To my surprise, they were not just fears, worries, and concerns, but they were more like concepts. They were things like holding onto old patterns and ways of thinking – not wanting to shift from the way God was moving to the new way He was flowing and taking us. These sandbags were also the mindsets of wanting to stay behind the wheel and control the direction of our lives, the process, and orchestrate the outcomes. Not yielding to the Holy Spirit stops the fruit from growing. It's an interesting thought that you can look like you are full of fire and ready to go, but without letting go of the old and surrendering to the shift, you stay grounded. LET GO, and watch Him build and increase you beyond your own means.

And Lana Vawser explains it like this:

I had a powerful encounter with the Lord recently and in this encounter I saw Jesus and He was inviting the Pioneers into the most beautiful room in the library of heaven. The interesting thing about this room in the library of heaven was the door was VERY SMALL. The door was tiny, so to “enter into this room” and to move into the invitation the Lord was releasing, there was a significant call to “lay down, and go low”. There was a deeper place of surrender, humility and yieldedness to the Lord that had to take place, it is not a place of “striving” to “be humble” but a recognition that He is Lord, and we are not. He is the One who we hand the reigns over to, to lead, to guide, to speak. We hand the reigns of timing over to Him. We hand the reigns of “the way” over to Him. We hand the reigns of how things are “built” over to Him, it was a place of such deeper surrender to Jesus and trusting Him in His way and timing. The beautiful thing is I could feel so strongly in the invitation to continue to ‘lie down’ and ‘go low’, is the plans, purposes and manifestation of what He is building is bigger than what is even being dreamt about by the Pioneers.

What could be harder or more difficult than to lay down any anti-Catholic sentiments and to yield any long held teachings that are not truly biblical? And yet what is more necessary for true growth and the finding of untold treasures of grace?

So if you are a Christian and odd things seem to be happening in your life that are pointing you towards the Catholic Church, receive them as invitations from God to the more that He has for you and start to investigate what the Catholic Church actually teaches. If you are looking for a starting point, remember that burning question that you shelved because you couldn't get a satisfactory answer? Take it out, look at that question again, and find out from reputable Catholic sources what answers the Catholic Church has to that question.

So if you are Catholic start talking and thinking about what your parish would need, and what would need to change if the number of people wanting to do the Rite of Christian Initiation of Adults (R.C.I.A.) multiplied by ten. What would you need to do if it multiplied by a hundred? Start working on increasing the budgets, recruiting and training additional R.C.I.A. team members, and gathering the resources that the spiritually hungry are going to need when they arrive.

Mary, Mother of the New Pentecost, Star of the New Evangelisation, pray for us.

The original question was: If you had an unlimited budget, and a talented team, what would you love to do to extend God's kingdom? It was only later on that it was discovered this question is easier to answer if you have actual budgets to think about (eg $100,000, $1 million or $10 million).

The following are some answers that other people gave. Maybe reading them might spark new dreams or rekindle old dreams in you. Perhaps you could be the Solomon that gets to put David's good ideas into action.

After talking with a Christian friend this morning, I am reminded that most of us are happy to take a somewhat passive approach with God, i.e. 'If God wants me to do something, He'll let me know about it.' Sure, there is truth in that. But this is the same God who often said, 'What do you want Me to do for you?' desirous of a concrete answer and not an underwhelming 'Whatever You want to do for me Lord' answer. This is the same God who asked Ahaz to ask Him for a sign, a sign coming from the depths of Sheol or from the heights above (Isaiah 7:11) and Ahaz refused to ask. If he had asked and received the sign, he would have had to take God more seriously in his life.

What if at this time in history God wants to do big things?

Unless there are people willing to dream big, to think big and to pray big, and to risk big, how are they going to happen?

Undoubtedly God can do these big things all by Himself, but He has shown time and time again that He prefers to work collaboratively with men, women and children who love Him.

The friend I spoke to today would spend the money on bibles and bible study materials, presumable to give them to those who cannot afford them and to encourage people to discover for themselves the Author who loves them.

Another friend would build a multi-storey building in a quadrangle shape (three sides, the fourth side open) to house all homeless people in.

My son would bring together a team to write and create decent and well-written television shows and movies for children and teens.

Another friend would like to build a village haven for the lost and the lonely. A place with village greens and swimming pools, where various lifestyles can be accommodated, and where everyone is respected and has a useful role to play in the community.

Another friend would send most of the funds off to charities and missions, and use the rest to reduce the debts of the local parish and local charities.

Another friend would devote resources to getting religious education in state high schools on a sure and sustainable footing.

Another friend would like to see a campaign to help people make more ethical decisions in their purchasing habits and to promote Fair Trade products. For example if I purchase a $3 T-shirt rather than a $40 T-shirt, it is very likely that the people making and producing the $3 T-shirt are getting ripped off. Some will say, it is because I have a low income that I need to purchase these cheap T-shirts. What gives us the right to say that our needs are greater than theirs?

A friend with lots of experience in giving real aid to those who are living on the margins would like to see programs for young people who fall through the cracks in the system, programs that will help them earn a living, show them that they are worthwhile and that they have a lot to contribute to society and to themselves; programs that would make employment achievable for all school leavers.

Another friend would like to see support systems created for vulnerable children.

But the big thing that came up as we were talking was mental health, spoken about by three people.

The first person mentioned it as a big need she could see, the mental health needs of children and teens that are woefully under resourced in our school systems eg How much good can a child psychologist achieve with funding for one morning a week for a whole school of 400 students or more?

The second person talked about how hard it is to obtain any long term treatment, even for adults. Help is often limited to a few days here and a few days there of hospital / institutional accommodation and treatment when a crisis occurs – which never gets to even scratch the surface of the underlying trauma/s contributing to the mental instability.

The third person talked about how most drug and alcohol rehabilitation programs were developed with the needs of middle-aged people in mind. The prevailing paradigm doesn't suit the needs of young people at all. Expecting young people to have the patience to sit still in a circle and listen and do group therapy is ludicrous. However, smaller group chats while gardening, tending to farm animals, wood working or playing sport would get much further with the youngsters. The critical ingredient for success is trust, and the trust needed to help effectively takes a long time to build. Consider this situation:

There is a young man in his late 20s. When he was a boy he suffered abuse at the hands of his mum's boyfriend, and from leaders at a sporting club. He is able to say he was abused, but is unable to talk about it and process it. To have a ghost of a chance of beginning the healing process he has to get to a point of trust where he feels comfortable about starting to open up about such things. For someone who has been betrayed so badly, so often, this is not going to be easy at all. Getting to that point may take years.

Series 2 of the television show 'Unforgotten' brought home to me the long term effects that abused young people suffer. The three people whose stories we follow through the 6 episodes are all driven to help other people in challenging circumstances (legal cases, teen cancer ward, teens at high school in disadvantaged neighbourhoods). For all three, the long term relationships in their lives are not thriving because they have been unable to open up to the people who love them about the traumas they have suffered. Their spouses and partners know that they are holding back, and while they have been extraordinarily patient waiting for their loved ones to open up and trust them, the frustration is eating away at their relationships like slow release acid. Each of them carries inside them a huge reservoir of anger, a by-product of the abuse, and they are able to recognize other people who have been through abuse trauma by this anger. It takes an outside catalyst, and lots of detective work to bring evidence of the abuse to the spouses and partners, to tell what happened to their loved ones. For some it began this important  conversation, for others it was too late.

If these dreams for long-term effective help for young people with mental health issues speak to you, start talking about them with friends, and with religious, political, civil, and cultural leaders. Help them catch the vision, and the passion to do something about it.

So what's your dream?

Write it down.
Share it with those you trust.
Talk about it.
Dare to dream that it might be God's dream too, that He wants to help you bring into reality.

​There's a lot to like about Pat Keady's book 'Spearhead: Reshaping the Church to Engage the Word'. But there's a dangerous 10% which concerns me greatly. Let's focus on the good stuff first:

When I first heard about this book I was excited because there has been prophetic word over the last 6 months about God releasing anointing upon writers and songwriters, and this book began when Pat Keady woke very early one morning with an impetus to write from the Holy Spirit. So I really wanted to read it.

The font is easy to read, the paper has a lovely glossy feel and the graphic design layout is beautiful.

The first half of the book is particularly good. For anyone wanting an easy to digest synthesis of what God has been saying through Pope Francis and various parish renewal movements over the last 3 years, it is brilliant, particularly if you delight in Australian idioms. If you are deep in the trenches of parish renewal, in the first half you won't be reading anything new, but you might be reading it from a fresh perspective.

However, as a book to invite someone from the sidelines into the trenches, that's where its true value is to be found.

Two insights I found particularly helpful. The first is the story of Jonathan, son of Saul, and his armour-bearer from 1 Samuel 14 about how the two of them trusting in the help of God made a daring foray into enemy Philistine territory and began a battle that inspired traitors to turn back to allegiance to God's people and eventually involved the whole army of Israel in victory. A few committed people doing something brave and unusual, but filled with faith, can have a very big impact.

The second is an insight into the story of Pentecost, Acts 1, about how God met people where they were at by giving His Apostles and disciples the gift of the languages of the people. It wasn't about various languages now becoming a single language.

Pat uses this story to make his case that we have to learn the cultures of the groups we wish to evangelise, so that we can build a bridge – mainly through music – with which to present the Gospel. Now Pat is looking at the inculturation possibilities in the liturgy through music.

This is where my thoughts diverge from his. Pentecost didn't take place within the liturgy, it took place out in the streets, in the marketplace. I think we do the liturgy a disservice if we try to make it into a vehicle for evangelisation. Firstly, the liturgy only makes sense once a person has been evangelised and awakened by the Holy Spirit. Secondly, for the early church an invitation to the liturgy was the last thing you did with a newcomer, and not the first thing. Even today when I read modern stories of conversion the majority of people darken the doors of a church as one of the last steps on their journey home to Catholic faith.

Therefore we need intermediate steps between the secular world and the liturgy. In such intermediate steps lay preaching, testimonies and contemporary music that engages the culture of the groups you desire to evangelise find their natural home.

It is worth trusting the wisdom of Mother Church on this one, when she insists that ordained ministers preach during the liturgy. They have been anointed and set apart for this purpose and have a minimum of 7 years of study behind them. While it is true that many of them don't have an obvious gift of preaching, we have to allow God to be God, knowing that a homily that does not engage you and me at all might contain the very words that someone else needs to hear. Instead of the satisfaction of complaining, our energies are much better directed to praying that our priests do receive the charismatic gift of preaching and praying that they preach according to the mind and heart of Jesus, in full harmony with the teachings of His Church and to the maximum spiritual benefit of those that will be present when they preach.

I've got no troubles with lay preachers if they exercise their ministry before or after the liturgy, but not during it.

My definition of culture is different too. Again we do a disservice if we only think about culture in terms of liturgical elements, eg architecture, music (eg African drums), decorative motifs on vestments and liturgical vessels, artwork (eg Our Lady of China).

For me culture is expressed primarily in public, private and family devotional practices. That's the fiestas, the processions, pilgrimages, special food for feast days, grace before meals, traditions passed down in families and nations, preferred spiritualities of prayer (people from exuberant cultures will prefer loud praise and dance, people from reserved cultures will prefer reflective silence and Eucharistic adoration) etc.

A cultural group votes with their feet about what is important to them. In Australia we seem to like setting off fireworks at major celebrations, gathering friends and family around a barbecue, Anzac Day touches us deeply, we like singing Christmas carols in big groups, and 'don't interrupt me if the footy, tennis or cricket is on'. These are the areas where creativity and Holy Spirit inspired ingenuity can take something naturally wholesome and elevate it to something supernaturally good.

On the very vexed subject of liturgical music, here's my two cents worth. While hip contemporary music for all songs at all Masses might seem like the answer, it isn't. Let me count the ways. Firstly if your average congregation is aged 70+, you are going to alienate them. Secondly, from my studies of conversion stories it is experiences of the historicity of the Church that make a difference. Thirdly, when people decide to come home to the Church (eg cradle Catholics returning after an absence), a familiar song really helps. Be a wise musical scribe and bring out from the liturgical music storehouse music that is both old and new. We need to sing new songs to the Lord, no question about that, but we need a mix; hymns that have stood the test of centuries of time, hymns that have stood the test of decades of time, hymns that have become favourites during the past decade and the new stuff. In other words we need to show our Catholicity (universality) in our musical selections and not narrow it down to one genre and era. The new is good, and the old is good; use both.

I was so hoping to read about fresh new ideas for spreading the good news of Jesus. That's what I was hungering for. So I'll contribute my own weird and wacky idea instead. Many Australians love going to live sporting events. There's plenty of God-loving-Catholics who rush home after Mass to watch the footy on TV. So if you have a youth group, a Cursillo group, a covenant community group etc, that has lots of sports loving members, consider this:

Make a group booking at a sporting event. Get yourselves matching T-shirts to wear (a slogan like 'Ask me about Jesus' on them or similar would be good). Sit together. Be clued up before you go as to how to act if unusual things transpire. For example, if a fight starts on the field, you all drop to your knees and pray for peace and reconciliation; if a player gets injured, you drop to your knees and collectively pray for the injured player, his/her family and the medical people assisting them; if the crowd starts boo-ing, you sit silently and pray for conversion of hearts; as you go from your seat to the toilets, to purchase merchandise or food and drink, silently beg God's blessing on every person on your path there and back, and if someone stops you and asks you the reason for the hope that you have (1 Peter 3:15), give it to them.

One thing Pat Keady does well is underline how all renewal has to start with us, with us taking God more seriously than we have ever taken Him before. Surrendering to His will; seeking the grace and power of the Holy Spirit; spending quality time in prayer and listening to Him; spending quality time reading from the Bible and studying His ways; making daily Mass and regular recourse to the sacrament of Penance a priority.

Another thing Pat Keady does well is talk about the difficulties faced by anyone who wants to try something new to further the kingdom of God. None of us like change, none of us are real keen on being challenged, so there's both this natural battle and the supernatural battle to contend with. Kick-back comes with the territory. This is true, but some kick-back is natural/supernatural resistance and some kick-back is 'hey, you are truly going the wrong way', and you need to pray for the wisdom and humility to know the difference.

He also speaks well about the times when everything just flows and the times when it is a test of grit and endurance through manifold difficulties. Lots of people in ministry need to hear his encouragement to keep on going.

In conclusion, yes it is a worthwhile book to read, however I personally would only invite someone to read it after first sharing the concerns I have about that 10% of content with them.

Here's the question: If God gave you access to $100,000 to spend on advancing His kingdom, what would you spend it on? How would your answer change if the amount were $1 million or $10 million? Assume that these budgets come with an administrative assistant, access to people with skilled talents and that diocesan approval is going to be easily given.

The $100,000 dreams

Pragmatically our parish hall, and our diocesan meeting facility in a rural locale, are both lacking air conditioning. They would both get far more use if they were air-conditioned. $100,000 would go a long way to getting both properties done. The parish hall already has the infrastructure for air-conditioning, it only needs the machines to be installed.

Get a StrengthsFinder based enterprise up and running. At least for a year's trial. $20,000 for office space rent, $40,000 to get 4 counsellors trained up ($8000 each plus airfares and accommodation), $30,000 for computers (6) and software, $5,000 for office fit-out (tables, chairs etc), $5,000 for StrengthsFinder books and questionnaires. However it really should be more like $55,000 for this last one to be able to offer the StrengthsFinder information free. So that's a $150,000 budget. Three pronged approach, business leadership, job placement and help for parishioners to find where God has gifted them and which teams they would be best suited to. Business leadership would be helping small business owners understand their natural leadership style and what gifts and talents they need on their teams. First consult free, second and third consults by donation, fourth consult negotiate a regular fee. Job placement, having worked out what is needed, if we know a person with those talents we ask the business owners to give them a go. Build up using the same free, donation, negotiate regular fee process. All parishioner consults for free, for both individuals and groups.

The parishioner based StrengthsFinder work could morph into a Monday-Friday training hub. Day 1 a modified Life in the Spirit Seminar, Day 2 doing the StrengthsFinder questionnaire and learning how the themes and talents fit together. Day 3 a silent retreat and writing in a journal; sorting it all out and praying day. Day 4 sharing the fruits of the retreat day with counsellors and in the group, with lots of brainstorming. Day 5 writing out a plan of action, sharing it, group prayer, celebration and sending time. Then 4-5 weeks later a single day of follow up, maybe on a weekend, with the group, to share experiences, to pray and plan some more.

Making 100 grants of $1000 available for young adults in our diocese to be able to go on week long silent retreats where they could take time away from the world to be with God and with the help of good holy experienced spiritual directors to be able to listen to what God is calling them to be, and work out how to discern that further and act upon it. Most young adults are unemployed and without the funds (personal or family) to be able to afford what such retreats normally cost. Do the legwork to find out where the most Holy Spirit led silent retreats are happening, and book regular places for the grants to be used at that place.

The $1 million dreams

Put an extension on our diocesan meeting facility in a rural locale: add a proper dining room with tables and chairs, add at least 2 additional smaller meeting rooms, upgrade the internet access, add on a full bank of easily accessed toilets (4 women's, 3 gent's, 1 disabled/baby change table). (To access the current toilet facilities you either have to negotiate a flight of stairs or take a walk to another building on the property).

Purchase a commercial property in one of the business hubs within the parish, and transform it into an interdenominational chapel, and invite faith communities from within the parish to man prayer for our parish and region on a 24/7 basis. We could keep the lights on and the rates paid with a small piety shop / information desk at the front and a donations box.

The $10 million dreams

Purchase several run-down properties in the same area, within the parish boundaries, and build a 12-20 bed Catholic hospice with a chapel and quarters for a live-in priest-chaplain. Currently you have to drive at least an hour away from our parish to get any form of Catholic aged care.

Back to that diocesan meeting facility in a rural locale: it has extensive grounds. Build a new accommodation block, with comfortable quarters for singles, married couples and families. By comfortable I mean pleasant, roomy, more home-like than motel-style, with air-conditioning, stable internet access, undercover parking, ensuites, and 2 or 3 communal laundry rooms. Set it up as retreat accommodation that is attractive, and set up an associated trust fund so that donations can keep the cost of accessing the retreat facilities possible to people and families on low incomes/pensions. Each parish in the diocese would then be allocated a number of rooms and days each year that were free, so that the parish priest could send those in need of retreat time as needs arose (to pray and seek God about a new project, to write new books or songs/music, to take time to pray about a big life decision, to find solace after a traumatic event, etc)

Purchase property, either to rebuild or to renovate, in order to establish a Study Centre for Christian Art. Run courses in Christian Art history (art, music, vestments, tapestry/embroidery, metalwork, sculpture, architecture etc). Have studio space. Have Gallery spaces. Have a coffee shop and book shop. Have accommodation for artists in residence and/or visiting national/international artists/experts. Run courses in developing Christian Art careers. Develop a reference library on Christian Art, where people can come and research (but not borrow). Have facilities for hands-on workshop spaces. It also needs to contain a Chapel, because true Christian art is founded on prayer, and leads back to prayer. Host and encourage travelling exhibitions. Once a year run a conference on Christian Art, with an associated Modern Christian Art exhibition with decent prize money. (Modern as is art made by living artists whose art practice helps people connect more deeply with God through the depiction of Christian images and themes). Have a minibus to assist transporting people to and from transport hubs to the Study Centre. Now what are the chances such a property could be sourced close to the diocesan meeting facility?

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Do I have more ideas? Of course I have. It is just that these ones are front and centre in my mind just now. Find the blog category 'Ideas', and read through the blog-posts associated with that category to locate more of them.

May the Holy Spirit blow and bring into being those ideas that are inspired by Him, and let all the others wither and decay. Amen.