May the Holy Spirit grant me grace to write worthily about the stupendous gift from God that holy water is. Amen.
 
For any Christian brothers and sisters, please bear with me, Scripture references are coming -eventually-, for this is part of your birthright as children of God and members of His church.
I apologise in advance for any jargon that is incomprehensible to you, despite my attempts to reduce jargon.
 
For any Catholic brothers and sisters, it is past time that you knew what a gift of God holy water is, and how to use it with the intentionality of faith. For many of you it has been something culturally there, used mainly out of habit, and you’ve either never heard a good explanation, or its been decades since it was last mentioned in a homily.
 
For any other brothers and sisters, if you have faith in the goodness of God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit, and believe He is willing to use such lowly means as blessed water to help the creatures He has made out of love, you are not excluded.
 
What is holy water?
It is water that has been set aside for special use; and blessed by a priest from any Rite (denomination) which has unbroken apostolic succession from the Apostles. Roman Catholic, Eastern Catholic Rites and Orthodox Rites legitimately claim this. The blessing over the water may be as simple as the gesture of the Sign of the Cross over the water, or according to one of the many approved prayers of blessing (see Appendix). Sometimes, but not always, there is an addition to the water of blessed salt.
 
What is the Sign of the Cross?
It can be made by anyone, either signed across the body or vertically signed over a crowd (eg by priest or bishop) or horizontally over something (palms for Palm Sunday, oil, holy pictures etc), or even traced on a forehead. The first part, ‘In the name of the Father and of the Son’, has an accompanying gesture going top to bottom; the second part, ‘and of the Holy Spirit. Amen’, has an accompanying gesture going across either right to left or left to right depending upon the tradition of your Rite. It invokes the holy Name of the Triune God, it reminds us that in this Name we are baptised, and it recalls to us the price paid by Jesus on the Cross to win us such salvation.
 
Why is a priest needed?
Because the priest when he speaks as a priest is both a minister of Almighty God and a representative of the whole Church (that’s every member of the church in heaven, every member being purified in purgatory, and every member on earth).
Thus when a priest uses the Sign of the Cross or an approved prayer of blessing (which always includes the Sign of the Cross), he is blessing the water both in the Name of God and in the name of the whole Church.
 
If you are beginning to think, gee, that’s some heavy-duty prayer power: you’re spot on.
Holy water not only carries the blessing of God, but also the prayer power of the whole Church.
 
But holy water is not a sacrament; but a sacramental.
 
A sacrament does what it does, by the power of God it changes a person. A person is different pre and post Baptism; not a child of God before, a full child of God after. A person is different pre and post Marriage, unmarried before, married after. There are no degrees of being baptised or being married, you either are, or you aren’t.
 
A sacramental is different because it requires faith to activate it, and the greater the intentional faith when using it, the greater the power of God released.
 
We see things used in a sacramental way in Scripture.
On one of the training missions of the apostles while Jesus was still with them, they took oil with them to anoint people for healing. Mark 6:13. The woman with the haemorrhage had faith that if she but touched the clothes of Jesus she would be healed. Mark 5:25-34. Post-Pentecost faith was so great that even the shadow of St Peter when sought with faith by the sick obtained healing. Acts 5:14-15. Such was the faith of believers who surrounded Paul, that they grabbed anything he touched, (handkerchiefs and aprons), and whisked them off to the sick, and God rewarded their faith with healings and deliverances. Acts 19:11-12.
 
What can holy water accomplish when used with faith?
 
From St Faustina’s Diary (601) Once, when one of our sisters became fatally ill and all the community was gathered together, there was also a priest there who gave the sister absolution. Suddenly, I saw many spirits of darkness. Then, forgetting that I was with the sisters, I seized the holy-water sprinkler and sprinkled the spirits, and they disappeared at once. However, when the sisters came to the refectory, Mother Superior remarked that I should not have sprinkled the sick sister in the presence of the priest, as this was his duty. I accepted the admonition in the spirit of penance, but holy water is indeed of great help to the dying.

(PDF available of St Faustina’s diary: https://benedictinesofdivinewill.org/uploads/3/4/3/2/34324596/st._faustina_kowalska_-_diary.pdf )
 
(My two cents worth: she did the right thing. God revealed what was going on, she acted. With death immanent there was no time for trying to tell the priest what was going on spiritually in the room, and then convincing him and getting him to act. When God reveals the presence of evil, He wants it gone! 1 John 3:8 It was to undo all that the devil has done that the Son of God appeared. We need to remember that as death approaches the fight over a soul for its eternal destination is intense, and to surround our dying loved ones with prayer, with holy things, have holy water at hand, and to obtain the best thing of all for them - the sacrament of the Anointing of the Sick.)
 
St Teresa of Avila used to say she knew by experience how powerful holy water is to put the Devil to flight. ‘I used to drive him away,’ she said, ‘by the Sign of the Cross: but, it seems to me, it was only to return again; but when I used holy water also, he no longer dared to return.’
 
St Teresa of Avila writes: ‘I have often found by experience that there is nothing from which the devils fly more quickly and return not again than from holy water. They also fly from a Cross, but they return again immediately. Certainly the power of holy water must be great; for my part, my soul feels particular comfort in taking it, and very generally a refreshment and interior delight which I cannot express and which comforts the soul.’
 
St Epiphanius writes that at Tiberius a man called Joseph, obtained from God a cure of a lunatic by taking water and making the Sign of the Cross over it while praying, ‘In the Name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, crucified, depart from this unhappy man, you infernal spirit, and let him be healed’, before pouring the water over him.
 
What does the Church believe holy water used with faith can do?
 
Always it is a reminder of baptism, and the power of God at work in us due to baptism.
But it is also a prayer request for the forgiveness of sins,
a prayer request to dispel sickness,
a prayer request to protect from evil,
a prayer request to drive away evil spirits,
a prayer request for protection from danger,
and a prayer request to dispel the causes of sickness and plague too.
 
Here’s one of those prayers. It is one of those used by a priest to ask God to transform water into holy water. It tells us a lot about what the Church has believed God does through holy water, based on many centuries of experience.
It is well worth pondering over on a regular basis.
 
Blessing of Holy Water
O God, for the salvation of mankind
You built Your greatest mysteries on this substance, water;
in Your kindness hear our prayers
and pour down the power of Your blessing + into this element,
made ready for many kinds of purification.
May this, Your creature, become an agent of divine grace in the service of Your mysteries,
to drive away evil spirits and dispel sickness,
so that everything in the homes and other buildings of the faithful
that is sprinkled with this water may be rid of all uncleanness and freed from every harm.
Let no breath of infection, no disease-bearing air remain in these places.
May the wiles of the lurking enemy provide of no avail.
Let whatever might menace the safety and peace of those who live here
be put to flight by the sprinkling of this water
so that the health obtained by calling upon Your holy name
may be made secure against all attack.
Through Christ our Lord. Amen
 
Impressive, isn’t it?!
 
Regular uses for holy water are:
-As a reminder of baptism as we come into churches and as an acknowledgement that we need purification to come into the presence of God. Dipping fingers in the holy water and then making the Sign of the Cross is the way Roman Rite Catholics do it.
-To claim a place for God, and at the same time cleanse it of any lingering evil attached to it. The rites for blessing of new churches, new schools, new presbyteries, new parish offices, new graves all include splashing the holy water around.
-At home near the front door, or the door of a bedroom, for blessing as we go in and as we go out (Psalm 121:8, Deut 28:6). The Israelites touch the Shema as they come and go from their homes to remind them, ‘Hear O Israel, the Lord your God is the one God …etc’. Deut 6:4 So in some sense, holy water is our version of the Shema.
-It is recommended that homes be blessed by a priest each year using holy water; this is often done during Eastertide.
-The annual blessing of the fishing fleet has prayers and the sprinkling of holy water.
-Asking to have your new car blessed, which is seeking God’s blessing and protection upon its use, has prayers and usually holy water.
-At funerals the coffin of the deceased is sprinkled with holy water, as part of the other reminders of baptism (lighted Paschal candle, white cloth over the coffin)
-Holy Water is used in exorcism (priests appointed by a bishop) and in deliverance ministry.
-There’s quite a long history of holy water being used to assist the purification process of the holy souls in purgatory.

‘As the flowers, withered by the heat of the sun, are refreshed by the gentle shower of rain, so too Heaven’s flowers burning in Purgatory, are refreshed by holy water.’(St. Theodatus).
 
St John Macias used to sprinkle holy water on the ground for the souls in purgatory while praying: ‘By this holy water and by Your precious Blood, wash away all my sin, O Lord, and relieve the souls in purgatory,’ and then make the Sign of the Cross.

On All Souls Day it is traditional to gather at the local cemetery and to pray for the dead. Part of the rite of blessing of graves for All Souls Day includes this:
1746 While the following litany is sung or recited, the minister sprinkles the graves with holy water and, if desired, may also incense them.

The faith of the Church believes that sprinkling drops of holy water is also a powerful prayer for loved ones present or absent, living or dead.
 
If you can get your mind around the concept of holy water being liquid intercessory prayer, then these practices make sense, if they are done with faith in God who hears our prayers; however we make them. At all times our faith is in the God who has blessed the holy water, and heard the prayers of His Church, not in the holy water itself. Using holy water is begging His blessing, His protection, and His cleansing and purification.
 
If you have made it this far, you will now have enough knowledge to understand why the enemy of our souls wants to eradicate holy water.
 
That’s why the notion of removing holy water from churches during Lent is not an idea that came from God. Lent is a time when people are intentionally fighting temptation and trying to eradicate bad habits. It’s when they need the assistance that God gives through holy water more than ever!
 
Yes, the holy water is removed on Holy Thursday night after Holy Communion and returns during the Easter Vigil. But the Church sees the Holy Thursday – Good Friday – Easter Vigil as a single liturgy in 3 parts.
 
It is a source of extraordinary shame that during the Covid years our churches capitulated to fear of infection by removing holy water from the holy water fonts. Granted, some parishes with faith-filled priests managed to find ways to allow people to access holy water in a way considered safe.
 
How did it happen that there wasn’t an outcry and a refusal to comply?
How did it happen that so few take seriously what the Church believes?
May God forgive us.
 
Re-read what the prayer says….
May this, Your creature, become an agent of divine grace in the service of Your mysteries,
to drive away evil spirits and dispel sickness,
so that everything in the homes and other buildings of the faithful
that is sprinkled with this water may be rid of all uncleanness and freed from every harm.
Let no breath of infection, no disease-bearing air remain in these places.
May the wiles of the lurking enemy provide of no avail.
Let whatever might menace the safety and peace of those who live here
be put to flight by the sprinkling of this water
so that the health obtained by calling upon Your holy name
may be made secure against all attack.
 
It means holy water is a weapon par-excellence against any kind of infection and plague when used with faith.
 
Read that again.
 
It means holy water is a weapon par-excellence against any kind of infection and plague when used with faith.
 
If we had faith, we would have been splashing it everywhere during Covid, and at the very least encouraging the Asperges (sprinkling rite) as part of the penitential rites at the start of the Eucharistic Liturgy.
 
But by and large we rolled over, leaders and people, and emptied the holy water fonts.
We sadly put our faith in scraps of cloth over our faces, medical intervention and lockdown, instead of in Almighty God and in His Almighty power to save. We didn’t even have a clue what spiritual treasure we were giving up for the sake of fear.
 
Who wins if our holy water fonts are emptied? The evil one and his minions.
 
Just imagine how much lasting damage to the evil one’s schemes could be done by a whole lot of ordinary believers splashing holy water about with faith.
 
Now read this prophetic word via 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 !!!
 
(Apologies, I can’t find the original source on this, but it was released prior to 4 May 2018 when I first blogged about it, so that might be why I can no longer find it on the internet.)
 
Please, do not ever neglect the gift that God has given us through the faith-filled use of holy water.
 
May our holy water fonts in churches and elsewhere never ever ever be emptied again because our fear of sickness and our fear of government sanction is greater than our faith in Almighty God – He who is always in control and always bringing our greatest good out of every circumstance. Amen.
 
 
Appendix
There’s many other prayers for this purpose. Here’s a sample of ones in common use in the Roman Catholic Rite:
 
Prayer over Water 1/At Mass
God our Father, Your gift of water brings life and freshness to the earth;
it washes away our sins and brings us eternal life.
We ask You now to bless this water,
and to give us Your protection on this day
which You have made Your own. (ie Sunday, the day of the Resurrection)
Renew the living spring of Your life within us (refer John 7:37-39 and John 4: 13-14)
and protect us in spirit and body, that we may be free from sin
and come into Your presence to receive Your gift of salvation.
We ask this through Christ our Lord. Amen.
 
Prayer over Water 2/At Mass
Lord God Almighty, Creator of all life, of body and soul, (refer Genesis 2:7)
we ask You to bless + this water:
as we use it in faith, forgive our sins
and save us from all illness and the power of evil.
Lord, in Your mercy give us living water, (refer John 7:37-39 and John 4:13-14)
always springing up as a fountain of salvation:
free us, body and soul, from every danger,
and admit us to Your presence in purity of heart. (refer Matthew 5:8)
Grant this through Christ our Lord. Amen.
 
Prayer over Water 3/At Mass, Easter Season
(This prayer is for use during the Easter Season.)
Lord God Almighty, hear the prayers of Your people:
we celebrate our creation and redemption.
Hear our prayers and bless + this water
which gives fruitfulness to the fields, and refreshment and cleansing to man.
You chose water to show Your goodness when You led Your people to freedom
through the Red Sea and satisfied their thirst in the desert with water from the rock.
(Refer Exodus Ch 14, Exodus 17:1-7)
Water was the symbol used by the prophets to foretell Your new covenant with man.
(Refer Isaiah 55:1-11 and Ezekiel 36:16-28)
You made the water of Baptism holy by Christ’s baptism in the Jordan:
(Refer Matt 3:13-17, Mark 1:9-11, Luke 3:21-22, John 1:29-34)
by it You give us a new birth and renew us in holiness.
May this water remind us of our Baptism,
and let us share in the joy of all who have been baptized at Easter.
We ask this through Christ our Lord. Amen
 
The following prayer is used to call down God’s grace on water at the Easter Vigil and as one of three prayer options for Baptisms, to make water into Baptismal water by God's grace.
 
Blessing of Baptismal Water/Easter Vigil/Baptisms
Father, You give us grace through sacramental signs, which tell us of the wonders of Your unseen power.
In Baptism we use Your gift of water,
which You have made a rich symbol of the grace You give us in this sacrament.
At the very dawn of creation Your Spirit breathed on the waters, making them the wellsprings of all holiness. (refer Genesis 1:1-3)
The waters of the great flood You made a sign of the waters of Baptism, that make an end of sin and a new beginning of goodness. (Refer Genesis 6:9-9:17)
Through the waters of the Red Sea You led Israel out of slavery, to be an image of God’s holy people, set free from sin by Baptism. (Refer Exodus Ch 14
In the waters of the Jordan Your Son was baptized by John and anointed with the Spirit.
(Refer Matt 3:13-17, Mark 1:9-11, Luke 3:21-22, John 1:29-34)
Your Son willed that water and blood should flow from His side as He hung upon the cross.
(Refer John 19:31-37)
After His resurrection He told His disciples: ‘Go out and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.’ (Refer Matt 28:16-20)
Father, look now with love upon Your Church, and unseal for her the fountain of Baptism.
By the power of the Spirit give to the water of this font the grace of Your Son. (Refer Phil 3:20-21)
You created man in Your own likeness: cleanse him from sin in a new birth of innocence by water and the Spirit. (Refer Genesis 1: 26-28)
We ask You, Father, with Your Son to send the Holy Spirit upon the waters of this font.
May all who are buried with Christ in the death of Baptism rise also with Him to newness of life.
(Refer Romans 6:3-11)
We ask this through Christ our Lord. Amen.

................................................................................................
​A PDF version for sharing, and easier printing is provided below, 8 x A4 pages

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

Firstly, here is some recommended reading.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Is God good? Mark 10:18

Does He only give good gifts? Matt 7:11

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

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

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

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

Dear Friend, what you are experiencing in your parish and in your diocese is sadly rife throughout the world. Even though it has been a few years since I last visited your diocese, I recall that I came home and prayed very hard for each of the priests I came across.

I must have read 'Warning from the Beyond' at least 20 years ago. So it is time that I re-read it. What I do recall is that I made several changes in my life as a result of reading it.

When things have got to the sorry state where from the pulpit you are not encouraged to commit to Sunday Mass each Sunday, where you are discouraged from frequent confession, where the pulpit is used to promote things other than Jesus, where it is hard to pray prior to Mass due to all the chatter and where those in various service roles at Mass couldn't pass the dress code to get into St Peter's Basilica in Rome – then the only remedy is prayer, and lots of it.

Nobody willingly gives up an error that makes them and those they speak to feel comfortable and feel like good people. Only the Holy Spirit can make that happen. Talking to them, pointing out the errors, giving excerpts from authoritative documents to read isn't going to make a single jot of difference until the Holy Spirit opens their hearts – and even then it might be many months and years before they are ready to hear these things.

So prayer is absolutely essential.

But there is a danger that an 'us and them' mentality creeps in, 'the goodies and the baddies'. If it does, it will undo all the good prayer work. 'There but for the grace of God go I'. View them as a brother or sister in Christ who is in deadly danger and who doesn't realise what a serious condition they are in.

Here's the fight back plan:

Remember we are not fighting against our sick brothers and sisters, but against the evil agents who made them sick.

Firstly we have to have our own house in order.
Daily prayer, regular self-denial, Sunday Mass, Daily Mass if possible, monthly Confession, daily reading from the Bible, and daily reading from the Church's Magisterium (catechism, papal documents, lives and writings of the Saints), regular prayer with others, significant regular giving to worthy causes, regular outreach evangelistically, regular service to those in need, regular quality time spent with spouse and family.

Then we pray.

Firstly at every Mass, after the Our Father and Lamb of God, when the time comes for the priest to receive Holy Communion - that's the best time to pray silently and fervently for the Holy Spirit to work powerfully in the priest's mind and heart. It also makes it easy to remember to do.

If there isn't a group that prays the rosary before or after daily Mass, start one. Our Lady's message to St Dominic was that with the Rosary every heresy can be conquered. Parishes that have regular recitation of the rosary in their churches and Mass centres have done much better at keeping the faith than parishes that don't have this.

When someone comes across your path and whispers that they are unhappy with what is going on, invite them to come and pray regularly with you. Keep any grumbles to an absolute minimum and keep the focus on prayer and upon Jesus who has the power to change any situation and any person's heart, mind, soul, spirit and body.

Be open to the Holy Spirit. Beg Him for the guidance, spiritual gifts and charismatic gifts that will make the necessary difference. Human wisdom, elbow grease and ingenuity are as nothingness and straw compared to what the Holy Spirit can do. Listen for His promptings, discern what is from Him, then gather your courage and act upon it.

Start using some of these prayers and novenas.
Particularly pray them for priests and bishops and anyone in authority, especially school principals, teachers, youth group leaders, catechists etc

33 Adorations of the Cross on Fridays (contains a promise to soften hard hearts)

30 consecutive daily Holy Communions (contains promise of eternal salvation for a person whom you can choose)

Novena of Holy Communions in honour of Jesus, King of All Nations (promises help of the angels for the person it is offered for)

The 365 day St Bridget novena in honour of the wounds of Jesus (contains among other promises, promises of eternal salvation for family members)

Will you see any immediate impact from these prayers? Sometimes yes, sometimes no, but the timing of the answers to prayer is God's business. That He will keep His promises is certain, when He will keep them is up to Him.

Get into holy rhythms of life… Read up on the promises attached to the 9 First Fridays and 5 First Saturdays and make them the hinge of each month, and encourage others to do the same.

Message to an American mother of three, 'Apostolate of Holy Motherhood', March 15, 1987:
Christ Child: "I want all My children to practice the Nine First Fridays’ in reparation for sins and the Five First Saturday’s in honour of My Mother so that the tide of evil sweeping across the world will end in defeat. These two monthly devotions, if practiced faithfully by My followers, would alone win this battle, so great are their power in appeasement of divine justice and the eradication of sin and evil."

Then remember that God wants these sorry situations to change even more than we do.

Take heart and enter the battle.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Without You Holy Spirit we can do nothing.

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

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

Without You Holy Spirit we can do nothing.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

​Write Non Fiction In November : #WNFIN Day 3

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Both types are needed.

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

Only God can bring that about.

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

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

In recent weeks I was given a document (see below) with some analysis of the great protestant revivals of the last 2 centuries. Using that document as a launching pad, I'd like to do three things. Draw out some conclusions, compare the Catholic experience and make some comments.

The conditions prior to the revivals discussed in this document were full of lawless violence and low levels of church attendance. Yet it took individuals of courage to say that situations like these could be fixed by prayer, and who were willing to pray and invite others to pray. What we don't have is any record of how they prayed except for the 'O God, bend us', 'O God, bend me' of the Welsh revival. But it must have been that kind of heart-felt prayer of the truly desperate for grace to begin to flow so exponentially. That heart-felt need for prayer and God's power to change was experienced, and responded to, across denominational lines. The impact was seen in changed lives and changed public morals as well; resulting in living examples of 'where sin abounds, grace super-abounds' cf Rom 5:20.
 
In our own days we have observable evidence of crime rates plummeting in cities that have hosted World Youth Days, during those days of grace and lingering for a while afterwards.
 
Surely the situation is worse now that what it was in the 1850s and 1900s, with global threats to peace, terrorism, breakdown in family life, large decreases in the numbers of those identifying themselves as Christian, and the multiplication of crimes that attract God's vengeance. It feels like we have forgotten how to call out to God for His answers and solutions.
 
Revival isn't a word that Catholics use. That doesn't mean it doesn't happen, just that our experience of it often gets called movements or currents of grace - and that most of them are ongoing.
 
Perhaps the first great movement after the Apostolic era was the Desert Fathers where, in imitation of the 40 days Jesus spent in the desert in prayer, fasting and battle with the evil one, many men and women responded to this calling and pathway to holiness when getting martyred was no longer an option. That channel of grace is still flowing, whenever people read their writings and decide to follow Jesus more radically.
 
Monasticism was another great movement of grace, born from the Desert Fathers, where instead of living isolated and coming together only for the Sunday Eucharist, they began living a common life and various rules of life sprang up. The Rules of St Benedict, of St Basil and of St Augustine are still living wells of grace for those multitudes of people who today live under them.
 
St Francis and St Dominic both felt the call to poverty and preaching, and enormous numbers followed them, and still do today in the various Franciscan and Dominican orders.
 
For all its faults, the crusades were another movement of grace. What else could inspire so many to heroically leave home to serve God as both warrior and pilgrim?
 
Wherever God has raised up individuals of outstanding holiness, rivers of grace flowed. We can see that in the ministry of St Vincent Ferrer and the successful preaching tours he undertook through Europe with his co-worker priests and penitents. St Catherine of Siena was another, just gazing upon her was enough to convert many to Jesus.
 
We've then got the massive movement of grace we now call the counter-reformation headed by St Charles Borromeo, St Ignatius of Loyola, St Francis Xavier and the Jesuits, St Teresa of Avila, St John of the Cross and the Carmelites. The city of Rome was profoundly converted through the prayers, and witness of St Philip Neri and those who joined him in the Oratory movement.
 
The French Revolution was devastating, but from that pain and suffering all kinds of new religious movements and religious orders were born, many marked by devotion to the Sacred Heart of Jesus – itself an extraordinary outpouring of grace that spread like wild fire.
 
The Miraculous Medal, 1830, brought with it a tidal wave of grace that is still abundant today. We can see the same thing in the rapid spread of devotion to the Divine Mercy across the globe in the later part of the 20th century.
 
When it comes to tsunamis of grace, the tilma of St Juan Diego with the miraculous image of Our Lady of Guadalupe converted multitudes of Central and South Americans to the gospel of Jesus almost overnight. Today millions of people visit that shrine in Mexico each year.
 
St Bernadette and Our Lady of Lourdes, Fatima and Medjugorje, La Salette and other places where God has sent the Virgin Mary remain places of extraordinary grace and conversion.
 
Then there's the Cursillo movement, Marriage Encounter, Catholic Action, Teams of Our Lady, the St Vincent de Paul Society, the Antioch movement for young people, the Neo Catechumenate, and many other movements in living memory. The Catholic Charismatic Renewal exploded in grace at Pittsburgh in 1967 and was holding truly international conferences in Rome by 1975.
 
These are but the tips of the iceberg when it comes to movements of grace that our protestant brothers and sisters could call revival. Many of them have an individual of outstanding holiness at the initiation of them, with a charism of founder or foundress. Others have charisms of preaching and healing, like Fr Emiliano Tardif of living memory, and great crowds gathered wherever he was sent around the world.
 
The movement of Perpetual Adoration of the Blessed Sacrament has brought healing, conversion and drops in the local crime rate where ever it has been established, as well as many vocations to the priesthood and religious life.
 
How did many of them start? Usually by an individual or group deciding to take God seriously in a radical way. Some saw the needs of the time and asked, 'God, what do you want me to do about it?' At other times the beginning was a sovereign work of God, gifting someone with extraordinary charisms and calling them to unusual levels of holiness. What we don't know on this side of eternity is how many of these movements of grace began with the long term prayers of a mother like St Monica for St Augustine or the mother of Alan Ames, or the prayers of grandparents; nor how many began in response to someone dedicating their lives to God under the vows of poverty, chastity and obedience. There are just too many stories of the link between a religious vocation and the start of a very fruitful priestly vocation, for this to be discounted.
 
So Yes, the Holy Spirit is alive and active throughout all of Church history, and in our era too. All He needs are willing partners in His divine plans, especially people willing to pray and offer up sacrifices in supplication for the grace of conversion for many - and people willing to be obedient to His inspirations no matter how wacko we may think of them.
 
There's our challenge. Be like them, and with the Holy Spirit change our world into a better place, or play it safe and watch as humanity heads down the slippery slope to destruction.
 
Our Lady, Queen of the Angels, pray for us.
All holy men and women used by God to bring rivers of grace to others, pray for us.