​Come with me as I tip toe among the tulips of memories near and far that show the extent of the 'closed system' mentality that the majority of our Christian communities have. What must the good God think when from His vantage point He sees each closed system and the treasures within each that should be shared for the good of all and the advancement of His kingdom?

These are not in any particular order.

A conversation with a Seventh Day Adventist about how they could see value in 24 hour/7 days a week prayer, but not sure how to get it started or keep it going. Then over a year later listening to a Baptist so excited about what God did through the Morovian Christian community and their 24/7 prayer over many decades. More recently there is the International House of Prayer in Kansas City https://www.ihopkc.org/ that broadcasts 24/7 prayer (or more accurately live worship music). Yet none of them know about the 5th century monastic movement in Constantinople led by St Marcellus Akimetes where with three groups the Divine Office was chanted 24 hours a day. They were called the 'non-resters'. A little later in history with Odo of Cluny in the 10th century there was a revision of the Benedictine Rule to emphasise the praise of God perpetually (24/7). Various religious orders, mostly contemplative ones, continue to practice 24/7 adoration of Jesus present in the Blessed Sacrament (eg Tyburn Nuns). In more recent times there have been perpetual adoration chapels set up in parishes, with massive increases in conversions and vocations arising from them. If you are on Twitter visit the 23 Dec 2018 post of @frpatrickop and the vocations that have come out of 20 years of perpetual adoration in his home parish.

They are all responses to 1 Thess 5:17, 'to pray without ceasing', and there is much we can learn from all of them. Can you imagine God's agony when the on-fire community of Methodists in a capital city starts working towards 24/7 prayer when around the corner there is a chapel of perpetual adoration that has already been going for 4 years?

So much more could happen if we join together rather than expend time and resources 're-inventing the wheel'.
​
Have you wandered into a Christian bookstore recently? I went into a rather well stocked one recently and gave them a list of Christian authors that I had found online. Only about 2 out of 10 were on the shelves, maybe because my list had prophets and non-denominational church leaders with international reputations on it, and the store was more geared to evangelistic resources and family ministry – and apart from the bibles, the only other title that would have been found in a Catholic bookstore was Brother Lawrence's 'The Practice of the Presence of God'. So we have a Christian bookstore largely ignorant of the charismatic/pentecostal dimension of faith, and both ignorant of the swathes of classic Catholic spiritual literature that has withstood the test of many centuries.

Could you imagine what might happily happen if the three groups shared their 'best of the best' with each other, or at least allowed a bit of cross-pollination to occur? Thankfully Amazon Kindle helps that happen for me when birthday and Christmas arrive.

Then we have the Christian talk show hosts on radio, free-to air and paid television services, and via YouTube channels and some of you may have heard of Sid Roth, Larry Sparks, Glory of Zion, Cradio, EWTN, Benny Hinn, God TV, The Catholic Guy, The Journey Home, and there's plenty more. The guest speakers tend to come from a community of people who listen and read each other's stuff. Very little in the way of cross-pollination occurs.

I was encouraged at the Divine Renovation conference 2016 and the inclusion of Lee Kricher's input and the presence of pastoral leaders from other Christian communities in attendance at that event. More of this needs to happen, using either the biblical 'Test all things, hold on to what is good' 1 Thess 5:21 or the more modern Fr James Mallon CASE strategy 'Copy And Steal Everything' from other churches that is working and producing missionary disciples of Jesus.

Any closed system that doesn't get fresh input goes stale.
​
Twenty years ago the then Fr Porteous (now Archbishop) made sure that at Conferences and Summer Schools there would be speakers from outside the Covenant Community systems. He brought in noted moral theologians and scripture scholars and bioethicists, local and international, even bishops noted for orthodoxy and not for charisma, so that we could hear the same truths dressed in different language and with more rigorous insights and thus ground our faith in deeper and richer sources. One year we even had input from the Eastern Rites of the Church. However today I notice that in many places this commitment to fresh input is missing. Yes it is cheaper to use 'home grown' speakers, or speakers who have visited several times in the past, but the growth, the fresh perspectives, the outcomes of having a different mirror held up to your lived experience to reflect upon, that only happens when there is fresh input. Each speaker, no matter how anointed, only has a finite amount of revelation from God to pass on to others.

Variety and cross-pollination in moderation is crucially important.

We need it all, the evangelists, the apologists, the intercessory prayer warriors, the catechists, the theologians, the bible scholars, the prophets, the entrepreneurs in new forms of Christian ministry, the worship leaders, the song-writers, the artists, the social media apostles, the workers of mercy, the talented administrators, the hospitality teams, those with healing and deliverance ministries etc. Anything missing diminishes us as a whole, and each part needs to have fresh input and encouragement on a regular basis.
​
Dear God, may the walls of mutual ignorance come tumbling down soon!

Because it could be many weeks until the evening session is transcribed, it seems like a good idea to not hold up sharing the testimonies until the rest of the 2 hours' worth of transcriptions are done. These are the testimonies given prior to the evening plenary session at the 2016 Divine Renovation Conference #DR16 together with the update given on the development of Divine Renovation Ministries and information on how to support it.

Music lyrics:
'In the name of the Father, in the name of the Son, in the name of the Spirit, Lord we come. Our God saves. Our God saves. There is hope in Your name.'
'I believe in the Son, I believe in the Risen One, I believe I overcome by the power of His blood. Let my song join the one that never ends. Because He lives.'

Testimonies
Fr James Mallon (FJM): God our Father, we thank You and bless You for these days together. Lord we thank You for the life You give us, the life You pour into us each day. Lord we pray that we may continue to experience the resurrected life of Jesus this night. We pray through Jesus Christ, our Lord. Amen. 'I am alive because He lives' and that's something we've been witnessing these days, especially in our testimonies. People have said, you know, the talks have been good and all that, but those testimonies are…. – and I absolutely 100% agree. It's absolutely amazing, and I'd like to invite Mike to come up. Let's give Mike a welcome. (clapping)

FJM: So Mike, tell us, where were you spiritually 4 years ago?

Mike: 4 years ago I wouldn't be anywhere close to a conference like this. Just to back up a bit, I was raised in the United Church, we went to church maybe an hour a week, but that was it, like church meant nothing besides that. So as I grew up, I maybe left the church a bit, until I was a little older and I met this nice Catholic girl. And eventually, not only did I marry a very beautiful girl, I married into a very Catholic family, very Catholic. So I was around it, but it didn't mean anything to me.

FJM: So what happened?

M: Well I can remember. I think I was sitting right out there probably about 3 years ago, and you mentioned this Alpha course, and I'm thinking, 'O yeah, there's no way I'm doing that. Like, no way.

FJM: Ok, ok, so even before that, how did you end up in a pew of a church to begin with?

M: Well, when I became married, my wife, it was very important for her to take the kids to church, and her and my daughter used to go all the time. But it wasn't until my daughter was just a little girl, big curls and all that, and I can remember her saying to me, 'Daddy, I really wish you would go to church with us.' I'm hooked. So you got me in the pew. Mind you, when I was here I was probably looking at the watch to see when the hour was up. So that was basically it. But then, as I said, I was over there, I heard about Alpha and I never thought I would take it, but my lovely wife was nice enough to sign me up. So, like a coup was like hitting. So when I went to Alpha, at first it was great, the people were nice, the talks were good, food was good, but that's all it was. And then the big weekend away, great. And I can remember being a little freaked out, and all these people were praying over each other, and I'm thinking, you know, 'I could probably use the prayers, but there's no way I'm going up there. I'm not putting myself out there'. So I can remember leaving and I can remember driving home with my wife saying, 'You know, I don’t think I'm ever going to have a relationship with God.' But that week I just had this feeling like I needed to be prayed with, and I was kind of, I was almost beating myself up because I didn't go, but lo and behold Alpha comes around that week and they're doing the prayer ministry again. And I decide, I'm sitting there, 'Do I go up? Do I not?' And after what seemed like a while I said, 'Yes, I'm going to do up', and you know, I had a lot of pain and hurt inside, and I went up, and I just felt this, like immense, just peace flow right through me, as if God's love was just flowing right through me. And it was at that moment I knew that I was going to have a relationship with Jesus.

FJM: What difference has Jesus made in your life?

M: Well let me see, ah, after taking Alpha I've been on team I think 5 times. I'm in a connect group. I'm involved in the youth ministry. I'm speaking here, which honestly I would never… I would have bet the firm that this would have never happened to me. So I really thank God because I think I was at a time in my life where I really did need His love, and I just feel blessed.

FJM: Chris, come on up. I'm going to ask Chris to come up. Where were you spiritually 7 months ago?

Christopher: Not very far. I went to church for the first time in 30 years last summer. I had a lot of questions and absolutely no answers. A good friend answered every question I'd asked her with 'You have to go to Alpha' and finally – I didn't even tell her – I just went. The first face I saw was Mike's wife, ironically. I started out a skeptic and kind of grew from there.

FJM: So what happened on Alpha?

C: The big point for me was the weekend. A few weeks in I was still skeptical and growing and I started feeling something, I didn't really know what it was. And on the weekend away I heard about all these people having these amazing experiences and the leader said to me, right before the big moment, 'Have a good snack, you're going to need your strength'. And I looked at her like she was crazy and then I realised, I wanted to have an experience, and I was really scared that I wasn't going to.

FJM: So you're on the Holy Spirit weekend, and what was it that happens?

C: So we got to the moment we were calling the Holy Spirit to fill people up, and I just started shaking. I was, I didn't know what I was feeling. I can't even explain it, and the girl beside me from my group kept elbowing me, 'You have to go and get prayed over', ''Give me a minute'.

FM: That's not in the Alpha training, to elbow the guests. You'll have to take note of that name Ron.

C: I'm not giving names. And I get ready to go up and I was walking up and I only saw one face I recognised, and it was Mike. I didn't really know him well, but I just made a beeline.

FJM: This guy was doing the prayer? (pointing back to Mike)

C: Scary thought, but yeah.

FJM: So tell us what happened? Obviously I knew that, right? I knew that. Do you know what I didn't know? I found out 2 days ago, that his prayer partner was Alan, Laurie's boyfriend, from this morning. He was the other prayer partner that prayed over Chris. So what happened?

C: It's interesting. I got up there and I was a mess. I was a mess and I'm surprised Mike hasn't mentioned it yet. I was leaned over and there was a puddle of tears on the floor underneath my face. And it's funny, they asked me if I wanted to be prayed over, and I thought I knew and I said it, and then all of a sudden Mike started to pray for something else entirely – which is how I knew there was something going on because he had no idea what I needed, but He knew what I needed.

FJM: What difference has Jesus made in your life?

C: I'm still working on that. It's early for me, but it's more this parish and this family and these people. I think I needed that, that feeling, that community, that open arms. I really needed that.

FJM: We're going to have another testimony, a different kind of testimony. Where's Lee? Come on up. This is pastor Lee Kricher, and he is from a particular city in the US that is the envy of many Canadians these days. The Sidney that now lights Cole Harbour, Nova Scotia.

LK: I'm pastor of Amplify Church in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, and I would like to say from the bottom of my heart, thank you for Sidney Crosby. Thank you for sharing Sidney Crosby. (a professional ice hockey player).

FJM: So tell us Lee, what has brought you here from Pittsburgh to a conference here in a Catholic church in Halifax?

LK: Well, I mean, 6 months ago we had Matt Maher at our church. He wrote the song we just sang. In our church we have 600 evangelicals lifting our hands singing, 'Because He Lives I'm alive' and here 600 evangelical Catholics with their hands up in the air doing the same. And so the idea of us worshipping together makes so much sense but also because of our goal of changed lives. As we've been seeing all week long here, and making a difference in our community for Jesus Christ. Learning together and learning from one another makes all the sense in the world. So I found out about the conference. Our church in 2003 was on its last legs. We were under 200 people. The average age was well over 50, and we were one of the fastest dying churches in the city. And we had to make a decision whether we were going to close our doors or to try and do something we had lost the ability to do, and that was re-connect with the next generation. And so because of our commitment to not lose our faith to our children and our grandchildren, we made a lot of changes that are so similar to what you heard about in Divine Renovation.

FJM: And the incredible thing for me is when we start to get some feedback from evangelical pastors about the book. I thought this was a Catholic problem only, and I've found out it's not. It's really a human problem, isn't it?

LK: Yes, very much so. We made some dramatic changes. Some people stayed; some people left. But this many years later, our average attendance – we have 3 campuses – we have about 1800 people. And what's most exciting (clapping), what's most exciting is that every generation is well represented again in our church. So I'm very blessed about that and having been called upon by other pastors saying, 'We need to re-connect with the next generation'. And so I was recently with a Catholic collaborative in Pittsburgh, 5 different parishes. I'll be with Parish Catalyst in September in Los Angeles, and I thought one reason to come is I need to understand better the context of church revitalisation and renewal, from a great place to learn it from, but I also found… I just talked to our board of directors and to my associate senior pastor, I said, there's some things we're going to be working on learning here at the conference. So it's been absolutely amazing.

I think of when we started our journey, one inspiration was in a story from Exodus, of when Moses sent out the 12 scouts, and all of them saw the exact same opportunities and the exact same obstacles, but 10 of them came back saying, 'We can't do this', 'We can't'. And we had a bunch of 'we can't' people in our church. And they were saying, well, we're not in the bible belt where people just roll out of bed and there's a 1000 people in the church automatically. We're in the North East U.S., churches are dying. We're not even in the fast growing part of town in the northern suburbs. We're in the eastern suburbs where there's no growth, and you know, we don’t have a great music band like this – so we don't have that to attract people. We're not like a Catholic church where people automatically come because there's… I say that because every reason is as crazy as the next, and you can pile them all up as to why we can't do it. But there is a man named Caleb. Joshua had the same attitude. And Caleb said, 'We can', 'We can enter', and you know what? What's funny is the 10 never entered. Caleb and Joshua did. So the ones who said 'We can' and the ones who said 'We can't' both ended up being right. So I would just say, don't be quick to say 'We can't', and the main reason we came is I'm attracted to Caleb types, and that's also who you are Fr Mallon. (clapping)

FJM: Lee has a book being published by Harper Collins on 2 August called 'For a New Generation: a practical guide for revitalising your church' and I was privileged to read it a few months ago and it's a fantastic book. I highly recommend it. But as you were talking Lee, especially with your work in working with other pastors in different churches and helping… And thank you, by the way, for desiring to impart wisdom into Catholic parishes and to helping us, thank you so much. And I just had a sense that we should pray for this man. So Let's stand together for a moment. Let's just extend a hand of prayer.

Lord God, we praise You and we thank You Lord. We thank You for the many manifestations of the life that You wish to give us. And Lord how You move in our midst through the hearts of leaders to lead renewal of Your churches to reach the next generation. Lord, I thank You for Lee. I thank You for his family. Lord we ask that You continue to pour Your Spirit upon him, to continue to anoint him in his ministry. Lord we thank You that You have given him a heart to help other pastors. We thank You for the work that he is doing and we ask that You go before him Lord, and to prepare the way for that work for Your kingdom. And Lee, I'm going to give you a good Catholic blessing here, ok? And we ask that You bless him in the name of the Father, and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen. (hugs and clapping)

FJM: You notice how I snuck that one in? (laughter). We have our ways, you know. I want to take a few minutes, before we launch in tonight, to give you a little update on where we are. The reason we had this conference was because we were simply overwhelmed by incoming stuff. Honest to goodness, we never imagined we…., we had no clue. We just thought we'd write a book and let the book do the work. We didn't realise it would cause us even more work. (laughter) And at first it was really cool, it was like, great, we said Yes to everyone and all of this, and then we realised very quickly that wasn't going to work. We actually talked among our staff team. We found out about a year ago, that adding up everyone's time in any given week, responding to other churches was the equivalent of between 1 and 2 full-time jobs. It was almost a half-time job to say No to people. And in a sense if you've got a plate of French fries and one person wants one French fry, it's no big deal, yeah, no problem. But when 200 people want just one French fry, we've got a bit of a problem unless we've got a steady flow of French fries coming through. So I talked this morning about sustainability. And you know I've been down that path. We've been down the path of working out of models of ministry that are unsustainable, and it's not life giving. It will never, as God is my witness, and as I am free to do so, I will never consciously lead like that again.

And so we really do believe that God is calling us to help other churches – not entirely sure what that means. We know that this conference this year was a part of it. We're thinking there might be…People are saying, is there going to be a DR17? No, there's not! If there were, we're already 6 months behind. But there might be a DR18, we're not sure. But we have a website, we have podcasts that we do that are very, very helpful to people, we have videos, we are looking to build other resources. We have launched a Divine Renovation Coaching Network where we invest heavily in other churches and other pastors. We have an interning program. We've got vacancies for that. We are looking at ways to do this. But, the one thing is that in a sense we are launching a ministry in answer to what we believe is God's call.

And tonight we debated whether we should do this or not, but I decided to model for you here what I do with my own parishioners when it comes to making an 'Ask'. And it is simply to give people the freedom to respond to God's call, but not to any other human motive. We know that many of you have invested tremendously to come here, tremendously, you've already made great sacrifices and your presence here is already an enormous support of our ministry, and we thank you for that. And we know that you are praying for us. But we also believe that there may be some people here tonight who might say, you know, we might want to help you, give you a leg up, to launch this ministry so that you can continue to help other churches like us, so that you might be able to provide some staffing and resources behind this so you can get it going. And for that reason we did put envelopes in the pews. Some of you probably already spotted them. And we're just going to take a few minutes and please, please, please hear me say this: we know you have sacrificed greatly to be here, and I fully hope that if it's not the time for that, that you have complete freedom to do so. And if you do feel that you would like to support us in anyway whatsoever, there are envelopes there. We can issue a tax receipt for donations from the U.S. and Canada, as it says on the envelopes. U.S. donations are to be made out to Renewal Ministries, they are able to pass that through so that you can get your tax receipt and it's all legitimate. Canadian donations to John Paul II Media – it's on the envelope. And if you think that you might be able to partner with us beyond a one time offering, we're just going to ask that you give us your email address and we'll be in touch to talk about that. So again, please, no obligation, we know that every single person has made sacrifices to be here and that you are supporting us in that way and with your prayers. But we're going to take a few minutes just for some music, and in about 2 minutes from now some of the ushers will just pass the basket. Ok? Thank you so much.

(instrumental music)
……………………………………………………………
Perhaps the biggest takeaway from these testimonies for me is the reminder of just how difficult it is for a person (particularly blokes) to get the courage to ask someone else to pray over them for the first time. The next biggest takeaway is the importance of the loving friendly environment that Alpha provides to give people the gentle pace, enough time and space for God's grace to begin to open their hearts sufficiently to let Him in.

And the biggest action point? Particularly in the light of the recent graffiti attack (Halifax Easter 2018), a reminder that we need to pray for ministries like this because spiritual attack and spiritual obstacles are intense for those at the leading edge of what God is doing. I am reminded of the spiritual insight of the desert fathers, and the image of a single demon stationed outside a city, and a whole legion of demons besieging a monastery.
​
P.S. The exchange of wisdom and experience and support between the churches, within and without denominational lines, is something we all need to open our hearts wider to.

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

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

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

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

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

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​Below is a printer friendly version of this panel discussion, it is 10 x A4 pages in length.

Please feel free to print and share it around so that we can all catch the vision for Christian Unity that Jesus wants us to have, and to work towards with the help of His grace.

​This is a transcription of the workshop held in Rome on 1 June 2017 with this topic as part of the celebrations for the 50th anniversary of the Catholic Charismatic Renewal #ccrgoldenjubilee2017
 
The speakers were Charles Whitehead and Bishop Sean Larkin, with translations in English and Spanish.
 
Charles Whitehead is from England, and a former ICCRS president. He has also written books about the renewal and the Holy Spirit. http://www.ccr.org.au/index.php/item/26-interview-with-charles-whitehead
http://www.iccrs.org/en/charles-whitehead-speaks-to-the-holy-father/
 
Bishop Sean Larkin is an Anglican bishop and part of the Anglican Expression of the Community of Jesus. https://www.kairos2017.com/speakers/speaker-profile-sean-larkin/ http://www.anglicanexpression.com/our-journey.html
 
This is the link for the video recording: https://youtu.be/IVhxnAeOZCU
 
Charles Whitehead: So good morning everyone! Good morning everyone. Now it's working. So I bring you greetings from England. There are many people here in Rome for this anniversary from England. So it is a great pleasure to be with you. My wife is sitting over there, and ah as you heard, she is a very committed Anglican, and we have survived marriage for 50 years. So ecumenical relationships are possible; and not just on special occasions – but all the time.
 
So I am very happy to have her with me. I need to warn you about her. Sometimes she interrupts me. I am preaching something really important and she is waving. I have to stop, and she has to come and tell me I have made a mistake or I have forgotten something very important. So this is quite normal. So please don't be worried if this happens.
 
And this lady, Lourdes, she is absolutely my favourite translator, because she always improves what I say. It's true. She translates my books into Spanish and when I say something she thinks is not quite right, she will correct it. So between these two women, I am not very important.
 
OK. Fostering Spiritual Ecumenism is the title I have been given, and because the organisers know what preachers are like, we had to prepare the text before – not so much because of the content but because of the length. So when my time is up, I will be told.
 
I want to begin with scripture: Ephesians 4:1-6. I will read it, and then Lourdes will read it in Spanish.
 
As a prisoner for the Lord, then, I urge you to live a life worthy of the calling you have received. Be completely humble and gentle. Be patient, bearing with one another in love. Make every effort to keep the unity of the Spirit through the bond of peace. There is one Body, and one Spirit, just as you were called to one hope when you were called. There is one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all who is over all and through all and in all.
 
We all know that divisions in the Body of Christ restrict our effectiveness in building the kingdom and our divisions undermine our witness to the world. So the Catholic Church looks upon ecumenism as essential to her life today. And this means that spiritual ecumenism should be essential to you and to me.
 
Now what does this mean in practice? Spiritual ecumenism is a phrase taken from the Second Vatican Council. And at its most simple it means to build good relationships with members of other churches and Christian communities; to get to know one another; to accept and to love one another; to pray together and to do together as much as we can.
 
Now if this is going to happen, we all have an important part to play especially those of us involved in the Charismatic Renewal, because as Pope Francis has reminded us – the Renewal is by its very nature ecumenical. So we must joyfully celebrate that grace and we must release the fire of the Holy Spirit so that individuals and organisations can be transformed and equipped to face the challenges of the future.
 
At the Second Vatican Council in 1964 Pope St John XXIII said he was determined to put Christian unity firmly on the map. And so the very first sentence of the Council's document on Christian unity, the document is called Unitatis Redintegratio and it begins with the words, 'The restoration of unity among Christians is one of the principal concerns of the Second Vatican Council' and section 3 says, 'All who have been justified by faith in baptism are members of Christ's Body and have a right to be called Christian and so are correctly accepted as brothers and sisters by the children of the Catholic Church'. So your protestant or pentecostal friend or who lives next door to you, is your brother or sister in Christ. This is a fact declared by the Church.
 
For the first time the Council formally recognised authentic faith in Christ and the presence of the Holy Spirit in other churches, and accepted that divisions in the church contradict the will of Christ and scandalize the world. So the Council voted overwhelmingly for positive relationships with other Christians. Now we are charismatics here this morning. What I have just said must be worth an alleluia. Alleluia? Alleluia!
 
When writing his apostolic letter Et Unum Sint Pope St John Paul II clearly stated that in doing this he said, 'I am obeying the Lord' and Pope Benedict reminded us, that for Catholics ecumenism is absolutely central to Christian life. And in his encyclical Evangelii Gaudium Pope Francis has moved ecumenism forward very dramatically, particularly in sections 244-246*, which include these words: 'If we really believe in the abundantly free working of the Holy Spirit, we can learn so much from one another, not just to be better informed about them but rather to reap what the Spirit has sown in them which is also supposed to be a gift for us.'
 
Let me share some personal thoughts: You and I always have a choice how we want to behave in our own particular situation. To do nothing is not acceptable. In order to heal the pain of division, we must not only accept that there is division, we need to feel the pain ourselves - because only then will we begin to move forward, and to build good relationships with our Christian brothers and sisters. Spiritual ecumenism calls us to be pro-active. We must build personal relationships.
 
Now I know you all read the Catholic Catechism frequently. So you will already know what section 821 tells you. But let me just remind you. It tells us that we need the Holy Spirit to be at work in us bringing about conversion of heart. We heard this expressed very well in our session earlier this morning. But we then need to pray together with our Christian brothers and sisters. This is the heart of spiritual ecumenism, and this will lead us to a desire to get to know one another better, which in turn will involve dialogue and regular meeting. And this will lead us to collaboration in our human service. Now for most of us this will all begin with the local Christian churches where we live.
 
A personal story: 25 years ago the local churches where we live accepted the idea of doing a mission together. And because nobody wanted to take responsibility for this (they thought it would be full of problems), I was asked to do it.
 
Now our local churches are 3 Anglican churches, and they were very different, one was very high church – almost Catholic, one was very evangelical charismatic and the third was extremely liberal. Then we had a very dynamic charismatic Baptist church. We had Methodists who were very quiet and well behaved, we had a reformed church and two Catholic churches that were part of the same parish. So I called all the leaders of these churches together. We were going to pray and share a little bit about ourselves.
 
After 10 minutes I knew the mission was an impossibility without a miracle. They did not know each other. They did not like each other. This church blamed the other church for stealing people. And the other church said the people gave themselves up because the life of this church was so poor. How could we do a mission together?
 
We met for a full morning every month for 18 months. We prayed together, we shared together, we learned to understand one another and eventually we loved one another. (clapping). And then we said, 'We can do the mission'. We then had one year working with our respective churches to bring them into this relationship with each other.
 
We live in a fairly small villages…2 villages. 1000 people came to the mission every day for 2 weeks. Every church had new members at the end of the 2 weeks. And since then, 25 years ago, we have worked together all the time. The leaders meet at our home on the first Monday of every month. We pray together, we pray for each other, and we talk about the future.
 
We now have a prayer room in our village where we have 24/7 prayer, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, which all the churches support. I have to tell you they are praying for you right now (clapping). I ask them, 'Will you pray for me?' 'Yes, we will pray for you, yes, but we will pray more for them.' 'Why more for them?' 'Because they have to listen to you' (clapping) But this is the fruit of building relationships.
 
My wife, my wife is saying something. I told you she would interrupt. Thank you. This is true. Very good. I'll tell you what happened. I will interpret what she said. At the end of the mission 25 years ago the local media, every headline said the same thing, 'Their unity held'. This was a miracle, for the local people.
 
OK. Let me move towards a conclusion. The Renewal is by its very nature ecumenical. We in the charismatic renewal rejoice in what the Spirit is doing throughout the Church world-wide today.
 
We know the experience of Psalm 133. 'How good and pleasant it is when brothers live together in unity, because there the Lord pours His blessing.' This is a reality. When we work with protestants and pentecostals and independent churches the Lord blesses what we do. We are pilgrims journeying together. We must learn to trust each other. Loving relationships are the key to unity. This is our experience.
 
In 3 weeks' time I will be spending a 2 day retreat with the leaders of our other local churches. We will worship the Lord together. We will pray together. We will pray for each other. We will share our most deep needs. We will listen to the Holy Spirit, and I know, and I know for sure when we leave the retreat centre after those 2 days, our relationships will be even stronger. And the Lord will have shown us what He wants us to do next because we recognise one another as brothers and sisters in Christ.
 
We share the same Holy Spirit. Each of us is faithful to our own church but we are open to the gifts of the other churches. We all carry some responsibility for the divisions. We must recognise that and repent. Then we must do together whatever we can possibly do.
 
This is challenging. It's not easy. We have been doing it locally where I live for 25 years, and there are still times when we struggle. But we never forget Jesus and His Father want unity among us, and it's a work of the Holy Spirit.
 
So as St Paul says in 1 Cor 1:10 'I appeal to you brothers, for the sake of our Lord Jesus Christ to make up the differences between you, and instead of disagreeing among yourselves to be united in your belief and practice.'
 
You and I cannot solve all the theological issues. The theologians are working on that. But as Pope Francis has said very clearly, 'Don't wait for the theologians to come to an agreement'. If you remember what he said, he said that the Lord will have returned before that happens. It's a challenge. But we, you and me, wherever we are, we can build these relationships with our protestant and pentecostal and independent brothers and sisters, and the Holy Spirit will show us what we can do together.
 
This is spiritual ecumenism. Every single one of us is called to this. Amen? Amen! Alleluia? Alleluia!
 
Bishop Sean Larkin: We are very surprised to be here. My wife is sitting next to Sue (wife of Charles Whitehead) and she is very helpful to me, not because she will correct my sermons publicly but because when we get home, Ooooh…

The reason we are surprised is this. But I am reminded of the last words that we heard Cardinal Bergoglio speak in Buenos Aires in 2012. We were together with him at Luna Park and he was speaking last and this was, let's say, about 5000 Roman Catholic spirit filled believers (they were the scary ones) and then there were the Pentecostals and us. And Cardinal Bergoglio said to us charismatics, 'Have we lost the ability to be surprised by the Spirit? Have we? A little. So we are here to be surprised by the Spirit because we do want to celebrate 50 years of Catholic charismatic renewal, but we haven't begun, we haven't begun, because if this is it, Oh dear!
 
So let's look at how the Spirit of God might engage us. Oh, by the way, do you want to meet Jesus? (Yes). I sometimes do. But if He is Lord, He can do as He pleases and when He pleases through whoever He pleases. One of the things that has most hindered the grace of the Holy Spirit in the Renewal is that we took control. We took control back. This is my experience talking over 40 years to many people in renewal. We want the Holy Spirit to be respectable, and He says, 'No! I will be God.'
 
Do we want the Holy Spirit? (Yes). Now, some of you probably think that the Christian life is difficult. It's not difficult exactly. It's impossible. In other words we need God to make the life happen. And that is impossible without Him, which means that the only reason we are here is to please Him. We have only one person to please and His name is Jesus. One to please. One person to please. One to please. (clapping)
 
I was baptised in the Spirit in 1976. And part of my testimony is this: Oh, yes, I understood the gifts of the Spirit. But the morning after I was baptised in the Spirit I woke up changed. The Spirit of God took me into the word of God, and without the word of God we will go astray, because it is as precious a gift to us as the Holy Mass itself. The Word and the Spirit and the Mass live together. True. The Word, Spirit and the Mass live together.
 
So just like Charles did, would you turn with me to the word of God? Would you turn with me to a very familiar charismatic passage, and we are in 1 Cor 12:12. Now as you are turning there the Corinthian church was horrible. It was a mess. The doctrine was terrible. Ethics? Eew. Leadership? What leadership? And the jealousy and competition with the gifts of the Spirit, 'I am more spiritual than you.' And Paul says this, he says, if you have that attitude as God renews the Church you will discover a great lack of love.
 
But this church that was a mess, and I am speaking now as a bishop in the western church, I've had the joy of travelling to many places but I'm just going to speak to the western church. Brothers and sisters in Christ, we are in deep trouble. We need the Lord. Not for a better church, but for a church that truly reflects Jesus.
 
So when we read through 1 Corinthians we see much sin, but there is a sin that I think outweighs every other sin in the Corinthian church. 'For just as the Body is one and has many members and all the many members of the Body are one Body, so it is with Christ. For by the one Spirit we were all baptised in one Body.'
 
Now what the Corinthian church was doing to sin was this: We were looking at each other, we were talking to each other, but in our hearts was something deeply sinful. It was an attitude of sin. It said, my brother, my sister, I do not need you. And God hates it. God hates that sin. But it is all over the western church.
 
So if we are going to experience renewal, we heard this morning, that as we come to faith in Jesus Christ repentance takes place. So one of the graces we need from the Holy Spirit is the good gift of repentance. And I'm talking about this grace for Christians, not for non-Christians. And this grace, this gift, that God gives to us is ongoing and every day.
 
And in the book of Romans Paul will say, Romans 2, God's goodness and His kindness walks us into it, it leads us in to repentance. And repentance in the New Testament is the Lord wants to touch our minds, He wants to get inside our thinking. And I'm getting older. I'm old. I've just become a grandfather for the first time. I don't want to change. But with the Holy Spirit, His gifts are new.
 
We are not here in these days to think about a museum. We are here in these days to thank God that He did choose to move by His Spirit in Duquesne. And we celebrate 50 years. Very short in God's timing. So for the pathway of the Spirit, the Spirit will take us into repentance.
 
Now Charles explained to us so well this morning, why the teaching of the Church is this. You cannot be a Roman Catholic, I'm going to say that again, you cannot be a practicing Roman Catholic and say 'I don't care about ecumenism'. (Amen, clapping). And when I meet a Roman Catholic, I want to meet a Roman Catholic, not a pretend Catholic, not a Catholic that says I like this but I don't like that. We have a word for that: protestant.
 
You see one of the places God has taken us is to work with certain new communities - in fact we are part of a new community which is Roman Catholic, with a few Anglicans. But one of those communities is the Alleluia Community in Georgia. But if you hear the leaders of that community speak they will always say this: now the majority of people are Roman Catholic, but the current lead co-ordinator is not a Catholic. And when they speak they say this: My responsibility as a non-Roman Catholic is to make you the best Catholics you can be. (clapping). In that process I will be changed, because when you live life together you can't do anything else but be changed.
 
But so much in ecumenism is done through ignorance. Ignorance is the devil's playground. And the Spirit of God is the Spirit of truth. When we read Pope Benedict, when we read Pope Benedict, Pope Benedict is always saying to us relentlessly, 'Go for it, pursue truth'. But that's hard work. That means I have to learn, I have to learn. I have to take the place of a disciple. And I have to change. Yes, we do. Well you are charismatics, aren't you? (Yes, clapping) I don't know.
 
So let's come back to 1 Corinthians, 'I don't need you' is the sin. Now when you became a Christian, or perhaps you had the joy of being raised in the household of faith. What a joy! But God doesn't always ask your permission. And so when He took you to Himself, He plunged you into His Church. That's not something He asked you about. He's done it. So it is impossible to be a Christian in isolation. People will say to me, I'm a Christian but I don't have to go to church. (Raspberry/fart sound) That's my response. Because if Jesus loves His church and I don't want anything to do with Jesus loving His church, then something is very wrong.
 
So brothers and sisters, discipleship, learning, letting Him change us by His Spirit, this is not an optional extra.
 
I'm going to share an Orthodox experience – from the Orthodox church, because the Church is much bigger than we think. Many years ago I was in Romania and I was sent by our prison service because I had spent 10 years as a prison chaplain. And after the Ceausescu's were killed in Romania they were allowed to put priests into prison. The priests went into prison, but the Orthodox priests knew how to be priests but they didn't know how to be priests in prison. So I was sent to Cluj to speak at a Synod, and then visit literally most prisons in Romania.
 
But I don't want to visit Romania and come back unchanged. I want to be changed. I don’t want to walk out of here at the end of the day and not be different. And so as I was going around the prisons I began to discuss with them the liturgy. And in the Orthodox liturgy there is more bible than anywhere else on the face of the earth. But one of the priests was very kind to me and he said, 'Father, sit by the end of the holy table and we will teach you'. And so we go through this long, long, long liturgy, everything repeated three times, and then the priest takes communion. Do you know how many receive communion? Zero. Jesus is present, and nobody receives.
 
And I still to this day cannot tell you which came first. But I wept and I wept and I wept. And I was full of anger. And I said to the priest, why did nobody come? And he explained to me that they hadn't had opportunity to go to confession. And I said, 'Why not?' Not enough priests. And then he said with this, 'And most of the people they don't understand the Orthodox.'
 
And I had a little picture in my mind. It's not a novel picture. Many have had this picture. And I saw a big old fashioned treasure chest, buried in the mud, full of precious gifts but stuck, and then I saw the chest begin to open. You see the gifts were all there, but they were all stuck. And I heard in my mind's eye, you know however we do this, I don’t know what it means, but I heard from God. 'Sean, if you will learn to become like them, then I will open the doors for you.'
 
I went back and told Jill and she said, 'You have lost your mind'. But I began to explore the traditions of the church in priesthood. I opened up the traditions of the church, and I discovered as I embraced what has always been, that God began to open up something that had always been – this is how I now interpret it. That God had to take a lot of ignorance out of my life because I have been taught many things that were not true. And I still continue to have to be changed and to learn.
 
Now in some ways I want to share that picture with you, because in some ways that is how I feel about the Catholic Church. You are rich in scripture, you are rich in tradition, but does it live? Does it live? Is it alive? You are full of gift.
 
There was a famous preacher in London called Dr Martin Lloyd Jones, and one person asked him, 'Doctor, do you believe in the baptism of the Holy Spirit?' And he responded like this. He said some of you keep telling me that I've got everything and Martin Lloyd Jones responded like this. 'Got it all? You've got it all? You've got it all? Then in the name of heaven, where is it?'
 
Because God has given gifts to His church. He has given gifts to you, and part of those gifts are each other. So that each of us can be made more like Jesus.
 
Ecumenism is essential for two other reasons, and I will be quick. Firstly, again to the western world, our Gospel of Jesus Christ is under attack in the church. We need one another for evangelization into the world and we need one another for the new evangelization which takes us into the world but more equipped. So we need one another.
 
The second reason is this: and it is the only quote I will give from Pope Francis, 'the ecumenism of blood'. When our Coptic brothers and sisters are martyred, they don’t care when they are killing the martyrs whether it is Coptic blood, Catholic blood or protestant blood: it's blood.
 
Brothers and sisters, without each other we will prevent God from doing what He wants to do. And that will be very serious on the day of judgment. God might say to us, 'I wanted to do this, but you would not'.
 
Do we want to be more like Jesus? Sometimes.
 
Would you stand? I want to pray for us for just one minute. In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. On the first Easter Sunday evening Jesus came and stood among them. They were filled with fear and He said this: 'Peace I give you. My peace. Receive a fresh resurrection peace.' He is here to give you His deep, deep peace. And from peace, from that place of peace, which was my experience of being baptised in the Spirit, the Spirit will make you more like Jesus, which is what you want. And one day He will come back for one bride, His Church, and we will be given to the Father as Christ's precious gift. Peace be with you.
 
Question & Answer session
 
Q. Hello, I come from Madrid, Spain. The majority of Spaniards are Catholics. It is experience in recent years that I have met with evangelical brothers and sisters and other churches. Some years ago I would have fled whenever I met someone who was not Catholic. My pastors would maybe not have allowed me to get mixed up with these people. But since I received the baptism in the Holy Spirit and began to be involved in the Renewal I've started to love them, and to live by faith with them, and to learn a lot from them, and we are working together in different programs of evangelization. What can I do in the midst of this Catholic Madrid in Spain to not be considered as a madman or as a crazy person or as someone you must run away from because I am dangerous? Yes, that's my question. Thank you.
 
Charles Whitehead: It's a very good question. For many years I was in the same place. People thought that because I had a lot of contact with pentecostals and protestants that I was somehow dangerous and a bit crazy and wrong. We are the ones who are following the teaching of the Church. But a lot of our Catholic brothers and sisters will do something ecumenical once a year: the week of prayer for Christian unity. They become very ecumenical for that week. They go to a service in another church, host a service in our church, pray together, and at the end of the week of prayer for Christian unity they heave a big sigh of relief. Now we don't have to do that again for another year. But that is totally contrary to the Catholic teaching today, and especially the teaching of Pope Francis. We must build these relationships, but they must be ongoing.
 
I'm a good Catholic, he says very modestly. I'm very faithful to the Church. Pope John Paul II made me a Knight of St Gregory for my service to the Church, and part of that is the ecumenical work. And Pope Francis and his 2 predecessors have personally encouraged me to do this work. So we are not the crazy ones.
 
We are not the ones who are wrong, but we have to understand a lot of people think we are crazy. We have to re-educate people and it's a long process since the Reformation, but amazing progress has been made there also – documents of agreement between Catholics and Lutherans. I think my priest brother here is actually in the right place. Amen? Amen.
 
Q. I come from Latin America, from Mexico, where proselytism makes it almost impossible to work in the area of ecumenism. There is no promotion in this area of bishops, priests. They don't work on it. But if you lay people in the Church of Mexico have relations with the other churches, even within the official Catholic charismatic renewal in Mexico they look at us as if we were not so good. Even in our prayer meetings they have forbidden the evangelical songs so as to promote the Catholic music, we have to reject these protestant songs. So like, so how can we approach our leaders? Is there any official way to do this? To avoid all this struggle and tension between protestants and Catholics, knowing that there is also this protestant proselytism? It is an issue. But it's true that we are starting to have these communities, protestant pastors, which are trying to mingle, to relate to the Catholic Church. But anyway my own leaders in the Renewal, they don't like it. How to approach my leaders?
 
Bishop Sean Larkin: In the kingdom of God, we need to ask God for something and there is an expression which says, 'Find the man of peace', and kind of, the two questions run together very slightly. And I have read the document for South America (Aparecida Document) that Cardinal Bergoglio shared so, but I think we have to ask, 'Lord, give us people we can trust who will not come into my situation and try and change everything' but are simply there to bless you, and who want to learn from you. In the South American document, many problems were identified. One of them was simply this, 'How do the shepherds care for the sheep?' And Pope Francis says to us pastors, we must smell like the sheep. So there is a big question in the Church in South America about pastoral work. The second question is this, bible teaching. Much movement is because people are hungry for the word of God. And so, and this is only my limited experience, this is not the fruit of the rejection of the Catholic Church, it's the fruit of people desiring something more. And some of the bishops are getting it wrong because they are afraid. And I don't have links with Mexican bishops, I do with bishops in Brazil and Argentina.
 
Does anybody here remember the ministry of Fr Rick Thomas? El Paso, Texas. Wonderful community. I was in El Paso and I spent a day with them going over to Juarez and we were visiting people who were shut in and couldn't come outside. They were just shut in their homes. We took them gifts of food, we took them the gifts of healings that we had, we took blessed water and salt, and nobody cared that I wasn't a Roman Catholic.
 
Charles Whitehead: I just want to add one sentence in reply to your question; one or two sentences. When you have leaders in the charismatic renewal or in your parish who are against building these relationships with other churches, the only thing to do is to challenge them, the leaders, to get to know the leaders of these other churches.
 
In 2005, Sue and I went to Buenos Aires to see Cardinal Bergoglio. We took with us two pentecostal leaders and our question to Cardinal Bergoglio was very simple: 'How do we build better relationships with each other?' He told us, you have to cross the street, you have to ring the doorbell of the pentecostal leader who lives over there, you have to introduce yourself, ask him to pray for you, join him for coffee, pray together, build a personal relationship with him. And when we travelled around Buenos Aires in the following days every pentecostal leader we met told us, 'We love Bergoglio, he is our friend, we have built a personal relationship.' And that's the only answer. 25 years ago my parish priest wasn't interested in the other churches, but when I introduced him to their leaders he got to know them. He liked them better than he likes me. Strong relationships. They have to build personal contact.
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​*Evangelii Gaudium : Ecumenical dialogue
 
244. Commitment to ecumenism responds to the prayer of the Lord Jesus that “they may all be one” (John 17:21). The credibility of the Christian message would be much greater if Christians could overcome their divisions and the Church could realize “the fullness of catholicity proper to her in those of her children who, though joined to her by baptism, are yet separated from full communion with her”. We must never forget that we are pilgrims journeying alongside one another. This means that we must have sincere trust in our fellow pilgrims, putting aside all suspicion or mistrust, and turn our gaze to what we are all seeking: the radiant peace of God’s face. Trusting others is an art and peace is an art. Jesus told us: “Blessed are the peacemakers” (Matt 5:9). In taking up this task, also among ourselves, we fulfil the ancient prophecy: “They shall beat their swords into ploughshares” (Isaiah 2:4).
 
245. In this perspective, ecumenism can be seen as a contribution to the unity of the human family. At the Synod, the presence of the Patriarch of Constantinople, His Holiness Bartholomaios I, and the Archbishop of Canterbury, His Grace Rowan Williams, was a true gift from God and a precious Christian witness.
 
246. Given the seriousness of the counter-witness of division among Christians, particularly in Asia and Africa, the search for paths to unity becomes all the more urgent. Missionaries on those continents often mention the criticisms, complaints and ridicule to which the scandal of divided Christians gives rise. If we concentrate on the convictions we share, and if we keep in mind the principle of the hierarchy of truths, we will be able to progress decidedly towards common expressions of proclamation, service and witness. The immense numbers of people who have not received the Gospel of Jesus Christ cannot leave us indifferent. Consequently, commitment to a unity which helps them to accept Jesus Christ can no longer be a matter of mere diplomacy or forced compliance, but rather an indispensable path to evangelization. Signs of division between Christians in countries ravaged by violence add further causes of conflict on the part of those who should instead be a leaven of peace. How many important things unite us! If we really believe in the abundantly free working of the Holy Spirit, we can learn so much from one another! It is not just about being better informed about others, but rather about reaping what the Spirit has sown in them, which is also meant to be a gift for us. To give but one example, in the dialogue with our Orthodox brothers and sisters, we Catholics have the opportunity to learn more about the meaning of episcopal collegiality and their experience of synodality. Through an exchange of gifts, the Spirit can lead us ever more fully into truth and goodness.

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.

What's working in other churches - Ecumenical Panel

Rev Edward Vaughan

http://www.linkedin.com/pub/edward-vaughan/9/409/436

http://www.stjohnsanglican.org.au/rector.html

Ed is currently the rector of St John's Anglican church in Darlinghurst. He is married with three children. Having studied at Moore College he ministered in parishes around Balmain and Rozelle for 13 years before moving to Ireland for a few years to be rector at an Anglican / Church of Island parish in south Dublin.

While Ed was stationed in Dublin he took his family on a holiday to Donegal. (County Donegal is in the far north of Ireland). There they found a big church, and wondered which denomination it belonged to. They walked all around it and could not find a sign anywhere.  As they got to know the place, with its small local community, they realised that everyone knew which church it was, what the Mass times were and who the priest was. Here was a community that needed to discover its missionary imagination and to think beyond the locals to the visitors and holiday makers who didn't know such basic information. In times gone by they had no need for outreach because the whole community shared the same faith. Things are very different in Ireland now.

The Anglican parish of Darlinghurst is a very complex place. It is full of young secular people living alternative lifestyles, and has a large gay population. The most common response to Gospel overtures is indifference rather than hostility.

Before starting anything new in the parish, Ed led his parish through a discernment process and through times of waiting on God for direction. It took a whole year of listening not only to in the pews but also those not in the pews. Several prayer meetings were held where people were asked to bring their phones. After prayers they were sent off to various destinations around the parish. On the way they walked in silence and recorded their observations with the camera and sound recording functions of their phones. The idea was to listen to all the words being spoken, to what they heard, saw and smelt as they went around parts of the parish. Then they returned and reported what they had discovered.

From this they determined that God was calling them as a parish to be 'a people of freedom and a presence of blessing'.  One initiative that emerged from this time of discernment was a café for street people manned by parish volunteers. The café provides a safe place for street people and others to come, and a place to start conversations and to make real connections with them. The parish has also found the Alpha programme very helpful in their context.

Greta Wells

http://ac.edu.au/faculty-and-staff/greta-wells/

https://www.facebook.com/gretacornish

http://www.linkedin.com/pub/greta-cornish/66/647/7b2

http://www.theomag.com/author/gretacornish/

Greta would probably describe herself these days as a charismatic Pentecostal.  There is a wide variety of diversity under the 'Pentecostal' umbrella ranging from Church of Christ renewal movements to charismatic churches and to the more vivid expressions of the Holy Spirit found in Vineyard churches. Of interest is that new churches form flowing from new experiences of the Holy Spirit rather than splits over doctrinal differences.

Most Pentecostal churches follow a four-fold Gospel model

1. Jesus is Saviour
   
   
2. Jesus empowers us by the Holy Spirit (through personal encounter with Him a person is empowered to give witness to Him
   
   
3. Jesus is the Healer (we are empowered to ask for healing)
   
   
4. Jesus is the soon-coming King

1. 
   

The 1980s saw the rise of the mega-church. There are signs that long term thinking has begun in these churches. They still have that sense of urgency about proclaiming Jesus as the soon-coming King, but that urgency isn't as strong as it once was. Altar calls are still a common thing, but the follow-up to such altar calls isn't so good. Some churches are decentralising their congregations, and are conducting experimental engagement with the prevailing culture.

Pentecostal churches do have a population spike with the 15-29 year olds, but this comes at a cost which is generally the under representation of over 55 year olds. These churches do challenge us to be continually open to the Holy Spirit and to make the Gospel tangibly relevant now, today.

Rev Pete Davies

http://www.linkedin.com/pub/pete-davies/30/32a/261

Pete is an ordained Baptist minister, married with four children and several grandchildren. He currently serves as the Director of Church Development for the NSW & ACT Baptist movement. He has over 15 years of pastoral experience and 3 years of evangelisation training with Ambassadors for Christ International.

The Baptist churches consider autonomy to be a value, and thus have no hierarchical structure. This means that as I go visiting churches throughout NSW and the ACT I have the task of a bishop but not the authority that goes with it. Leading Baptists is like shepherding cats.

Baptists are very strong on the importance of making a personal decision for Jesus Christ. The majority of Baptists believe that the gift of faith is offered to all mankind.

Baptists have been known for their evangelistic crusades and big events with big tents which often happen on an annual basis. Sunday night appeals and altar calls remain common experiences in our churches. Personal evangelism has always been encouraged. We have found the Alpha programme very useful. By and large overseas immigration has kept our parish numbers up.

There seems to be a trend in Baptist churches away from event evangelisation to process evangelisation.  This is recognising that it takes time for people to come to the point of giving their lives to Jesus, and that it takes time for the Gospel message to find a home in hearts. We are learning to be present to people better, and to do more listening and saying less than before.

We are finding DVDs very useful as teaching aids and discussion starters in small groups.

If you can get newcomers to stay long enough, grace will happen. There is a move to seeing evangelisation as something that the whole community has a part in and not reserved for the pulling power of an exceptional guest speaker. At the same time we are experiencing a shift in proclaiming the Gospel of salvation to proclaiming the Gospel of the kingdom.

We are challenging people to be radically weird for the sake of Jesus, so that it is clear to others the difference that faith in Jesus makes in our lives.

It is Jesus' job to build the church. It is our job to make disciples.

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After this panel discussion we had a break for morning tea where we were invited to discuss two questions:

Q. Which idea you heard today could translate easily into your parish?

Q. What possibilities are there in your parish for denominational collaboration?

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The next issue will feature the homily from Friday's Mass at the Conference.

Some of the workshops have been made available as podcasts via www.xt3.com

To access them visit http://www.xt3.com/library/view.php?id=17454

Some of the talks and workshops are now available from http://www.proclaimconference.com.au/resources.

Several video clips, transcripts, handouts and slide presentations are downloadable from that link.