All of you know from experience just how transitory life is, governments come and go, national borders change, transport systems change, medical treatments change.
The only thing that doesn’t change is God.

The good news we celebrate at Christmas of the birth of Jesus doesn’t change.
It becomes more meaningful in our lives as other stuff fades away.

Christmas proclaims that despite everything going on around us, God is still in control. And God always has a plan to deal with the evils that assail us.

During lockdown I heard a magnificent homily from Cardinal Collins of Toronto, Canada. He was talking about the time when for the Israelites the Red Sea was on one side of them, and Pharaoh and his army were closing in to attack them. It was only when the Israelites were reduced to prayer, to acknowledging that nothing else other than God could save them, that God opened up their escape route and drowned Pharaoh’s army.

That pattern was repeated many times in the Book of Judges, where the Israelites are living miserable lives under foreign rulers, that it is only when they collectively get desperate enough to pray, and they pray, that God raises up a leader anointed with His Holy Spirit to deal with the evil oppressing them.

In Jesus Jairus saw the very last hope for his daughter to live.
In Jesus the woman with the haemorrhage saw the very last hope of healing.
In Jesus the apostles sinking in the boat during the huge storm on Lake Galilee saw their only rescue.
All of them pursued Jesus and called out in their desperation to Him, and everything was instantaneously set right.

So we are never to get discouraged when things look bleak.
Pray instead.

Faith and fear are opposites, they cannot co-exist.
Faith calls into being the good things that aren’t visible yet.
Fear calls into being the evil things that aren’t visible yet.

When we are in fear the strategic thinking parts of our brains don’t function, and automatic responses of flight, fight, flee or freeze kick in. Immediate danger needs an immediate response - because there isn’t time to think through all the options.

In the bible God says ‘Do not be afraid’ over and over again.

This means that we need to feed our faith, and we need to reduce our exposure to things that engender fear.

One of the best ways to feed faith is to read passages from the bible, especially from the Gospels. Pondering Gospel scenes through the Rosary is another way.

If you notice your fear levels increasing after watching, listening to or reading the news, do less of that. If something is truly important, you will find out about it another way. Pay attention to when your fear levels increase, and where you were, and who you were talking to, when that happened. Spend more time with people who make you feel hopeful.

God is still in control.
God is always good.
God will never permit anything to happen unless greater good will come out of it.

All things, ALL things, work together for the good of those who love God.
‘We know that by turning EVERYTHING to their good God
co-operates with all those who love Him’, Romans 8:28a

That includes masks, lockdowns, illnesses, falls, aches and pains. ALL things.
If you haven’t seen the greater good yet, then it is still on the way.
After loss, death and grief …. resurrection always comes, always.

It is tempting to get discouraged when yet another layer of malicious evil comes to light. But such times should increase our hope and our courage because it means that God has been at work. Wounds only get better when they have been exposed to the light and cleaned of all gunk. God is the one who shines light into our lives. He is the one who exposes and cleans out all the gunk caused by the enemy of our souls.

As St Padre Pio recommends: Pray, hope and don’t worry.
Your prayers are needed more than ever, as is your hope and your faith.

God is in control.
God is always victorious over every kind of evil.
God is always working towards our greater good.

We can safely trust in Him, always.
……………………
Dear Heavenly Father, as the birthday of Jesus draws near the difference between the peace proclaimed by the angels to the shepherd and the conflicts and turmoil of our modern world seem starker than ever.
But You are still in control.
Draining the evil swamp areas, local and multi-national, while preserving the good, is a painstaking and messy business.
Yet You have undertaken to accomplish this for us, since it was so far beyond our capacity to do.
You are the only antidote to evil this big and this entrenched.
The blood of Jesus and the wounds of Jesus vanquish every evil.
Today we reaffirm our trust in You.
We thank You for the mind-blowingly wonderful outcomes that are on their way; victories against evil that are so thorough that only You can win.
As we wait for the promised manifestation of Your Kingdom on earth, we also wait for Your promised deliverance from all evil.
We know that we do not wait in vain.
But dear God, sometimes the pain of waiting weighs so heavily upon us.
Please help us each time our faith in You is assailed by the enemy of our souls.
May this Christmas find us more confident of Your love, Your goodness and Your providence than ever before. Amen.

The 18th of February 2017 was the 50th anniversary of the Catholic Charismatic Renewal. #ccrgoldenjubilee2017 : It is what happened when students from Duquesne University in Pittsburgh came together with some of their teachers for a weekend retreat at a place called 'The Ark and the Dove'. Leaders from across the world gathered at The Ark and the Dove for a weekend retreat to celebrate all that God has done in the past 50 years. Those very inspiring talks were Livestreamed, but are no longer available for free online (www.somethinglikereal.com/ordermedia is where you can find them now).
 
As you might expect when people gather to call on God's name, and to praise and thank Him, He talks to them and reveals His purpose.
 
Here is the primary prophetic word that was given at the 50th anniversary retreat. It was first shared on the Friday evening 17 February, and considered so important it was shared again on the Saturday evening 18 February once people began to understand its significance. If you have ever read the life of Blessed Imelda Lambertini, you would have come across the adage, 'gifts are given on the eve of the feast'.
 
I apologise that it is only the bare bones of that word. I was going to go back and transcribe both of them properly, but I was too late.
 
Psalm 42: Deep calls unto deep. Go deeper. Call to Him from a place of great depth.
Genesis 7: In the second month, and on the 17th day of that month, that very day all the springs of the great deep broke through and the sluices of heaven opened. It rained on the earth for 40 days and 40 nights. This is for good, not for destruction, so that the world may be filled with the presence of God as the waters cover the sea.
 
My initial interpretation: God wants to give us the second part very much, but it depends on us doing the first part. Think of the outpouring God wants to give like a huge balloon full of water. It is up to us to push deeper and deeper until it pierces. The deeper and more united we are across time and space and distance the better able we will be to pierce the balloon so that the torrent comes and not the trickle. But we have to get on our knees and call out our desperate need to God for the Holy Spirit. We have to feel and pray in our dryness for the Spirit's dew, we have to long for Him like for cool shade on a day of 45 degree heat. We have to be prepared to let the Holy Spirit groan our need in us. This is a privileged moment, we can praise Him any day of the week, but today His desire is that we ask and importune Him for this outpouring. The moment to obtain all He wants to give will soon pass. There are some things so big and so precious, that He can only give them to us if we ask. Asking makes a place in our hearts to receive. In the Gospels there are two things that Jesus especially asks us to plead for in prayer: vocations and the Holy Spirit.
 
My subsequent interpretation: When the sluice gates open, it takes a while for the dam water to reach the valley where the people live. We have to go deeper in our relationship with God if we want to become larger receptacles for His grace. Whenever we hear '40 days', don't we always think of Lent? That privileged time of our communal return to God in preparation for Easter, where we try to grow in prayer, in generosity and service, and in self-denial. They are our primary clues for going deeper. Pope Francis has particularly invited members of the Renewal to Rome to celebrate Pentecost with him. Instead of the big gathering happening at St Peter's Square, it is going to be at the Circus Maximus. Unlike St Peter's where there is really only one direction in and out, the Circus Maximus is a place where people can be sent forth from all directions. If you visit https://www.facebook.com/iccrsoffice or https://twitter.com/iccrsoffice the vibe is very strong that this coming Pentecost is momentous.
 
So how do we go deeper (apart from the traditional prayer, fasting and almsgiving)?
We have to go beyond where we feel safe and in control.
We can go deeper into listening to God with Christian meditation and Lectio Divina.
We can go deeper in our understanding of God through scripture study and reading the Catechism.
We can go deeper in prayer through time spent in the presence of the Blessed Sacrament.
We can go deeper by working on reconciliation with others and coming into unity with them in love. (CCC 1445: 'Reconciliation with the Church is inseparable from reconciliation with God.')
 
We can also learn a lot about going deeper by reading about what those first Duquesne students did, and doing the same.

In preparation for that retreat weekend they read the Acts of the Apostles, particularly the first 4 chapters. They also read The Cross and The Switchblade and They Spoke With Other Tongues
Every time they met together they prayed the Veni Creator Spiritus, an ancient hymn to the Holy Spirit.
Reflecting upon the Acts of the Apostles, David and Patti wanted to renew their baptismal promises, but the others weren't interested. Yet they stood their ground together and did it anyway. They were the first two God led into the upper room chapel.
They were led to pray a prayer of surrender: “Father, I give my life to you. Whatever you ask of me, I accept. And if it means suffering, I accept that too. Just teach me to follow Jesus and to love as He loves."
​
For more detail, read this inspiring account: https://www.ccrno.org/TestimonyPGM.htm
 
Because I had read 'Fresh Wind, Fresh Fire' a few months ago, I was more aware of what this 'deep calling on deep' needed to be. I highly recommend it. It is the story of a young married pastor of a church in Brooklyn, New York, a church in serious danger of closing. 'When I was at my lowest, confounded by obstacles, bewildered by the darkness that surrounded us, unable even to continue preaching, I discovered an astonishing truth: God is attracted to weakness. He can't resist those who humbly and honestly admit how desperately they need Him. Our weakness, in fact, makes room for His power'. He told the Lord that he would rather die than merely tread water throughout his career in the ministry…always preaching the power of the Word and the Spirit, but never seeing it. In his need and acknowledgement that he was well and truly out of his depth as a pastor, God answered him with a promise: 'If you lead My people to pray and call upon My name, you will never lack'.
 
18 February is a feast day of St Bernadette. St Bernadette wrote, 'You want to pray like a saint, I invite you to pray like a beggar, like a pauper before God'. When Our Lady at Lourdes asked her to drink from the stream, first Bernadette had to dig, and to dig, and go deeper some more, until first the mud came and then the clear spring water. Inspired by her example let us go deeper and call out to the Lord until the Holy Spirit flows as torrentially as He desires to.
 
Mary, Mother of Jesus, Spouse of the Holy Spirit, Mother of the New Pentecost, pray for us

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A little while ago @merecatholicism contacted me via Twitter and asked if I'd put together a guest post. Here it is:

St Faustina and Adoration of the Blessed Sacrament

The Diary of St Faustina contains many treasures that as the people of God we have yet to unpack. Some of them are the insights and experiences she received during adoration and about adoration.

What is adoration? Spending time in the Eucharistic presence of Jesus – hidden in the tabernacle or exposed in a monstrance. Whether it is a stolen moment, a few minutes, an hour of prayer, or an extended time of prayer, each visit is an act of faith in His Real Presence, and an act of love because we have sacrificed doing other things in order to linger with Jesus. When we sit in adoration we learn that prayer is something God does in us independent of our own efforts, and that choosing to spend time with Him this way is following in the footsteps of St Mary Magdalene who chose the better part.

Adoration has intercessory power

St Faustina had a practice of offering up each hour of adoration for a particular intention. Passage 319 'For the conversion of hardened sinners, especially for those who have lost hope in God's mercy', 'To make amends for ingratitude'. Passage 346 'For parents and whole family', 'For the intentions of my spiritual director, thanking God for him and asking that he be given the necessary light to guide me with', 'For the Holy Church, for clergy, for the missions, for religious of my order', 'For the holy souls in purgatory'. Passage 355 'For a sister who asked me to pray for her', 'For the conversion of sinners', 'In expiation for insults against God', 'For my spiritual director'. Passage 1061 'In thanksgiving for the graces granted me and in thanksgiving for a time of illness and for the graces granted during that time of illness'.

If one of these intentions rarely crosses your mind, then make it your intention for the rest of the day or your special intention for tomorrow.

Adoration has consequences

From St Faustina's diary we see that she had a regular hour of adoration of a Thursday evening. It was during this hour that so many spiritual lights, encouraging messages, and inspirations came to her. Once Jesus permitted St Faustina to experience the wrath of the demons following her hour of adoration so that she would learn that many souls hardened in sin had been snatched from them due to that hour of prayerful atonement. Passage 320

If you are someone who likes using a highlighter pen, go through her Diary and highlight the things that happened on Thursdays, 'during adoration' or 'during Holy Hour' and discover how much good all of us have received through her faithfulness to adoration.

Adoration is not something you do alone

Even if you think you are alone in the chapel, there will be angels, saints and holy souls with you. St Faustina recognised this and often united her adoration with theirs. Passage 319 'I called upon the whole of heaven to join me in making amends to the Lord'. Passage 691 'I remained in prayer for a whole hour and united myself in spirit with those souls who are already worshipping God in the perfect way.' She found doing this very helpful, especially when having difficulty in praying.

When next you have an important intention to pray for, ask some of the saints to intercede with you.

Adoration matters to Jesus

During a time of adoration, Jesus told St Faustina, 'My daughter, know that your ardent love and the compassion you have for Me were a consolation to Me in the Garden' Passage 1664. He even rebuked her gently when one day she completely forgot to go to her hour of adoration, 'I have been waiting to share My suffering with you, for who can understand My suffering better than My spouse?' Passage 348

If you haven't yet committed yourself to a weekly hour of adoration, work out how to make it a part of your weekly routine.

Adoration doesn't depend upon our feelings

Even if you are very tired, unable to pray, and unable to kneel, and you still remain with Him for an hour, still go because you may hear what Jesus said to St Faustina when she felt like that, 'Your prayer is extremely pleasing to Me' Passage 691.

Sometimes there is sweetness, consolation and inspiration. Sometimes there is struggle, pain and desolation. Sometimes there are no feelings at all. Being with Jesus is what matters, what happens – if anything – is up to Him.

Don't give up. Even a Hail Mary prayed in spiritual aridity is far more valuable than a Hail Mary prayed when the presence of God brings you joy. We prove that we love Him when we continue to love Him when consolations are absent.


When we can be like St Faustina, and be delighted to have three hours of free time to spend with Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament, Passage 346, then we can say that we have truly unpacked a treasure from her diary.
​
St Faustina Kowalska, patron of WYD 2016, pray for us.

Recently Pope Francis has declared St Gregory of Narek a Doctor of the Church. That is a very high accolade indeed, and spotlights St Gregory as someone the whole Church should get to know and honour in a special way.

The thing is, the English speaking world knows nothing about him. Yes, I have consulted the index to the 12 volumes of Butler's Lives of the Saints. No mention of St Gregory of Narek. But looking up his Wikipedia page revealed that the Catholic Church honours him on 27 February, so I grabbed the February volume and there he is, 'St Gregory, monk in Armenia (c.1005)'.

I even did a search for 'Narek' in my Kindle, thinking that he might have had a mention in the 1749 Roman Martyrology, but that search came up zero as well. Searching for 'Gregory' in that document  also yielded nothing.

Knowing the first thing about St Gregory of Narek – that he lived in Armenia – made me inclined to like him even before seeking his story. One of my treasured memories from visiting the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem was seeking the myriad of Armenian crosses carved into walls of walkways; each one proclaiming to all who see them 'I came here as a pilgrim from Armenia, and I believe in the Resurrection, and so should you'.

Biographical details in English are rather scarce for St Gregory of Narek, and I trust that over the next year or two more details will become available as the hard work of translation gets done. What we do know is that his father was a bishop, that his mother died at a young age, and that Gregory became a monk at a place in what is now north eastern Turkey. Towards the end of his life, his fellow monks pleaded with Gregory to write down his prayers. This he did, completing the work shortly before going to his eternal reward. It says a lot that his Book of Prayer has been preserved and acknowledged as a treasure for over a thousand years. Just imagine how many people thought so much of the Book of Prayer that they copied the text by hand in order to pass it on to the next generation in the centuries prior to the printing press.

Currently the best sources of information about St Gregory of Narek are two books available on Amazon Kindle: http://www.amazon.com.au/The-Armenian-Prayerbook-Gregory-Narek-ebook/dp/B003KRP1MW translated by Thomas Samuelian and http://www.amazon.com/Narek-A-Path-Salvation-Teaching-Armenian-ebook/dp/B00TKMVKO4 by Anna Paitian. Getting both will set you back less than $20.

I was thrilled to find this blog-post from Catholic Cravings which contained excerpts from Gregory's prayers. http://www.lauramcalister.com/2015/02/23/beautiful-prayers-st-gregory-narek-new-doctor-church/. In reading them I was immediately reminded of St Therese of Lisieux. Her poetry sprang from the depths of a suffering united to Jesus and is powerful even when translated from her native French into English. Even today we find those treading the paths of long term physical suffering have an affinity for poetry that the rest of us don't possess. So it would make sense that Gregory's poetry sprang from a similar well.

The first inkling that I was on the right track came from the Anna Paitian's book description which said that Gregory was persecuted and exiled and lived hidden in the mountains because he stayed true to the teachings of the Council of Chalcedon. That Council defined the person of Jesus as both true God and true man and also had a lot of new rules for monks and bishops to promote good order and ease in settling disputes about jurisdiction.

The second inkling was found in the meditations on Gregory's work prior to the actual prayers in Samuelian's translation, 'Gregory, although only in his fifties; was suffering from a life-threatening, debilitating illness', and the evidence for that was in Prayer 18k:

'I lie here on a cot, struck down by evil, sinking in a mattress of disease and torment, like the living dead yet able to speak. O kind Son of God, have compassion upon my misery.'

Here are some more gems, that will hopefully give you an appetite for more of Gregory's work:

'You, the potter, and I, the clay. Show me, hesitating at the threshold of these contrite prayers, the sweetness of Your will.' Prayer 2b

'What is impossible for me is easy for You. What is beyond my reach is grasped by You. What is hidden for me in my fallen state is within view for Your supreme goodness. What is undoable for me is done by You.' Prayer 57a

'I am a poor man with no defense, with broken heart, with troubled soul, always errant, always fallen-gambling with my heart.' Prayer 26b

The online sources about St Gregory say that he is well known for obtaining miracles for those who seek his intercession. Actual stories of those miracles I have yet to find, but I am sure that there are many inspiring stories waiting to be translated for us.

Some may ask 'Why now?' I think I have the answer to that. For decades the visitations of Our Lady have been asking us to pray with the heart. Gregory's prayers teach us how to do exactly that. He had the sense that these prayers were never just for him, nor for his era and culture alone, but for all times and the peoples of all nations. To me it is as though God were saying to us, 'In these most difficult times, turn to prayer, use these prayers, they are My gift to you, part of My arsenal against evil that I have preserved especially for these times. They are the 'big guns'. Use them.'

Thank you Lord for the gift of this new Doctor of the Church.

Thank you for this new arsenal of prayer.

May St Gregory of Narek pray for us, and intercede before You for world peace. Amen.