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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

It does to me.

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

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

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

And Lana Vawser explains it like this:

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

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

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

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

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

Write Non Fiction In November : #WNFIN Day 30
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On this last day of the Writing Challenge, some reflection upon the last 30 days is called for. Did I see what I hoped to see during this month of November, disappointingly No.

If you remember, I had hoped to chronicle the promised great outpouring of the Holy Spirit. If it is going on right now, then it is nowhere to be found in my neighbourhood and region. In fact, compared with the beginning of November there have been more setbacks and closed doors.

Perhaps the only thing gained is a better understanding of how the prophetic words, if they are genuine, fit together. So here goes my interpretation:

Whatever is going to happen is going to be completely God initiated. The most we can do is to prepare our hearts as best we can, and continue to pray. One image used was divine fire coming down from heaven and igniting some chosen hearts and not others. Another image used was of wildfire angels bringing this transformation to individuals. Upon those for whom this happens, there will be given extraordinary purpose and anointing to accomplish that purpose, and they are likely to be young people, people who have been through trauma and times of great testing, people who are normally overlooked or ignored, and some that you'd expect to have been too worldly like socialites and members of bikie gangs.

Whatever is going to be initiated by God is going to go a long way towards denominational unity, but not without a fair bit of denominational chaos. Many of you have read the stories of how the Catholic charismatic renewal started. Think about how you would react if 20 people from diverse backgrounds walked into your church praising God like King David did, preaching, prophesying and healing people. Are you going to join them, and fall on your knees to pray for guidance in how to work with this movement or grace? Or are you going to find extraordinary new sympathy for the chief priests and elders who had to deal with the growing aftermath of the first Pentecost?

Another certainty is that it won't be taking place in a vacuum. Of the things that have happened this November the increasing secularisation of society, the public rejection of God's blueprints for happy human life, and increasingly public displays of hatred toward Christianity are quite notable. For God's people to withstand the pull to be liked and popular and safe - there has to be an increase in God's active power in the lives of believers. It is not too hard to see a separation taking place between those who actively believe in God and those who want freedom from anything to do with God – just read the comments on social media. Any middle ground between these two sides is rapidly diminishing, and everyone will have to confront the necessity to choose. Without the special graces from God no one would have the strength to endure martyrdom and persecution.

Something we have witnessed this November is the exposure and removal of corruption, especially in the entertainment industry and in politics. It stands to reason that you can't build new structures of grace to buttress a world-wide conversion to God unless you first dismantle the structures of sin and conspiracies of malice.

On the one hand we have people declaring breakthrough, and victory, and new authority and new ministries, increase and acceleration and an end-time harvest. Whether this is solely an evangelistic harvest of souls to active faith in Jesus or whether this is a harvest of all the sowing that has taken place in tears in the fields of family, parish, education and employment – or both, is unclear. I hope it is both.

What harvesting actually means in this context and how to do it, that's a mystery. All of my tentative steps to bring some God stuff into conversation have yielded nada on the scale of visible results. If the harvest is indeed great and ready, surely there would be big response to just about any effort. Maybe that's just epic fail on my part due to lack of courage to rock the boat by questioning the dubious moral situations many of my acquaintance are in.

On the other hand, there's a more recent theme in prophetic word that you won't get the goodies (breakthrough, harvest, abundance, rewards) unless you battle with the enemy to attain them. In effect, the promised goodies are the spoils of warfare.

What warfare actually means in this context, and how to do it, well that's another mystery. It could be the spiritual warfare of intercession, praying in union with others that God would bring down and destroy all the strongholds of the enemy. It could be the daily battle to believe that God cares and is preparing great and wonderful destinies when all you see around you are broken dreams, disappointments, and the aridity that comes when there are no answers to prayers and no obvious explanations for why it feels like God is ignoring you and that you have been completely abandoned. It could be deliverance ministry. It could be all of the above.

Over and over there have been other themes of surrender to God's will, of resting in Him and not striving, of seeking a deeper walk of intimacy with Him. In the light of the themes of divine fire they make some kind of sense. To be able to host the presence of God at a level like this will indeed require massive preparation of the heart.

Another recurring theme is, 'Are you ready?' This bit made more sense over the last 24 hours when reflecting on Mark 13:33-37 and the call to stay awake. Have you ever had a relative arrive home from overseas? You know they are coming, but due to customs and traffic delays, you have no idea exactly when. If you want the best bit of their homecoming and the freshest sharings of their adventures, you have to be there when they arrive. If you have dozed off and need to be awoken, you will have missed the best bit. If something happens and you only get to hear them retell their story for the 2nd, 3rd for 4th time, then you aren't going to get it all. With each retelling, it gets shorter and less enthusiastic. So in the same way, those who are ready when this great move of God happens are going to be light years ahead of the rest of us.

Which brings me to all my fears: that I will get bypassed and not included in the company of fiery ones; that those who sow will not get to reap; that I will never have the requisite praise, humility and gentleness and that whatever the criteria is that I'll never get there and never get there in time. There was a specific warning that those who have preached about and longed for these days could miss out completely due to a sense of entitlement. That rocked me to the core.

So if you have some spare time to pray for others, please pray for me and for my dearest ones.

The battle, if that is what it is, is fierce. If you have been accounted as useless and not worthwhile knowing and can't remember how long it's been since you felt God took an active interest in providing a heart-stopping encounter with His love, how can you find the audacity to believe that this situation can change dramatically for the better? Because knowing darned well without that kind of faith and trust it isn't going to happen, and that you haven't got it and it feels cruel that without any ray of light from above that you have somehow got to rise above all the hurts and wounds and get there. How is this a most loving gift and invitation from a tender-hearted God? I don’t know. But supposedly it is. You might quote, 'God only tests those that He loves', which is probably true, but not at all helpful if you are living off general promises made by Him to everyone and you have no personal, specific promise of your own from Him to cling to.

All we can do is thank Him that in the psalms and canticles there are sufficient examples of people complaining to Him and lamenting His seeming absence and disinterest in our troubles – because it means it is OK to add our own, and that they must be acceptable to Him somehow.
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Come Holy Spirit. Amen.

Write Non Fiction In November : #WNFIN Day 10
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This one's from the depths, because it is not easy to silence the thoughts of 'What if it's all wrong?' For the record, I certainly hope that what the prophets of our day are saying comes to pass, and comes to pass quickly. But that doesn't mean that qualms about whether they are all under a collective delusion are easily extinguished.

It would be so much easier if they were preaching doom and gloom. Because it takes real courage to tell people the truth that they don't want to hear, and consequently it is easier to sift the real from the fake.

However it is a whole different ball game when you start talking about harvest, breakthrough, increase and extraordinary moves of the Holy Spirit. All of us want to see that, and to experience it. This is stuff that we want to believe and want to be true. Who among us doesn't like hearing that the time of sorrow is over, that the time of reward has come, and that God is going to take you out of obscurity and give you a mission?

Because of those desires for good things, true discernment becomes much, much harder – and it is much easier to be led astray by false messages.

There's nothing wrong with waiting for God to move, if He has truly promised it. Many things indeed wait upon His perfect timing. But if He hasn't promised it, we are going to be waiting forever, losing faith as the wait deepens, and not doing the normal things that would generally bring about those outcomes (eg works of service, networking, developing relationships, and getting on with life).

This is why we need to seriously pray for the gift of discernment.

Sometimes it is obvious that a message is full of wishful thinking and a repackaging of other current messages. Drop them off your watch list. If some message cuts to the heart and produces a response filled with the fruits of the Spirit (love, joy, peace, patience etc), then it deserves more careful discernment.

If God is trying to get a message through to you, especially one which requires a life changing decision as a response, then He will be using multiple ways to do it. Should it truly be from Him messages will come from unexpected sources to confirm it.

Even with confirmation of a message, the need for faith doesn't go away.

My own dilemma goes like this. Everything I have initiated over the past few years has ended in spectacular failure, despite lots of prayer, dollars spent and preparation. I've taken it as a pretty clear sign that I've got to wait for God's initiative. But it is soooo hard to do. I prefer to be active and doing something that could make a difference. Thus I am full of frustration and impatience, since there's no sign of any actual Godly initiative on the way.

What if He never comes, and this is as good as its ever going to get?

Part of the frustration is that I can see what needs to be done, and how to get it done. 'Come away does not mean delay' and 'delay does not mean denial' has been extremely hard. Promises abound that all the delays will be miraculously caught up, and that all things will suddenly be right. God can surely do those things. But in the meantime there's a whole cohort of people who aren't being reached out to and evangelised. God can certainly do it, but will He do it, and will He do it in my backyard, and will He let me be part of it?

Only time and prayer will tell.
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When Lord will You come? When will You come with Your right hand and reply? When will Your prophets be shown worthy of belief?

​Write Non Fiction In November: #WNFIN Day 1

Why am I writing?

A friend declared that together with some of her home schooled children, they were going to do NaNoWriMo this year and write Fiction. My son is good at Fiction too. But alas dreaming up stories and writing them down isn't my forte. Non Fiction is. So I am going to keep them company during November.

What am I writing about?
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Well that's a long story. Do you believe that God communicates with people, and directs them in their daily individual and corporate lives? I do. However telling what is truly from God, what is only human wishful thinking, what is a mishmash of both and what is malicious requires greater levels of the gift of discernment than I currently have. But when a great number of these messages from disparate sources have common themes – it is worth paying attention. That said, it is possible to be collectively wrong big-time, and that (thank you for explaining this St John of Avila) is a punishment from God. It is very easy to be deceived, especially when 90% of good is mixed up with 10% of bad.

In some sort of a nutshell, if the prophecies of our day are to be believed, then we are at a turning point in world history: a turning point that will see the greatest mass evangelisation that the world has ever seen. If this is true, then since it didn't observably happen at the 50th anniversary of the Catholic Charismatic Renewal in February, nor at the 100th anniversary of the first apparition of the Mother of Jesus at Fatima in May, nor at Pentecost in June, nor at the 100th anniversary of the great miracle at Fatima in October, nor on the 500th anniversary of the start of the Protestant reformation, then we might start seeing the promised tsunami of grace in November, and if so, it would be worthwhile chronicling it. So in some respects it is an act of faith, and the risk is that these 30 days of November will be filled with disappointment and misery as each day brings nothing out of the ordinary.

One of the mini threads of prophecy is that some will be doing lots of writing under a special anointing from God, and that writing will also help depth the movement of the Holy Spirit in and with us and give greater clarity and understanding as things 'accelerate'.

I have already been journalling a bit during October, but not every day, and most of it contains the rantings of a heart disappointed yet again that nothing of this promised massive move of the Holy Spirit happened that day.

Will I / we recognise it when it comes?

This is a question I have been wrestling with. On the one hand there are threads of prophecy saying that things will change suddenly and massively, a la breakthrough, as swiftly as Joseph was taken from prison and made prime minister of Egypt. On the other hand there is a smaller thread saying that the most massive moves of God start tiny and almost imperceptibly, like the birth of Jesus in Bethlehem and like the small mustard seed that grows into a huge shrub.

There is a strand of prophecy from Catholic sources that is rarely referenced in non-Catholic sources, and that is persecution and days of darkness. Maybe that's because by and large Catholics are more familiar with persecution than the rest of our Christian brethren. Maybe that's because Catholics have a fuller grasp of the moral abyss our world is hurtling towards as the culture of death gets welcomed into government legislation and the culture of life gets outlawed. How sad it is that we only start fighting for truth and peace when they are severely threatened. Church history is littered with moments of great truth revelation and deeper clarity in response to heresy. When what we believe comes under threat it is like giving spinach to Popeye the sailor man, and we grow stronger in what we believe. 'The blood of the martyrs is the seed of faith' is the truism Catholics live by. Or if you prefer an Old Testament example, each time the Israelites came under further levels of persecution by the Egyptians of Moses' day, they increased in number and power – the opposite of what the Egyptian rulers wanted to see happen.

A further strand of prophecy is about new open doors and God given assignments to bring about the reign of His kingdom in both secular and religious society. As someone for whom the search for an open door has been long, painful and fruitless, this matters. I have no confidence that if it came and hit me on the head and started blinking in neon lights whether I would recognise it. Although it would have to be that obvious, and far more, for me to take the risk of bashing myself into yet another locked door. St Vincent de Paul endears me to him because he would wait and wait until it was truly obvious that God wanted him to do something, and then it was full speed ahead. I need that God given certainty, without it all our efforts are as dust and ashes, with it any mountain can be scaled and moved.

At the same time there is a strand of prophecy that speaks of looking out for the unusual and not expecting God to work as He has in seasons and eras past. Nothing we can manufacture will make any difference, only God's plans, strategies and momentum will. This strand echoes two thoughts from speakers which have bounced around my head for months. The first is that the spiritual weapons that we used yesterday cannot win the battles that we face today, each battle needs its own specific weaponry. The second is that people, and specifically generations are different. What worked in bringing young people to relationship with God 10 years ago is no longer working, because they are a different generation of young people with different values and experiences and challenges than their older cousins. We need to trust God that He knows the precise strategies that will work.

Other

Over all these strands of prophecy stands perhaps the most important one – a call to deeper intimacy of relationship with God. Any big building needs a deep foundation. There are spiritual laws that must be obeyed, and one of them is that the greater charisms cannot be given without some corresponding effort on our part. As a wise man said, 'They don't fall from heaven like apples'. However they do come to those who choose to take God more seriously in his or her life, and who take the necessary steps to make that happen. We have to ask, and we have to persevere in asking for them, as the Gospels tell us. Ten minutes of prayer a day over a month is going to yield very different results to thirty minutes of prayer over 5 months.

Today is the feast day of All Saints, of every person who has walked through the pearly gates of heaven and has been permitted to stay. The Book of Hebrews tells us that these cloud of witnesses are praying for us. Likewise the Book of Revelation speaks of the prayers of the saints rising like incense before God, begging Him to bring the fullness of His kingdom into reality. At some point the prayers of all those happy, holy inhabitants of heaven have to outweigh the wickedness and godlessness on earth and begin the reclamation of the kingdoms of the earth for God.
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May it be so.
May it be now.
May we see it happen.
Amen.
(and Alleluia).

This is a transcription of parts of the jubilee celebration held in Rome on 1 June 2017 with members of covenant communities as part of the celebrations for the 50th anniversary of the Catholic Charismatic Renewal #ccrgoldenjubilee2017
 
This is the link for the video recording: https://youtu.be/HWuIfaAW0pU
 
This celebration brought together three networks of communities, the Catholic Fraternity of Charismatic Covenant Communities and Fellowships, the Sword of the Spirit, and the European Network of Communities. Michelle Moran of ICCRS gave some words of welcome and explanation. Gilberto Barbosa of the Catholic Fraternity gave a speech in Portuguese (not translated audibly into English on the recording).
 
Jean Barbara of Sword of the Spirit:
Good afternoon brothers and sisters. We are here gathered three networks of communities. And if we were asked to describe ourselves we would say that we are communities of disciples on mission, charismatic and ecumenical. But if you read Pope Francis' exhortation Evangelii Gaudium he would say the same of the Church. That the Church is a community of missionary disciples who are charismatic, and the Church is ecumenical.
 
So what is the difference? And the question is – Why did God bring us out of existence from the charismatic renewal? Cardinal Ratzinger in '98 gave us the answer and he said 'We have a place in the Church because it is the same working of the Holy Spirit, giving us a certain charism'. And what makes us communities in the Church playing a role is that as communities we are committed by covenant to each other, brothers and sisters, we are committed in good times and at difficult times. As disciples we are radical in following the Lord, radical in following His commandments, radical even if it costs our own lives. I come from the Middle East where Christians are persecuted and unless you are radical you are not ready to face death.
 
As missionaries we are evangelists, we evangelise in the streets, we evangelise at home, we evangelise our neighbourhood, we evangelise in the work, at work, we bring people by the power of the Holy Spirit to the Lord, but to a new and better life by helping them become disciples in a community, and we do all that charismatically by being open to the gifts of the Holy Spirit.
 
But we are also ecumenical. We live ecumenism, we do not only discuss it, we do not dialogue about it, but we live it, we love each other across churches and we do that in a co-operative and relational manner.
 
In brief, we are committed, radical, evangelists. Unless we live by the power of the Holy Spirit and be ecumenical we will lose the why that God brought us into existence. So may the Holy Spirit renew us, in loving each other, in following Him to the Cross, in renewing our zeal to evangelise people around us, to renew us in the gifts of the Holy Spirit, and to make us in our ecumenism a sign that we are the disciples of Jesus Christ. Amen.
 
Johannes Fichtenbauer of the European Network of Communities:
This is for sure. It was the Holy Spirit who called our communities into being. We are not the product of human thought and wish. We are the product, the fruit of God's creativity, meant to be a tool of the Holy Spirit preparing the Church for the second coming of the Lord.
 
The first communities appeared shortly after the enthusiastic beginnings of the charismatic renewal, already in the late '60s. It was an inspiring time, one Catholic, one ecumenical community after each other.
 
But brothers and sisters, then slowly something dramatic happens. Only 10 years after the good beginnings, instead of enjoying the variety of charismatic expression, communities began to look down on parish prayer groups and parish renewal. Instead of mutual appreciation of the diversity of each of our communities, serving in different ways the same Body of Christ, we began to count, to compare, to value and to de-value. Many of our communities developed a certain pride in relating to each other. We valued our own community network higher than others.
 
Catholic communities and ecumenical communities followed contradicting ideologies. We felt as an elite, being stronger, more dedicated, better equipped and more radical. We didn't want to be behind and being hindered by the slower ones. So better to run the race alone. Instead of being allies, we became rivals. Instead of complementary work we ended in a competition. Instead of serving together, we began fighting for our own victories, our own profile, promoting our own visions.
 
And in the early '80s many of our communities were already isolated and our community networks were separated from each other. Brothers and sisters, this separation was a sin: a sin against God, a sin against the intentions of the Holy Spirit, and a sin against each other.
 
With this separation we missed the meaning of our commission. And this is why we have to ask forgiveness today.
 
Father of mercy, here we stand and here today we confess, we did not serve in unity as we should have. We did not understand the formula 'unity in diversity' which you have offered to us as the principle of unity. Father, forgive. Father, forgive. Father of mercy today we recognise our unity and we want to protect it again. We understand that this afternoon is a moment of grace. Today we are uniting in humility again in our diversity. We want to embrace the other communities and networks, in their different style and gifting. Father, we commit ourselves to learn again to trust, to trust each other. We want to serve as allies. We want to serve together the Church and the kingdom with the best we have. And we understand that each of us is only a part, and not the whole. Father of mercy, today, commission us again, for this common purpose. Father of mercy today grant us a new beginning with one another. Amen.
 
Then there was an extended time of praise and worship, followed by slide presentations from each of the three networks. Before Dan Almeter from the Catholic Fraternity gave his presentation, he gave this word:
 
'The anointing is all over me. The Lord says to us. This is a new day for the communities. Because of your repentance and My love for you, I have bound the demons of disunity and you will experience a new springtime working together. Amen.'
 
Introduction: Bruce Yocum will speak on behalf of the three networks, the Catholic Fraternity, the European Network of Communities and the Sword of the Spirit. We decided on him because he is one of the first witnesses of the charismatic renewal and founder of the first covenant community. His book on Prophecy remains a reference book for all charismatics who want to know more. He is a celibate brother with the Servants of the Word.
 
Bruce Yocum: Good afternoon brothers and sisters. This is a great moment. It's a great opportunity for us to take time together to thank God for a remarkable work of His Holy Spirit throughout the world. This is from Psalm 145:
 
'Great is the Lord, and greatly to be praised. His greatness is unsearchable. One generation shall praise His
works to another, and shall declare Your mighty acts.'
 
One generation shall declare Your works to another and declare Your mighty acts. It is a tremendous blessing to be here and to be thankful first of all to 4 successive Popes who have supported and encouraged charismatic renewal.
 
First of all, Pope Paul VI, who in 1975 invited us to come to Rome for a celebration of charismatic renewal and to conclude it with the Mass together in St Peter's. He was a tremendous supporter for us. He gave us the opportunity.
 
Secondly Pope St John Paul II, who was also a great supporter of charismatic renewal. I can testify that St John Paul II supported charismatic renewal while he was still Cardinal of Krakow. He supported and encouraged charismatic renewal when he was bishop there.
 
Thirdly Pope Benedict XVI who in 1998 articulated in a very important way the relationship between what God does through movements like ours and the ongoing life of the Church.
 
And finally, of course, Pope Francis, who invited us here to celebrate this anniversary in Rome and who is going to be with us in person.
 
It's a remarkable sign of God's work in charismatic renewal. I also want to take the opportunity to thank those who worked in the International Catholic Charismatic Renewal Services (ICCRS) and in particular Michelle Moran the president and the Catholic Fraternity of Charismatic Covenant Communities and Fellowships and its president Gilberto Barbosa because they are the ones who organized and made possible this celebration we are having today.
 
50 years. It is a great time to look back on what God has done. We've been here long enough to have a real history and we are young enough to have a great future. So I want to look back at what God has done, to look around at what God is doing, and then to look ahead at what God is going to do.
 
We have a duty to remember what God has done. We have a duty to look back at God's remarkable works and to remember them. As the Church tells us in the liturgy, 'It is right and just, our duty and our salvation, always and everywhere to give You thanks, Lord Holy Father, Almighty and Eternal God through Christ our Lord.'
 
We get to proclaim that. It is our duty and salvation to proclaim what God has done. Again in the Psalms, 'Give thanks to the Lord, call on His Name, make known His deeds among the peoples', or again, 'Remember the wonderful works that He has done. Remember them and call them to mind'.
 
To proclaim the great acts of God is worship. To call to mind what God has done and to proclaim it is an act of worship, and therefore we can look upon the time we have, these days we have together in Rome as one great act of worship.
 
Where we are from all round the world can give glory and honour to God by recalling what He has done. But there's more than that. We have a duty to proclaim God's deeds to the generations to come. Now I am going to say something in a minute to the younger ones amongst us. In comparison to me almost everybody here is younger. But I want to say something right now to those of you who have greyed a bit. We're not, us older ones, are not going to be the ones who charge out of here and do great new things – at least most of us won't. But we have a role, and one of our greatest roles, is to proclaim to the coming generations what God has done, to let them know.
 
Again from the Psalms:
 
'We will not hide from their children but will tell to the coming generations the glorious deeds of the Lord and His might, and the wonders He has wrought, that the next generation might know them, that the children yet unborn might arise and tell them to their children, so that they should all set their hope on God and not forget His works.'
 
We are witnesses to what God has done. And what's the role and duty of a witness? It's to give testimony. So we older ones, we have a solemn duty to give testimony to what God has done amongst us.
 
And I want to thank Patti Mansfield Gallagher especially for her book, 'As by a new Pentecost', the new edition of it. It's a tremendous witness to what God did at the beginning of the Renewal. Read it, please. If it isn't available in your language, get somebody to translate it. She's been a witness to what God did in the beginning and she witnesses in particular to the extraordinary ecumenical grace that took place at the beginning.
 
At the very beginning of the 20th century, Pope Leo XIII prayed for the outpouring of the Holy Spirit. A few hours later, literally a few hours later, some young Pentecostal students in the United States were baptised in the Holy Spirit. Let us in the Catholic Charismatic Renewal not forget that we are debtors to those in the Pentecostal movement.
 
Now I'm not a witness from the very, very beginning. Somebody asked me yesterday how long I had been involved. It's not 50 years. I've been involved for 49 years and 4 months. But I was there early enough, I was there early enough to see how quickly this all began to happen. The first prayer meeting I attended there was maybe 10 people. 3 weeks later, 3 weeks later there were 90. And a little while after that, a couple of months after that, we had 300. It was remarkable how rapidly this all happened.
 
I used to take vacations, holidays, in the mountains, in the Appalachians in the United States and there in springtime you see these mountain rivers racing down, and they're powerful. The speed and power of these rivers is amazing. You can't step into them and stay on your feet, you're swept away. That's what happened to me, and happened to us at the very beginning of the Renewal. We were swept away by what God did.
 
But you know, when that happens you are just caught up in this stream that you stepped into, you can't see anything else, you are fending off rocks as you go racing down, and when you are self-absorbed as the river gets further downstream. At the beginning I was caught up in this racing river of what God was doing with us and I thought that what God was doing with us was what God was doing.
 
When the river gets further down it gets bigger and more powerful, but more peaceful. When that happens you can get your head up and look around. Well we got our heads us and looked around, we realized that we weren't the only stream on the mountainside. There were many, many, many new rivers of God's grace in the Church.
 
I had the great privilege in 2007 of attending a meeting in Stuttgart in Germany of Together for Europe. Over 250 new movements and communities, all of which began within the last 100 years. Extraordinary, what God was doing! So when I looked around, and saw all of this that was taking place I realized what God is doing in the Church is much greater, much broader, than what God is doing with us. We need to look around and view where of the rich diversity of gifts that God is pouring out through His Holy Spirit right now amongst us.
 
We've had a little bit of an opportunity to witness it today, a little bit, as we've heard from representatives of these different networks of communities. But let me tell you there is far more going on, far many more works of renewal in the Church than are even represented here this weekend.
 
So we need to look back at what God's done with us and be thankful for it, we need to give witness to it and pass it on, we need also to look around and recognise what God is doing in the Church. Recognise one another. We need to be not only grateful for what God has done with us, but we need to be respectful, reverent toward what God is doing among others. I'll say something more about that in just a minute.
 
What does the future hold? I don't know. I really don't know very much about what the future holds. I used to think I did. Back at the beginning of the Renewal I thought I could see a little bit of what God was trying to do in and through the Renewal. But I couldn't. I never would have foreseen what we see here today. That at the beginning of the Renewal, one of the things that we commonly said was that the future of the charismatic renewal is to disappear. Why? Because charismatic renewal isn't a movement like other movements in the Church, it is simply a stream of grace that God is pouring out upon people and we should disappear because what God does through charismatic renewal should just become normal in the life of the Church.
 
You know what? It's becoming pretty normal. It's becoming pretty normal. When you have 4 successive Popes who speak about what God is doing in charismatic renewal. When you see seminaries full of young men baptised in the Holy Spirit. When you see many bishops who take for granted the reality and the exercise of the charismatic renewal, something's changing. This grace of the Renewal is becoming a normal part of the life of the Church. We spoke about that in a theoretical way, but I never would have recognised what we see here now. So I don't know.
 
I do know that we are going to experience more hard times and more days of darkness. 1975. I want to take a minute or two to tell you a little story. In 1975 we had that Conference in St Peter's in Rome and on the very last day we had a Mass together for charismatic renewal in St Peter's. And we had a group there, gathered together to be able to give prophetic words and sharings. After Communion when the time came for prophetic words, Ralph Martin came to me and said, 'I have a very strong sense of prophetic anointing'. At that very moment, at that very moment all of the microphones stopped working. All of them. They just stopped. As far as I could tell, the only microphone that worked was the one up on the main altar. So I said to Ralph, 'Well, Ralph, go up there'. I didn't know if I should do that or if I could do that. But I said, 'Ralph, go up there and give the prophecy'. And he did. And as a result of that, when Ralph prophesied it was in a very dramatic setting. And I think God was in that. I think God put him, because right after these prophecies, about darkness and hard times, the microphones came back on. There were other prophetic words but from down below the altar. But these words of darkness and hard times were given from that dramatic setting under the baldacchino near the main altar in St Peter's.
 
So I'm going to read from one of those prophecies that we received. I am sure many of you are familiar with it.
 
'A time of darkness is coming on the world, but a time of glory is coming for My Church. A time of glory is coming for My people. I will pour out anew all the gifts of My Spirit. I will prepare you for spiritual combat and I will prepare you for a time of evangelization the world has never seen.'
 
That's a remarkable word. Now I don't know what form or what forms days of darkness and hard times will take. Ask our brothers and sisters from Aleppo. Unbelievable what they've been through in the last couple of years. But that's not the only part of hard times. We, here in Europe, live in an era of deepening moral darkness. Deepening moral darkness, it's hard times, it's difficult times, but, so we don't know what form that the hard times will take, but we do know that it's a time of glory coming for His Church. Gilberto Barbosa from the community in Lebanon could testify to you the 17 years of war in Lebanon were terrible, but for the community there it was a time of tremendous spiritual fruitfulness. Great spiritual fruitfulness. And we can expect the same if we enter into times that are difficult times of trial, yet God says, in those times I will make you fruitful. So yes we are coming into hard times, perhaps some of us are already experiencing them but we will also see great works of God, very great works of God.
 
We also know that God will continue to pour out His Spirit and I'm going to read out to you a prophetic word that I received years ago but time and time again in gatherings like this I hear the same word from God. So this is from many years ago, but it is a promise of God for us now.
 
'When I poured out My Holy Spirit on you, how did I pour it out? Did I give it to you in small measure? No! I poured it upon you as the beginning of a river which I intend to widen and deepen and to grow in strength, in current and in volume. I am zealous for My people's sake. I am zealous to save them and change them, to restore them. I will pour out My Holy Spirit upon you more and more until this is accomplished.'
 
We have not seen the end of the outpouring of the Holy Spirit and I don't think we will see the end of it for quite a while. Count on that. Count on the promise of God that He will pour out His Spirit again and again and more and more.
 
And I want to say something to the younger ones amongst you. There's.. there's…I don't know what the average age is, but there are a fair number of us grey haired ones here. We experienced back in the beginning of this Renewal times of tremendous exhilaration. We can tell you about them, but we can't help you experience that. You have to go out and evangelise. You have to go out and tell others of the gift of God through baptism in the Spirit, of the gifts of God through the power of the Holy Spirit active in your lives, then you will see the same kinds of miracles, you will see the same power of God, you will experience for yourselves not the story of exhilaration in the past but the reality of exhilaration right now in your lives and in your groups. So go out, and be witnesses.
 
Just 3 points.
 
God has poured out His Spirit time and time again in the history of the Church for the work of renewal. Have faith and trust that what God is doing among us is not an isolated time but part of a great work of renewal. Trust in God for that. If you ask why God stood up, I mentioned 250 new movements and communities since the beginning of the 20th century. If you ask, why so many? It's because God wants to transform the Church. He doesn't want to do a small work here and there, He wants to transform the Church. So first of all, trust in the grace of God to continue, and live in it.
 
Secondly, stay clear and faithful to your call. It's been said several times today: we're not all the same. God didn't call us to be the same. It's unity in diversity. We're different from one another and we're different for a reason. Stay faithful to the call God gave you. That's where grace is for you. Don't look to someone else's call. Don't envy somebody else's call. Don't disparage someone else's call. Stay faithful to your call and live it out as well as you can. That's where grace is for you.
 
Finally, live out your call charismatically. We're charismatic renewal. We believe in the power of the Holy Spirit. We believe in the power of the experience of the Holy Spirit coming into people's lives. We believe in the reality of charismatic gifts of miracles, of healing, of prophecy, of revelation. We believe that. So live out your call, but live it out charismatically. Go back to the Lord and confess to the Lord your confidence, your trust, your belief that His Holy Spirit is active today and live it out. Then 50 years from now we'll have much more to thank God for than we do today. Amen.
 
Summary of the prophetic word collected from communities and networks prior to this celebration; delivered by Shayne Bennett.
 
Brothers and sisters of the charismatic communities, listen to the word of the Lord. Look around you, the Lord asks. Do you see what I see? Do you see the brothers and sisters whom I have called from towns and cities and nations. These are your brothers and sisters, and the people whom I have chosen to do a great work of renewal in the life of the Church, in the life of My Church. It is important that you see with My eyes, understand with My mind, and not be blinded by the divisions and fractured relationships of the past. This is a new time, a time of restoration, a time of moving forward in the power of the Spirit. The long winter is giving way to springtime. My Spirit is the Spirit of unity and your power is totally dependent on being united to Me, Jesus your Saviour and Lord. My Heart for you is that you seek a greater unity in worship and in mission. Distance will never separate you if you are united in Me. What will separate you and dissipate the work I have for you are hearts which are closed or hardened towards Me and to one another.
 
Today I would remind you of who you are and the purpose for which I have called you. You are truly My people whom I love. You are also a people I have chosen to reach out to My Church and to reach out to the world that has lost sight of Me. I have called you to be bulwarks, strong, fortified, and to be arks, places of rescue and safety. You cannot do and be these things without an intimate relationship with Me, without the power of My Spirit.
 
For those of you who are weary, weary in the journey, I desire to renew My vision within you. I want My people to dream dreams again. I want My people to experience overwhelming visions of My plans. I want you to be captivated and swept forward by the excitement that I have in renewing the world. I want you to have a new expectancy of victory and favour.
 
This is a time of moving outwards into the world that I love. Some of you have lived too long in the original containers and structures in which you were planted. This has led to fear and tepidity. You struggle to maintain what was previously planted but you must realize that it was only the beginning. There is much more that I desire to give you; more freedom, more capacity, a greater clarity of the mission I prepare for you.
 
Today I ask for a new response from you, a response which is founded in humility. Your character as individuals and communities must be a witness to a profound humility which claims nothing for yourselves. You are My people and I am the One who does great deeds among you and through you. You are not to claim My actions for yourself. You are not to place yourselves above each other or in opposition to the others I have called to fulfil My purpose on the earth. You are to honour and respect one another. You are to honour and respect My actions within each of your communities. You are to take your place and stand shoulder to shoulder with other brothers and sisters in My Church.
 
And yet even as I pour out My Spirit upon you and renew you for the journey ahead, I warn you of great struggle and suffering. The anointing of My Spirit does not rescue you from the struggle and suffering which is to come. My Spirit is poured out upon you so that you can shine My light in the midst of pain and suffering. You are My witnesses. I call you to speak My life into the pain and suffering of the world around you. Be encouraged by the testimony of those who gladly suffer for My Name and who sacrifice their lives for My Name. Where ever I have placed you in towns and cities and nations, I call you to sacrifice your lives for Me and for the Kingdom which I have come to bring upon this earth. I tell you these things today as a call to action. I am shaping and molding you, so that you may stand in the time of testing. I am anchoring you in My Truth. I am anchoring you in a wisdom which is beyond your understanding. I ask for obedience in your hearts and in moving forward.
 
I would speak a word to those who are leaders among you. Know that the evil one seeks your destruction. The evil one seeks to sow the seed of disunity and destroy the work I have planted. Guard your hearts. Guard your hearts against disunity. Work for unity. Seek unity in your own communities and among your communities and today My word of unity extends beyond the walls of your communities.
 
Today I desire that you carry the burden of unity for My whole Church. Allow your hearts to be converted. The grace which I poured out at Pentecost is a grace of unity, a unity which can only be found in Me. Seek unity with your Pentecostal brothers and sisters, seek unity with your Protestant brothers and sisters, seek unity across denominational boundaries. Allow me to give you a deep love for your brothers and sisters which will witness to My presence and action among you.
 
My people I call you to receive the fire of My love, the intensity of My love which comes to you in the power of My Spirit. My love will burn away what remains of the fleshly and wounded motivations, worldly thought patterns and broken histories out of which you still react and operate. My love will give you a fiery passion for the Church and for the world. I want to share with you My desire for all My children. My love will bring a massive increase in anointing and power to the ministries I have given to you, going beyond anything you have seen to this point. Will you drink the cup of My love? Will you drink the fire of My Spirit?
 
Following this summary was a time of pre-prepared intercessions as a response.
 
Loving Father, we thank You for pouring out afresh upon us the power of Your Holy Spirit. We ask You to give us humble and obedient hearts to joyfully receive the power of the Spirit.
 
We pray for the gift of unity. We ask that our hearts would be opened to one another and that we would be one, that we would love one another through the loving gaze of our heavenly Father.
 
Father, we remember our brothers and sisters who are suffering for the name of Jesus Your Son. We pray that You would reassure them of Your love and in their moments of trial that they would know that You are with them and have not abandoned them.
 
We pray for the work of ecumenism, and in a particular way for our Pentecostal brothers and sisters. Father help us to be open to finding new ways to express our unity and love for one another and for a world which is longing for Your love.
 
Father, we pray for ourselves and for our communities that we would remain faithful to You, and to Your call. Help us walk each day close to Jesus Your Son in the strength of Your Holy Spirit.
 
Father, we pray for those who do not know You. May they come to know the saving power of Jesus in the fullness of life which He freely offers.
 
Father, we pray for our leaders, leaders in our communities, leaders in our Church, and for leaders of nations, pour out Your grace upon them giving them wisdom, discernment and a thirst for justice and peace.
 
Father, may Your kingdom come upon earth and may we be witnesses to Your kingdom in our midst.
 
Our Father….
 
This was followed by Mass at St John Lateran, for the memorial of St Justin Martyr, presided over by Cardinal Paul Cordes. He has been a great friend to the Renewal and to the communities. The homily, sadly, was given in Italian and without English translation on the audio recording.
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Below is a printer-friendly, slightly edited version of this transcript which runs to 8 x A4 pages. 

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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