Session 5, Sunday 20 Jan 2019 with Jim Murphy, president of ICCRS

Sometimes even when we know what to do, it is still not easy to do it.

Sometimes we feel we can't jump that high – that's why He gives His Spirit.

When Jesus says, 'Take My yoke…', we know that the yoke goes across the shoulders of two animals. Normally an older more experienced animal is joked with a younger animal. The older one calms the younger one down and communicates, 'Just walk with Me, I know how to do this.' On our own we are not capable of doing what God is calling us to do.

How does the Spirit work? It starts with you and me.

God is responsible for the great revival – no one else – and He will deal with us first. Pay attention to your own piece of real estate, and only then together look at the big picture. However if you wait until you are perfect to help anyone else, you will die of old age before that happens.

This is a both/and, not either/or, and we need to seek balance. God wants to give you the power to do the things of the kingdom, and also to be and to become holy. Both are essential and necessary.

Charisms flow from the generosity of God; they are undeserved gifts from the ridiculous generosity of God. God knows how to give good things to His kids.

Have you ever sat in a car-park of a hospital, nursing home or funeral place and said, 'I don't want to go in. God help me.' and you eventually got up and went in. That was His grace at work.

Priesthood is a special example of this; God working in the man, with the man, beyond the capacity of the man.

There was a farmer's wife who came to a prayer meeting with her very reluctant husband. He had a speech problem that made putting a sentence together a laborious effort. He was prayed with for the baptism in the Holy Spirit, and nothing seemed to have happened. However at subsequent prayer meetings, he would be prompted by the Holy Spirit to stand up and speak – and out came this divine poetry. The farmer had been given an extraordinary prophetic gift that only operated under the influence of the Holy Spirit. At all other times he continued to have speech difficulties. This was an unusual charism chosen to show forth the surpassing power of God.

So don't limit God by saying, 'I could never do that', because we put our faith in the God who can do it in us.

Human effort cannot fix the world – only God can save us now.

Do not count yourself out – let Him use you to do something extraordinary – that the rest of us really need.

If God calls you to do something – do it. But you don't have to go it alone, seek out and talk to experienced people about ways to move forward in responding to that call.

Prayer groups are not the only place for charisms, they are for the water cooler interactions too. If someone at the water cooler shares what they are struggling with, seek the Lord for that person, and if there is openness and permission from him or her, take the opportunity to pray together about that situation.

Don't ever be afraid to minister in the Spirit anywhere.

The Spirit gives us the power to be something else – to be the sons and daughters of God.

Galatians 5:22 give us the fruits of the Spirit which flow from the Isaiah 11 gifts of the Spirit. When the Spirit of God fills and dwells in you, His personality starts rubbing off on you. Then the Holy Spirit's capacity for courage, wisdom etc start becoming our qualities, forming us into the likeness of Christ.

You are the temple of the Holy Spirit. Can you believe that?

When we think gift, we normally think of objects, but 'the' gift is the person of the Holy Spirit.

With some people, the room changes when that person walks in, and that person – just by their presence – brings everyone closer to God.

More people are converted by character than by charism: pick both!

This inner work in us cannot be done except by the Spirit of God.

We all need to be more open to the Holy Spirit. Ask Him, 'where is the bulls-eye on my back?' He wants to shine light on it. He will show those areas of weakness to you for the purposes of love and healing.

Human beings don't co-operate well together – but the Holy Spirit can make unity happen and can make team-work happen.

Without the Holy Spirit, there is no vision to unite us.

I invite you to journey with the Holy Spirit. Ask Him, 'what do I need to pay attention to from this weekend?' Reflect on it, but keep inviting the Holy Spirit into the process.

The only way restoration happens is by the Spirit of God.
There is no other way, no other option.
We have been called by God, to be with God for this great restoration.
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When all the talks are transcribed and blogged, a printer friendly version will be provided. There is still the Homily to go.
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My thoughts

There is outward and inward work to be done, and all under the guidance and power of the Holy Spirit. As missionary disciples, the charism gifts are the missionary part, and the character gifts are the discipleship part, and we should earnestly desire both types of gifts from God's goodness.

To think that we can do anything (prayer groups, children's liturgy, parish leadership, soup kitchens, evangelisation through social media, teaching as a catechist, youth groups, welcoming ministry, raising a family etc) without the Holy Spirit and His charisms – is sheer lunacy. But with Him all things are possible, fruitful, and effective.

If there isn't room for the Holy Spirit's charisms to operate in your corner of the restoration work – make room. Get your team together, collectively surrender your whole ministry to His leadership, beg the Holy Spirit together for the charisms your team needs, and spend time in prayer each time you come together seeking His guidance and direction, and be open to changing your plans according to His.
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Make room in your hearts and minds too. Get hold of resources that have experiential knowledge of how charisms operate, and study them. Visit ministries in similar fields to yours where charisms are operating, and let the possibilities of what God can do get you on your knees seeking Him with all your heart.

This is a rough transcript of a talk given by Lalith Perera from the Community of the Risen Lord on Sunday 19 February 2017 at Seven Hills, NSW, as part of a weekend conference marking the 50th anniversary of the Catholic Charismatic Renewal.

(Ed. I am revisiting this talk because some recent prophetic words here and here may make more sense in the light of this talk.)

God is looking for a person to host His presence, to carry Him to the world.

Often we ask, 'If God is love, why is this happening; why isn't that happening?'

God very much wants to be involved – but He needs someone to take Him to that place. If not, then the natural law takes over.

Matthew 9: 27-31. Jesus heals the two blind men. Jesus says, 'Do you believe I can do this?' They reply, 'We do'. Jesus tells them, 'Let it be done to you according to your faith.'

Moses hosted the presence of God. Mary hosted the presence of God. Jesus Himself, obviously, hosted the presence of God. Peter after Pentecost hosted the presence of God.

Moses hosted the presence of God so much that his face glowed and he had to wear a veil Exodus 34:29-35. When Mary visited Elizabeth, she didn't have to say a word, the presence of God in her touched her cousin. Acts 5:15 says that people brought out their sick hoping that the shadow of St Peter might fall on them and heal them, such was the presence of God that he carried.

We are called to host His presence.

If you are grateful for all that Jesus has done, but yet feel dissatisfied and have a desire for more. If your prayer is, 'Lord, I want more', then know that this restlessness is a gift of the Spirit.

If He could use Peter and the Apostles, He can use you and me.

Divine and human partnerships are God's preferred way of doing things.

Isaiah 57.15 'I live in a high and holy place, but I am also with the contrite and humbled spirit, to give the humbled spirit new life, to revive contrite hearts.'

This is the formula for hosting the presence of God.

God is in the revival business and He wants to do it through the contrite and lowly.

Three keys to hosting His presence:
•A heart of repentance; a contrite heart.
•Lowliness: an inner space within to hold Jesus: people not full of themselves.
•A life of praise and worship – to shift the clouds.

We are more prone to see other's faults and not our own (Matthew 7:3, Jesus compares this to the beam in our eyes and the splinter in someone else's eye.)

Go to confession. It is a lifetime journey to repentance. Even after Baptism in the Spirit, we change slowly. It is so easy to judge others – this is a trap. St Francis of Assisi spent a whole night in repentance. The Holy Spirit shines His light into the dark places of our hearts not to condemn or destroy, but to draw us closer to Himself.

When we are reconciled with God, there is a space within that we can fill with the Eucharist, the presence of Jesus, and space for the Word to rest in our hearts. I want Him to live inside me. I want to be sitting at the feet of Jesus. Every so often take a whole day, and spend that day with Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament.

A life of praise and worship is what we need to keep Him with us when we leave our time of prayer, when we leave the Mass. There is a cloud of unknowing, a covering keeping us from seeing God. Many of us are living as atheists who say they believe. The test? How much do you love God after a sleepless night?

Break the cloud above you with the gift of praise – not communal praise but personal praise. Without the power of God we are powerless in all we do. So double your prayer time, and use half of it for praise. Keep praising until worship happens and the cloud of God's glory comes over you. When that happens, everything becomes crystal clear and simple.

In 2004 we were on a 2 day retreat with 75 people. During the morning praise we were given a scripture passage to pray with. As we did, the presence of God descended on that place. Many were weeping under that anointing, with lots of repentance. At that time one of the retreatants was given the lyrics and melody of a song:

Help me climb higher, higher on Your mountain
Hold me as I rise, rise beyond my being
As I feel Your presence surround me
Lord I come to worship on my knees.

Take me from my footprints to Your journey
Take me from my heartache to Your will
Take me from my feelings to Your presence
Take me to the clouds so I may see.

(Ed. This isn't all of the song, just the part I was able to write down.)

God, He is ready to touch anybody anytime.
It is He who will do the work.

At another time we had a village retreat for about 100 people. A special stillness came over us. Then an unusual word of knowledge was given about a bent leg. It was responded to by a mother of a girl who had been in a dreadful accident. The girl was prayed with and her leg was completely healed and restored.

Write Non Fiction In November : #WNFIN Day 8

The topic for today is inspired by last night's initial session of preparation for the Sacrament of Penance. I get why they call it the Sacrament of Reconciliation; it's more meaningful to the people of our time, but technically it is still the Sacrament of Penance, with three Rites of Reconciliation (First Rite, one on one; Second Rite, group preparation with one on one following and group thanksgiving to end it; Third Rite, general, many on one, for emergency use only).

After introductory discussions about God's love and how infinite and for ever it is, came a very frank look at what God expects our response to that love to be. i.e. 'Hear, O Israel, the Lord s our God, the Lord is one. You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might.' Deuteronomy 6:4.

It is something that we are all supposed to take seriously, and yet it still comes as a bit of a shock when we go behind the familiar words and ponder what they actually mean and think about how to live them.

God's definition of an acceptable response is perfectly logical if we take the time to consider who God is, how completely dependent we are upon Him, and how much He desires our eternal welfare. For God only the best will do, and calling forth the best from us helps us to develop into the best selves we can possibly become. Every parent wants their child to make the most of their unique gifts and talents, and no parent is happy when a child settles for mediocre instead of fulfilling all his/her potential.

If you have had an experience of God's personal love, then such a full and complete response is normal and natural. But if you have been living a rather worldly life with God on the very outer edges of the picture (i.e. in case of emergency only) then such a required response is draconian and totally and unrealistically extreme.

Our personal preferences cannot change God's word. Ignorance of the spiritual laws that govern the universe is no excuse.

We only have to go back to the book of Genesis to see the difference between Abel who offered God in sacrifice the very best of his flock and Cain who offered the produce of his farming. If it had been the best of the produce Cain's offering would have been acceptable. It was a teachable moment where God invited Cain to do better, and Cain decided that getting jealous of his brother was far easier.

This is really radical stuff, especially for a mum looking for the quickest sessions to attend to fulfill her child's preparation for a sacrament.

It is radical for us too, because we have to stop and think whether we are giving to God the first and the best of our selves and all that we have. Most of us, myself included, are quite comfortable in what we have considered to be 'okay' to give to God – conveniently forgetting that God calls for our 'all' and not for our 'some'.

To see what living this 'all' for God, or as holier people have put it, 'all for the greater glory of God', is all about – we turn to the lives of the Saints. We need to pay attention not only to the St Francis of Assisi and the St Mary Magdalene types, but we also need to pay attention to how the holy people around us live.

Spotting them is easy, look for joyful people who are filled with thanksgiving and gratitude and who do not complain.

How would we measure up beside the stewardship challenge of giving God 10% of our time, talent and treasure? Time in prayer and voluntary service; contributing our skills to the welfare of the body of Christ; and the monetary fruits of our labours.

It is better to start small and grow incrementally than to go all in and peter out quickly.

How are we increasing the quality of what we give back to God? In some ways this is the greater challenge. We give, but is it our very best? How could we make it better, more intentional, more conscious and less habitual and routine? Where have we slipped into compromise and mediocrity?

We might rant and rail at this, and probably will – especially in times of feeling aridity and abandonment – but that doesn't change the fact that our long term (temporal and eternal) happiness depends on living 'all for God' and 'all of my best for God'.
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Like St Therese of Lisieux if we try to do our best in the little things and do them with great love, then eventually we will get there.

Write Non Fiction In November : #WNFIN Day 7
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The topic for today is experiencing God's love. Without a profound encounter with God's love nothing of the Christian life makes sense. However, once a person has experienced such an encounter, then everything makes sense, and what was once a chore becomes a delight.

The good news is...that there is always more. Whatever we have encountered of God's love, there is always more for us to encounter, and in new and deeper ways.

It stands to reason that the experiences of God at the beginning are usually powerful and life changing. As we grow and discover more about this God who loves us, those times of sensible encounter decrease and the times of encounter that are beyond feelings increase. For many people the hardest times are in the lengthening periods when the presence of God seems absent. But they are necessary, because how else do we and God find out whether we love Him for Himself or because of what He does and can do for us. When the testing times are over, He invites us to deeper levels of encountering His love.

In the testing times relief from the aridity of personal prayer comes from four sources, group prayer, lectio divina, time sitting with Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament and time spent with those who are suffering – either as a companion or in service to them.

So what are these encounters with God like?

Some are like everything at once, tears of joy, laughter, repentance, dancing, adoration, singing, amazement.

Some are a personal message with or without audible words, usually at unexpected moments. Change of direction and vocational calls can frequently be like this.

Some feel like a collapsing kaleidoscope where a whole manner of different things suddenly fall into place with astonishing clarity, and this confirms that you are in the right place, at the right time, for His kind purposes.

Some contain burning, tingling, and physical healing.

Some come in the form of visions and dreams of significance.

Some experiences we should be a whole lot more grateful for than we usually are…the ones where He lays a precise finger on the parts of our lives that are displeasing to Him as an invitation to ask His help to clean them up through His mercy and pardon.

Some are like a sensation that all barriers are gone and prayer is effortless and going straight to the heart of the Father.

Some are more external when the realisation happens that God has arranged everything 'just so' and the outcomes could have been much, much worse, and that you have been saved from those greater layers of disaster and that the outcomes have several unexpected silver linings.

Some can be profound encounters through a near death experience.

But whenever you go seeking encounters with God, or try to replicate the conditions under which the previous encounter took place….nothing happens. We can most certainly ask Him for an experience of His love, but we need to let Him be God and let it be in His chosen time and place and not when we think it should be.

We certainly love the extraordinary manifestations of God's love, who doesn't? But there are many ordinary manifestations that we usually overlook on a daily basis; the gentle breeze that refreshes and lifts your spirits, the beautiful bird that caught your eye and lingered for a while, the gift of a good night's sleep, an unexpected extra kindness or tenderness from a child or spouse, the unexpected meeting in an out of place location with someone who had been on your mind, the gift of meeting someone truly holy.

Evangelisation is meant to help people open up their hearts to God, so that He can encounter them with His love. Catechesis only makes sense and becomes fruitful after a person has had a profound encounter with God's love. Prior to that encounter you may as well have been speaking a foreign language to them.

So let's pray, firstly for a loved one, and then for ourselves.

Heavenly Father, I bring before You ……………….. He/she has yet to experience Your love, otherwise You would be the number 1 priority in his/her life and not the last on the list after many things more important and urgent to him/her. Only You can quieten down the other voices in his/her life long enough for Your cry of love to break through. Please tonight, tomorrow, sometime during the week ahead, grant them an experience of Your love that will transform his/her life. Please grant them all that he/she needs to respond wholeheartedly to You, and to place his/her life completely at Your service. Amen.

Dear heavenly Father, I know You exist, I believe in You, but it feels so long since I experienced Your love at the life-changing level. I want that. Thank You for being active in my life. I really appreciate how You have been taking care of me and my loved ones. But I feel like I am surviving on empty fumes. The exterior proofs of Your love are amazing, but my heart longs for something interior, deeply personal and profound. Please tonight, tomorrow, sometime during the week ahead please break through my darkness and let me experience Your everlasting love in a new and fresh way that leaves me amazed. For the sake of the people who You are bringing into my life who need to hear how You are acting now and not the barely remembered yet much treasured encounters of past decades, please come. I give You permission to show Your love to me in any way You desire. Amen.

Write Non Fiction In November : #WNFIN Day 6

It looks like we are going on a ramble again – yet another opportunity to trust that God will lead, and a hope that I'll be happier with today's efforts than yesterday's efforts.

I've been meaning to do a list of signs of hope that there are the better days ahead that we have been promised. So here it is, shrouded a bit to protect the protagonists.

A long-awaited publishing contract for someone I've been following online.
A little more traction on social media for someone close to me, including access to a previously closed Facebook group and some regular likes from an industry body.
The possibility of a romance that might lead somewhere for a daughter of a friend who has been praying for a long time.
News of a close-to-miracle pregnancy in an extended family that has been through many tough times recently.
Examples of God's providence with car purchase and tree damage.
News of a creative risking it all to go back to study and follow a prompting from earlier studies that ignited a passion.

They aren't the dazzling conversion stories we'd love to hear, but they are messages of hope that more of these new beginnings are on the way from the loving hand of God.
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Other things are more like pinpricks of light that haven't had the dots joined up yet. For example, making acquaintance with associates from lower high school who live nearby, and getting unexpectedly thrown back into teaching a sacramental programme lesson, and so far being able to keep the writing challenge commitment and gaining a few insights along the way.

At the same time there's plenty that's not right, and which sucks me under if I dwell on the cold light of day impossibilities of solving them. When you have done all you can do with the available resources at hand, following what seemed like the right things to do, and they've come to absolute nothing, then it is time to wait and watch for God to act – because everything else apart from that is just further wasted effort. Those absolute nothings only happened because God permitted them. Get enough of them in a row, and that's a cease and desist message.

For this I'll quote God's friend, St Claude de la Colombiere, 'When I see a Christian grief stricken at the trials God sends him I say to myself: Here is a man who is grieved at his own happiness. He is asked God to be delivered from something he ought to be thanking him for. I am quite sure that nothing more advantageous could happen to him than what causes him so much grief. I have a hundred unanswerable reasons for saying so. But if I could read into the future and see the happy outcome of his present misfortune, how greatly strengthened I would be in my judgment! If we could discover the designs of Providence it is certain we would ardently long for the evils that we are now so unwilling to suffer. We would rush forward to accept them with the utmost gratitude if we had a little faith and realised how much God loves us and has our interests at heart.'

Does it make it any easier to face yet another day of seemingly unanswered prayer? Not really, but it takes a bit of the sting out of it.

At the moment what I draw hope from is that if God is showing His hand in some of the 'don't sweat the small temporal stuff', then maybe, just maybe, the resolution of the truly important kingdom of God stuff is in the pipeline, and these are encouragements on the hard road of patience and waiting.

I've just finished reading a difficult book, 'Daughters of Shame' by Jasvinder Sanghera. Not that it was difficult to read, but the subject matter of what happens in cultures where forced marriages and honour killings are the norm is very confronting.

On another level the book chronicles how a volunteer organisation began to help victims of this culture find freedom and how step by gradual step it grew often as a result of pondering a specific situation and seeking solutions or by the right conversation with the right person at the right time.

It is these latter meetings that are often the game changer or the life changer, and reading through a conversion story or a story of someone who achieved at remarkable levels these kinds of 'orchestrated by God' meetings will be found. In many ways myself and my loved ones are waiting for these kinds of meetings to happen in our lives because they are signposts from God that we are on the right path (or will be)

St Raphael the archangel is the patron of such happy meetings. Back almost 26 years ago when things were very dark, it was the novena of prayer to St Raphael that was the last thing needed before breakthrough came.
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I'll add a PDF below for anyone who would like to know a bit more about St Raphael and seek his powerful aid and intercession: (2 x A4 pages)

May we all be given the grace to recognise these 'orchestrated by God' meetings when they come, and the grace to act on the holy promptings and opportunities that open up as a result of these happy meetings. May they be multiplied in our lives, so that the path ahead that God has prepared may be easier for us to both recognise and to follow. 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."
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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

Below is a print friendly version of this blog-post:

Over the Christmas and school holiday season many of us had conversations with friends and family who call themselves spiritual but not religious. What do they mean by this? How can we get through to them?
 
If they mean, 'I still pray mostly, read my bible and try to be kind to others, but don’t want anything to do with Sunday worship and religious denominations' then you could respond like this:
Well let's go and see what an authentic response to God looks like in the bible.
In the Old Testament if people were touched by the Spirit of God they were given a mission that would benefit God's people: Samuel, David, Daniel, Joseph, Esther, Moses, Solomon, Elijah, Gideon etc. So what's your mission, and how are you living it out?
In the New Testament when the Spirit of God touched them they were impelled to be baptized and join the Christian community, Acts 2:41-47. When God does something amazing in your life, just offering Him your own thanks and praise is not enough…you want thousands to join you in those prayers, and even that many would be hardly enough. So it might be time to question just how real your spiritual experiences have been, yes?
 
If they mean, 'All that really matters is me and Jesus. We're doing fine. He feels more real to me down the beach or walking through nature than in a stuffy church with stuffy people' then you could respond like this:
That's really weird. In the bible when people find Jesus He is rarely alone, usually there's Mary and Joseph, or 12 Apostles, or 72 Disciples, a synagogue full of people or a crowd. Why then do we hear God say so often, 'You shall be My people and I will be your God' and not 'You shall be my person'? Why does St Paul go on and on about us being members of the Body of Christ? Loving someone means loving and cherishing the people and things important to them. Revelations 21 talks of the holy city, the new Jerusalem being the bride of Christ, and Ephesians 5 says that the church is the bride of Christ. How can we possibly say that we love Jesus if we avoid getting to know and love His bride? As for 'doing fine', that's sort of hard to tell. Someone in intensive care looks like they are doing fine compared to a body in the morgue, but may not look so fine if they stand next to an Olympic athlete. So you need to go where the athletes-in-training are, and you will find them at various levels of fitness at Church. When we think of what Jesus did for us, forsaking heaven and taking on our human nature in order to suffer and die grievously to obtain pardon of our sins, 'doing fine' from our perspective might not be doing enough from the perspective of Jesus. Then again, the bible didn't fall out of the sky fully formed, and you would never have known about Jesus unless untold people passed the Good News down the centuries through many cultures and generations to get to you. Without the church you would not have Jesus. It sort of means that church not an optional extra, and that we need to be 'plugged in' so as to do our part to pass the Good News down to the next generations and cultures.
 
If they mean, 'I believe that human beings are more than flesh and blood, that there is a spiritual part of each person that needs to be nurtured and there are lots of ways to nurture our spiritual sides without having to believe in a supreme deity and without going to church' then you could respond like this:
Truth, beauty and goodness certainly nurture our spirits, and we need lots of experiences of them to remain healthy. But have you noticed, the human heart always wants more? There is a God shaped hole in our hearts that only He can fill, and we are – as St Augustine says – restless until He does. If you are more aware of spiritual things, then you are aware that there are benevolent spiritual influences and malevolent spiritual influences abroad in our world. Good is at war with evil. The forces on both sides are formidable. What kind of defense do you have against malevolent spiritual influences? There's more safety in numbers than for person alone.
 
Some of those conversations might have included: 'Could you please stop talking about God so much?' This question is actually an opportunity if you handle it right. Why? Because most people will respond with indifference, or just ignore or tune you out. If someone asks you to stop, then something you have been saying has hit a nerve – which means that it is highly probable that the Holy Spirit has been working on them. This means you can ask them gently, 'What have I been saying that has made people uncomfortable?' Which will give you an indication of where the hit nerve is: for example guilt at neglecting God, abortion, relationships outside of marriage. To which you can reply, 'I think you misunderstood me, or only heard part of the conversation: here's what I was trying to get across and the context of it….' Or 'What is it about …… (insert topic) that is painful for you?

It could, of course, just be a general complaint about a perception that because you always include something 'holy' with a gift or Christmas card or birthday wishes (eg scripture quotation, prayer card etc) that they think that you think that their lives aren't good and need fixing. Here's your chance to say, 'Well, that's not my intention. I am sorry you feel that way. I find these things helpful in my own life, and because I want the best for my friends and family I share them around. You are not being targeted. Everybody I care about gets them.'
 
So don't let these verbal objections - a.k.a. opportunities for meaningful conversation - pass by. Keep gently digging until the real reason surfaces, and then with the help of the Holy Spirit deal with it. It may need an apology, or an explanation, or a clarification, or a vocal prayer asking God to heal or assist whatever hurt or need has been uncovered. Most of all listen as best you can, and only give advice if it is asked for.
 
If your family and friends include people from other Christian traditions, then eventually conversation will swing to why they are so certain of getting to heaven, and why you should be too. The 'Once saved, always saved' is a very comforting notion, but it doesn't really stack up against scripture. But we live between the Now and the Not Yet, and Catholics express it this way: I am saved, I am being saved, and I hope to be saved. The biggest salvific event in the bible prior to the death and resurrection of Jesus, was God freeing His people Israel from slavery in Egypt and getting them to the promised land. On that journey each one of them had been saved from slavery in Egypt, and they travelled as a community to where God was leading them. If someone separated from the community, then they had no hope of getting to the promised land. Some of them died on the journey without reaching God's promises. Some of them forfeited the promised land by disobedience and lack of trust. But they could all truthfully claim that God saved them from slavery in Egypt - however to be fully saved they had to do more than stand still once they were outside Egypt's borders. Anyone on that journey of salvation could say, 'God has saved me from Egypt, God is saving me from Egypt, and I will be fully saved from Egypt when I reach the promised land.' Not only was remaining with the community essential, the manna God sent every day was essential too – and Catholics see in that an archetype of the Eucharist.

Salvation is a coin with two sides, we are saved from something and we are saved for something. The further along the journey we go, the more what we are being saved for matters.
 
If 'Once saved, always saved' is true, then 2 Peter 1:10-11 doesn't make any sense:

'Brothers, you have been called and chosen: work all the harder to justify it by good deeds. If you do all these things there is no danger that you will ever fall away. In this way you will be granted admittance into the eternal kingdom of our Lord and saviour Jesus Christ.'

If St Peter considers that there is a real danger of falling away, then there is a real danger of falling away and we have to engage our whole selves and our whole lives in God's service if we are to gain entry to His eternal kingdom. God saves us, and saves us mightily when we ask Him to become the Lord and Saviour of our lives, but He cannot give us the fullness of that salvation unless we do our part to co-operate with His grace that wants to make us holy and perfect and able to enter that kingdom. Nothing impure, unclean and imperfect can enter Heaven (cf Rev 21:27)

May the Holy Spirit always give us His answers when these conversations crop up in our lives.