May 26th POPE FRANCIS TO PARTICIPANTS IN THE 38th NATIONAL CONVOCATION OF RnS IN ITALY

“You, Charismatics,have a special grace to pray and work for Christian unity.”

Dearest Brothers and Sisters,
Good afternoon and welcome. Even the water [referring to the rain] is welcome, because the Lord made it.

I greatly appreciate your response to my invitation in January to meet here in St Peter’s Square. Thank you for this enthusiastic and warm response. Last year in the stadium I shared with all those present several reflections which I would like to remember today — because it is always good to remember, to recall; the identity of the Catholic Charismatic Renewal, from which gave rise to the Renewal in the Spirit association. I shall do so with the words of Cardinal Léon-Joseph Suenens, the great defender of the Charismatic Renewal, as he described it in the second volume of his memoirs.

To start with, in this place, he recalled the extraordinary figure of a woman who did so much at the beginning of the Charismatic Renewal; she was his co-worker who also enjoyed the trust and affection of Pope Paul VI. I am referring to Veronica O’Brien: she was the one who asked the Cardinal to go to the United States to see what was happening, to see with his own eyes what she considered to be the work of the Holy Spirit. It was then that Cardinal Suenens got to know the Charismatic Renewal, which he described as a “flow of grace”, and he was the key person for maintaining it in the Church. At the Mass on Pentecost Monday in 1975, Pope Paul VI thanked him with these words: “In the name of the Lord I thank you for having brought the Charismatic Renewal into the heart of the Church.”

It is not a novelty of some years ago; the Charismatic Renewal has a long history, and in the homily of that very Mass, the Cardinal said: “May the Charismatic Renewal disappear as such and be transformed into a Pentecostal grace for the whole Church: to be faithful to its origin, the river must lose itself in the ocean.” The river must be lost in the ocean. Yes, if the river comes to a halt the water becomes stagnant; should the Renewal, this current of grace, not end in the ocean of God, in the love of God, it would work for itself and this is not of Jesus Christ, this is of the Evil One, of the father of lies. The Renewal continues, it comes from God and goes to God.

Pope Paul VI blessed this. The Cardinal continued, saying: “The first error that must be avoided is including the Charismatic Renewal in the category of a Movement. It is not a specific Movement; the Renewal is not a Movement in the common sociological sense; it does not have founders, it is not homogeneous and it includes a great variety of realities; it is a current of grace, a renewing breath of the Spirit for all members of the Church, laity, religious, priests and bishops. It is a challenge for us all. One does not form part of the Renewal, rather, the Renewal becomes a part of us provided that we accept the grace it offers us.”

Here Cardinal Suenens spoke of the sovereign work of the Spirit who without human founders, aroused the current of grace in 1967. Renewed men and women who, after having received the grace of Baptism in the Spirit, as fruit of this grace gave life to associations, covenant communities, schools of formation, schools of evangelization, religious congregations, ecumenical communities, communities of help to the poor and the needy. I myself went to the community of Kkottongnae, during my trip to Korea, and I also visited them in the Philippines. This current of grace has two international organizations recognized by the Holy See which are at its service and at the service of all its expressions throughout the world: “iccrs” and “Catholic Fraternity.” This explains the history a bit, the roots.

Last year in the stadium I also spoke of unity in diversity. I gave the example of an orchestra. In Evangelii Gaudium I spoke of the sphere and of the polyhedron. It is not enough to speak of unity, it is not any sort of unity. It is not uniformity. Said thus it can be understood as the unity of a sphere where every point is equidistant from the centre and there are no differences between one point and another. The model is the polyhedron, which reflects the confluence of all the parts which maintain their originality in it and these are the charisms, in unity but in their own diversity — unity in diversity.
The distinction is important because we are speaking of the work of the Holy Spirit, not our own. Unity in the diversity of expressions of reality, as many as the Holy Spirit wills to arouse. It is also necessary to remember that the whole, namely, this unity, is greater than the part, and the part cannot attribute the whole to itself. For instance, one cannot say: “We are the current called the Catholic Charismatic Renewal and you are not.” This cannot be said. Please, brothers, this is how it is; it does not come from the Spirit; the Holy Spirit blows where he wills, when he wills and as he wills. Unity in diversity and in truth that is Jesus himself. What is the common sign of those who are reborn of this current of grace? To become new men and women, this is Baptism in the Spirit. I ask you to read John 3, verses 7-8: Jesus to Nicodemus, rebirth in the Spirit.

There is another point that it is very important to clarify, in this current of grace: those who lead. Dear brothers and sisters, there is great temptation for the leaders — I repeat, I prefer the term servants, those who serve — and this temptation for the servants comes from the devil, the temptation to believe they are indispensable, no matter what the task is. The devil leads them to believe they are the ones in command, who are at the centre and thus, step by step, they slip into authoritarianism, into personalism and do not let the renewed Communities live in the Spirit. This temptation is such as to make “eternal” the position of those who consider themselves irreplaceable, a position that always has some form of power or dominance over others. This is clear to us: the only irreplaceable one in the Church is the Holy Spirit, and Jesus is the only Lord. I ask you: who is the only irreplaceable one in the Church? [from the Square: “the Holy Spirit!”] And who is the only Lord? [from the Square: “Jesus!”]

Let us say that the Lord Jesus is the Lord, let us praise Jesus, loudly! Jesus is Lord! There are no others. There have been sad cases in this regard. There must be a limited term of office for posts which in reality are services. An important service of leaders, of lay leaders, is to make those who will fill their posts at the end of their service grow and mature spiritually and pastorally.

It is appropriate that every service in the Church have an expiry date; there are no lif elong leaders in the Church. This happens in some countries where there is dictatorship. “Learn from me, for I am meek and humble of heart”, says Jesus. This temptation, which is from the devil, makes one go from servant to master, one dominates that community, that group. This temptation also makes one slide into vanity. And there are so many people — we have heard these two testimonies, of the couple and Hugo’s — how many temptations lead to making a community suffer and hinder works, and become an organization an NGO; and power leads us — excuse me but I will say it: how many leaders become vain peacocks? — power leads to vanity! And then one feels one can do anything, and then one slides into business dealings, because the devil always enters through the wallet: this is the devil’s way in.

The founders who received the charism of foundation from the Holy Spirit are different. Because they received it, they have the obligation to look after it, making it mature in their communities and associations. The founders remain such for life, that is, they are the ones who inspire, who give inspiration, but let the inspiration go forward. In Buenos Aires I knew a good founder, who at a certain point became the advisor, and let others become the leaders. This current of grace leads us forward on a path of the Church that in Italy has borne much fruit, I thank you. I encourage you to go forward. In particular, I ask you for your important contribution, especially to undertake to share with all in the Church the Baptism you have received. You have lived this experience; share it in the Church. And this is the most important service — the most important that can be given to everyone in the Church. To help the People of God in their personal encounter with Jesus Christ, who changes us into new men and women, in little groups, humble but effective, because it is the Spirit at work.

Do not look so much at having large gatherings which often end there, but to “homemade” relationships which stem from witness, in the family, at work, in social life, in parishes, in prayer groups, with all!

And here I ask you to take the initiative to create bonds of trust and cooperation with the Bishops, who have the pastoral responsibility to guide the Body of Christ, including Charismatic Renewal. Begin to take the necessary initiatives so that all the Italian charismatic realities born of the current of grace, may bind themselves with these bonds of trust and cooperation directly with their Bishops, there where they are.

There is another strong sign of the Spirit in Charismatic Renewal: the search for unity of the Body of Christ. You, Charismatics, have a special grace to pray and work for Christian unity, so that the current of grace may pass through all Christian Churches. Christian unity is the work of the Holy Spirit and we must pray together — spiritual ecumenism, the ecumenism of
prayer. “But, Father, can I pray with an Evangelical, with an Orthodox, with a Lutheran?” — “You must, you must! You have received the same Baptism.” We have all received the same Baptism; we are all going on Jesus’ path, we want Jesus.

We have all made these divisions in history, for so many reasons, but not good ones. But now, in fact, is the time in which the Spirit makes us think that these divisions are not good, that these divisions are a counter- testimony, and we must do everything in order to journey together: spiritual ecumenism, the ecumenism of prayer, the ecumenism of work, but of charity at the same time; the ecumenism of reading the Bible together… To go together towards unity. “But Father, do we have to sign a document for this?” — “Let yourself be carried forward by the Holy Spirit: pray, work, love and then the Spirit will do the rest!” This current of grace passes through all Christian Confessions, all of us who believe in Christ — unity first of all in prayer. The work for Christian unity begins with prayer. Pray together.

Unity, for the blood of today’s martyrs makes us one. There is the ecumenism of blood. We know that when those who hate Jesus Christ kill a Christian, before killing him, they do not ask him: “Are you a Lutheran, are you an Orthodox, are you an Evangelical, are you a Baptist, are you a Methodist?” You are Christian! And they sever the head. They are not confused; they know there is a root there, which gives life to all of us and which is called Jesus Christ, and that it is the Holy Spirit who leads us to unity! Those who hate Jesus Christ, led by the Evil One, do not confuse one with the other. They know and therefore kill without asking questions.

And this is something that I entrust to you, perhaps I have already told you this, but it is a true story. It is a true story. In Hamburg, a city of Germany, there was a parish priest who studied the writings to carry forward the cause for the beatification of a priest killed by Nazis, guillotined. The reason: he taught children the catechism. And, as he studied, he discovered that after the priest, five minutes later, a Lutheran pastor was guillotined for the same reason. And the blood of both was mixed: both were martyrs, both were martyrs. It is the ecumenism of blood. If the enemy unites us in death, who are we to be divided in life? Let us allow the Spirit to enter, let us pray to go forward all together. “But there are differences!.” Let us leave them aside; let us walk with what we have in common, which is enough: there is the Holy Trinity; there is Baptism. Let us go forward in the strength of the Holy Spirit.

A few months ago, there were those 23 Egyptians who were also beheaded on the beach in Libya, who in that moment said Jesus’ name. “But they were not Catholics…” But they were Christians, they are brothers, they are our martyrs! — the ecumenism of blood. Fifty years ago, at the canonization of the young martyrs of Uganda, Blessed Paul VI made reference to the fact that their Anglican companion catechists had also poured out their blood for the same reason; they were Christians, they were martyrs. Excuse me, do not be scandalized, they are our martyrs! Because they gave their life for Christ and this is the ecumenism of blood — pray, remembering our common martyrs. Unity in working together for the poor and the needy, who are also in need of the Baptism of the Holy Spirit. It would be so beautiful to organize seminars of life in the Spirit, together with other Christian Charismatic realities, for brothers and sisters who live on the street: they too have the Spirit within who impels them, so that someone will open wide the door from the outside.

It seems that the rain has stopped. The heat is over. The Lord is good, first he gives us heat, then a good shower! He is with us. Let yourselves be guided by the Holy Spirit, by this current of grace, which goes forward always in search of unity. No one is the master. There is only one Lord. Who is it? [from the Square: “Jesus!”]. Jesus is the Lord! I remind you: Charismatic Renewal is a Pentecostal grace for the whole Church. Agreed? [from the Square: “Yes!”]. If someone does not agree, raise your hand!
Unity in the diversity of the Spirit, not any unity — the sphere and the polyhedron — remember this well, the common experience of Baptism in the Holy Spirit and the fraternal and direct bond with the diocesan bishop, because the whole is greater than the parts.

Then, unity in the Body of Christ: pray together with other Christians, work together with other Christians for the poor and the needy. We all have the same Baptism. Organize seminars of life in the Spirit for brothers and sisters living on the street, also for brothers and sisters marginalized by so much suffering in life. Allow me to recall Hugo’s witness. The Lord called him precisely because the Holy Spirit made him see the joy of following Jesus. Organize seminars of life in the Holy Spirit for people who live on the street.

And then, if the Lord gives us life, I expect you all together at the meeting of the ICCRS and of the Catholic Fraternity, which are already organizing it, all of you and all those who wish to come at Pentecost in 2017 — it is not so far off! — here in St Peter’s Square to celebrate the Golden Jubilee of this current of grace — an opportunity for the Church, as Blessed Paul VI said in St Peter’s Basilica in 1975. We will gather to give thanks to the Holy Spirit for the gift of this current of grace, which is for the Church and for the world, and to celebrate the wonders that the Holy Spirit has worked in the course of these 50 years, changing the life of millions of Christians.

Thank you again for having responded joyfully to my invitation. May Jesus bless you and may the Holy Virgin protect you. And, please, do not forget to pray for me, because I need it. Thank you.
Before the final Blessing, the Pope spoke the following words: And with Bibles, with the Word of God, go, preach the novelty that Jesus has given us. Preach to the poor, to the marginalized, to the blind, to the sick, to the imprisoned, to all men and women. Within each one is the Spirit, who wishes to be helped to open wide the door to make him flourish again. May the Lord accompany you in this mission, with the Bible always in hand, with the Gospel always in your pocket, with the Word of Christ.++++

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May 6th BC Charismatic Newsletter Spring 2016

MERCY’ THEME        SEPT. 23-24

Vancouver to host

B.C. conference

               Bishop Sam Jacobs and Dr, Margarett Schlientz will be featured speakers Sept. 23 and 24 at this year’s Vancouver Catholic Charismatic Conference, which will return to a familiar setting: Broadway Church.

The event is co-sponsored by Catholic Charismatic Renewal Services of B.C, the provincial service committee, and is both a provincial and an archdiocesan conference.

Theme for the conference, being held during the Year of Mercy proclaimed by Pope Francis, will be Jesus, Son of David, Have Mercy on Me (Luke 18:38).

The conference returns to Broadway Church, a Pentecostal Assemblies of Canada church approved for Catholic events, after a three-year absence using other locations.

The conference will feature Bishop Jacobs, a former chair of the U.S. National Service Committee for the Catholic Charismatic Renewal, and Dr. Schlientz, whose ministry combines training in theology, spirituality, and psychiatric nursing.

The event runs 7-10 p.m. on Friday Sept. 23 and 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. Saturday Sept. 24. Closing Mass will be celebrated at 5 p.m. Saturday, with Fr. Joseph Nguyen, Vicar-General of the Archdiocese, presiding.

Confessions and Eucharistic adoration are also scheduled.

Tickets are on sale now and are $15 until Aug. 31, $25 after that. They may be purchased from your prayer group or at fireblade@telus.net or 604-597-8227.

Bishop Jacobs is retired bishop of Houma-Thibodaux in Louisiana and was previously bishop of Alexandria, Louisiana. Born in Mississippi but raised in Louisiana, he was ordained in 1964 for the diocese of Lafayette. He served there and in the diocese of St. Charles as parish priest and chaplain, as well as diocesan director of vocations and seminarians for St. Charles. He was named bishop in 1989. He was named to the national service committee in 1982 and served as chairman from 1987 to 1993; he returned to the committee in January 2015. He also chaired the committee for evangelization for the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops from 2005 to 2005, and is currently a member of the committees on laity, marriage, family life and youth, and on evangelization and catechesis. He retired as diocesan bishop in 2013 but continues to serve as a speaker, as well as operating the Spirit Aflame website, http://www.spiritaflame.org/ . He was featured speaker at the 2015 Our Lady of Pentecost Summer Institute in Kelowna.

He may be seen on YouTube at http://www.bing.com/videos/search?q=youtube+bishop+sam+jacobs&qpvt=you+tube+bishop+sam+jacobs&FORM=VDRE.

Dr. Schlientz, a Wisconsin resident, holds a doctorate in psychiatric nursing and master’s degrees in theology, spirituality, and psychiatric nursing. She is the founder of the Pope Leo XIII Institute for the education of priests in exorcism and deliverance, and is assistant director of the Institute for Priestly Formation at Creighton University in Nebraska. She is co-author of the RISEN program (Re-Invest Spirituality and Ethics in the              Networks of Health Care), and presents it regularly to health care systems across the U.S. She has held teaching and administrative posts at Marquette University in Milwaukee, speaks at conferences and parish missions, and ministers as a spiritual director to priests. Her website is https://drmargarettschlientz.com/. She is on YouTube at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yre6KPH7RJg.

A prayer room and book tables will be available at the conference. Light refreshments will be available on site, and there are several restaurants nearby.

Broadway Church is located at 2700 East Broadway, corner of Slocan, and near the Renfrew SkyTrain station. There is parking on church property.

VANCOUVER 2015

Jesus will never disappoint you

 By RICHARD DUNSTAN

Do you need to be healed? Put your trust in Jesus and you won’t be disappointed, says Sister Linda Koontz.

“To believe means to put all your weight on what Jesus has said,” she told a crowd of 1,100 at the 2015 Vancouver Catholic charismatic conference Sept. 18 and 19 in Surrey. “Those who trust in Him will never be disappointed.”

Sister Linda, of El Paso, TX, has worked with the poor of Ciudad Juarez, across the Rio Grande in Mexico, since 1977. Before that she was a key figure in the rise of the Catholic charismatic renewal in Canada, touring B.C. and Alberta in 1969 preaching about the Holy Spirit after she was baptized in the Spirit herself in her native Washington State.

Theme of the conference, held at Chandos Pattison Auditorium, was “I am willing—be healed,” and Sister Linda said Jesus is always willing. “There are no rules—Jesus heals all the time.” She said many people who believe Jesus can heal them still think it’s rare and unlikely, like winning the lottery. “Guess what—that’s a lie,” she said.

“Healing is not proof of the [Gospel] message. It is the message. The Kingdom of God is wholeness and healing. ‘Salvation’ means heath—in Greek it means being preserved from death and freed from disease, and ‘Jesus’ in Hebrew means the God who heals, the God who saves, the burden bearer, the one who breaks the yoke.”

Fear, negativity and unbelief can keep us from being healed, she said, and so can unforgiveness, even in the form of resentment. (“Resentment is hatred with a tuxedo on,” she said.) As to negativity and unbelief, “pray until you get results. If we’re going to rise up [and be healed], we must cry out to Jesus and not go anywhere else.”

Fear, she said, is one of Satan’s biggest weapons, but the Bible is clear: “fear not.” “Ninety-two per cent of what we worry about doesn’t happen,” she said. “When we’re in fear, we can’t pray. It destroys our faith. Today we must decide whether to live by fear or faith.”

Fear can’t be hoped or wished away, she said—only prayed away. And “fear not” doesn’t always mean “don’t feel afraid”—it means don’t run away. “Sometimes we have to do things afraid,” she said. “But as we take that step, we find that the Lord is there.”

Sister Linda said she was originally prayed over for baptism in the Holy Spirit by teenage students who told her she needed it.

“The miracle was that I kneeled down,” she said. “I told them ‘I have the Holy Spirit.’ They said, ‘yes, Sister, you do, but He’s in the refrigerator—you have to let Him ouit.”

Before her baptism in the Spirit, she said, “I was one dead nun. The Gospel doesn’t just make good people better. It brings dead people to life.”

Also speaking at the conference was Father Jerry Thompson of Los Angeles, who has been a charismatic since before his ordination 21 years ago. He has training in psychology as well as theology and had ministries in holistic healing and spiritual direction. He also has a strong devotion to the Blessed Virgin Mary.

Father Thompson said healing can be mental or emotional as well as physical and can also involve the whole family. A key to healing, he said, is forgiveness. “Forgiveness is an act of love, and love is of God. To forgive is to experience God’s love in our own life, and to allow others, through our forgiveness, to experience God’s love for us.”

To forgive, he said, we must embrace whatever needs to be forgiven, and then let it go. “One never forgets, but one must always forgive,” he said. “God wants us to be whole, and that begins by letting other people off the hook. Let God take care of it.”

We are still entitled to protect ourselves from an unhealthy relationship with the person we’re forgiving, he said; “forgiveness is not the same thing as reconciliation.” But hatred and vengeance are out. “When we decide to hate someone, we automatically begin to dig two graves: one for them and one for ourselves.”

Father Thompson said devotion to Mary is important because she will make the gifts we give to God more perfect as she presents them. “We have God’s grace, but she has all of it,” he said. “Jesus always does what His mother asks Him to do, because He is an obedient son.”

Archbishop Michael Miller celebrated the closing Mass for the conference. He said in his homily that parents are considered by the Church as the first evangelists and catechists of their children, and their work cannot be outsourced to other agencies. “None of our great Catholic schools can ever supplant your role as parents.”

He said parents should present the Gospel joyfully, keep learning about their own faith, read the Bible to their children, and attend Sunday Mass as a family. “You can’t shut down their [children’s] questions. You must know the faith,” he said. As for the Bible, it’s best to start with the Gospels; “don’t begin with the book of Genesis and think you have to plow through.”

KELOWNA AUG. 7-12

Koontz, Ibekwe to speak at Institute

                Sister Linda Koontz and     Father Sylvester Obiora Ibekwe will be featured speakers at Our Lady of Pentecost Summer Institute, to be held Aug. 7-12 at Elizabeth Seton House of Prayer in Kelowna. (An incorrect date was reported in the fall 2015 B.C. Charismatic newsletter.)

Theme of the institute will be Receive Mercy—Move Forward in the Spirit. Chosen scripture text is Romans 10:13, “All who call on the name of the Lord will be saved.”

The institute, aimed at discipleship and leadership formation, is sponsored by Nelson Diocese Charismatic Renewal Service Committee and endorsed by Catholic Charismatic Renewal Services of B.C., the provincial service committee.

The institute opens with a 5:30 p.m. outdoor Mass Sunday, Aug. 7, followed by registration, refreshments, praise and worship, and ends after lunch Friday, Aug. 12. The program includes daily Mass, morning and afternoon teaching and panel discussions, and evening devotional programs. All activities will take place at Seton House except for a healing Mass to be held at 6:30 p.m. Monday, Aug. 8, at St. Charles Garnier parish in Kelowna.

Other evening devotional programs will include praise and worship, a prayer meeting, and exposition and benediction of the Blessed Sacrament, with one free evening. The sacrament of reconciliation will be offered at lunchtime Tuesday through Thursday.

Cost of the institute is $500 ($550 after June 15) for all sessions, accommodation at Seton House (double occupancy), and all meals. Commuter fee is $275 ($325 after June 15) for all sessions plus lunch and supper.

Accommodation is limited to 30 at Seton House and daily attendance to 40. Some billeting may be available.

Sister Linda Koontz, originally from Washington State, was a pioneer of the Catholic charismatic renewal in B.C. and Alberta following her baptism in the Holy Spirit in 1969. She has worked in the renewal full-time since 1971, moved to El Paso, Texas in 1977 to work with the poor of Ciudad Juárez, across the Rio Grande in Mexico, and in 1986 founded Spirit of the Lord International Mission to offer evangelization,

food, housing, and medical care for the poor of Juárez. She is a member of the Sisters of the Holy Names of Jesus and Mary, a congregation dedicated to service of the poor.

Sister Linda was also featured speaker at the Vancouver archdiocesan charismatic conference in September 2015 (see Page 2).

Father Sylvester Obiora (Obi) Ibekwe, originally from Nigeria, was ordained for the Nelson diocese in October 2015 and is currently assistant pastor at St. Pius X parish in Kelowna, as well as serving St. Edward’s parish in Lake Country/Winfield.      He has long been active in the Catholic charismatic renewal and was featured speaker at Our Lady of Pentecost Summer Institute in 2014 and 2013.

Roy MacIntyre is co-ordinator of this year’s    Summer Institute, with Loree Renwick as MC and Father Obi as host and Mass celebrant. Gladys Miller will lead panel discussions and Johanna Tournemille is organizing music. Donna Goss and Peter Weiler will co-ordinate services at Seton House, with Evelyn Puckey in charge of meals.

For information, please contact Roy MacIntyre, 778-516-2769, roymacintyre@shaw.ca; to register or for billeting inquiries, contact Maria, 250-707-1423, untamedspirit@telus.net

“The Institute is our opportunity to gather with Mary, the mother of Our Lord, calling upon the Holy Spirit to inspire us and impel us to move forward in the power of the Spirit to bring the knowledge of God’s love and mercy to our communities and the waiting world,” says a statement from Summer Institute organizers. “It is here that we learn to listen, and, like Mary, ponder in our hearts and integrate God’s message for us and be moved to share with all what God is doing in the Church today.

“This year will be listening to how we may live and apply mercy in our lives and show mercy to our communities with the help of the Holy Spirit.”

Cranbrook hosts day of renewal

By LYNNE WILLIAMS

People of Unity Prayer Group, Cranbrook

On a rainy Kootenay Saturday in March, the People of Unity prayer group hosted an East Kootenay deanery day of renewal featuring the Nelson diocesan ministry team of  Father Sylvester Ibekwe as guest speaker and Johanna Tournemille and Gladys Miller as music leaders. Twenty-four people from throughout the deanery participated.

Father prayed, “May we be revived and strengthened in our faith and renewed by love for you and for each other.” God created us for happiness and we all search for it. Happiness is different from pleasure; pleasure cannot be sustained without the activity producing it. Food, success, and certain activities give us pleasure, but we always need more to continue the pleasure; pleasure does not bring enduring happiness. Happiness stays with us no matter what happens.

Father’s talks included the following topics:

1. What is the essence of happiness? In what and whom does it exist?
2. What is the meaning of the Beatitudes?
3. What is the meaning of evil and suffering? How do we approach them and the difficulties of life?

When Abraham said yes to God, he made a journey in darkness, trusting God. Likewise, to be a Christian is to journey in darkness and to move forward in faith, trusting in God’s light.

What is happiness? In whom is it found? “When Jesus saw the crowds, he went up the mountain; and after he sat down, his disciples came to him. Then he began to speak, and taught them saying; ‘Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs in the kingdom of heaven.’” (Mt. 5:1-3 NRSV)  The Greek word, μακαριοι, here translated “blessed,” properly means happy. (Benson Commentary http://biblehub.com/commentaries/matthew/5-3.htm)

Biblically, when Jesus goes up the mountain, he goes to pray. Praying helps him find the will of his Father. This was difficult for him because he was human. “In his anguish, he prayed more earnestly, and his sweat became like great drops of blood falling down on the ground.” (Lk. 22:44 NRSV)

When Jesus sits down to teach he assumes a position of authority. Sitting down is important. (Mt. 13:1-2, 15:29, 24:3-4, 26:55) When Matthew writes, he began to speak, he is telling us something important will happen; listen. In his reference to the mountain, he shows how the New Testament fulfils the Old Testament. He is telling the Jewish people Jesus is the new Moses, presenting the new law. Moses appearing at the transfiguration on Mount Tabor means the law with its commands was fulfilled in the person of Jesus, who magnified the law by teaching the law of the Love of God. If we base our lives on love, we will be satisfied and happy.

Matthew, unlike Luke’s version of the Beatitudes, adds the words “in spirit” to “poor.”He includes the religious sense to show the Jewish people that Jesus is the fulfillment of the scriptures. In Nazareth, Jesus reads, “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to bring good news to the poor,” (Is. 6:1-2, Lk.4:18-19 NRSV) then announces, “Today this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing.

In the Kingdom of God, things are turned upside down; there is a reversal of values. The Beatitudes begin with the poor, who are blessed in spirit. The rest of the world says “blessed are the rich; they are the happy ones.” But, what does the Bible say? “My help comes from the Lord, who made heaven and earth.” (Ps. 121:2) God’s help for the poor and afflicted is referenced many times, (Ps, 12:5, 14:6, 22:24, 27:14: Is. 10:2, 26:6) In Matthew, the followers of Jesus were poor in spirit and fact. Where then does happiness (blessedness) lie? Like the poor person who is totally dependent on him for everything, we must look to God to find our happiness.

At the beginning of his second talk, Father played his guitar and lead us in a spontaneous prayer-song:

“There is something that makes me

Come into your presence, by your love,

My Redeemer, My Savior, My Father.

For you died for me, my helper.

You gave me life, my helper.

You gave me friends, my helper.

You gave me hope, my helper.

We have come because we want to encounter you in any way. We will be quiet and listen to your voice.

Your presence brings us life, strength, hope. Thank-you Lord for bringing us together.

When we come into your presence, we’re so happy, so glad. For in your presence,  there is anointing and in your presence his Spirit surrounds us…”

We believe in the almighty God from whom everything comes. To enjoy this peace and contentment, we have to put aside our life and put it into the life of God. “For, ‘In him we live and move and have our being.’” (Acts 17:28) I am a dependent being. To be means to be in the life of God; enjoy swimming in the life of God; enter into the dance.

In Life in the Spirit means to become one with God who becomes the dwelling place of where we want to be. That’s where Jesus wanted to be. Everything he did came from that source of being with the Father. We will do more and have more satisfying lives if we live in his presence. True freedom is a liberty of spirit; Jesus came “to proclaim liberty to captives.” (Isaiah 61:1)

Something had been seen in Jesus that the disciples had not seen before and a disciple asked, “Lord, teach us to pray, just as John taught his disciples.” (Lk. 11:1) When we pray, we enter into his presence and partake in a relationship that is transforming. The Kingdom of Heaven begins here, “Because your steadfast love is better than life.” (Ps. 63:3 NRSV) and is fulfilled in the next world.

“Blessed are the meek for they will inherit the earth.” (Mt. 5:5) The humble will inherit the earth and be exalted. (Mt. 19:28) “Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle (meek) and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls.”(Mt. 11:29 NRSV)

The meek do not establish themselves above other people and this is not a weakness. Jesus was meek, but spoke his mind, encouraging us to speak the truth in charity and love.

“Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled. (Mt. 5:8 NRSV) What do we mean by righteousness? When we live in God, we too become righteous, just, and have integrity. Jesus took away our shame. We do not have justice and righteousness in ourselves. He has it. The ultimate source of righteousness comes from God.

“Blessed are the merciful, for they will receive mercy.”(Mt. 5:7 NRSV) To be merciful is a fundamental demand that God is making of us. “I desire mercy, not sacrifice.” (Mt.9:13) Jesus miracles are examples of living mercy, (Mt.5:43-48, 9:26-31, 15:21-28, 17:14-18, 20:29-34, 25:31-46, Heb. 2:17) Mercy should be shown to everyone, even our enemies and those from whom we are estranged and alienated. We are to open our arms and embrace one another in our beauty and our brokenness. The Parable of the Prodigal Son is an excellent example of the mercy of the Father. Mercy brings us to restoration and revival. The only way to peace in the world is to reach out to embrace one another and to initiate the move of mercy. Merciful action is a concrete sign that we are loyal to our heavenly Father. He demands an activity of loving kindness benefiting other people.

The kingdom of God will bring us six things: permanent inheritance, comfort and peace, mercy, fulfillment, closeness to God, and sufferings and persecution. The Beatitudes bring us consolation and comfort when we face evil and sufferings; they bring into perspective the difficulties of the present moment, lessening pain and anguish, and encouraging us to move forward.

God’s promises, which we hold in our hearts, are being fulfilled in the here and now and will be completed in the future reign of God. We can put our trust in God and not be afraid of living today and tomorrow. The promises possess a secret vision and hope that will make suffering powerless and bearable.

Nelson leaders learn about discipleship

By LYNNE WILLIAMS

On April 20, 1999, two teens went on a shooting spree at Columbine High School in Littleton, Colorado, killing 13  and wounding more 20 before committing suicide. The crime was the worst high school shooting in U.S. history.

Deacon (now Father) Sylvester Ibekwe’s opening talk to the Nelson Diocesan leaders’ retreat, in September at Seton House in Kelowna, began with this story. A survivor was shot 12 times when she answered, “Yes,” to the question, “Do you believe in God?”  When asked why, she said, “Because my parents taught me and that’s why I believe it myself…My life is a miracle.”

Living our faith the way we are capable of is what changes the world. As a mother of a murdered teen has said, “No matter what evil we perpetuate on each other, God wins in the end.”

A disciple is a student; for discipleship, there needs to be an attraction to the person we are following. Holiness is the most attractive thing in the world. Beauty draws us in, changes us and sends us on a mission. It does not allow us to stay the way we are.

Jesus was not a boring guy. He brings wine to a wedding, food for a picnic, protects women from stoning, raises the dead to life at a funeral, and heals the sick of their illnesses. He was radical.

“He (rich man) said to him (Jesus), ‘Teacher, I have kept all these (commandments) since my youth.’ “Jesus, looking at him, loved him and said, ‘You lack one thing; go sell what you own, and give the money to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; then come follow me.’ ” (Mark 10:20-21 NRSV)

Discipleship is not easy; it has a cost and we cannot do it on our own. We need the look of love.

St. Paul says, “I want to know Christ and the power of his resurrection and the sharing of his sufferings by becoming like him in his death, if somehow I may attain the resurrection from the dead. (Phil.3:10-11NRSV)

We can never really know Christ, but each day we can strive to know a little bit more. It is only in heaven that we will really know him. In order to know God, one has to be known – standing naked before him, wearing no masks. One must surrender all, holding nothing back.

The Holy Spirit partners with us to show us areas in our lives that need to be worked on, illuminating us and shedding light on our path; this can take a long time. The journey of illumination leads to unity with God. Not many people arrive at this destination in this life.

“For through the law I died to the law, so that I might live to God. I have been crucified with Christ; and it is no longer I who live, but it is Christ who lives in me. And the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me. (Gal. 2:19-20 NRSV) When such unity happens, we are able to listen to God and others. We experience a sense of tranquility and serenity and actually seek the good of the other. Our goal is to decrease so that others may increase.

Gladys Miller, chair of the Nelson diocesan service committee, gave the second talk. She said God enhances discipleship through leadership by pouring out his abundant grace. There is a cost in that nothing is promised in this life, but much is promised in eternal life. When we focus on the world, the cost is sometimes too great; when we focus on Jesus, the cost is not too great.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s book titled, The Cost of Discipleship, centres on the Sermon on the Mount and the theology of costly discipleship. From a temporal point of view of the Beatitudes, people do not feel blessed and happy when poor, in mourning, hungry, etc. What makes the Beatitudes acceptable is what follows afterwards– the kingdom of heaven, seeing God, being called a child of God, etc.

 “It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of God.” (Heb. 10:31 NRSV)

Discipleship involves a spiritual revolution; it is a call to put away old way of life and put on a new self, requiring discipline, and a willingness to listen to God and imitate Jesus.

One must learn that God loves us for who we are, not for what we do. Some costs of discipleship include alienation and isolation within the Church (obedience to God comes before obedience to people); feelings of losing control because of lack of obedience; rejection by family and friends because of our activity; discouragement—the cost of fidelity requires hope regardless of our circumstances; difficulty in letting go of what we want to do – avoiding God’s signals; giving up our own agenda – seek God’s will.

Being what God wants us to be has a human cost. God will often give us prestige and possessions, but there is no guarantee. Give up everything that does not lead to God, including our worldly ambitions. “For the grace of God has appeared, bringing salvation to all., training us to renounce impiety and worldly passions, and in the present age to live lives that are self-controlled, upright and godly, while we wait for the blessed hope and the manifestation of the glory of our great God and Savior, Jesus Christ. He it is who gave himself for us that he might redeem us from al l iniquity and purify for himself a people of his own who are zealous for good deeds.” (Titus 2:11-14 NRSV)

“May I never boast of anything except the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, by which the world has been crucified to me and I to the world.” (Gal. 6:14 NRSV)

We are called to serve. “You call me Teacher and Lord – and you are right, for that is what I am. So if I, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you also ought to wash one another‘s feet. For I have set an example, that you also should do as I have done to you. Very truly, I tell you, servants are not greater than their master … If you know these things, you are blessed if you do them.” (Jn. 13:13-17 NRSV)

“Then Jesus told his disciples. “If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me.’” (Mt.:16:24 NRVS) We make a choice for discipleship out of love for Jesus. Our true commitment to Jesus is revealed in our struggles as we turn to him in all circumstances. “Do not worry about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God. And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.” (Phil. 4:6-7 NRSV)

If our identity is in possessions and the ungodly things of this world, God does not recognize us. God made whole the person he called us to be; this is our identity as a child of God. Isn’t now the time for us to co-operate with God’s plan and discover the child God created?

Deacon Sylvester began the last teaching on My Identity in the Journey of Discipleship, with a lesson in Greek. Μakarios is often translated as blessed, but more accurately translates as happy or fortunate. “Blessed are the poor…” (Mt. 5:3 NRSV) The poor are branded with labels: economically deprived, marginalized, and facing injustice, misfortunes, disappointments and betrayals. Because of their destitution and suffering, a poor person can put their trust in God and his provision. “…so that they would search for God and perhaps grope for him and find him – though indeed, he is not far from each one of us. For in him, we live and move and have our being…” (Acts. 17:27-28)  God’s happiness becomes their happiness.

In John’s gospel, John is humble; no mention is made of his name. But he mentions John the Baptist 20 times, because he was a witness, not an authority. John, “the disciple whom Jesus loved,” (Jn. 21:20), valued witness more than authority.

The word “apostle” does not appear in John, but the word “disciple” appears 78 times. In John, the disciples live in a community of equals. A leadership position does not make one superior. Top-down leadership leads to disunity. There is authority of service, not dominance of service.

“Jesus said to them again, ‘Peace be with you. As the Father has sent me, so I send you.’ When he had said this, he breathed on them and said to them, ‘Receive the Holy Spirit. If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven them; if you retain the sins of any, they are retained.”(Jn. 20:21-23)  Three things were needed to ensure harmony and order:  bond of love; common experience of the Holy Spirit; service of humility

John’s anonymity is very deliberate. In Jewish tradition, the name is very important. What gives John his identity is the fact that God loves him. Because the disciple remains unnamed, readers can place themselves into the story of the beloved. Our real identity comes from the fact that we are loved. It is enough to be the beloved of the Father.

I begin to live when I find me. When I find me, I can delight in and promote the other person. When you know you are loved, you can see the goodness of the other and take time to bless and welcome them.

When my identity comes from my relationship with Jesus, it leads to self-emptying and a consummation of all virtues in order that Christ will live in me.

When I find me, I can begin to lead. When I find me, I will give myself in service.

 

Upcoming events

 

April 29-30	Nelson diocesan Conference	Kelowna
	Mercy Is Falling; speaker Fr. Pierre Ducharme	St. Pius X parish
	contact: Gladys Miller russ-m@telus.net 250-442-8589
May 14	Pentecost celebration	Coquitlam
9 a.m.- 1 p.m.	with Fr. Ray Usman, Archbishop’s liaison	All Saints parish
	contact: fireblade@telus.net 604-597-8227
May 15	Pentecost celebration	Victoria
3:30 p.m.	Roland and Marian Wauthy, guest speakers	St. Patrick’s parish
	contact: Richard Dunstan 250-477-4700
May 28	Prayer Breakfast	Penticton
9:00 a.m.	Father Rex Velmonte	St. John Vianney
	361 Wade Avenue
Aug. 7-12	Our Lady of Pentecost Summer Institute	Kelowna
	with Sr. Linda Koontz and Fr. Sylvester Obiora Ibekwe	Seton House
	contact: Roy MacIntyre,  roymacintyre@shaw.ca  778-516-2769
Sept. 23-24	B.C. provincial and Vancouver archdiocesan conference	Vancouver
	with Bishop Sam Jacobs and Dr. Margarett Schlienz	Broadway Church
	contact: fireblade@telus.net 604-597-8227

To include your Life in the Spirit Seminar, prayer breakfast, healing Mass, day of renewal, or other charismatic event in this listing, email B.C. Charismatic editor Richard Dunstan at  richard@thedunstans.com

Look beyond the selfie—and the self

By ANN BRERETON

ICCRS representative for Australia

Imagine an archaeological dig site in 1,000 years’ time. A long aluminium stick with a claw on one end and button on the other is found. After much research it is discovered to be a “selfie-stick” from the 21st century. It is displayed in the National Museum with the following inscription “Selfie Stick. A popular photographic tool used by our ancestors to capture a moment in time, with the operator of the device being the main attraction.”

Most of us have participated in a “selfie” or possess our own “selfie stick.” I remember being told by a professional photographer that where possible I should include a person or people in holiday scenery snaps, as this can help to recall where and when the photo was taken. However, the scenery or event remained the subject of the photo, unlike today. The selfie-stick phenomena in which we are now living has shifted the attention to ‘self’ being at the centre and all else as incidental.

This is not a new trend. Reflecting back through the years to family snaps, our usual reaction when seeing them for the first time is to look for myself. If it’s a good photo of me, then I love the snap and may even put it on display, regardless of what everyone else looks like. If it’s a bad photo of me, although everyone else looks fantastic, the photo could be relegated to the bottom drawer.

So fundamentally little has changed when it comes to photography and our response to it. The basic human need to be acknowledged, or even adored, is a temptation faced by many. The current affair with the selfie stick feeds this egocentric desire and can easily become an inordinate attachment and sometimes addiction which feeds our need for recognition.

The voice of social media today bombards us with the messages that we are of value and acceptable only if we are at our most glamorous and sometimes we are driven to post a selfie which proves this. Now of course, it’s possible with body-slimming, skin smoothing and age-defying filters and apps, to change our appearance, to change from our true self to that which will be acceptable to others. The number of “likes” we get will tell us is we’ve been successful in this task.

A recent quote I read said “People get obsessed with likes. It’s an addictive drug. You get a taste of it, and then you want it more and more. People can tell you the precise moment they broke 100 likes.” Alternately, we can feel ostracised and depressed if we do not receive the desired response. This can cause a spiral into an abyss of depression, which can have terrible consequences.

We would do well to heed the words found in Samuel 16:7 “The LORD does not look at the things man looks at. Man looks at the outward appearance, but the LORD looks at the heart.”

As Christians we are not called to “throw away the selfie stick.” However, I believe we are challenged to look beyond the “self.” A selfie can be a wonderful tool to enable us to look at the world a little differently. A photo is usually taken to seize a moment, an emotion, a scene or a place which holds importance to us. Look beyond self in the picture and “see” what is happening in the background. Your photo may contain an act of kindness, of love or joy. If scenery, its beauty could remind you of the majesty of God. Look to the other people in the photo. Give thanks to God for them. Be real and true to yourself. Give thanks for who you are created to be in God’s image: “I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made.” (Ps. 139:14) Selfies do not have to be narcissistic; they can and should include the other.

Let us continue to capture the moment! But also to see beyond ourselves. It is then that our world is enlarged, our lives are enriched and God is given praise and thanks.

—ICCRS Newsletter

PREPARING FOR CHARISMATIC JUBILEE

Don’t keep the fire to yourself

By DEACON CHRISTOF HEMBERGER
ICCRS council member, Germany
When I was young I used to attend a summer camp. In the evenings, we regularly had bonfires. One of the team placed wood in an elaborate tower. When it was lit, the dry sticks burnt until high flames ignited the thicker logs which would burn way into the night. A bit of wood was added regularly to feed the fire so that it would burn for a long time.
These bonfire evenings came back to mind when reflecting on our motto towards the golden jubilee of the Catholic Charismatic Renewal in 2017: After “Fire Starters” (2012-13) and “Fanning the Flame” (2014-15) we now begin the year 2016 with “Spreading the Fire.”
It is relatively easy to start a fire or to be ignited by a fire. To keep a fire burning for a long time, through all of life’s tempests and adversities, is a rather difficult task. It takes stamina and perseverance.
I think the fire that was entrusted to us as a Charismatic Renewal resembles the bonfires of my youth: a fire was entrusted to us: the experience of the action of the Holy Spirit in our lives, in our Church, in our time. This fire should now burn in us, should become big and strong. There are three questions we need to ask ourselves:
How can we let this fire take hold of us (anew)? Over the last few years, we have really focused on this question. It is about experiencing the action of the Holy Spirit afresh every day. It is about living in the power of the Holy Spirit. The Baptism in the Holy Spirit and using the charisms both in our daily lives and in special situations are the foundation. These experiences resemble the lighting up of the fire: Enthusiasm springs forth, flames spread in no time, the fire burns brightly and can be seen from afar.
How can we keep the fire burning for a long time? A fire needs to be fed; you constantly need to add logs or the fire will die down. The same is true for our relationship to God. It is not enough to know about baptism in the Holy Spirit or to have experienced it way back. We constantly need to focus on God, seeking His pres¬ence. We need to let Him fill us and take hold of us over and again.
This is the only way to safeguard that the fire is not just a flash in the pan. This is how our personal life can withstand the tempests and adversities of life and we do not remain in the initial excitement or even lose it but grow in depth and matu¬rity. A continuous encounter with the Lord, constantly being filled with the Holy Spirit and an intimate prayer life, is what it takes to not only ignite the fire but keep it burning for a long time.
Finally, the third and last question: For whom is this fire supposed to burn? Has God entrusted us with the fire so that we feel good, enjoying a cosy life in our prayer groups? Of course not! Sure, the Spirit of God should take hold of our personal lives penetrating us with his power, joy and peace day by day. But this is not the end of the task, but the beginning. We are called to share and pass on this fire. We share in the mission of Jesus to set captives free, to open the eyes of the blind, to let the oppressed go free and bring the Good News to the poor of this world (see Lk 4:18-19). We live in a world that cries out for God’s love. To pass on the good news is truly necessary. But how can it be done concretely, and above all effectively?
I think we first need to answer the question: Have we started to keep the fire to ourselves? If this is the case, we need to repent and refocus. Then it is important to serve and above all live where God has placed us. This is where we are to be living testimonies to the world. Many have gotten used to withdrawing to a pious corner and renounce the world. I believe this is not what God wants. He has called us into this world to live there as His witnesses. There we can pass on what we have received through relationships and by serving our neighbour.
At the start of this new phase towards our jubilee 2017 I want to encourage you today to keep the fire burning that God has placed in your life. This is best done by a regular prayer life and a deep relationship to the Lord. Only then will we succeed on the long to keep the fire burning that God has placed in us. And only then will we succeed in passing on this fire to others.

—ICCRS Newsletter

International leadership training scheduled in Rome this summer

The seventh Leadership Formation Institute sponsored by International Catholic Charismatic Renewal Services will be held Aug. 28-Sept. 17 in Rome.
Registration is currently open for the three-week event, which will offer classes, workshops and practical teaching on Scripture, ecclesiology, pneumatology, mariology, kerygma, leadership and ministry. Field trips in Rome are also scheduled.
The cost is 1,850 Euros per person, which includes course fees, accommodations (double occupancy), local transportation, entrance fees to sites visited, and transport to and from the airport. Single occupancy is available for an additional 250 Euros.
“The purpose of the course is to encourage and strengthen current service leaders in the Renewal, as well as to help develop future service leaders for ministry within the Church and the Renewal,” says an email from ICCRS headquarters.
Those attending must submit a letter of recommendation from their national service community or leaders of their own community and a letter of recommendation from their parish priest or spiritual director, plus one passport photo, a photocopy of the photo page of their passport, and a brief curriculum vitae with evidence of a leadership background.
The course, normally held every second year, is being held a year early because 2017 will be devoted to celebrations of the 50th anniversary of the renewal.
More information is available at
http://www.iccrs.org/en/vii-leadership-formation-institute-rome-italy/ .

Catholic Charismatic Renewal Services of B.C.

 Flo Reid (Nelson diocese), chair

826-14^th St. South, Cranbrook, BC V1C 1X9

phone 250-426-7570      fmreid45@gm  ail.com

Fr. John Brioux, spiritual adviser, 604-984-6709

Lennie David, Vancouver archdiocese 604-594-7296

Richard Dunstan, Victoria diocese, newsletter editor 250-477-4700

Alex Lim, Vancouver archdiocese, 604-435-9134

David MacIntyre, Victoria diocese, 250-383-9955

Flo (chair) and Jim Reid, Nelson diocese 250-426-7570

Jocelyn Rochard, Vancouver archdiocese, treasurer 604-469-0713

Lindael Rolstone, Kamloops diocese, secretary

 

 

B.C. Charismatic

CCRS of BC newsletter

published spring and fall

editor Richard Dunstan

308-225 Belleville St.

Victoria BC V8V 4T9

email: richard@thedunstans.com

phone: 250-477-4700

website: www.bccharismatic.ca

 

Posted in Uncategorized

Dec 24th Nelson Diocese Catholic Charismatic Conference 2016

Nelson Diocese Catholic Charismatic Conference 2016 will be held at St. Pius X church in Kelowna BC on Friday April 29 and Saturday April 30. The conference will feature Franciscan Father Pierre Ducharme, OFM. The theme of the conference in keeping with the Holy Year of Mercy is: Mercy is falling – God’s Mercy is for All. The related scripture is Matthew 5:7, “Blessed are the merciful for they will be shown mercy.” More details appear on the conference poster below. Click to view.

NDCCRConferencePoster2016

NDCCRConferenceBrochure2016

Kelowna Motels and Hotels near conference site

The conference is free but a love offering will be taken up to offset the costs. Contact info at: untaimedspirit@telus.net

 

Posted in Uncategorized

Oct 29th BC Charismatic Newsletter Fall 2015

We Are At War

 

By RICHARD DUNSTAN

Christians are at war. With a real enemy. And we had better take it seriously, because we’ll be running into that enemy in our spiritual lives. But there’s no need for fear—as long as we don’t try to fight the battle by ourselves.

“We battle the forces of darkness through the power of Christ,” Bishop Sam Jacobs told Our Lady of Pentecost Summer Institute in Kelowna Aug. 9-15. “We never do it outside the power of Christ, because if we do, we will lose. Let Jesus fight the battles.”

Bishop Jacobs, a former chair of the U.S. National Service Committee for the Catholic Charismatic Renewal, stepped in as speaker for the institute when the scheduled speaker, Fr. Bernie Black, stepped down in April. By that time the theme for the institute, spiritual warfare, had already been chosen. It wasn’t one Bishop Jacobs would have chosen himself.

“I really run away from spiritual warfare,” he told the 40 people attending the event. “I don’t want to deal with that guy. But I felt God saying ‘do it.’”

“That guy”—Satan—is no mere folk tale or symbol of evil, Bishop Jacobs said. He’s a real spirit, a person, a major figure throughout the Bible, including at least 25 references in the gospels alone. “The Son of God was formed to destroy the works of the devil.”

Quoting Pope Francis, he said Satan’s temptations start out small and grow gradually, to the point where they spread to other people and affect the whole community, all the while justifying themselves in the eyes of the person tempted.

Why does the devil even exist? God didn’t make him evil, but God does allow him to carry on practicing evil. “We won’t know anything about that until we get to heaven,” Bishop Jacobs said. “If I was God, I’d get rid of him quick.” God has a plan, he said, but at the moment that plan is a mystery to us.

There’s nothing mysterious about the outcome, though. Satan is going to lose the spiritual war. “We need to know that and believe it and act on it,” Bishop Jacobs said. “He’s defeated. He has no other future but eternal damnation.”

Meanwhile, Christians have a role to play in the battle, and Bishop Jacobs laid out some rules to follow. Rule 1 is to remember that we aren’t Jesus. We don’t fight Satan directly; we don’t go looking for demons the way Jesus did in his time on earth. We deal with them only as God leads us to, and then only through Jesus. “You never directly confront them. Jesus confronts them.

Next, be a prayer warrior. Cover yourself in prayer. “No matter what’s happening in your life, be in prayer.”

Always remember who you are—a son or daughter of God. That’s no small matter, because Satan will try to convince you otherwise, reminding you of your sin and your failures. “The devil can’t give us anything good. He goes after who we are.”

Remember also what you can’t see. The invisible world is as real as the visible world. We are in an invisible war, eternal and cosmic, with a powerful enemy whose goal is to destroy us.

But while we need to take the enemy seriously, we shouldn’t fear him, or be preoccupied with him either. Fear is the devil’s second favourite tool (after pride), Bishop Jacobs said.

“He wants us to be afraid, and we have to say no. We don’t have to be afraid.”

Don’t get complacent. Once we’re freed from the devil’s influence, we need to fill the space with Jesus. We need to tell Jesus we love Him, Bishop Jacobs said—mainly just so we hear it ourselves. Satan will only be cast out forever when Jesus returns, so if we don’t fill the space, Satan will find a way back in to defile us again. “He’s always looking for an opportunity to come back.”

The devil comes against our sin and weakness, Bishop Jacobs said, so we must always be on our guard. We won’t be perfect, but we must repent of our sins and trust in God’s mercy. “We still sin, but sin is not in control of our lives. We aren’t steeped in sin—we are steeped in Christ.”

The devil has many ways of getting at us, Bishop Jacobs said. The ordinary ways are the temptations of the world and the flesh. The world was created good, he said, but it has fallen, and it normalizes sinful behaviour. “As long as the world remains unredeemed, Christians may not live as belonging to the world.” He described the flesh as “the traitor within us.” “Flesh” doesn’t mean sexuality, he said; it means ego in place of discipleship—anything that isn’t from Jesus.

 

 

God knows what you’re going through

 

By RICHARD DUNSTAN

               Jesus gets it.

Whatever problems, hardships or obstacles you may be facing in life, Jesus understands, Fr. Gerald Sekanga told Our Lady of Pentecost Summer Institute in Kelowna in August. He was a human being, too, and He went through it all.

“There is no god who understands pain and separation like the Christian God,” Father Sekanga told the crowd of 40. ”On the cross, He was separated [from God the Father]. He’s the Son of God who says ‘I get it.’

“If you have those experiences, hold them tight, because God knows what you’re going through.”

Father Sekanga is pastor of Holy Child parish in Summerland. Originally from Uganda, he is trained as a canon lawyer. He spoke on the final full day of the week-long summer institute.

The doctrine of the Incarnation—that Jesus was both fully God and fully human—should be at the heart of our relationship to Him, Father Sekanga said. And His entire human life is important. Our relationship is not only with the resurrected Jesus. “The baby and the boy Jesus speak to us, and so does the preacher on the mount and the sufferer on the cross.”

The theme of the institute, titled In the Name of Jesus, was spiritual warfare, and Father Sekanga said our relationship with Jesus is the key to that warfare. As Messiah, Jesus’ role is to trample the enemies of God’s people, but the trampling isn’t for Jesus alone—it’s to be done by the Messiah with God’s people.

Father Sekanga made a number of other points about our relationship with Jesus:

“Believing” in Jesus means trusting Jesus. “You’re not saying ‘I’m of the opinion that Jesus exists,’” he said. Jesus’ name is powerful. Using Jesus’ name isn’t the same as praying, Father Sekanga said; it has power all its own. In Acts 3, Peter and John meet a crippled man, and rather than ask God to heal him, Peter commands the man in Jesus’ name to walk—which he does. “He got up, not because Peter prayed, but just by invoking the name of Jesus. How many of us have the trust like Peter did?”

Father Sekanga said there is nothing in the Bible that tells us to pray and then leave it to God to say “yes” or “no.” With God the answer is always “yes,” but the heart of the person prayed for must be in sync with God. If we pray in Jesus’ name, “it passes out of our hands into Jesus’ hands. When you pray in Jesus’ name, it is Jesus who does the praying, not you.”

As Catholics, our relationship to Jesus is more than one-on-one. “You’re born 2,000 years old.” Father Sekanga said. “And you don’t go to heaven alone. When we pray in sync together we are walking to heaven together.”

Our commitment to Jesus must be complete. We need to write Him a blank cheque. Going to Mass on Sunday doesn’t cover it; we need to give Him our whole lives.

Only Jesus can bring actual joy to our lives. “Joy is a transcendental quality. It can only come from Him. You don’t expect somebody else to give it to us. You cannot expect from someone that which only God can give.”

We have to be honest with Jesus. We need to be on intimate terms with Him, and if we try to justify our sins, we will destroy that intimacy.

“The Christian understanding of intimacy is self-revelation: revealing to God who you are, not who you think you are.

“We must tell Him, ‘I have sinned. I need your mercy.’ Then God says, ‘I get it. Go and sin no more.’”

 

BISHOP SAM JACOBS

 

Direct action by the devil or his demons is extraordinary, he said, but it can happen—ranging all the way from infestation, in which the devil basically makes a nuisance of himself, all the way up to diabolical possession, when a demon resides in someone’s body and can operate the person’s faculties as his own. Possession is extremely rare, he said, and exorcism of a possessed person requires a specially trained exorcist and permission of the local bishop. (By canon law every diocese is supposed to have a priest trained as an exorcist, but don’t bother asking who the exorcist is in your diocese—the bishop said the names aren’t make public, because if they were, the exorcist would be swamped with frivolous cases.

Bishop Jacobs said we shouldn’t be quick to diagnose possession or even lesser satanic actions; the Church tells us not to give supernatural explanations for problems that probably have natural causes.

Unless a problem is obviously demonic, he said, “you always begin with ‘could this be other than demonic.’ Start with the lesser cause.”

Bishop Jacobs said the Holy Spirit plays a key role in spiritual warfare. Even Jesus needed the Holy Spirit, as we can see from chapter 4 of Luke, which comes right after the Holy Spirit descends on Jesus at His baptism (3:22). Jesus is led into the wilderness by the Spirit (4:1) to be tempted by the devil, and successfully resists; then He return to Galilee filled with the power of the Spirit to begin His ministry (4:14). “One of the first things Jesus shows us is that He needs the power of the Holy Spirit in His humanity.”

We too need a personal encounter with the Spirit, just as we need a personal encounter with Jesus, and it should happen every day, Bishop Jacobs said. The devil won’t like what we’re up to, and we need the Spirit’s protection.

“Only if the Holy Spirit is within you are you equipped to do battle,” he said. “You can’t fight the evil one with a pistol. You need the atomic bomb. If we have the Holy Spirit, brutal as that attack will be, the Holy Spirit—God—will be there to defend us.”

 

For prophecies from Our Lady of Pentecost Summer Institute, see below

 

 

National leader steps down

Fr. Peter Coughlin leaves national service committee chair for health reasons

 

               Rev. Dr. Peter Coughlin, long-time leader of the Catholic charismatic renewal in Canada, has stepped down as chair of Catholic Charismatic Renewal Services of Canada, the national service committee.

He has also retired as pastor of St. Andrew’s Parish in Oakville, Ont., effective this past January. He remains editor-in-chief of The Bread of Life, the national charismatic magazine he founded.

He has been named chaplain for the Sisters of St. Joseph at their motherhouse in Hamilton. Gerard MacDonald of Prince Edward Island is now chair of the national committee. Fr. Coughlin continues to advise the committee.

Born in Hamilton in 1941, Fr. Coughlin was ordained in 1967 for the Hamilton diocese, but has said his priesthood didn’t really take off until he was baptized in the Holy Spirit at a prayer meeting in 1971. He was called to a healing ministry in 1972 while on a visit to a missionary friend in Peru: asked for pray for a young man who had hurt his knee, he saw the main healed immediately.

He earned a master’s degree in Christian spirituality at Creighton University in Nebraska in 1999, and a doctorate of ministry from the Graduate Theological Foundation in Iowa in 2003. He has spoken widely in Canada and internationally, including many visits to B.C., and is the author of a variety of books on the charismatic renewal.

 

The glory of God filled the temple

Vancouver celebrates 60^th Life in the Spirit Seminar with closing Mass

 

By IRENE HORSFALL

What a powerful encounter we experienced July 22 at the Mass celebrated in Holy Rosary Cathedral.  It was the last of the seven sessions encompassing the Life In the Spirit Seminar, marking the milestone of its 60th round of such Spirit-empowered event which had been provided in the Archdiocese of Vancouver since Jan. 29, 1993.

The glory of the Lord was fully revealed as His people had all joined in one voice, one spirit in praise of His triumphant presence amidst their very upbeat worship.  Needless to say, such unity of hearts was the trademark of the Holy Spirit while coupled with the joy, the jubilant worshipping gestures which demonstrated only how fully alive the whole congregation had been as it was totally soaking in such atmosphere of praise.

It was such an appropriate and marvellous honour due our Almighty God who, as our Creator, our Father, had been so tirelessly and generously imbuing us with the power of the Holy Spirit – as He was fondly called, the giver of life. He had lost no time in saturating us with such lively and spontaneous response to the liturgy of the Mass, allowing us to demonstrate the glory of God as befitting as in St. Irenaeus’s saying:  “The glory of God is in His people fully alive.”

I was indeed taken by surprise at such demonstration of vigour, vitality and ardour shown by the congregation as I had, in the past, attended numerous charismatic Mass celebrations with similar generous responses, yet something was definitely evident at this event, revealing a genuine awareness of the congregation regarding the whole purpose in giving God His praises and worship – in essence as it was stated in St. John’s Gospel that true worshippers are to worship God in spirit and in truth.  (Jn. 4:23)  Our congregation had doubtlessly been prompted and led by the Holy Spirit in giving their entire volition, emotion and will in honouring the one true God who is omnipotent, omniscient and omnipresent and is the very essence of love.  In other words, I was able to pick up the substance in the core of this worship. It had definitely conveyed something more than just the physical outbursts in tones and gestures; I believe that it had been caused by the quickening action of the Holy Spirit which enabled the worshippers to focus totally on God in His entire being.

I could never have given adequate thanks to the Lord for such an eye-opening witnessing, of course, having stated the fact of how our God Almighty had been so generous in showering us with such grace and blessings plus a whole array of gifts/charisms made available to the candidates, let us not omit to thank the organizers for this event, Fr. Stanley Galvon and his cathedral staff members for their hard work, all our powerful and grace-filled speakers for the seven sessions which included Bishop Ken Nowakowski, Ukrainian Catholic Eparch of New Westminster, who directed the congregation to identifying the real goal in its spiritual pursuit.  Finally, we must, of course, give our heart-felt thanks to our very own Archbishop Michael Miller for his very committed and assiduous efforts in making this celebration possible. His prayerful and physical support had made this event such a success.

In closing I would like to share my vision wherein I was given to see this dormant mine having been blasted, producing so many tiny pieces of stones by this dynamite (the Holy Spirit, for He is known in Greek as the dynamis) thereby fulfilling their purpose in edifying the “Church” building for the time to come.

 

Thanks be to God!

               What has God done in your life lately? We’d love to help you thank Him publicly for His blessings.

Please send testimonies of answered prayer to this newsletter for publication (for free!). Email B.C. Charismatic newsletter editor Richard Dunstan, richard@thedunstans.com .

 

PROPHETIC WORDS RECEIVED AT

OL PENTECOST SUMMER INSTITUTE

There are ditches that take water, and wherever the water flows in the irrigation ditches life springs up along that water.  And so with you, My children: when you take My Spirit, and go out wherever you travel, life comes around you when you bring my Spirit.  And so I say to you, come, come to the water, let anyone who thirsts and is thirsty come, let all who are thirsty come.  All who that it may have the water of life and have it free.  My Spirit is free to those who ask.

 

Isaiah 14 – The Lord of hosts has sworn: As I have resolved, so shall it be; as I have proposed, so shall it stand:  I will break the Assyrian in My land and trample him on My mountains:  Then his yoke shall be removed from them, and his burden from their shoulder.  This is the plan proposed for the whole earth, and this the hand outstretched over all nations.  The Lord of hosts has planned; who can thwart Him?  His hand is stretched out: who can turn it back?

 

Look! There He stands behind our wall, peering through the window, peering through the lattice.  My lover, my lover searched me and fetched me.  Arise, my darling, my beautiful one, come with Me. See, the winter is passed, the rains are over and gone, flowers are appearing on the earth and the season of singing has come.  The cooing of doves is in the land.  The fig tree fans its early fruit.  The blossoming vines spread their fragrance.  Arise, come, My darling, My beautiful one, come with Me.

 

Do you hear My love song?  Did you hear it go out to you?  And hear Me singing to you, my precious people: you are beautiful in My sight and I love you.  And I am calling you in a very special, special way in these days because you are the ones whom I am counting on.  You are the ones that I am asking that you will say Yes in a deeper, more surrendering way than you have ever before.   For such a season as this, for such a season that we are in, I need you, I need to hear your beautiful voice and I need to see your beautiful face, I need to see you before with my love and with my word in such a season as this.  I myself have conquered the world, the flesh and the devil, and now I who am the Almighty God need to face it through you. I need you to reach My people in this season, in this season.  This is My invitation and you have everything that you need.

 

All you who are thirsty, come to the water. You who have no money, come, receive grain and eat; come, without paying and without cost, drink wine and milk! Why spend your money for what is not bread; your wages for what fails to satisfy?  Heed Me, and you shall eat well, you shall delight in rich fare.  Come to Me heedfully, listen, that you may have life.  I will renew with you the everlasting covenant, the benefits assured to David.  As I made him a witness to the peoples, a leader and commander of nations, so shall you summon a nation you knew not, and nations that knew you not shall run to you, because of the Lord, your God, the Holy One of Israel, who has glorified you.

 

I have heard many times through this day the Lord’s call his call that says I love you, I love you as you are.  Come to Me, come to Me, listen to Me, walk with Me.  And as you come here tonight to celebrate this Mass the Lord calls us and says come, come without cost, come and receive what I would give you.  Come just as you are and I will bless you and I will hear you.

 

The Lord says this: I am not doing what I am doing for your sake, O Israel, but for the sake of My holy name which has been profaned among the holy nations.  I need to display the holiness of My great name, which has been profaned among the nations, which you have for Me profaned among them, and the nations will learn that I am the Lord; it is the Lord who speaks.  That I display my holiness for your sake before the knaves.  Then I am going to take you from among the nations and gather you together from all the foreign countries and bring you home to your own land. I shall pour clean water over you and you shall be cleansed.  I shall cleanse you of all of your defilement, all of your idols and I shall give you a new heart and put a new spirit in you.  I shall remove the heart of stone from your bodies and give you a heart of flesh instead.  I shall put my spirit in you and make you keep my laws and sincerely respect my observances, and you will live in the land that I gave your ancestors and you shall be my people and I will be your God. (Response: Lord Jesus, cleanse my heart pour clean water over me, put a new spirit within me and give me a new heart, a heart of flesh.)

 

The Lord has given me an image of a mighty medieval warrior, a knight, a knight on a horse fully clothed in his armour and his lance and he is just going for it.  And the dust is behind the hooves of the horse, and I sense that there is an army behind him, but this is the knight going ahead.  And then I see him on a hill on his horse and he has a flag in his hand a white flag with a huge red cross and the horse stands up and it is such victory, such victory.

 

Sing to God O kingdoms of the earth; sing praises to the Lord, to Him who rides in the heavens, the ancient heaven; lo, He sends forth His voice, His mighty voice.  Ascribe power to God, whose majesty is over Israel, and His power is in the skies.  Awesome is God in His sanctuary, the God of Israel; He gives power and strength to His people.  Blessed be God!

 

The flag has been raised, My people, and the battle has been won; this is true, this is trustworthy.  This is something that you can stake your life on.  The battle is won; it is accomplished.  There is no need to fear the small skirmishes that go on because the battle has been won.  The battle is won; it is accomplished.

 

Focus on the human Jesus, the One who suffers, the One who went through excruciating pain and suffering for you. Now focus on what that meant.  That meant He freed you, he gave you a life-saving inheritance, an inheritance in Heaven with His father. He wants you to focus on what that means, an inheritance that lasts forever and ever.

I have an image of the risen Jesus. He is happy, He is smiling, and He was walking towards me and He said, I listen, I am alive.  My disciples, when they saw Me risen and alive, they were overjoyed and they rejoiced.  I call you to rejoice and to be glad. I am alive; I am with you.  Don’t be afraid; be filled with My love and rejoice, for I am alive.  I am your risen Saviour.

 

Do you love Me?  Do you really love Me?  Do you know in the very depths of your being that I died for you, I love you? It’s important to know that I love you.  It’s important to Me to know that I love you.  It’s important to you to know that I love you.  It is important for the days ahead that you know My great love for you, for the ministry and the work I am calling you to.  You need to know that I love you that I loved you enough to give my life for you. I died for you, and my blood was shed for you, for you are Mine and I love you.  You are very are very precious to Me. Know this in the very depths of your being.

 

Song:  There is a fountain. Who is the king? Victorious warrior and Lord of everything.  My Rock, my Shelter, my very own precious Redeemer who reigns upon the throne.

 

My children, I am a high and holy God, and I live in a high and holy place. Even so it is I who have called you, it is I who have saved you, it is I who have taught you how to walk, and it is I who on this day stoop to you like a father and I lift you close to My cheek.  Believe it, My children: I love you, with an everlasting love and I am faithful to you till the end of time.

 

Make a joyful noise to God, all the earth; sing the glory of His name; give to Him glorious praise!  All the earth worships Thee; they sing praises to Thee; sing praises to Thy name.  Bless our God, O peoples, let the sound of His praise be heard, who has kept us among the living, and has not let our feet slip.

 

Then the Lord said go outside and stand up on the mountain before the Lord; the Lord will be passing by.  A strong and heavy wind was rending the mountains and crushing rocks before the Lord, but the Lord was not in the wind.  After the wind there was an earthquake, but the Lord was not in the earthquake.  After the earthquake there was fire, but the Lord was not in the fire.  After the fire there was a tiny whispering sound. When he heard this, Elijah hid his face in his cloak and went and stood at the entrance of the cave.  A voice said to him “Elijah, why are you here?  Why are you here?

 

Be still, My people, be still.  Stop striving to do things in your own power.  I call you into My rest.  My rest is a place where you cease to do and just be; where you can be the instrument of my love; where my love can flow through you because you have stopped getting in the way.  All I ask is that you let Me love through you, that you let me speak through you, you let Me be God in you.  It is My presence in you that will make you holy.  There is nothing you can do, My children; it is Me in you making you holy.  Be still, be still and know that I am God who lives in you.

 

I saw the Lord God seated on a high throne. His train filled the sanctuary. Above Him stood seraphim. Each of them had six wings; with two they veiled their faces, with two they veiled their feet, and with two they hovered aloft. And they cried out to one another in this way: “Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts.” His glory filled the whole earth. The foundations of the threshold shook with the voice of the One who cried out and the temple was filled with smoke.  I said, “what a wretched state I am in. I am lost, for I am a man of unclean lips and I live among a people of unclean lips.  And my eyes have looked at the King, the Lord of hosts.”  Then one of the seraphim flew to me holding in his hand a live coal which he had taken from the altar with a pair of tongs.  With this he touched my mouth and said “See, now this has touched your lips. Your sin is taken away, your iniquity is purged.“ Then I heard the voice of the Lord saying “Whom shall I send?  Who will be Our messenger?” I answered, “Here I am. Send me.”

 

And in this day I am gathering a people. I am forming an army; I am equipping a people – a people who will be equipped with tools they have never seen before, tools that are more powerful than any they have ever used. For this is a new day calling for a new army and new gifts.  And I am forming you, My people, I am forming you today, I am giving you the weapons that you will need.  And so I call.

 

Whoever clings to Me I will deliver; whoever know my name I will set on high.  All who call upon Me I will answer; I will be with them in distress; I will deliver them and give them honor.  With length of days I will satisfy them and show them My saving power.

 

Rise up, My people, rise up and walk with the dignity of God’s chosen people.  Rebuke all fear in your life, for I have not given you a spirit of timidity but a spirit of power and boldness to go forth and to serve My people and gather them into the Promised Land.  You are My remnant, you are My chosen ones.  Rise up, rise up! I have given you everything you need. I have anointed you with My Holy Spirit, to go forth in the power of the name of Jesus and to do all that He did because He is with us, He is in us.  Our holiness does not depend on us. It does not depend on us.

 

So My precious children, My precious body: it is He that you can depend on, so rise, rise and shine out, for your light has come.  The Glory of the Lord is rising on you.  Though night still covers the earth and night the people, above you, above you the Lord now rises and above you His glory appears.  The nations come to your light and kings to your dawning lightness. Lift up your eyes and look all around, look all around.  Can you not see?  All the assembly are coming towards you, your sons from far away and your daughters being tenderly carried. At this sight you will grow radiant.  Your heart throbbing in full, radiant, your heart throbbing.

 

The cost of leadership

By DENISE BERGERON

ICCRS council member, Canada

Leadership, as a charism of service, is first a gift from God. Its foundation is based on Christ, best figure of the one who serves others.

Authority comes from God himself. Every charism is given to us for conforming our whole being to Christ, perfect image of the Father. Christ’s mission is to testify the Father’s love. St Paul proclaims: “Who, being in the form of God, did not count equality with God, something to be grasped. But he emptied himself, taking the form of a servant, and was made in the likeness of men: And being found in fashion as a man, he humbled himself, and became obedient to death, even death on a cross” (Ph 2: 6-8).

In the Scriptures, Jesus, Israel’s Messiah, did not limit himself to the role of Liberator of his people, but he was the Light of the Nations. His service was extended for all humanity. His intimacy with the Father was so deep that he had no other desire than the one to share it.

Leadership comes with cost. The most intense fight for a leader is to ask himself for which purpose to use the charism of service: guided by the flesh or by the Spirit? In accordance with Christ, meaning here for Him, by Him and in Him, or for our personal glory?

We are called to serve the community as a whole, which means to serve the whole Church. Jesus encourages intensely his disciples to respond to this call and today we hear Him insisting again: “Launch out into the deep, and let down your nets for a catch” (Lc 5: 4). Stop being afraid to look at yourself, but rather fix your eyes on Him.

This choice brings us, at different moments, to fight against:

• our facility to settle comfortably, accepting to be unsettled;
• our tendency to remain in our little daily routine, decentralizing from ourselves and getting rid of old habits;
• the temptation to remain slaves of our fears, our worries of not being loved or accepted to our fair value, fears of what will be asked, daring the risk of faith and learning to trust;
• the requirements of interpersonal relationships and commitment, by living the grace of surpassing oneself in love and charity.

When we accept Christ and his Lordship in our lives, purification is done at all levels of our being. Here are some examples:

• Leadership requires work on oneself. Following the example of Jesus, who let himself be transformed by his Father’s love, the leader agrees to let himself be healed in the parts of his being which have not yet seen the light.
• Leadership is rooted in the Word of God. The leader takes time to learn and let himself be modeled by the image of Jesus. It is by contemplating Him in the Scriptures that he discovers how much he is loved, forgiven and called to the service of his brothers and the Church.
• Leadership operates within a context of relationships. The leader is brought at some occasions to take positions, such as during relational conflicts, by being a peacemaker, through reconciliation and urging people to live forgiveness.
• Leadership is learned through the exercise of discernment in the various charisms that we put at the service of our brothers and sisters. The leader learns to discern his own commitments, what is best for the group they belong to.
• Leadership calls to become detached from one’s ideas and projects. The leader who wants to be obedient to the Holy Spirit, sheds, at times, his projects, as good as they may be, to accommodate the will of God manifested in other projects that are more responsive to the group’s mission.
• The leader ensures that the image he has of his responsibility. “You have not chosen me, but I have chosen you” (Jn 15: 16). The servant’s attitude of humility is an essential quality that allows the inner freedom in ones commitment to the service of our brothers. He remembers constantly that he is not greater than his Master.
• Leadership leads to a continual detachment of one’s function. It is so easy for a leader to make of his affiliated group or even of the mission, his property. This is part of his struggle, such as the fear to delegate thinking that the other will do less well than we imagine, or fear of losing power and its place within the group. It is in prayer and in his devotion to Christ that he finds the strength to live a holy indifference, that is to say, living the inner freedom vis-à-vis the people and situations. This should not prevent him to give himself entirely, while ensuring to prepare someone to take over. He remains attentive to discern and promote the talents and charisms of each. In this way, the group is still alive, developing and open to new ideas.

The leader will win these battles by drawing in prayer, worship, and in the use of the sacraments, especially the sacrament of reconciliation and the Eucharist.

The goal to achieve is to grow as a child of the Father, like Jesus, fully given as a servant of every man. Our struggle is to let ourselves be dressed, inhabited, transformed by the Risen Christ.

Jesus has paid the price by accepting his mission of Servant to us. This price led him to die on a cross. But Jesus did not remain on the cross. He is risen and alive in our midst. The call is today, a call to move at large, get out of our beaten tracks, and die to ourselves and to our comfort. He urges us to come out winners of our battles by hosting the anointing of Holy Spirit on us. Let us become disciples with hearts of fire, joyful in hope, strong in faith, and filled with love and zeal in our commitments.

Leadership, charism of service, is a precious gift from God. With the deep assurance that God walks with us and precedes us on the way, let us welcome that gift with gratefulness. May the Holy Spirit, in this time of preparation leading to the Golden Jubilee of the Catholic Charismatic Renewal, renew in the heart of the leaders of the whole world the charism of service.

—condensed from ICCRS Leadership Bulletin

 

Let’s welcome Jesus in our lives

 

By LYNNE WILLIAMS

St. Charles Garnier in Kelowna was the site of the Nelson Diocese Catholic Charismatic Renewal Conference on April 25, 2015. John Connelly and Father Jack Michalchuk presented three inspirational talks, themed on the power of welcome, contemplation, and welcoming the word.

John Connelly began his presentation by asking us, what does, “Put on the Lord Jesus Christ,” (Rom.13:14) mean to you? What would happen if the world looks at a Christian and sees the person of Jesus Christ? In which ways do we welcome Jesus and others into our lives?

In the Greek language, “welcome” means “joy and exaltation.”  When we greet a friend, how do we show welcome? Perhaps a hug, a smile, or a friendly word indicates that their arrival gives us pleasure. Jesus is knocking on every human heart and wants to be welcomed as a friend, received with joy, and invited into a personal relationship. “… I am standing at the door, knocking; if you hear my voice and open the door, I will come in …” (Rev. 3:20)

The Catechism of the Catholic Church (CCC 519) states that all Christ’s riches are for every individual and are everybody’s property. Christ did not live his life for himself but for us. As Jesus welcomes us we ought to welcome him and listen to his word, letting him in where we are, not where we wish we were.

God is love and Jesus loves us totally because he is God. The pagan concept of prayer is that God is way out there, but St. Augustine said that God is closer to me than I am to myself. “…we are the temple of the living God; as God said, I will live in them and walk among them and I will be their God, and they shall be my people.” (2 Cor. 6:16) Jesus crucified is the greatest love of all; it is the great welcome of God to all. God sees us through the cross; the cross is the eye through which God sees us and through which we learn to see him.

When we cultivate a personal relationship with Jesus, Christianity becomes a dynamic adventure. By the power of the Holy Spirit, as we welcome Jesus into our hearts, we begin the process of conforming our lives to his. He wants to share our joys and celebrations, pain and suffering. Pain is heroic and redemptive when Jesus is invited into it. Welcoming Jesus and his mercy is the heart of everything: ecumenism, evangelization, unity, renewal, relationships, joy and pain.

Jesus is knocking on the door to your heart. Will you invite him in? John gave us this song refrain, “Jesus with every breath, we welcome you (three times). We welcome you.” We sang the refrain as he recited the song’s verses of welcome.

Finding Our Hidden Treasure was the title of the second talk. “To pray Jesus is to invoke him and to call him within us. His name is the only one that contains the presence it signifies. Jesus is the Risen One, and whoever invokes the name of Jesus is welcoming the Son of God who loved him and who gave himself up for him. (CCC 2666) In the invocation of the holy name, (Jesus), he is present. It is the simplest way of praying and when repeated by a humbly attentive heart, it holds fast to the word and “brings forth fruit with patience.” (Lk 8:15)

To welcome Jesus by praying his name is an encounter. It is therapy and the best counsellor we will ever get. This simplest form of prayer, contemplation, is for everybody. St. Teresa says, “Contemplative prayer … is … a close sharing between friends; it means taking time frequently to be alone with him who we know loves us.” (CCC 2709) “One does not undertake contemplative prayer only when one has the time: one makes time for the Lord, with the firm determination not to give up, no matter what trials or dryness one may encounter.” (CCC 2710) When the word contemplation is broken down, co means to join with; temple means God in your heart; tion means in a permanent state of union.

Contemplation is to rest in the presence of the great ‘I AM’. It is each person welcoming a new vision of their relationship with Christ. Welcoming Jesus in daily contemplation frees us from our boxes and leaves God’s love free to act in us. The church urgently needs the deep breath of contemplative prayer.

John provided a handout, Contemplation: Welcoming Jesus with every breath. He writes, “JESUS, with every breath I welcome you …every heartbeat, every experience, I offer as a prayer of limitless-love. Live your life in me as a Missionary Disciple today.” The contemplation has four steps:

1.Opening: I welcome your Spirit of Limitless-Love (Jesus) in me now – gratitude, praise, forgiveness.

2. Listening: I welcome your Words of Limitless-Love in me now – humility, repentance, surrender.
3. Uniting: I welcome your Heart of Limitless Love in me now – contemplation, worship, communion.
4. Sharing: I welcome Our Father’s Reign of Limitless-Love and Mercy into my life, family, church and world – evangelization, mission, service.

In the third talk, Father Jack spoke of Putting on the Lord Jesus Christ by welcoming the Word. “… Martha, you are worried and distracted by many things; there is need of only one thing. Mary has chosen the better part, which will not be taken away from her.” (Luke 10:41-42) In this familiar passage, Martha was busy with many chores, while Mary was listening to Jesus preaching and not helping Martha. Jesus has clearly stated that listening to the Word of God is the better part. For us, God’s word is in the Bible and it is important to read it.

The ‘Word’ has two Greek meanings. The first, logos, refers to the person of Jesus, “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.” (Jn. 1:1) Rhema refers to the NOW word for each person. For example, ‘One does not live by bread alone, but by every word (rhema) that comes from the mouth of God.” (Mat. 4:4) “Then Mary said, “Here I am Lord; let it be done to me according to your word.” (Lk.1:38)  God has a word for us personally. We read it in scripture and hear his voice speaking to us in prayer, just as this word (rhema), was spoken to Mary

When you read scripture, pray, and welcome Jesus into your heart, listen for God’s personal message, his word for you. Ask, what is the Lord saying to me? Every day, spend time in quiet, listen to God’s rhema and allow its power to transform you.

It sounds simple, doesn’t it? We all know the power of welcome in our lives. If we broaden our welcoming of friends into a welcoming of Jesus, we invite the Holy Spirit to change us, our families, church and world. Let’s “Put on the Lord Jesus Christ,” today.

 

Upcoming events

Sept 25-26	Nelson diocesan leaders’ retreat The Cost of Discipleship Contact Gladys Miller 250-442-8589 russ-m@telus.net	Kelowna Seaton House
Oct 14-Nov 15 (Wednesdays)	Life in the Spirit Seminar Contact Lennie 604-594-7296 or lucy.,rodjito@yahoo.ca	Burnaby St. Francis de Sales parish
April 29-30	Nelson diocesan conference Mercy is Falling – Fr. Pierre Ducharme, OFM Contact Gladys Miller 250-442-8589 russ-m@telus.net	Kelowna St. Pius X parish
Aug. 7-12	Our Lady of Pentecost Summer Institute Details TBA – see spring newsletter Contact Gladys Miller 250-442-8589 russ-m@telus.net	Kelowna

 

 

To include your Life in the Spirit Seminar, prayer breakfast, Healing Mass,

or other charismatic event in this listing, email richard@thedunstans.com

 

B.C. Charismatic

CCRS of BC newsletter

published spring and fall

 

editor Richard Dunstan

308-225 Belleville St.

Victoria BC V8V 4T9

email: richard@thedunstans.com

phone: 250-477-4700

website: www.bccharismatic.ca

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Posted in Uncategorized

Jul 6th Pope Francis to the Charismatic Renewal

To the members of Charismatic Renewal movement: share with all the baptism you have received

Vatican City, 4 July 2015 (VIS) – Unity in diversity and ecumenism of prayer, word and blood were the key themes of the Pope’s improvised address to the thousands of members of the Renewal in the Holy Spirit movement yesterday afternoon, on the occasion of their 38th National Convocation, held in Rome from 3-4 July on the theme “Ways of Unity and Peace – Voices of prayer for the martyrs of today and for a spiritual ecumenism”. The encounter began at 4 p.m. in St. Peter’s Square, and was attended by Cardinal Leonardo Sandri, prefect of the Congregation for the Oriental Churches; Cardinal Kurt Koch, president of the Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity, and Cardinal Angelo Bagnasco, president of the Italian Episcopal Conference, along with the Orthodox and Catholic oriental Patriarchs, Anglican and Lutheran bishops, and Pentecostal pastors.

In his address, the Pope emphasised that unity does not mean uniformity. It is not a “spherical” unity in which “every point is equidistant from the centre and there is no difference between one point and another. The model is the polyhedron, which reflects the confluence of all the parts that nonetheless maintain their originality, and these are the charisms, in unity but also diversity. … The distinction is important because we are speaking about the work of the Holy Spirit, not our own. Unity in the diversity of expressions of reality, as many as the Holy Spirit has wished to inspire”.

Another point the Holy Father considered very important to clarify related to those who guide. “There exists a great temptation for leaders to believe themselves indispensable, step by step to head towards authoritarianism, to personality cults, and not to allow the communities renewed in the Holy Spirit to thrive. This temptation renders ‘eternal’ the position of those who consider themselves indispensable. … We must be very clear that only the Holy Spirit is indispensable in the Church and Jesus is the only Lord. There are no others. … A time limit should be established for roles in the Church, which are in reality a form of service. An important service carried out by lay leaders is to facilitate the growth and the spiritual and pastoral maturity of those who will take their place at the end of their service. It would be opportune for all roles of service in the Church to have a time limit – there are no lifelong leaders in the Church”.

The Holy Father asked the members of Renewal in the Holy Spirit to share with all in the Church the baptism they have received. “It is the most important service that we can give to all in the Church”, he emphasised: “helping the people of God in their personal encounter with Jesus Christ, Who transforms us into new men and women, in small groups, humble but effective, because the Spirit that works within them. Do not focus on large-scale meetings that often go no further, but instead on the ‘artisanal’ relationships that derive from witness, in the family, at work, in social life, in parishes, in prayer groups, with everyone!”.

Another strong sign of the Spirit in Charismatic Renewal is the search for unity in the Body of Christ. “You, as Charismatics, have the special grace of praying and working for Christian unity, so that the current of grace flows through all Christian Churches. Christian unity is the work of the Holy Spirit and we must pray together. … We have all received the same baptism, we all follow Jesus’ path. … We have all caused these divisions throughout history, for different reasons, but not good ones. But now is the time that the Spirit makes us think that these divisions are a sort of ‘counter-witness’, and we must do all we can to walk side by side: spiritual ecumenism, the ecumenism of prayer”.

There is also another form of unity: “the unity of the blood of martyrs, that makes us one. There is the ecumenism of blood. We know that those who kill Christians in hatred of Jesus Christ, before killing, do not ask: ‘But are you a Lutheran, Orthodox, Evangelical, Baptist, Methodist?’ They say, ‘You are Christian’, and behead them. … Fifty years ago, Blessed Paul VI, during the canonisation of the young martyrs of Uganda, referred to the fact that for the same reason the blood of their Anglican companion catechists had been shed. They were Christians, they were martyrs. Forgive me, and do not be scandalised, but they are our martyrs! Because they gave their lives for Christ, and this is ecumenism of blood. We must pray in memory of our common martyrs”.

Finally, there is “unity in work with the poor and the needy, who also need baptism in the Holy Spirit. It would be good to organise seminars on life in the Spirit, along with other Christian charismatic entities, for those brothers and sisters who live on the streets: they too have the Spirit within them that pushes for someone to throw open the door from outside”.

Before imparting his final blessing, the Pope invited those present to go forth and preach the good news of Jesus “to the poor, to the marginalised, the blind, the sick, the imprisoned, to all men and women. In each one of them there is the Spirit, Who wants to be helped to throw open the door so as to be revived. May the Lord accompany you in this mission, always with the Bible in your hand, always with the Gospel in your pocket, with the Word of Christ”.

 

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May 30th Spring Newsletter 2015

B.C. Charismatic Catholic Charismatic Renewal Services of B. C. newsletter                 Spring 2015

Praise is our Breath,

Says Pope Francis

Pope Francis’ address to members of the Catholic Fraternity of Charismatic Covenant Communities and Fellowships, Rome, Oct. 31

Dear brothers and sisters,

Welcome! I thank you for your warm welcome and I greet you all with affection. I know that the Catholic Fraternity has already met with the executive and the council and that this afternoon you will open the Sixteenth International Conference with our beloved Father Raniero [Cantalamessa]. You have been kind enough to provide me with a programme and I see that each meeting begins with the words which I addressed to the Charismatic Renewal on the occasion of our meeting at the Olympic Stadium last June.

I wish first of all to congratulate each of you for having embarked upon something which was expressed as a desire at that meeting. For the last two months the Catholic Fraternity and the ICCRS (International Catholic Charismatic Renewal Services) have worked together and shared office space in the Palazzo San Calisto, “Noah’s Ark”. I am aware that it may not have been easy to make this decision and I thank you sincerely for this witness to unity and grace which you offer to the entire world.  

CATHOLICISM: UNITY IN DIVERSITY

I would like now to reflect upon some themes which I consider important. The first is unity in diversity. Uniformity is not Catholic, it is not Christian. Rather, unity in diversity. Catholic unity is different but it is one: this is curious! The cause of diversity is also the cause of unity: the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit does two things: he creates unity in diversity. Unity does not imply uniformity; it does not necessarily mean doing everything together or thinking in the same way. Nor does it signify a loss of identity. Unity in diversity is actually the opposite: it involves the joyful recognition and acceptance of the various gifts which the Holy Spirit gives to each one and the placing of these gifts at the service of all members of the Church. It means knowing how to listen, to accept differences, and having the freedom to think differently and express oneself with complete respect towards the other who is my brother or sister. Do not be afraid of differences! As I wrote in Evangelii Gaudium: “Our model is not the sphere, which is no greater than its parts, where every point is equidistant from the centre, and there are no differences between them. Instead, it is the polyhedron, which reflects the convergence of all its parts, each of which preserves its distinctiveness” (n. 236), but they form a unity.

I can see from the programme, where the names of the Communities are mentioned, that at the introduction you have inserted the phrase, “…to share the Baptism in the Holy Spirit with the whole Church”. The Church needs the Holy Spirit, how could it be otherwise! Every Christian in his or her life requires a heart open to the sanctifying action of the Holy Spirit. The Spirit, promised by the Father, is he who reveals Jesus Christ to us, who gives us the possibility of saying: Jesus! Without the Holy Spirit we cannot say this. The Holy Spirit reveals Jesus Christ, he leads us to a personal encounter with him, and in so doing, changes our life. A question for you: is this your experience? Share it with others! In order to share this experience, you must live it and witness to it!  

PRAISE IS LIKE BREATHING

The theme which you have chosen for the Congress is “Praise and Worship for a New Evangelization.” Fr Raniero, a masterful guide in the ways of prayer, will speak on this theme. Praise is the “breath” which gives us life, because it is intimacy with God, an intimacy that grows through daily praise. Some time ago I heard an example of this which seems very appropriate: the way that people breathe. Breathing is made up of two stages: inhaling, the intake of air, and exhaling, the letting out of this air. The spiritual life is fed, nourished, by prayer and is expressed outwardly through mission: inhaling – prayer – and then exhaling. When we inhale, by prayer, we receive the fresh air of the Holy Spirit. When exhaling this air, we announce Jesus Christ risen by the same Spirit. No one can live without breathing. It is the same for the Christian: without praise and mission there is no Christian life. Praise, adoration are needed. When speaking of adoration, little is said. What do we do when praying? We ask something from God, we thank him, we intercede. But adoration, adoring   God is part  of a Christian’s  breathing:

(continued on Page 6)

Page 2                  Spring 2015             B.C. Charismatic

 

‘We just need to have Jesus’

By RICHARD DUNSTAN

     One of Father Richard McAlear’s favourite biblical characters is a donkey. It reminds him of where he stands in God’s scheme of things, especially in his healing ministry.

Remember Balaam in Numbers chapter 22? He was on a mission from God, but he got it messed up, and the donkey he was riding had to tell him off before he got it straightened out. Then Balaam spoke the word of God, bravely and truthfully.

“The Lord spoke to him through a donkey,” Father McAlear told the 2014 Vancouver Catholic Charismatic Conference. I find great consolation in that. We don’t need great education in [healing] techniques.

“We just need to have Jesus.”

Father McAlear, head of the Ministry of Hope and Healing, was a last-minute replacement for scheduled speaker Bob Canton at the conference at St. Matthew’s Church in Surrey. Canton, who leads a healing ministry based in Stockton, Calif., had to step down due to a family medical crisis. (Canton will speak at this year’s conference instead –see Page 8.)

“We just need to have Jesus” was the heart of Father McAlear’s message on healing. “Healing is a gift of love,” he said. “It’s faith in His love, not faith in faith. It’s not a magic transformation of energy. It’s not New Age technique. It’s not other gods.” Even laying hands on the people we pray for is optional, he said—a gesture of compassion, not a necessity. It’s all about Jesus.

“The fullness of divinity dwells in him in bodily form. He’s higher than cancer, he’s higher than Parkinson’s disease, he’s higher than infection.”

But Father McAlear said he didn’t fully grasp the importance of Jesus until he was baptised in the Holy Spirit in 1972, two years after his ordination to the priesthood and a full 12 years after he entered the Oblates of Mary Immaculate.

Not that he didn’t have a good Catholic background. He was born in Boston, of parents who were Irish and Italian—they met at church. “Everybody was Catholic,” he said. He wanted to be a missionary, but he got hepatitis and was told it left him too feeble for missionary work—a bit of a chuckle now, considering his speaking ministry takes him to 30 conferences a year.

He joined the Oblates in 1960, and in 1964 was sent to Rome for seven years of study. He actually spent a day at a session of the Second Vatican Council, thanks to a bishop who got a number of seminarians through the doors for the sake of the experience.

“I didn’t understand a thing that was said, but I was there,” he told the conference.

Ordained in 1970, he returned to the United States in 1971 to find everything changed in the wake of Vatican II. Both the country and the Church were full of discontent and confusion—even about Jesus. Father McAlear was no different from many others. At one point he went to his spiritual director to ask why he should preach the Gospel—“why should I say don’t do Buddha, do Jesus?” The director said “I don’t know,” and nobody else could give him an answer either.

Then the spiritual director he had had before he went to Rome got in touch with him and asked him how things were going. “Dry as dust, and very confusing,” he said. The former director told him he might want to check out the Catholic charismatic renewal, so off he went to a prayer meeting.

He could barely believe what he was seeing and hearing. Nuns in traditional habits hugging hippies, and vice-versa. A truck driver who talked about Jesus like he knew him. “I was mad,” Father McAlear said. “I was the one with the degree in theology.” But then he was offered baptism in the Spirit with the promise: you can have what they have. The group prayed over him. He didn’t speak in tongues, see visions, or get slain in the Spirit, “but I did have an overwhelming peace. All the problems in the country, all the problems in the Church—Jesus is in charge, not me.” And when he began to read his breviary, just as he had been doing for 14 years, “I’m reading the Psalm, and I’m thinking, who wrote this?”  It was like the scales falling from Paul’s eyes, like going from black and white to Technicolor. “I [already] knew Jesus was Lord, but now Jesus was Lord.”

That answered his question about the difference between Jesus and Buddha or any other religious figure. The others were trying to point to God, but Jesus is God. “He’s the one they’re pointing to.

“You can only have one Most High. Everyone else is under his feet.”

Immediately he got involved in the prayer group. “Those were beautiful days,” he said. “Nobody knew anything, There were no books written [about the renewal]. The one who said ‘let’s start’ became the leader that night. The leaders would meet on another night and play a game called ‘what are we doing?’” He broke out in a sweat the first time he was asked to pray for healing, but in 1976 he entered the healing ministry, and he’s still at it.

For healing, he said, “all you need is to be sick—and that’s everybody.” We must also forgive: unforgiveness is “the number one obstacle to healing. God can’t put anything into your fist. You have to open your hand. That’s not always easy, because people have been hurt.”

We also need to get rid of our own sense of unworthiness. Nobody deserves healing—it’s a gift, available to all. God’s mercy triumphs over justice. Finally, we must recognize that Jesus is present, just as we see in the resurrection accounts in the gospels. ”Sometimes we see him and sometimes we don’t,” Father McAlear said. “But he’s always there. He’s present here now.”

Father McAlear also said he would love to see a Catholic parish—or many Catholic parishes—named “Jesus, friend of sinners.” And not only in name—the Church, and individual Catholics, need to imitate Jesus in that respect.

Jesus ate with sinners, he said. He was warm, comforting and attractive. Little children came and sat on his lap. When Zaccheus, like other sinners, came to him, Jesus responded in mercy—and then Zaccheus responded in faith.

“People are attracted by the holiness, but they aren’t blinded by it,” Father McAlear said. “The holiness passes through a filter of compassion and love.”

(continued on Page 7)

B.C. Charismatic           Spring 2015                  Page 3

 

  ‘In the name of Jesus’ institute theme

   Summer institute runs Aug. 9-14 in Seton House, Kelowna

In the Name of Jesus is the theme of the seventh annual Our Lady of Pentecost Summer Institute, to be held Aug. 9-14 in Kelowna.

Featured speaker is Fr. Bernie Black. All events of the week-long institute will be held at St. Elizabeth Seton House of Prayer.

The institute is sponsored by the Nelson Diocese Catholic Charismatic Renewal Service Committee, and is endorsed by the Catholic Charismatic Renewal Services of B.C.

The program will begin with Sunday evening Mass Aug. 9 and conclude Friday, Aug. 14, with lunch. Presentations and discussions will take place each day, with a healing Mass Monday evening and other worship events Tuesday and Thursday evening. Wednesday evening is free time.

Father Black is a retired priest of the Diocese of Calgary, currently ministering in Fort Smith, N.W.T, in the Mackenzie diocese. His work includes healing and deliverance from oppression.

Born and raised in southern Ontario, he was ordained in 1966 for the Diocese of Hamilton but later moved to Calgary, where he worked in aboriginal communities and served 20 years in hospital ministry.

The summer institute has been based at Seton House since its founding in 2009, but in the past most daily sessions have been held in parish churches elsewhere in the city. Due to space limitations, registration will be limited to 45 participants, with lodging at Seton House available for 30. Some billeting may also be available.

Cost until June 15 is $500 including lodging and all meals; $275 for the week for commuters; or $100 per day. Those fees increase to $550, $325 and $125 after June 15. Cancellations by Aug. 1 will receive a refund less $25 cancellation fee.

Clergy and religious may attend for free, but registration is required.

For registration, information, or billeting, call Maria, 250-707-1423. Full payment must accompany registration.

Light shines on Nelson day of renewal

By FLO REID

chair, CCRS of BC

     Jesus, Light of the World, was the focus for our East and West Kootenay Day of Renewal held in Nelson at the Cathedral of Mary Immaculate on February 21, 2015.  Father Bart van Roijen, pastor of Holy Trinity Parish in Trail, was the presenter.

The day began with praise and worship led by Johanna Tournemille and Gladys Miller of Grand Forks, followed by Mass celebrated by Fr. Bart. Hospitality for the day was provided by Nelson Trinity Prayer Community.

In his three talks, Father Bart began by referring to three significant scripture passages that speak of light.  The first was from John 1: 1-5 “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. All things came to be through him, and without him nothing came to be.  What came to be through him was life, and this life was the light of the human race; the light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.”

Father Bart also referred to Genesis chapter 3, when God said, “Let there be light,” and there was light; God saw how good the light was. It was this light that caused the darkness to flee.  He said that while there was both darkness and light, light and darkness; they were not equal, for the darkness could not overcome the light.

The third scripture quoted was from Isaiah 9: verse 1,  “The people who walked in darkness have seen a great light.”

Father Bart reminded us that light is the root of all creation. It dispels darkness and gloom.  In the Old Testament, the prophets call us to the light, and John the Baptist in the New Testament testified of the true light that was coming.  We were also reminded of the story of Nicodemus, who came to Jesus by night, and in his encounter with Jesus he learned that “whoever lives the truth comes to the light, so that his works may be clearly seen as done in God.” (John 3:21)  In speaking of this passage, Father Bart made the point that indeed our hidden deeds will be revealed. We were challenged by the question, “Are we willing to have Jesus’ light shine upon us?”

In his second talk, Father Bart spoke of the Seven Deadly Sins, and how these sins need to be examined in the light of Jesus.  By addressing the root causes of our sin we allow Christ the opportunity to apply the remedy of his grace through the gift of his Spirit acting in and through his Church.  We were exhorted to approach his gift of mercy with faith and hope knowing that the one who calls is the one who heals, forgives and sustains us.

In the final talk, Father Bart focused on the Remedy: the Light of Christ, the gift of his grace, his Spirit and the gift of himself. He said in reference to ‘You are the light of the world”, that we will become that light if we allow Jesus to be our light.

We were reminded of the Beatitudes from Matthew 5 where Jesus climbed the mountain and spoke to the people.  This calls us to leave our old way of life, to disregard judgement, to look forward.  Do we have the courage to climb this mountain?  Do we recognize God’s grace, call and desire for us?  Are we open to the will of God? Are we prepared to empty ourselves, recognize our poverty and follow Jesus? Do we hunger and thirst for righteousness? Do we know the both the giver and the gift?  Are we willing to receive?

In conclusion, Father Bart told us that we are blessed, as in the Beatitudes!  We are called to be salt, be light, rejoice and bring light. To do so we must take our eyes off ourselves and put them squarely on Jesus.

 Page 4               Spring 2015            B.C. Charismatic

 

Obituary:  Fr. Don Wilson

‘He loved the Lord more than life itself’

By RICHARD DUNSTAN

     Fr. Don Wilson, the father of the Catholic charismatic renewal in B.C., died in Kelowna April 15 following a seven-month illness. He was 80.

Father Don’s baptism in the Holy Spirit in a Vancouver bookstore in 1968 was the key moment in the establishment of the renewal in Vancouver, throughout B.C., and especially in his home diocese of Nelson.

In his nearly five decades as a charismatic, Fr. Don spent 11 years as chair of Catholic Charismatic Renewal  Services  of B.C., the provincial service committee, and many more years as a member of the committee, its spiritual adviser, and provincial bishops’ liaison to the renewal.

In the Nelson diocese, he was a long-time member of the diocesan service committee, founded or co-founded numerous prayer groups, and travelled widely conducting Life in the Spirit Seminars, days of renewal, healing Masses, and other events. He was a co-founder of the annual Our Lady of Pentecost Summer Institute in Kelowna.

He was also administrator-chaplain at St. Elizabeth Seton House of Prayer in Kelowna until his retirement last year, and for many years drove the length and breadth of the enormous Nelson diocese as weekend relief pastor in parishes from Kelowna to Princeton to Cranbrook to Golden, clocking as much as 1,200 km in a weekend.

“To know him was to love him and trust him,” said Gladys Miller, chair of Nelson Diocese Charismatic Renewal Services and one of his closest co-workers. “He loved the Lord more than life itself, and lived out that love in a charismatic enthusiasm.  We depended on his guidance in life and we seek his intercession in death.”

Born Nov. 2, 1934 near Windsor, Ont., Father Don attended Notre Dame College in Nelson and St. Peter’s Seminary in London, Ont. He was ordained in London May 28, 1960, for the Nelson diocese, and spent his entire priesthood in B.C.

He was on loan from Nelson to the Vancouver archdiocese in 1968 when Mary Kelly, who led a Catholic prayer and study group at a downtown religious goods store, asked him to check a book on the then-new Catholic charismatic renewal for doctrinal orthodoxy. Father Don had hit a low point in his priesthood, frustrated by ritualism and the lack of power in his ministry; as he read the book—Catholic Pentecostals by Kevin and Dorothy Ranaghan—he was not only satisfied of the book’s orthodoxy but excited at the prospect of unleashing the power of the Holy Spirit in the lives of Catholics.

At the time there were a few interdenominational charismatic prayer groups meeting in Vancouver, with some Catholic participation, but no Catholic groups as such. After getting a good report from Father Don, Kelly called a meeting of eight or 10 people and invited a visiting charismatic nun, Sister Barbara Ann Chase of Seattle, to lead a prayer meeting. Father Don was the only priest present. The group was baptized in the Spirit, complete with the gift of tongues. He returned to his car after the meeting and collapsed over the steering wheel, weeping with joy and relief.

“It was an answer to the question that so many of us had: ‘is that all there is?’” he remembered later. Clearly, the Lord had more to offer.

On his return to the Nelson diocese, Father Don, with Sister Benedicta Stangl, Sister Grace Salmon, and other helpers, founded prayer groups in Kelowna, Penticton, Oliver, and other communities. These in turn established still more groups, and today the diocese has a long list of prayer groups, an active service committee, and numerous charismatic events and activities.

“My experience of Father Don has been and always wiĺl be a profound example of God’s unlimited love for his people,” Flo Reid, chair of CCRS of B.C. and a long-time Nelson diocesan committee member, said in a statement. “Father Don wore with such graciousness the mantle of the love of God.  He knew he was the beloved of God, and he spoke with such fervor calling us each to be more aware that we, too, are the beloved of God. As our spiritual director in the CCRS of BC, he was our father in faith. His wisdom, understanding and integrity guided us in our decisions. He always sought the guidance of the Holy Spirit and placed the needs of the community at the forefront.

“Father Don’s delight in promoting the growth of   charismatic renewal is a gift to all of us. He has left us a rich legacy for which we are profoundly grateful.”

Alex Lim, chair of Vancouver Catholic Charismatic Renewal Services and a member of the provincial committee, said “all of us in the renewal in the Archdiocese of Vancouver mourn your passing, but rejoice in the realization that you are in a far, far better place where there are no tears, no pain but only everlasting joy in Jesus’ presence.  For some of us who have the opportunity to meet you and work with you, we thank our God.  The fruits of your leadership can be seen all around us in Vancouver renewal circles and I am sure in B.C. as well.  God sends many people in our life’s path and now and then, one person who would offer us lasting impressions, and you are such a person.  Rest now in the arms of Jesus.  We are sure He welcomes you with His Words, “well done, my good and faithful friend.” One day, we will meet again and will sing joyful praises right in the presence of the One whom we all serve.”

Father Don’s prayer vigil and funeral Mass were celebrated at Immaculate Conception Church in Kelowna.

 B.C. Charismatic       Spring 2015                   Page 5

 

  Pentecost of the Nations

By KIM CATHERINE-MARIE KOLLINS

ICCRS Newsletter

ICCRS announces with great joy the continuing journey of the world-wide Pentecost of the Nations project to be held during the Pentecost Novena, 15 – 24 May 2015 and on Pentecost Day, 24 May, 2015. It is a two-part project – Operation Upper Room and Pentecost Day Celebration / Together We Pray and Together We Celebrate, which touches many countries in all continents, involving tens of thousands of individuals.

Pentecost of the Nations, phase II, is an integral component of journeying towards the CCR Golden Jubilee, “a New Pentecost for a New Evangelization”. The 2014-2015 theme for stage 2 is ‘Fanning the Flame’, 2 Tim 1:6-7 (see www.iccrs.org). At the 2013, Solemnity of Pentecost Holy Mass with the Ecclesial Movements, Pope Francis stated: “The Holy Spirit is the soul of mission. The events that took place in Jerusalem almost two thousand years ago are not something far removed from us; they are events which affect us and become a lived experience in each of us. The Pentecost of the Upper Room in Jerusalem is the beginning, a beginning which endures”.

Looking Backward – Going Forward

Deep wells of grace! In 1895, on the promptings of Bl. Elena Guerra, Pope Leo XIII asked all the faithful to celebrate a solemn novena (9 days of prayer) perpetually between Ascension and Pentecost for the unity of Christianity. For this, Leo XIII suggested a special formula of prayer to be included: Send forth your Spirit and renew the face of Earth. Another strategic moment in our journey was the Apostolic Letter of Pope John Paul II in 2001, Novo Millennio Ineunte, “At the beginning of the new millennium”. This letter brings to us a key phrase, Duc in Altum – Cast your nets out into the deep. (Lk 5.4) Again to the CCR John Paul II declared, I pray most fervently that your communities and the entire Charismatic Renewal will “put out into the deep” of prayer in order to “put out into the deep of mission”.

Phase I of Pentecost of the Nations was a three-year journey. The first and second steps were taken at Pentecost 2008 and 2009. The third step culminated on Pentecost Day, May 2010 in Assisi at the ICCRS International Intercession Event, The Road to Pentecost. However that was not the end of our journey, it was only a beginning. Phase II of Pentecost of the Nations began a seven year journey that will end with the 50th anniversary celebration of the CCR in 2017, only to start another beginning which endures. Pentecost of the Nations is built on solid ground at the heart of the Church.

Pentecost of the Nations – Together We Pray and Together We Celebrate

It is a project for All Nations – In Your Nation. It is one answer that the worldwide CCR offers since 2008, in response to the desire expressed by Popes’ John Paul II, Benedict XVI and Francis that the spirituality of Pentecost will spread for a new Culture of Pentecost in the Church for New Evangelization (JPII, May 2004 – Benedict XVI, Sept 2005, Francis, May 2013).

Together we pray – Part 1: 15 – 24 May, 2015 – Operation Upper Room

You can be part of this vision for the Catholic Charismatic Renewal in every nation to unite in prayer. Let us weave a dense global “net” of prayer which will be continuous, night and day, during the nine days before Pentecost forming a great Pentecost Novena. It’s an invitation of return to the “Upper Room of Jerusalem”, waiting in one heart and in constant prayer (Acts 1: 12-14), becoming “burning bushes” in adoration and intercession. (Leo XIII, E. Guerra 1895-1897).

Participate in these 9 days with a Pentecost Novena: city-wide, regional, community, NSCs events, a prayer group or individual, i.e. a Pentecost Night and Day Novena in an Upper Room Cenacle, a Novena Prayer Net or an individual Pentecost Novena, etc.

Together we celebrate – Part 2: May 24, 2015 – Pentecost Day Celebrations

You can participate in events that are being planned to celebrate the great feast of Pentecost in your nation, city, community or group. [Note: Pentecost celebrations are planned in Surrey May 23 for the Archdiocese of Vancouver, and in Victoria May 24 for the Diocese of Victoria—see Page 8]

It’s an invitation to respond to the call for New Evangelization so the “spirituality of Pentecost” will spread in the Church in the power of the Holy Spirit. Organize Pentecost celebration events, which can consist of charismatic prayer, short teachings, testimonies, and a solemn invocation of the Holy Spirit and possibly a concert to glorify God.

Imagine

     Imagine… Oh, if only…unanimous and fervent prayers could be raised to heaven in every part of Christendom, as they were one in the Cenacle (upper room) of Jerusalem for a rekindling of the Divine Spirit! (Bl. Elena Guerra)

     Imagine… What would happen if “unanimous and fervent prayers” were raised in every time zone in the world for nine days?

    Imagine… What would happen if we witnessed to the power of the Holy Spirit in every part of the world throughout Pentecost?

     Imagine… What God could do if we united in prayer and celebration for fresh outpouring of the Holy Spirit on our world?

Plan to join the Pentecost for the Nations experience:

All can join in a united ICCRS CCR Pentecost for the Nations effort – Consider yourselves bridge-builders in conveying and promoting Pentecost of the Nations – 15 – 24 May 2015, to the various CCR realities in your areas/regions encouraging them to link together, in an atmosphere of communion, thereby forging stronger links into global Pentecost of the Nations prayer and celebration experiences.

Page 6         Spring 2015                 B.C. Charismatic

 

  ECUMENISM OF BLOOD UNITES CHRISTIANS, SAYS POPE  

(continued from Page 1)

praise and adoration.

The Charismatic Renewal has reminded the Church of the necessity and importance of the prayer of praise. When we speak of the prayer of praise in the Church, Charismatics come to mind. When I spoke of the prayer of praise during a homily at Mass in Santa Martha, I said it is not only the prayer of Charismatics but of the entire Church! It is the recognition of the Lordship of God over us and over all creation expressed through dance, music and song.

I would like to revisit with you a few passages from that homily: “The prayer of praise is a Christian prayer, for all of us. In the Mass, every day, when we sing the ‘Holy, Holy, Holy’, this is a prayer of praise: we praise God for his greatness because he is great. And we address him with beautiful words because it pleases us to do this. The prayer of praise bears fruit in us. Sarah danced as she celebrated her fertility – at the age of ninety! This fruitfulness gives praise to God. Men and women who praise the Lord, who pray praising the Lord – and who are happy to do so – rejoice in singing the Sanctus at Mass and they bear fruit. Let us consider how beautiful it is to offer the prayer of praise to God. This should be our prayer and, as we offer it up to God, we ought to say to ourselves, “Arise, O heart, because you are standing before the King of Glory” (Holy Mass at Domus Sanctae Marthae, 28 January 2014).

Together with the prayer of praise, the prayer of intercession is, in these days, a cry to the Father for our Christian brothers and sisters who are persecuted and murdered, and for the cause of peace in our turbulent world. Praise the Lord at all times, never cease to do so, praise him more and more, unceasingly. I have been told of Charismatic prayer groups in which they pray the Rosary. Prayer to the Mother of God must never be excluded, never! But when you assemble for prayer, praise the Lord!

I see that you have among you a very dear friend, Pastor Giovanni Traettino, whom I visited recently. Catholic Fraternity, do not forget your origins, do not forget that the Charismatic Renewal is, by its very nature, ecumenical. Blessed Paul VI commented on this in the magnificent Apostolic Exhortation on evangelization which is highly relevant in our own day: “The power of evangelization will find itself considerably diminished if those who proclaim the Gospel are divided among themselves in all sorts of ways.  Is this not perhaps one of the great sicknesses of evangelization today? The Lord’s spiritual testament tells us that unity among his followers is not only the proof that we are his but also the proof that he is sent by the Father. It is the test of the credibility of Christians and of Christ himself. Yes, the destiny of evangelization is certainly bound up with the witness of unity given by the Church. This is a source of responsibility and also of comfort” (Evangelii Nuntiandi, 77). These words are of Blessed Paul VI.  

FIRST, WE ARE CHRISTIANS

Spiritual ecumenism is praying and proclaiming together that Jesus is Lord, and coming together to help the poor in all their poverty. This must be done while never forgetting in our day that the blood of Jesus, poured out by many Christian martyrs in various parts of the world, calls us and compels us towards the goal of unity. For persecutors, we are not divided, we are not Lutherans, Orthodox, Evangelicals, Catholics… No! We are one in their eyes! For persecutors we are Christians! They are not interested in anything else. This is the ecumenism of blood that we experience today.

Remember: seek the unity which is the work of the Holy Spirit and do not be afraid of diversity. The breathing of Christians draws in the new air of the Holy Spirit and then exhales it upon the world: it is the prayer of praise and missionary outreach. Share baptism in the Holy Spirit with everyone in the Church. Spiritual ecumenism and the ecumenism of blood. The unity of the Body of Christ. Prepare the Bride for the Bridegroom who comes! One Bride only! All (Rev 22: 17).

Finally, in addition to my thanks, I would especially like to mention these young musicians from northern Brazil who have played at the beginning; I hope they play a little more. They have welcomed me with much affection, singing “Long live Jesus my Saviour.” I know that you have prepared something else and so I invite everyone to listen to them before I say farewell. Thank you!

(reprinted from ICCRS Newsletter)

B.C. Charismatic      Spring 2015                 Page 7

 

  Pope Francis and ecumenism  

By DEACON CHRISTOF HEMBERGER

ICCRS representative, Germany

     In his moving speech at the Olympic Stadium in Rome, Pope Francis addressed several topics he considers important for the Charismatic Renewal in the Catholic Church. One of the more delicate topics he entrusted us with was his request to live a “spiritual ecumenism”. He told us, “To remain united in the love that the Lord Jesus asks us to have for all people, and in prayer to the Holy Spirit for the attainment of this unity which is necessary for evangelization in the name of Jesus. Remember that the Charismatic Renewal is de facto ecumenical in nature… The Catholic Renewal rejoices in what the Holy Spirit is accomplishing in the other Churches” (1 Malines 5,3).

     Since he took office, Francis has surprised the world in various ways. It is not about all his “novel teachings” that make him so special but his simple, humble way of living the teachings of Holy Scripture in a consistent manner. He keeps defying conventions and traditions because he is simply not able to do otherwise. He not only speaks about loving those living at the margins but he kisses them and focuses on them in public. The same is true for the topic of “lived ecumenism”, Francis not only speaks about the fact that the others are our brothers and sisters in the faith, he sends them greetings, meets with their representatives and does not shy away from asking them for forgiveness for the deeds inflicted upon them in Church history in the name of Catholics.

     So what exactly does it mean when the Pope calls us as the CCR to a “spiritual ecumenism?” Firstly, it certainly means that he is calling us to follow his example recognizing “the others” as our brothers and sisters in the Lord. What unites us is so much more than what separates us. Over and over again, Pope Francis sets an example of what this can look like in everyday life. He does not brush over the differences existing between the churches. And he does not fool himself into believing that unity would exist in all areas. But he uses the interspaces that certainly exist in order to live out unity in any possible way. Friendliness rather than rejection. Relationship rather than marginalisation. Praying together rather than talking about each other. A handshake and a smile rather than a slap in the face…

     In his address to the CCR, the Holy Father emphasizes the significance of the Malines Documents for the Charismatic Renewal. There it says: “The Charismatic Renewal is de facto ecumenical in nature.” We are indeed the only movement in the whole world in which all denominational realities exist: We have charismatic brothers and sisters in all denominations! What a treasure can be found in this fact! What a gift of unity despite our differences.

     In some regions of the world, the CCR can already look back on lived experiences in this area. At times, there are shared worship services, days of intercession or even conferences. Here, it is essential to respect and value the other in his ‘otherness’ – and to seek and celebrate the Lord together full of joy about all that unites us. In other parts of the world, this still seems to be quite difficult. There, the orientation of the CCR has been rather unecumenical for a long time, partly due to attacks and assaults by brothers and sisters in the Lord… Here it is important to look to our past of the CCR and to rediscover our roots: The CCR is ecumenical in nature – and to reject this would mean to reject the grace that God has given us as a movement.

     Wouldn’t it be time now to discover the brother and the sister in them just as Pope Francis is modelling? Maybe it is too early for common projects and meetings. But it is not too early for prayer! I encourage you to intercede for your brothers and sisters in the Lord. Do it in love and respect, not in presumption, “they should become like us…” Take steps toward them! Invite the leaders of the charismatics in the other denominations to get to know each other and pray together! Forgive them and also ask them for forgiveness if this should be necessary. The Lord will bless these steps towards each other! If we take seriously and put into practice what Francis is telling us, we will be an example for the world which is full of division, disunity and exclusion. We will make a difference – and this is what Jesus had in mind when he prayed: “Father, make us one that the world may believe that you sent me!” (John 17:21).

(from ICCRS Newsletter)

VANCOUVER CONFERENCE

 

Archbishop Miller:

‘fall in love with Jesus’

(continued from Page 2)

“I eat with sinners all the time. There’s nobody else to share with.”

Father McAlear also led a healing service, and the conference concluded with Mass celebrated by Archbishop Michael Miller.

In his homily, Archbishop Miller said a personal relationship with Jesus is the core of the Gospel.

He said a third of Catholics believe—wrongly—that God is an impersonal force, and many see the Church as “an institution with a host of rules to keep some sort of order.” But Christianity is an encounter with an event and a person that gives life an eternal dimension and a sense of direction.

“People come to the Lord, not because they first hear clear teaching,” he said. “They obey the commandments because they’ve fallen in love.”

“We have to believe that life is always better with Jesus.”

Page 8          Spring 2015    B.C. Charismatic

 Upcoming events

 

April 24-25	Nelson Diocesan Conference	Kelowna
	with John Connelly and Fr. Jack Michalchuk	St. Charles Garnier parish
	contact Gladys Miller 250-442-8589
May-02	Annual conference	Terrace
9 a.m.-4 p.m.	Joy of the Gospel, with Peter Thompson	Sacred Heart parish
May-15	Healing Mass	Trail
9:30 a.m.	Fr. Bart van Roijen, celebrant	Holy Trinity church
	contact Therese Colquhon 250-367-6268
May 22-23	Life in the Spirit Seminar	Penticton
	contact Bernadette Barry 250-809-2524	St. John Vianney church
May-23	Pentecost celebration	Surrey
10 a.m.-	with potluck lunch	St. Matthew’s parish
1 p.m.	contact fireblade@telus.net 604-597-8227
May-24	Pentecost celebration	Victoria
2-4:30p.m.	praise, worship, teaching, fellowship, food	Sacred Heart parish
	contact David MacIntyre victoriaccrs@gmail.com 250-383-9955
June 5-6	Life in the Spirit Seminar	Kimberley
	contact Maureen Watson 250-427-5836	Sacred Heart Church
June 6 – July 22	Life in the Spirit Seminar	Vancouver
	seven Wednesdays	Holy Rosary Cathedral
	contact Lennie David lennieptl@telus.net 604-597-8227
Aug. 9-14	Our Lady of Pentecost Summer Institute (see Page 3)	Kelowna
	Fr. Bernie Black, featured speaker	Seton House
	contact Maria McManus, 250-707-1423
Sept. 18-19	Vancouver archdiocesan conference	Surrey
	Bob Canton and Fr. Jerry Thompson	Chandos Pattison auditorium
	contact fireblade@telus.net 604-597-8227
To include your Life in the Spirit Seminar, prayer breakfast, Healing Mass,
or other charismatic event in this listing, email richard@thedunstans.com

 

Catholic Charismatic Renewal Services of B.C.

Flo Reid (Nelson diocese), chair

826-14th St. South, Cranbrook, BC V1C 1X9

phone 250-426-7570      fmreid45@gmail.com

Fr. John Brioux, spiritual adviser, 604-984-6709

Lennie David, Vancouver archdiocese 604-594-7296

Richard Dunstan, Victoria diocese, newsletter editor 250-477-4700

Alex Lim, Vancouver archdiocese, 604-435-9134

David MacIntyre, Victoria diocese, 250-383-9955

Flo (chair) and Jim Reid, Nelson diocese 250-426-7570

Jocelyn Rochard, Vancouver archdiocese, treasurer 604-469-0713

Lindael Rolstone, Kamloops diocese, secretary

B.C. Charismatic

CCRS of BC newsletter

published spring and fall

editor Richard Dunstan

308-225 Belleville St.

Victoria BC V8V 4T9

email: richard@thedunstans.com

phone: 250-477-4700

fax: on request

website: www.bccharismatic.ca

Posted in Uncategorized

May 28th ‘In the name of Jesus’ institute theme

Summer institute runs Aug. 9-14 in Seton House, Kelowna

‘In the Name of Jesus’ is the theme of the seventh annual Our Lady of Pentecost Summer Institute, to be held Aug. 9-14 in Kelowna.

Featured speakers are Most Rev. Bishop Sam Jacobs and Father Gerald Sekanga.

 Most Rev. Bishop Sam Jacobs was born in Mississippi, USA. He graduated from The Catholic University of America with a Masters Degree in Philosophy as well as a Masters Degree in Education/Administration. Bishop Jacobs was ordained to the priesthood for the Diocese of Lafayette in 1964 where he served as pastor, chaplain, and associate pastor of several parishes there and also in the Diocese of Lake Charles. He has served as chairman of the National Service Committee for the Charismatic Renewal and diocesan director of Vocations and Seminarians for the Diocese of Lake Charles. As well he has served as the Chairman of USCCB Ad Hoc Committee on Catholic Charismatic Renewal.  Bishop Jacobs was appointed the tenth bishop of Alexandria in 1989 and was installed as the third bishop of Houma-Thibodaux in 2003. He retired in October of 2013 and is now the bishop emeritus of Houma-Thibodaux. He celebrated 50 years of priesthood on June 6, 2014, and marks 25 years of episcopacy on August 24, 2014.

Fr. Gerald Sekanga has recently returned to the Diocese of Nelson after studying Canon Law in Ontario. He works well with youth, preaches well and has an amazing interest in study. He is very much the philosopher with a discerning spirit. He has a passion for all things of the Lord, is a very popular priest in the diocese and exudes wisdom beyond his years.

The institute is sponsored by the Nelson Diocese Catholic Charismatic Renewal Service Committee, and is endorsed by the Catholic Charismatic Renewal Services of B.C.

The program will begin with Sunday evening Mass Aug. 9 and conclude Friday, Aug. 14, with lunch. Presentations and discussions will take place each day, with a healing Mass Monday evening and other worship events Tuesday and Thursday evening. Wednesday evening is free time.

The summer institute has been based at Seton House since its founding in 2009, but in the past most daily sessions have been held in parish churches elsewhere in the city. Due to space limitations, registration will be limited to 45 participants, with lodging at Seton House available for 30. Some billeting may also be available.

Cost until July 15 is $500 including lodging and all meals; $275 for the week for commuters; or $100 per day. Those fees increase to $550, $325 and $125 after July 15. Cancellations by Aug. 1 will receive a refund less $25 cancellation fee.

Clergy and religious may attend for free, but registration is required.

For registration, information, or billeting, call Maria, 250-707-1423. Full payment must accompany registration.

 

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Nov 7th Vancouver Catholic Charismatic Conference 2014 Report

By RICHARD DUNSTAN

One of Father Richard McAlear’s favourite biblical characters is a donkey. It reminds him of where he stands in God’s scheme of things, especially in his healing ministry.

Remember Balaam in Numbers chapter 22? He was on a mission from God, but he got it messed up, and the donkey he was riding had to tell him off before he got it straightened out. Then Balaam spoke the word of God, bravely and truthfully.

“The Lord spoke to him through a donkey,” Father McAlear told the 2014 Vancouver Catholic Charismatic Conference. I find great consolation in that. We don’t need great education in [healing] techniques.

“We just need to have Jesus.”

Father McAlear, head of the Ministry of Hope and Healing, was a last-minute replacement for scheduled speaker Bob Canton at the conference at St. Matthew’s Church in Surrey. Canton, who leads a healing ministry based in Stockton, Calif., had to step down due to a family medical crisis.

“We just need to have Jesus” was the heart of Father McAlear’s message on healing. “Healing is a gift of love,” he told the congregation. “It’s faith in His love, not faith in faith. It’s not a magic transformation of energy. It’s not New Age technique. It’s not other gods.” Even laying hands on the people we pray for is optional, he said—a gesture of compassion, not a necessity. It’s all about Jesus.

“The fullness of divinity dwells in him in bodily form. He’s higher than cancer, he’s higher than Parkinson’s disease, he’s higher than infection.”

But Father McAlear didn’t fully grasp the importance of Jesus until he was baptised in the Holy Spirit in 1972, two years after his ordination to the priesthood and a full 12 years after he entered the Oblates of Mary Immaculate.

Not that he didn’t have a good Catholic background. He was born in Boston, of parents who were Irish and Italian—they met at church. “Everybody was Catholic,” he said. He wanted to be a missionary, but he got hepatitis and was told it left him too feeble for missionary work—a bit of a chuckle now, considering his speaking ministry takes him to 30 conferences a year.

He joined the Oblates in 1960, and in 1964 was sent to Rome for seven years of study. He actually spent a day at a session of the Second Vatican Council, thanks to a bishop who got a number of seminarians through the doors for

the sake of the experience.

“I didn’t understand a thing that was said, but I was there,” he told the conference.

Ordained in 1970, he returned to the United States in 1971 to find everything changed in the wake of Vatican II. Both the country and the Church were full of discontent and confusion—even about Jesus. Father McAlear was no different from many others. At one point he went to his spiritual director to ask why he should preach the Gospel—“why should I say don’t do Buddha, do Jesus?” The director said “I don’t know,” and nobody else could give him an answer either.

Then the spiritual director he had had before he went to Rome got in touch with him and asked him how things were going. “Dry as dust, and very confusing,” he said. The former director told him he might want to check out the Catholic charismatic renewal, so off he went to a prayer meeting.

He could barely believe what he was seeing and hearing. Nuns in traditional habits hugging hippies, and vice-versa. A truck driver who talked about Jesus like he knew him. “I was mad,” Father McAlear said. “I was the one with the degree in theology.” But then he was offered baptism in the Spirit with the promise: you can have what they have.

The group prayed over him. He didn’t speak in tongues, see visions, or get slain in the Spirit, “but I did have an overwhelming peace. All the problems in the country, all the problems in the Church—Jesus is in charge, not me.” And when he began to read his breviary, just as he had been doing for 14 years, “I’m reading the Psalm, and I’m thinking, who wrote this?” It was like the scales falling from Paul’s eyes, like going from black and white to Technicolor. “I [already] knew Jesus was Lord, but now Jesus was Lord.”

That answered his question about the difference between Jesus and Buddha or any other religious figure. The others were trying to point to God, but Jesus is God. “He’s the one they’re pointing to.

“You can only have one Most High. Everyone else is under his feet.”

Immediately he got involved in the prayer group. “Those were beautiful days,” he said. “Nobody knew anything, There were no books written [about the renewal]. The one who said ‘let’s start’ became the leader that night. The leaders would meet on another night and play a game called ‘what are we doing?’” He broke out in a sweat the first time he was asked to pray for healing, but in 1976 he entered the healing ministry, and he’s still at it.

For healing, he said, “all you need is to be sick—and that’s everybody.” We must also forgive, because unforgiveness is “the number one obstacle to healing. God can’t put anything into your fist. You have to open your hand. That’s not always easy, because people have been hurt.”

We also need to get rid of our own sense of unworthiness. Nobody deserves healing—it’s a gift, available to all. God’s mercy triumphs over justice. Finally, we must recognize that Jesus is present, just as we see in the resurrection accounts in the gospels. ”Sometimes we see him and sometimes we don’t,” Father McAlear said. “But he’s always there. He’s present here now.”

Father McAlear also said he would love to see a Catholic parish—or many Catholic parishes—named “Jesus, friend of sinners.” And not only in name—the Church, and individual Catholics, need to imitate Jesus in that respect.

Jesus ate with sinners, he said. He was warm, comforting and attractive. Little children came and sat on his lap. When Zaccheus, like other sinners, came to him, Jesus responded in mercy—and then Zaccheus responded in faith.

“People are attracted by the holiness, but they aren’t blinded by it,” Father McAlear said. “The holiness passes through a filter of compassion and love.”

“I eat with sinners all the time. There’s nobody else to share with.”

Father McAlear also led a healing service, and the conference concluded with Mass celebrated by Archbishop Michael Miller.

In his homily, Archbishop Miller said a personal relationship with Jesus is the core of the Gospel.

He said a third of Catholics believe—wrongly—that God is an impersonal force, and many see the Church as “an institution with a host of rules to keep some sort of order.” But Christianity is an encounter with an event and a person that gives life an eternal dimension and a sense of direction.

“People come to the Lord, not because they first hear clear teaching,” he said. “They obey the commandments because they’ve fallen in love.”

“We have to believe that life is always better with Jesus.”

 

Posted in Uncategorized

Sep 8th Summer institute to focus on Building a People of Praise

I Am Building a People of Praise will be the theme of the fourth annual Our Lady of Pentecost Summer Institute, to be held Aug. 11-16 in Kelowna.

The Catholic discipleship and leadership formation event will hold its main sessions in a new location, Immaculate Conception Church on Sutherland Avenue. Accom-modation will be at Seton House of Prayer.

The institute is aimed at charismatic leaders and all those interested in a deeper growth in spiritual life, from anywhere in B.C. and beyond. It is sponsored by the Nelson Diocese Catholic Charismatic Renewal Service Committee and endorsed by Catholic Charismatic Renewal Services of B.C., the provincial service committee.

Featured speakers will be Catholic lay evangelist John Connelly of Burns Lake. B.C.; Sylvester Ibekwe, a seminarian of the Nelson diocese; and Gladys Miller, chair of the diocesan service committee. Co-ordinators are Linda Adams, Bernadette Barry and Piera Quarenghi, with Flo Reid as master of ceremonies, Fr. Don Wilson as host and Gladys Miller and Johanna Tournemille leading music.

In addition to two-a-day talks from the guest speakers, followed by panel discussions or other group activities, the institute will offer devotional events most evenings, and the sacrament of reconciliation at lunchtime Tuesday to Thursday. Opening Mass will be Sunday evening, Aug. 11, and closing ceremony and commissioning Friday morning.

John Connelly is head of God’s Revolution Today, a multi-media ministry, as well as a popular speaker at charismatic confer-ences, a newspaper columnist, and a musician and songwriter. He teaches in a workshop style and tries to inspire people with practical tools they can use to grow in their personal life mission. He has spoken at two previous summer institutes.

His topics are The Great Catholic Renewal, The Renewal of Praise, and the two-part Jesus Living in Us Today.

Sylvester Ibekwe received his early formation from the Capuchin friars in Nigeria, and also studied theology there. He is currently attending St. Joseph Seminary and completing his master of divinity degree at Newman Theological College, both in Edmonton.

He will speak on Discovering the Joy of the Sacrament of Reconciliation and Is a Consistent Ethic of Life Still Possible in Our Day?

Gladys Miller has been in the Catholic charismatic renewal since 1976 and is chair of the diocesan service committee as well as leader of the People of Peace praise group in Grand Forks. She was chief organizer of the first summer institute in 2009 and has served as featured speaker, master of ceremonies, and in the music ministry on various occasions.

Her talks will cover Praise-Faith-Trust (Psalm 148:13) and Praise Is Our Weapon (2 Cor 10:4).

Scheduled evening devotional events, in addition to Sunday’s opening Mass, are a healing Mass on the Monday, living rosary Tuesday, and praise music Thursday. Wednesday evening is set aside as free time.

Cost of the institute is $350 ($400 after June 15) for all sessions, meals, and accommodation at Seton House; $250 “commuter rate” for all sessions plus lunch and dinner; or $75 per day with lunch and dinner. For registration, contact Maria McManus at 250-707-1423, email untamedspirit@telus.net, or write to 22-2035 Boucherie Rd., Westbank BC V4T 1Z6. Fees must accom-pany registration to hold rooms at Seton House.

Billeting may also be available.

Clergy and religious are invited to attend the institute without charge, but must register in advance. Housing for clergy is available in local rectories.

Immaculate Conception Church is near downtown Kelowna, about two miles north of the previous location, St. Charles Garnier parish.

Posted in Uncategorized

May 8th Do Whatever He Tells You

By Richard Dunstan –

“Do whatever He tells you” was the theme of the fourth annual Our Lady of Pentecost Summer Institute, held Aug. 12-17 in Kelowna. Based on John 2:5, the theme reflects the instructions the Blessed Virgin Mary gave to the servants at the wedding at Cana before Jesus turned water into wine.

More than 50 charismatic Catholics turned out to the event—44 registered full-time and around a dozen attending part of the sessions at St. Charles Garnier parish. Sponsored by the Nelson Diocese Charismatic Renewal Service Committee, the institute is endorsed by Catholic Charismatic Renewal Services of B.C. and by all five B.C. bishops, and is aimed at charismatic leaders and potential leaders from across B.C., along with anyone else interested in deepening spiritual life.

Featured speaker were Father Bart van Roijen of Sparwood, Father Gerald Sekanga and Father Louie Jimenez of Kelowna, and Teresa van Kampen of Calgary.

Also on the schedule were daily Mass; praise and worship; panel discussions and other audience participation activities; evening prayer gatherings; and the sacrament of reconciliation.

LOUIE

We’re all called to be apostles of Jesus, says Father Cerlouie (Louie) Jimenez. But that’s a tough job, because it means living the way Jesus did, sacrifice and all.

Father Louie, opening speaker at Our Lady of Pentecost Summer Institute, took his lead from St. Paul’s comments on apostleship in 2 Corinthians, titling his talk Apostleship in St. Paul’s Criterion.

In 2 Cor 11:23-29, St. Paul defends his record as an apostle against his critics by pointing to his imprisonments, beatings, brushes with death, shipwrecks, and other hardships.

“For St. Paul it is very clear that the only criterion for an apostle was a life like Jesus Himself,” said Father Louie, who is assistant pastor at Immaculate Conception parish in Kelowna and chaplain for Live In and Rachel’s Vineyard. “These things are not metaphors. Paul would ask how often have you been in prison for your witness to Christ, how often has your life been in danger because you stand up for the truth of Jesus Christ?”

Apostleship actually has three meanings, Father Louie said. First, it means the Twelve, plus Paul and perhaps a few other such as Barnabas, who had a direct call through an encounter with the risen Christ and were sent out by Him with His Gospel. Second, it means many people in every age who have the task of going from place to place spreading the Gospel and founding Christian ministries.

And finally, it means all Christians. Through our baptism, all of us have the task of bearing witness to Jesus’ resurrection, especially to “the least, the last and the lost.”

Another thing we share with St. Paul is a need for personal transformation in Christ. St. Paul thought he was a good man before his conversion, but he was misguided, and after his encounter with Jesus on the road to Damascus, he had to re-evaluate everything in his life. All of us need the same transformation.

On a related topic, Father Louie noted that apostleship is only part of Christian ministry. Apostles are listed first, but of course not alone, in St. Paul’s list of ministers in the Church in 1 Cor 12:27-31, along with prophets, teachers, administrators and others. Apostles work in partnership with those other ministers, with an emphasis on preaching. Baptism and ongoing programs belong to other ministers; St. Paul himself notes in 1 Cor 1: 14-17 that he was sent to preach, and baptized only a few people personally.

Then, he was off to preach in other locations while the Christian community he had left behind put his preaching into action. “He moved on,” Father Louie said. “He did not hang on. He did not make it his pet.”

He didn’t rest on his accomplishments, either. He had more work to do.

“We need to ask ourselves, am I like St. Paul?” Father Louie said. “Am I ready to do the work, and after the work is done, am I ready to start another work? That’s the challenge—sometimes we have the idea, ‘I have done my work, so goodbye.’ If we want the Church to grow, we must forget about ‘goodbye.’”

Father Louie expanded on the theme in his second talk, The Missionary Nature of the Church Towards the New Evangelization.

Quoting the Vatican II document Ad Gentes and statements by Cardinal Timothy Dolan of New York Father Louie said that the Church’s missionary activity must extend from Jesus’ first coming to His second coming, but has changed in nature in recent years.

First, there is a geographical change. His native Philippines were evangelized by missionary priests from Spain, but now Asian priests like himself are coming as missionaries to North America and Europe.

Second, there is a theological change. In today’s society, nominal believers as well as unbelievers need to be evangelized, because their faith is often distorted by the influence of secular society, producing a lack of awareness of God’s transcendence, a practical denial of God, and superficiality and selfishness.

He said the ask of the new evangelization is to revive the faith of believers and thus inspire unbelievers. To do this we must learn to know Jesus more and fall in love with Him and His Church. We should study scripture and the Catechism of the Catholic Church and pray for courage to witness. If we do all this, people outside the Church will notice.

He said our evangelization must present a person—Jesus—rather than a belief system, and we must show by our joy that God is alive. We must also prepare for martyrdom, because evangelization is not a smooth or easy path, and yet we must not be afraid.

TERESA

“Docile” does not mean “weak.”

The two words sound similar to a lot of people in our culture, but the life of the Blessed Virgin Mary proves they’re completely different, Teresa van Kampen told Our Lady of Pentecost Summer Institute in Kelowna in August. And we need to show the courage to follow Mary’s example.

“Docility requires courage and strength, not weakness,” Teresa told the audience. “Mary was heroic in her co-operation in the plan of salvation as she accompanied Jesus her son in His passion and death.”

Teresa is Alberta representative to the national Catholic charismatic service committee and former chair of the renewal in Calgary. She and her husband have 10 children and 18 grandchildren.

She told the audience there is very little detail about our Lady in the Bible, but what there is speaks volumes. Mary is presented in the accounts of the annunciation, the birth and childhood of Jesus, His crucifixion, Pentecost, and a few other places, and at every point she shows complete trust in God and commitment to His will.

“The Blessed Mother of Jesus lived in and for the love of God,” she said. “Her entire heart belonged to Him, and His will was all she wanted for her life. She was docile to the Holy Spirit to the last breath.”

She said Mary was intelligent and well aware of what she was doing—not at all weak, childish, or unthinking, but trusting in a God she knew was good. She would do what she was asked, regardless of the consequences, unlike most Christians today who waver when faced with difficulties in following God’s will.

“We start thinking of alternatives. Maybe plan B is called for,” Teresa said. Not so with our Lady.

Mary is often called the new Eve, and indeed she joins Jesus in overthrowing the harm caused by the first man and woman. She was conceive in the fullness of grace such as Eve had enjoyed before the Fall. But Eve, Teresa said, wanted occult knowledge—God’s knowledge of good and evil. Mary resisted that temptation and was content to walk in faith, not by sight.

“She had no desire for any of the vanities, flatteries or deceptions of the evil one,” Teresa said. “She did not want power or knowledge outside of God her saviour. She was content to be His handmaid and in her docility to Him she co-operated with Jesus for the salvation of the whole human race.”

On the cross, Teresa said, Jesus gave Mary to all of us, through John, and we should follow her example.

Teresa’s second talk was titled Do, Become, Be…Whatever He Tells You, a reference to Mary’s directions at the wedding in Cana (John 2:5) and also to the theme of the conference.

“Whatever” is a tall order: holiness. Some people think holiness is just for saints, or priests and nuns, she said, “but we are all called, without exception, to be holy.”

That, she said, is how we get to heaven. She said the world teaches us that the road to heaven is wide and the road to hell narrow, but Jesus says the opposite; still, He wants us to make it to heaven.

“The call to holiness is more than doing what people think is good,” she said. “The call to holiness is doing the will of God.”

But while holiness may be the road to heaven, it isn’t the road to an easy life. Some Christians, especially charismatics, think everything will go well for them if they follow God’s will. That, Teresa said, is false theology.

“Life is not like that,” she said. “Jesus said take up your cross and follow me. He didn’t say pick up your bag of goodies.”

She cited the late Cardinal Francis Xavier Nguyen Van Thuan of Vietnam as an example. He had just been named coadjutor archbishop of Saigon when Saigon fell to the North Vietnamese army in 1975, and he spent the next 13 years in jail, nine of them in solitary confinement, and suffered torture. He smuggled out messages to his people on scraps of paper. After his release in 1988, he held positions in the Vatican and was named cardinal the year before his death in 2002. His cause for beatification has been opened.

In a talk after his release, he said “if you have no opportunity for sacrifice, this is an indication that you still do not love God,” and Teresa said we all need to hear that hard message.

“In our culture we’ve heard the soft message for so long that we’re wimpy,” she said. “The teenagers in our culture are dying, and the soft message is hanging them out to dry.”

Teresa said Catholics should study the Bible and the Catechism of the Catholic Church to get to know Jesus better, always following Church interpretation of the Bible. We should confess any involvement in New Age activities (“break those ties forever. Don’t go back. Jesus is enough.”)

We must also forgive our enemies and pray for them; we forgive with our will even if our emotions don’t agree. “If you don’t forgive, He won’t forgive you. Forgiveness shatters the forces of evil.” We must also break our attachment to sin, including not only obvious sin but such things as manipulating other people to get our way.

GERALD

It’s OK to be afraid, says Father Gerald Sekanga—as long as we’re afraid of the right thing.

And for Christians, he said, the one and only thing to be afraid of is harming our relationship with God.

Father Gerald, assistant pastor at St. Charles Garnier parish in Kelowna, was a guest speaker at Our Lady of Pentecost Summer Institute, speaking on What Are You Afraid Of? and Preaching the Radical Word. Originally from Uganda, he has an education in law and philosophy, and works with youth and as a retreat leader.

Fears are more important than we think, Father Gerald said. “Our lives are ordered every day by what we are afraid of.” For example, seminarians are instilled with fear of the Church’s sexual abuse scandal, and told “stay away from the kids” as young priests. But in Uganda, priests had to drive pickup trucks rather than compact cars so that youngsters could ride along on their visit to missions, and tomorrow’s priests come largely from among those boys in the truck.

Fears like that are inappropriate, he said; even the prayer of the Mass asks God to “protect us from all anxiety” (the former text; “safe from all distress” in the new missal).

We must ask ourselves “have my fears overtaken who I am?”, he said. “Our fear as Christians should be the fear of the Lord. Without the fear of the Lord we close ourselves off from the treasures of God’s wisdom.”

Unfortunately, he said, the Church hasn’t always done the best job of instilling the right type of fear. Fifty or 60 years ago the stress on fear was excessive; today Catholics are so confident of God’s love that they think they don’t have to do anything in response to it.

“We’ve moved from one extreme to the other,” he said, and both lead to a secularization of values rather than proper fear of God. In the old approach, people thought “I’m going to hell anyway, so why bother?” Today, it’s “God loves me anyway, so why bother?”

Father Gerald cited the Old Testament prophet Jeremiah and the 19^th century Ugandan martyrs as examples of appropriate fear.

In Jeremiah chapter 20, the prophet complains to God about being sent with an unwelcome message to a hostile society; he had much to fear from the king and other officials, and was persecuted, imprisoned, and according to tradition eventually murdered. But he says that if he tries not to speak God’s word, “it becomes like a fire burning in my heart, imprisoned in my bones; I grow weary holding it in, I cannot endure it.”

He was afraid of his enemies, Father Gerald said, but “the prophet Jeremiah’s biggest fear was that he would give up his relationship with the One who sent him.”

In Uganda in 1887, St. Charles Lwanga and a dozen other Catholic converts (as well as a group of Anglican converts) were burned alive by a king determined to rid Uganda of foreign influence. “They were afraid of the king, but more afraid of losing their relationship with God,” Father Gerald said. “They gave up their fear of the king and went to Jesus Christ.”

Father Gerald quoted Matthew 10:28, “do not be afraid of those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul; rather, be afraid of the one who can destroy both body and soul in Gehenna.”

Courageous Christian ministry “may even kill the body,” Father Gerald said. “Don’t worry about the body.”

In his talk Preaching the Radical Word, Father Gerald said preaching depends on our knowledge of and commitment to God.

“As a preacher you have to listen to the voice of the One who calls you out into the wilderness. It’s not about ‘we.’ We have to get rid of the ego.”

“It is the heart that has encountered God that is capable of communicating God. If you have not encountered God, people will see through you.”

Preaching has three goals, Father Gerald said: personal conversion (turning from self to God); ecclesial renewal (we need to create community); and social transformation. “If one part is ignored or played down, the others suffer.”

He said we need to let Jesus turn our lives upside down, let Him change all our plans, and also let people see the hope and joy in us.

Father Gerald also called for study of the Bible and Catholic tradition, so that we can articulate it to others. He noted with frustration that Catholic young people are the second-most ignorant religious group (behind Jewish young people) about their own faith.

BART

Both Abraham and the Blessed Virgin Mary encountered God’s love most intimately in their darkest and most demanding moments, says Father Bart van Roijen.

Both were called to sacrifice their only son, and both experienced the love, sorrow, and generosity of the Father in their obedience to that call, Father Bart told Our Lady of Pentecost Summer Institute in Kelowna.

Father Bart, pastor of St. Michael parish in Sparwood and Holy Family parish in Fernie, is chair of the Nelson diocesan council of priests and a member of the diocesan religious education committee. It was his second year as speaker at the summer institute. His topics were Abraham our Father in Faith; Mary our Mother, and Authority and Discipleship in Mark’s Gospel.

“The stories of Abraham and Mary run parallel to one another and lead us deeper into their union with God,” he told the audience. He said Mary’s experience on Calvary completes Abraham’s own journey to sacrifice his son, Isaac, at God’s command.

Abraham is 75 by the time his story is told in the book of Genesis, Father Bart said; the account contains only four lines about the earlier portion of his life. We are left wondering how he came to the point of trusting God so thoroughly—especially since he would have been considered cursed by God since he and his wife, Sarai (Sarah), had entered old age with no children.

“It’s interesting that Abraham had faith at all,” Father Bart said. “God had passed them over. They would die without having someone to carry forward their seed.”

He said many people in Abraham’s situation would simply have changed gods. But Abraham had faith that, though everything might not turn out, God would still be faithful.

By contrast, we know Mary was “full of grace” from the beginning. But there is still much we don’t know about her spiritual life. As with Abraham, much of her faith was formed in hiddenness.

There’s a lesson for us in that, Father Bart said. “So much of our faith journey takes place in obscurity. We may not even be aware of it ourselves….day by day, unseen by us, God is working something wonderful in us.”

In Abraham’s case, he and Sarah decided to take matters into their own hands, when Abraham fathered a child with Hagar, Sarah’s maid. God had a place for that child, Ishmael, making him the father of the Arab people, Father Bart said—yet God also repeated his own promise immediately after, that Abraham would have a son with Sarah.

But once he has that son, Isaac, Abraham is called on to sacrifice him. That’s not a reversal by God, Father Bart said—it’s Abraham’s faith “taken to its outer extremes.” It’s based on love, as in Jesus’ words in Matthew 10:37, “he who loves son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me.” The sacrifice is based on love on both sides, he said, and when Abraham had shown his faith, God rescued Isaac.

Mary, too, had to journey with her Son to the place of sacrifice. Jesus, of course, does die, but then comes the resurrection.

“We see both in Abraham’s story and in Mary’s story, that on the mountain, God provides,” Father Bart said. “The long and arduous climb has been worth it. Mary is led to the foot of the cross, there to experience the love, the sorrow and the generosity of the Father and so enter most intimately into God’s sacrifice and life.

“We too are called to heed her call to do ‘whatever He tells you’ [the theme of this year’s institute], not for His sake but for ours, so that in joining ourselves more fully in the gift of the Father’s only-begotten Son, we may also share in the joy of the Holy Spirit that filled Mary’s heart on the day of the resurrection.”

In his earlier talk, on Mark’s gospel, Father Bart led the audience through the text as a fulfillment of Isaiah chapter 63, especially verse 19, “O that You would rend the heavens and come down.” In Mark, the heavens open in the very first episode, Jesus’ baptism by John, and the Holy Spirit descends on Him (1:10).

“By the end of Chapter 1, unlike any other evangelist, Mark has hammered home the power and authority of Jesus” through healings and exorcisms, Father Bart said, and the next few chapters are taken up with challenges to this authority and illustrations of faith or lack of faith on the part of outside observers.

But in Chapter 8, the midpoint of the gospel, the emphasis changes once Peter has answered Jesus’ question “who do you say that I am” by saying “You are the Christ.” From then on, Jesus is dealing with his own disciples, and in particular their misunderstanding of the nature of discipleship: taking up the cross. Opposition now comes from within Jesus’ own circle.

“You [Peter and the others] got the first part of the message. Good for you,” Father Bart said. “Stay tuned for the second part of the message. The most important part is still to come.”

The point is made in the story of the rich man in chapter 10, who wants to know what he must do to be saved. He has always kept the commandments, but Jesus tells him to give everything to the poor, and he goes away sad.

“He was a good person. He had done everything right,” Father Bart said. “Jesus loves us so much that He invites us to take the next step.”

“It is not just that we need to do some pruning and housekeeping. It’s that Jesus needs to do some pruning and housekeeping in us.”

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