By Mary Ann Graeve

As you know, I have been leading a Bible study at church for about ten years. We have grown to 50 ladies. A few weeks ago we had a luncheon with certain questions to stimulate the conversation. One of the questions was to tell about a God moment you may have had in your life.

Today we were talking about the Holy Spirit's gifts to us. We all know the fruits -- love, joy, peace, patience -- and have no problem with them. But sometimes when God tries to give us a gift we run the other way or we say no or we give it back because we don't want it. We discussed who the gift giver is, God himself, who has all knowledge of us. He created us and knows what we need and want. Why would we be afraid of his gifts? Why would we say no?

We read about these gifts in 1 Corinthians 12 and how if God gives us those gifts, he expects us to use them and to help others. Many of us know how to give gifts but not how to receive them. So what is our first response when we receive a gift? Hopefully, we all say thank you to whoever gave it, including God. We have so many gifts -- health, money, home, cars, salvation, the holy Eucharist, mass -- the list goes on and on and we forget to say thank you every day.

I passed out four envelopes to different people at random. In the envelopes were one $5 bill, one $10 bill, another $5 bill, and a $50 one. I then said, “Please open your envelopes. Who has an envelope?” One lady held up her hand. We discussed that first, she said thank you to God. Then we discussed what she should do with the $5 bill. First of all, what does God want her to do with it? She said that was great and then she tried to hand the money back to me. That's when we discussed that a gift is not a loan. It's a gift; it's free.

Next came the lady that held a $10 bill and we went through the same process. We discussed if a $10 bill is worth more than the $5 bill? Does that mean that she was worth more than the person that got the $5 bill? We serve a God that gives to each one of us what we need and what we want, and we should be grateful at all times.

At that point, the lady with the $50 bill held it up. Her first response was that she was surprised and amazed when she found it. We discussed how God wanted her to have it today. Then she revealed to all of us that it was her birthday, which none of us knew. No one in the room knew it except one person, Jesus himself.

So think about any God moments that you have in your life. Do you thank him for his gifts daily? God loves each one of you so so much and wants the best things in life for you and your happiness. It’s his greatest desire! He delights in you every day.

International Catholic Charismatic Renewal Services (ICCRS), an international organization that operates as coordination, information and communication center to serve the worldwide Catholic Charismatic Renewal (CCR), provides two resources to help us to prepare for the CCR Golden Jubilee.

First, they encourage us to pray the rosary for a New Pentecost. They published a brochure for praying the Rosary for a New Pentecost. You can download a brochure at the ICCRS site, http://www.iccrs.org/en/pray-the-rosary-for-a-worldwide-new-pentecost/

The brochure was published in preparation for the Golden Jubilee 2017 celebration of the Catholic Charismatic Renewal.

Second, "To help every one of us to prepare for the great historic occasion of the 50th anniversary of the birth of Charismatic Renewal in the Catholic Church and for the special celebration that we will live together with the Holy Father at Pentecost 2017, the CCR Golden Jubilee team is producing a series of 12 monthly reflection videos, based on various scriptures relating to the Holy Spirit. So each month there will be a short biblical reflection and a sharing about a particular scripture by pioneers of the Charismatic Renewal.”

The 12-month video series, "Prepare Our Hearts"  is available for viewing at: http://www.ccrgoldenjubilee2017.org/preparation.php?lang=en

by Sharon Harman

If I could sum up a bit of what I have learned from Chapter 1 during the last two weeks, it would be that the life of prayer is not a technique to be learned, but a grace to be received. For me, the most meaningful part has been that it has removed any pressure that I felt to “do” the right things in prayer, to accomplish a checklist or to learn certain methods, and encouraged me really to just be present with God. This chapter is called How to Use the Time of Mental Prayer.

One thing that I appreciate about Fr. Philippe is that he recognizes that there is no one answer that fits every person. He really honors the fact that souls are different and their relationships with God are unique. Each person has to respond to the Spirit's movement in their own hearts and discover that path along which they are being led. Also, prayer goes through stages, so what might be meaningful to us at one stage is not necessarily meaningful at another. That is very freeing for me to realize that that is okay.

If prayer is a journey towards the destination of loving union with God, then it can be helpful to view it in the context of a map. What I’d like to ask you to do is to create a mental image in your mind of a blank map. We are at the bottom of the map, and this union with God is at the top of the map. In between there you can fill it in with various types of landscape through which you must travel to arrive at the destination. Then draw in roads, some straight, some very curving, some narrow, some wide, and all of them pass through various landmarks. Like all images, there is a bit of a weakness to this one in the sense that we don’t have to wait until the end of the journey to experience varying levels of communion with God along the way. That is what we're going to be talking about today: what are some of those landmarks and roads that we are going to take along this journey?

When the question does not arise

I thought it was very interesting that Fr. Philippe opened this chapter with the fact that sometimes the question of how to use the time in prayer does not arise. It may not arise at the beginning of our prayer journey when we are so deeply in love with the Lord. It may not arise at the other end when a soul really experiences that total and complete union and is not asking how to spend the time because they are so directed by God. Then finally in the middle there can be times where the Holy Spirit is drawing us away from that active time of prayer where we are reading meditations and having these inner conversations and then a dryness may appear. That happens sometimes as the Holy Spirit is drawing a person into a deeper union. It may not feel that way, and the person may feel like they need to go back to being more active, you know -- meditations and memorizing scriptures. But Fr. Philippe encourages us to be peaceful about that if God's not leading us in that way because it is a very great grace.

When we do try to answer the question of how to use that time in mental prayer, Fr. Philippe says, ”What matters is not the movement of the mind, but the deep orientation of the heart toward God.” I'm going to repeat that: “What matters is not the movement of the mind, but the deep orientation of the heart toward God.” I really feel like that's what's been happening to me as I've been trying to absorb and apply the truths from this little book. I feel a sense of my heart shifting. Not just turning, but turning and settling or staying with God deep within. I’ll refer to this toward the end of my talk.

Chapter 2 outlines four truths to guide our journey in mental prayer. These principles are like landmarks on our map. The believer is free to follow the Spirit as he is led deeper through these truths, in no particular order.

Primacy of God’s action

1. The first principle is the primacy of God’s action. What matters in mental prayer is not so much what we do, as what God does in us. What a relief!! I was so happy to find that out. The essential act of prayer is to put oneself in God’s presence and just remain there. It doesn’t matter if we can’t do anything, because God can! While I was preparing this talk, I remembered a specific time when I really struggled to pray, and that was when our son Stephen was born 10 weeks early. He was critically ill for a number of weeks. You might have had a similar experience of struggling in a time of crisis. I remember telling people afterwards that I was not able really to pray while I was in the hospital. All I could do was visualize Jesus right in front of me and me right in front of him. When I would describe it, I described it rather apologetically, as if this meager mental image was all I could manage. But according to Fr. Philippe, that was the perfect thing to do! Yea! He says,

“If our prayer consists of nothing more than holding ourselves before God without…thinking of anything special...but with a heartfelt attitude of availability and trusting abandonment -- then we could not do any better.”

Primacy of love

2. The next landmark on our map is the primacy of love. This principle is connected to the primacy of God’s action that we just talked about because God’s first action toward us is love. I John 4:10 says, “In this is love, not that we loved God, but he loved us… - first.”  So if our main task in praying is to love God, then it means that we have to allow ourselves to be loved - first. The problem is we may not feel very loveable when we are tired or discouraged or distracted, so that praying is difficult. And then we feel guilty about not being able to pray well or at all. But when we accept that poverty that we have of being able to “do” prayer and we just turn our hearts to him in love, then, Fr. Philippe says, we are making a “magnificent prayer"! It's not just that it's good enough; it's magnificent. What an encouragement.

We know we are embracing that primacy of love when we let ourselves be loved by God – like small children. What that means is that we have that rock-solid belief in God’s love for us. Does a small child who has loving parents and grandparents ever doubt their love? This is one of my favorite parts about having grandchildren; it’s that reciprocal love that flows back and forth so easily. We have a 3½-year-old grandson named Ethan. When he is with us we can be doing anything -- cooking, playing, just doing nothing -- and he will spontaneously declare, “I love you, Nana” or “I love you, PawPaw.” Then later he might say, “When I leave to go home, you’re so sad, right?” He has so much confidence in our total love for him. We can mimic that. We should have that deep child-like assurance of God’s love.  This principle of love guides our actions in prayer in the sense that we should do whatever favors and strengthens love.  We should do whatever favors and strengthens love.

God gives himself through the humanity of Jesus

3. The next stop on our map is the third principle: We find God in thehumanity of Jesus. Since we are creatures of flesh and blood, and God is spirit, how are we going to find him if not through a relationship with Jesus Christ, both God and man? Jesus is the one by whom God becomes accessible to us. Fr. Philippe has several suggestions in his book, and I will name a few of the ways that we can come in deeper contact with the humanity of Jesus: Meditating on his deeds and words or on the events in Jesus’ life. Adoring his face in an icon or in the Eucharist. Pronouncing his name lovingly. We are very familiar with that Jesus Prayer. The important thing is that these not be intellectual efforts, but they come from a gaze of love coming from our hearts, clinging to our Savior Jesus.

God dwells in our hearts

4. The last principle is that God dwells in our hearts. Just as there are many types of transportation that can get us to a destination, there are multiple ways God uses to reveal his presence in our life. One is Creation. I love just meditating on the Lord in the glory of creation. There’s Scripture, the Eucharist and more. But the most important mode, Fr. Philippe says, for the life of prayer, is recognizing God’s presence in our own hearts.

I mentioned earlier that I have begun to feel a deeper sense of continuing on with God as I leave my prayer time. I think it's related to this principle of the truth of God dwelling in our hearts. I have tried through the years; mostly unsuccessfully I have to admit, to remember to turn my mind to Jesus during the day. Many times I get home at night and I think, "I didn't even think about him all day." Working in education (now this is not an excuse but it's the truth} I'm face-to-face with students and teachers all day long, and I struggle to turn my attention back to the Lord. But since I’ve been trying to pray in this new way, I've been seeing a change happening gradually. It’s hard to describe, but I’m going to tell you an example of something that happened last week when I noticed the change.

I was walking downstairs from a classroom and stewing a bit in my mind about an exchange I had had with a teacher. It turned out well, but I felt a bit run over. Have you ever had that feeling of not being respected or appreciated? I honestly was not trying to turn my heart to the Lord in that instance, but right at that moment I realized my inner complaining was creating an obstacle to that union with the Lord. It's like I had the union left over from prayer that morning and I noticed that there was an obstacle to it and it was me. It was my attitude. So I offered not just the situation, but my attitude to the Lord and prayed for the success of that teacher and left my need for respect and appreciation in God’s hands. The situation hadn’t changed, but I was able to continue my day in peace. That was a change I noticed from the past, and I hope it continues to grow. I know it will.

One of my favorite things about the analogy of the map is that I have companions on the journey like you. When I meet other travelers to share with and to learn from, my travels are so much easier and more fruitful. I encourage you to be sensitive to the Spirit's leading in this prayer journey, and really be encouraged about God's total unconditional love for you. We can be assured of arriving at our destination if we orient our hearts toward God using these basic principles, making decisions based on whatever favors and strengthens love. Amen.

Discussion Questions:

Why should we not measure the value of our mental prayer by how much we do during the time allotted for it? (p. 51)

1. Describe how the two principles of the Primacy of God’s action and the Primacy of God’s love are interconnected. How can these two guiding principles change the focus of our prayer time?
2. Looking at your own prayer time, which principal discussed in this chapter do you feel like provides the most guidance for changes you are called to make? Describe those changes that will strengthen love in your prayer life.
3. Looking at your own prayer time, which principal discussed in this chapter do you feel provides the most guidance for changes you are called to make? Describe those changes that will strengthen love in your prayer life.

Community Gathering, October 16, 2016

by Paul Mora

Since this is the Year of Mercy, I prayed about what I can do individually. I thought maybe I could help expand the food pantry, or maybe take a food truck and give away food. I was trying to think of a way to feed the hungry, as one of the corporal works of mercy.

But the Lord reminded me that at one time I used to carry these little plastic grocery bags. In them, I would put two or three packages of crackers, breakfast bars and a bottle of water. I’d and keep them in the backseat and when I’d come to a corner, and someone was asking for money; rather than give them money because I wasn’t sure where it would go, I would just offer them a bag of food.

I thought I’d get rejected but as it turned out, last week I was on my way to pick up my wife at work and stopped by a convenience store. A man was right next to the door, sitting on the garbage can. I went in and got myself something to drink and came back out and walked up to him and said, “Hi, how are you?”

He said, “Well, I’m better now that somebody acknowledges me.”

I said, “Really? What’s your name?”

He said, “My name is Charlie.”

I said, “Charlie, I’ve got something for you. Can you hold on for just a second?” I went to the car and got a bag of food and gave it to him. He gave me the biggest smile. It was one of those smiles of great happiness for just a small bag.

I drove off and thought, “That wasn’t too hard. That was pretty easy! I didn’t have to get involved in his life but just give him a little something.”

It’s a small thing to do. I’m saying that we don’t have to wait until we come up with some big ideas, just take the opportunities that the Lord presents to us. If we’re prepared and open hearted, they will come to us. We will see those opportunities without looking for them.

Here’s a Scripture to encourage you, Matthew 25:34–40,

Then the king will say to those on his right, ‘Come, you who are blessed by my Father. Inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world. For I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me drink, a stranger and you welcomed me, naked and you clothed me, ill and you cared for me, in prison and you visited me.’ Then the righteous will answer him and say, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you drink? When did we see you a stranger and welcome you, or naked and clothe you? When did we see you ill or in prison, and visit you?’ And the king will say to them in reply, ‘Amen, I say to you, whatever you did for one of these least brothers of mine, you did for me.’

Community Gathering January, 31, 2016

The Weak, the Wound and the Wonder

By Brenda Lenzen

For those of you who haven't been here in a few weeks, we are studying Time For God by Fr. Jacques Philippe. David and Mike and Sharon have led us through Chapters 1 and 2, where we have heard that prayer is not a technique, but a grace; that we have to persevere in our prayer, and that prayer is a journey that Sharon compared to a map. I love that analogy. Mike gave an excellent example of how having the sacraments without a prayer life to back them up is like eating with a Lap Band on. David talked about never giving up –- like you wouldn't ever give up on your best friend -- and to continue to go before the Lord in silence and wait on his initiative.

Chapter 3 deals with several things, but my main focus is on contemplation. In order to summarize the chapter, I have divided it into three parts: The Weak, the Wound and the Wonder.

The Weak

I am not a theologian, so I can’t explain with any authority what the Church teaches about contemplation. We'll get that out of the way right away. But as I considered my audience today, I speculate that most of you could speak about contemplation better than me. Nevertheless. I would like to tell you what I have experienced personally as it relates to Fr. Philippe's thoughts.

I was confused for the longest time about contemplation. I wondered if it was just another word for prayer. Maybe was it a synonym for prayer? I wondered if it might be a synonym for the word meditation. Fr. Bob Hilz used to talk about contemplation in a way that made me start thinking, way back when, that it was something quite different.

I spent years not really exploring it further, but wondering. I had periods of great prayer times in those years. I meditated on scripture. I did multiple Bible Studies. I learned and practiced Lectio Divina. I interceded for people. I have journal after journal after journal full of thoughts and inspirations about and from the Lord. I sat before the Lord in Adoration and the list goes on. And when I look back, I can say the Lord blessed me profoundly with a wonderful prayer life; however, I did not experience what today I’d call contemplation.

Fr. Philippe says in Chapter 3 that many writers have written many things about contemplation, but we should not get hung up on vocabulary or methods and stages of prayer at this point. Nor should we compare our prayer to anyone else’s. But he says one thing stands out that is similar across the board, and that is that a transformation takes place, And the transformation is that our prayer goes from something active on our part, like meditating on scripture and intercession, to something passive on our part where the Lord does the acting. The speakers in the past three weeks have all touched on this.

With me, the transformation happened like this: As I said, I had been blessed with a wonderful prayer life. I experienced good and dry times for many years. I would be great at it and then I would fall off. It wasn't like I was the most disciplined person for all those years. But it wasn’t until I was diagnosed with cancer that a transformation like Fr. Philippe describes happened. And here is where the "weak" comes in. Fr. Philippe says that it always springs from impoverishment. So my sickness brought me to a total end of myself. Everything I had known and expected came crashing down. The idols I didn’t even know I had, like health and future, were smashed.

I remember going before the Lord and just telling him that I didn’t understand. I remember pouring out my heart to him about suffering, and asking why was there so much suffering. Yet my situation did not change; it got worse. The funny thing is that as the carrying of the cross in my life went on and on, I ran out of things to say to the Lord. To some extent, for me, it was the long suffering and the months of carrying that cross that were actually a saving grace, because I got to the end of myself and my intellect. I would go to him in prayer and simply say these words, “I’ve got nothing, but I trust you."

At some point then, in the midst of those long days, that transformation that I believe our author is talking about took place. God touched me. His love was poured out on me in a way that is indescribable. A peace came that was so pervasive and a knowledge of his love for me filled me in a mysterious way.  My go-to scripture was Isaiah 45:3; “I will give you hidden treasures and reveal to you the substance and the mysteries of the secrets.” I believe that those secrets that the Lord wants to give us, are the extent that he can show us how big he is and how much he loves us.

The Wound

When the Lord touches us, we are left wounded. The second point of the chapter talks about the Wound. Fr. Philippe says on pages 72 and 73:

This wound produced in us by love may take many different forms at different times: desire, an eager search for the Beloved, repentance and sorrow for sins; thirst for God; agony in his absence. It may be a sweetness that swells the soul; it may be an inexpressible joy; it may be a burning passionate flame. It will make us into beings forevermore marked by God, with no other life than the life of God within us.

The author goes on to say that when we go to God we seek healing, but in a certain sense, God seeks to wound us more deeply so he can bring about a true cure. I thought that one of the most profound lines in the whole chapter was on page 74 toward the top: “Sometimes the Lord wounds us more effectively by leaving us in our wretchedness than by healing us of it."

Nevertheless, the wound is what happens to our soul when we catch even the slightest glimpse of who God is. The author says, “God is infinitely beyond every image, every representation, every perception open to our senses.” He is beyond our intellect. When God reveals to us something about himself and how much he loves us that goes beyond our imagination and our senses, we are changed. It is so sweet that we long for more. And it is this longing that is the wound.

The Wonder

Finally comes the Wonder. When God operates on our soul and performs the surgery that happens in contemplation, we have a realization that he is living in us. I am going to go off script for a second and again this was the message for today. I wrote this yesterday.

He is not a God who is out there whom we address, but he is in here [striking breast]. He is living in me. And not only is he living in me, but he is living in each and every one of us. He is living in each and every one of them that are outside of these walls. And if the God who is living in me and has touched me so deeply is equally in you, and he is, then think of what that does to our perspective. It makes us love because we realize the dignity in each and every one of us, in each and every person ever created because God is in them.

The last part of the chapter speaks of taking that love that has wounded us in our prayer to the Church by simply and profoundly loving. That is the Wonder.

In summary, the chapter quotes the Carmelite greats: St. Teresa of Avila, St. John of the Cross and St. Therese of Lisieux. Our author talks about the great Carmelite tradition that makes the closest and clearest connection between the contemplative life and the life of the mystery of the church.

Charismatic connection

But I say to you that the charismatics of the world are also predisposed to the practice of contemplation. That’s because we are not afraid of the mystery and contemplative prayer at its very truest involves a mysterious touch of the Lord. You know we speak in tongues after all. We exercise the gifts of the Spirit. We are slain in the spirit and all of these things have an element to them that requires not just your normal Vanilla ice cream faith, but a faith like Rocky Road or Millennium Crunch.

Before Vi died, she lent me the book, Contemplation and the Charismatic Renewal by none other than our beloved Fr. Hinnebusch. He edited the book and it contains articles written by charismatic writers of the day on contemplation. They all agree that even though the words charismatic and contemplation seem like complete opposites because after all one is loud and has a boisterous connotation and the other is about quiet and peace, we charismatics can get quiet with the best of them. We can receive all the grace that the Lord has to offer through contemplative prayer.

I do think that God is calling all of us in this room today to a renewal in our prayer life. And as has been said, "this seems so boring" and we've been hearing it for years. But I exhort each of you to ask the Lord about it this week. God is infinite and that word means inexhaustible. He has much more to show each of us in prayer if we can carve out the time. Contemplation can rarely happen in five minutes. We have to quiet our mind, which is one of the biggest struggles and takes practice. Fr. Jerome, our beloved Carmelite from next door, says,

The etymology of the word ‘contemplation’ is ‘con’ and ‘templing’ or constructing the temple within. That temple is each and every one of our hearts. Our hearts are wounded, they are rent open so that the Lord’s Sacred Heart, which was wounded for us, might pour out into our woundedness. He resides here. He is living in each of us. He is transforming us. And he is working on you and you and you and you.

Discussion Questions

1. Describe your understanding about the Contemplative Form of Prayer.

2. Have you experienced the sweetness that the author is talking about?

3. Have you experienced the impoverishment that the author speaks of on pp 69-70?

4. Think about the quote on page 74, “Sometimes God wounds us more effectively by leaving us in our wretchedness then by healing us of it!”

5. St. Theresa of Avila says on page 78, “The world is on fire” and “there is no time to be concerned with unimportant things.”Can this quote, given the state of our world, spur us on to do everything we can to develop a keen awareness of how we should love?

6. Thursday of this week’s first reading was Ephesians 3: 14-20.Read and think about how this describes the practice of Contemplation.

Community Gathering, October 23, 2016

Prayer of the Heart, an Encouragement

I came today prepared with a talk I wrote to summarize the last two chapters of Time for God, but I didn't even bring it up here with me because the Lord is saying something very different. In listening to the sharings today and thinking about all the previous talks on this book, I think you don't need me to tell you what the last two chapters of the book say, or at least I hope you don't. If you haven't been reading the book, please do. It is a short, easy read, but it's one of the best books on prayer I have seen in years, so I encourage you to read it.

Instead, I feel called to talk to you today about the kind of prayer that Fr. Jacques Philippe talks about in the book and how it relates to the rest of our lives. He calls it mental prayer, which always scares me a little bit because it makes me think I have to do mental gymnastics. It can also be called prayer of the heart, and that makes a lot more sense to me, because it truly is a prayer that unites your heart with the heart of God. You all know what you need for prayer. You need to know that God is the giver of the gift, God is the one who calls us to prayer, and our response needs to be faithfulness no matter what -- faithfulness to the time and faithfulness to the place. It doesn't so much matter where we pray as that we pray. It doesn't so much matter when we pray as that we pray. But something else is important, I think, and that is to make the connection between that kind of prayer and our lives. It's easy to make a connection between intercession and the rest of our lives, but to make a connection between heart-to-heart prayer and the rest of our lives can be more difficult.

You have heard stories today about people in our Community and about the saints and about Maccabees before us who had courage and fortitude and all the virtues that we need right now. Brothers and sisters, none of us have those virtues without first having prayer that unites our heart to the heart of God. We receive those gifts of virtue when the Holy Spirit pours them out in us as a result of our time with him. This is the result of our faithfulness to go to prayer each day -– even when it feels like we are not accomplishing anything in it.

What’s your secret?

Fr. Paul Hinnebusch, who for those of you who don't know, was a Dominican priest involved with our Community for years and was a spiritual director for many of us, including myself. He told me a story once that has stayed with me more than any other story about prayer. He was a chaplain for a group of Dominican Sisters whose apostolate was to teach.He was really impressed by the prayer life he could see reflected in one of the young sisters, so he asked her, "What's your secret?" She replied, "You know, it's real simple," she said, "I come home from school every day. I put down my books and my papers, I catch my breath and I go to the chapel. Once I get quiet enough to pray the first thing I say to the Lord is 'Lord, this is your time. If you want it to be marvelous, then it's going to be marvelous,If you want it to be dry as dust, then it's going to be dry as dust, but it belongs to you.'" And then she would just sit in front of the Blessed Sacrament. We need to learn to be able to trust him enough to do that.

I've heard a lot of you say your best prayer time is early in the morning. Good Lord, the best thing I can do early in the morning is say "Good morning, God," and recite a memorized Morning Offering before I get out of bed. My best prayer time is usually mid-afternoon or early evening. Lately, it has become the middle of the night, but I can't depend on that because that's his gift and it doesn't always happen. We need to go to prayer time when it's the best time for us to come humbly to the Lord.

There is a story about St. Clare asking St. Francis as he was dying,"Was there anything you regret?" He replied, "Yes, that I wasn't kinder to Brother Donkey,” which was the name he had given his body. It made me realize very quickly when I heard that story that, as hard as I work and as much as I push myself, I need to be kinder to Sister Snail, which is my name for my body because I am so slow. Therefore, laying in my bed or stretched out in my recliner, that's my heart-to-heart prayer time. All of that, not to hold myself up, but to say to you again: what matters is not where you pray or when you pray, it's that you pray. I encourage you to find your best time. When I taught, it was always after the kids had left and I could close my library door and just sit and pray.

Prayer is a circle

I want to say one more thing to you, and that is, quite simply, that prayer is a circle. We take what we are to prayer and God does whatever it is that he is doing with that. Then we take whatever God has done with it back into the world. It's always a circle. But the secret is: it's not a circle we go into alone. Brothers and sisters, yes, it's important for us that we pray, but it's also important that we pray because even in that very personal "this is my time with Jesus" kind of prayer, we bring this whole Community, we bring all of our loved ones, we bring our city and our state, we bring the whole world into God's presence. He pours his grace not just on us, but on everyone we bring to him.

I'm not talking about intercessory prayer. In fact, the prayer time I'm talking about is the kind of prayer when you sit there for the first five minutes, and if you are anything like me, all you can think about is everything you are not doing. I'll immediately think I need to call so and so. I usually say to the Lord, “Yes, I need to call whoever, Lord, but I'll do it after I'm done praying.” The other thing that has worked for me, is when I go into prayer, and all of what's going on around me and all that people need is weighing heavy on my heart, what I do is I say, "Alright Blessed Mother, take this person, put them under your mantle,” and I leave them there. Then they are her problem, not mine. Then she gets to pray for them and ask God to pour out his grace on them. Again, a lot of the time is just sitting there. I don't have any idea what God is doing, but I know he is doing something because he is faithful. He is the one who does the work; we just have to show up.

Desire, desire, desire

Something one of the mystics said that has always stuck with me is that when God started talking to her about this kind of prayer and she said "Lord, I can't do this." e said "Yeah, I know," and she replied with a confused,"Huh?" To which he said, "You desire it and I will do the work." Many Pentecosts ago the Lord told us to desire a new Pentecost. He gave me a vision and he said "I want to give you a new Pentecost," and I said, "Lord, what are we supposed to do?" He replied, "Desire, desire, desire." St. Catherine of Sienna said that God told her that the single most important thing she could bring to her prayer was desire.

I'm going to end with a request: please, for your sake, for the sake of this Community, for the sake of the entire world – find a time to pray this prayer of the heart and let God do the work that God needs to do, not just in you, but in everybody else that you bring into that prayer time.

(Community Gathering, November 6, 2016)

By David Peterman (Sr.)

I was blessed to represent our community at the Catholic Fraternity’s Council meetings in Rome from Nov. 2-6,2016. The Council is made up of one delegate from each member community plus an optional non-voting companion. Present at this meeting were representatives of 71 of the current 120 international communities of the Catholic Fraternity of Charismatic Covenant Communities and Fellowships. We met at the Carmelite Retreat/Conference facility south of Rome to elect the President and Regional Representatives that will serve on the Executive over the next three years.

From the North American Continent, six of the ten US communities were represented and were joined by five representatives of 20 Mexican communities (with four spouses) shown in the following photo. Gilberto Barbosa, the President of the Fraternity is on my left in the back row in a white shirt.

This meeting also provided a deep spiritual experience with 24/7 emersion in prayer, praise, worship, adoration and communion. Personally I was really touched by the Holy Spirit throughout the week. It was like a continuous personal experience of God’s reality. We were together and almost constantly aware of God’s presence all around us.

An Italian music ministry provided just the right balance of quiet time and worship music for all our meetings. Although the majority of the lyrics were in English, the times we sang in Italian or Portuguese were like singing in tongues. I was particularly touched by the times of daily Eucharistic Adoration. During one of them I had a mystical experience of seeing the faith of each person in the room being as-if individual prisms that converted Jesus’ spiritual presence in our hearts into beams that focused on the monstrance making him physically present to us all.

As far as the formal meetings are concerned, I observed a greater spirit of unity and comradery than at recent meetings. The first day we heard from a number of the communities expressing what the Holy Spirit has been doing in their lives and ministry. They represent a “Unity in Diversity” of style and service to the whole Church. Many shared of the challenges we have to overcome due to increasing secularization, and in Malaysia the added challenge of suppression of all non-Islamic religions. We were exhorted that covenant community is not just for our own sakes, but for the sake of the whole church and world. We also received an update on the joint effort to unite the services of the Catholic Fraternity and the International Catholic Charismatic Renewal Services (ICCRS) efforts to reinvigorate the Charismatic Renewal.

Having been involved in several dialogues over the past year about the future of the Fraternity, I had been concerned about how to adjust to the changes during the past two decades of growth and how to overcome a general diffusion of the Fraternity identity and vision. We really needed to move forward in unity with a new impetus.

God is good! When we met to elect the President for the next three-year term, I was inspired to nominate the current President, Gilberto Barbosa to a second. He was elected on the first ballot by a wide majority expressing a clear unanimity. In our North American English region we also affirmed Dan Almeter from the Alleluia Community in Augusta to a second term as our representative on the Executive. Thus we sailed through the election processes without contention resulting in a strong spirit of solidarity. This also gave the Council time for a very valuable dialogue session – to clear the air on many questions such as Pope Francis’ desire to have the Catholic Fraternity and ICCRS work together in a unified service to the broader Renewal.

The resulting new Fraternity Executive, consisting of representatives elected by each Regional entity, is an outstanding group. Knowing most of them well, I have confidence they will help the President provide the needed overall guidance and leadership for the Fraternity.

This spirit of moving forward together continued both formally in our meetings and informally at our many dinner table gatherings. To top it off, on Saturday, we had a one-day retreat with three talks by Fr. Raniero Cantalamessa, the preacher to the Papal household and my favorite teacher. He stressed the importance of Baptism in the Holy Spirit as the foundational grace of the Charismatic Renewal. He strongly urged us to make real in our lives the Lordship of Jesus Christ by radically surrendering to God’s will.

This meeting was like a new beginning for the Catholic Fraternity to continue the New Pentecost with a new spirit of communion and enthusiasm. There are many challenges such as clarifying the Fraternity‘s identity and role in the Renewal, development of updated Statutes to guide its governance, and working out the details of how the Fraternity and ICCRS will work together.

The immediate challenge is to implement the Holy Father’s plan for celebrating the 50^th Jubilee of the Charismatic Renewal from May 31^st to June 4^th in Rome with special events with Pope Francis in various meetings in different locations around Rome (see summary below). Although these events are still in the planning stage, it is clear from the preliminary schedule that it will be a watershed event that will give the Renewal a new injection of Holy Spirit empowerment.

With this effort underway big time, we can expect an extraordinary experience for those who can plan to be there next June. The NA Fraternity has reserved a group of up to 70 rooms at the 4-star Ergife Palace hotel with bus transportation to each major event. Pope Francis has invited all Charismatics, Catholic and non-Catholic to join him in celebrating. This will be a once-in-a-lifetime event,

I hope that many of you will consider whether to attend. I need to hear from you, if you want to be part of our group along with the other North American community participants, so I can give you more details. 

See you there!

Come on Sunday, December 4 and be entertained by the students of Mount St. Michael Catholic School as they present their Christmas program. Join in with caroling, prizes and refreshments.  This celebration is in place of our regular prayer meeting.

By Charlie Leicht (3-18-1950 - 5-17-2010)

For my entire walk with the Lord, I have struggled with prayer and prayer time. When I first came into the Spirit, I couldn’t get enough of reading scripture. I read the Bible cover to cover, marveling and wondering why I’d never realized these things before. Every morning for years I’d drive 45 minutes to meet with several brothers and sisters at 6:30 a.m. for morning prayers before Mass. I dove into the lives of the saints, especially St. Therese Martin, the Little Flower.

Every Sunday, and I do mean every Sunday, my whole family sat behind me while I played bass at Community Gatherings. We attended and worked every day of every conference that the Community sponsored at Moody Coliseum. We never missed a Community function because that was our food, our spiritual sustenance.

I’m not sure when it happened, but those fanatical days are now gone. I truly believe that back in those days, if Bobbie had stood up at the prayer meeting and said we were all picking up stakes and moving to the Alaskan wilderness, we all to the man, would have followed him there. Praise God that the Spirit was leading him. I credit Bobbie Cavnar with my family and I staying in the Catholic Church in the 1970s, because at that time I had become very disillusioned with the Church.

Moving forward

I hear statements lately about going back to those early days of fire for the Lord, of returning to our first love. But you know, I don’t think you should go back. I think the Lord is taking us forward.

Every organization that has existed in the history of the Church has gone through what this Community has, and is, going through. We are not experiencing something new. Every order of priests, nuns and lay people have gone through what we have in the last few years. We are growing. The Lord is purifying us, turning us into the people he wants, his Delight.

You read in the Bible of pleadings to the Lord to reveal just a glimpse of his face, to touch just the hem of his garment. In the writings of many saints, once they have seen the Lord in a divine revelation they are never the same again. It’s like they are now dead to themselves.

How many of you have as the desire in your heart to be holy, as the Lord is holy? If the Lord were to appear in our midst as he did to his apostles after his resurrection, he would have the most fanatical group of followers in history. There is not a more dedicated group of people to the Lord, with a more dedicated group of leaders that are trying to follow him, in existence. I know this: I know all of you. We are one in this Community and there isn’t a doubt in my mind that this is true.

What’s wrong with us?

What’s the problem? Why won’t the Lord show us his face? Is there something wrong with us? Is he so displeased with us that he doesn’t want us to be his Delight anymore? Are we so unresponsive that God has abandoned our community? No, God is not a liar. He loves us. He’s with us constantly, every moment of our life. We are his. He is ours forever. We are his Delight, his bride -- in waiting.

The Lord will not show us his face the way he showed his apostles because he doesn’t want to interfere with the process of dying to self. There is a reason that the Lord’s presence is veiled to us. We must give up our will and live in his will. That is the key to our lives with the Lord and with each other. J-O-Y, Jesus-Others-Yourself -- last.

So again, what’s the problem? Why can’t the Lord just show us his face and end all this doubt and suffering? Turn us loose to evangelize, reveal his loving face and convert the whole world?

Dying to self

Dying to self is a slow and determined process. Remember, Adam and Eve walked and talked to God, and fell. God’s brightest creation and a third of heaven knew God and rebelled. We see this present age with the Lord veiled to all and partially unveiled only to the select, only to those he chooses to reveal himself.

We will remember for all of eternity what it was like to be in the world with God partially revealed. Can you imagine what it would be like to have God remove himself completely from your life? There cannot be love when you live for self, only the top dog rules then, and in the world, we all know who that is. Love only exists when we put God and others before our will. Adam and Eve didn’t have that viewpoint when they made their choice. That is what we are learning in this walk we find ourselves in.

Give up your will. Choose God and let him decide what is good and what is right.

(written in 2000)

By Peg Weisbruch

I recall some of my musings and questions to my mother when I was a little girl. I think I wore my mother out answering some of my questions. They were always "what if." What if the Japanese or Germans won the war? (This really dates me, okay.) What if a robber came to steal all our stuff? She used to tell me that we don't have anything anybody wants to steal. What if she had another baby? What if we moved again? Not necessarily in that order. I honestly think my worrying kept me close to God in prayer and dependent on him like a child depends on his or her parents. Seems I was a bit anxious. Staying close to God, I guess you could say, was insurance or protection against life's "what ifs." Staying on the straight and narrow was in my DNA. Everything I ever learned about God was loving, good, wise, etc., just like my parents, and the safest way to live my life.

My growing up was typical for the times, two parents, both committed Catholics, both willing to sacrifice to send their six kids to Catholic school. My dad was an aircraft engineer and in those days they moved him around a lot. We got transferred to numerous locations. I lived in eight different states, a new school, all Catholic, almost every year, and ultimately we landed in Texas. I went to Catholic high school and Catholic college, so you know I ended up knowing nothing but Catholics.

I married a similar type cradle Catholic and we struggled at times to agree on how to raise our six children. All our children attended Catholic colleges and we saw signs of waning interest in the faith of some. I think this is a period of time where friends of other faiths, interfaith Bible studies and people we knew in the growing Pro-Life Movement influenced us.

Then came an incredibly charismatic Mass one night at Holy Family in Irving. It was in Lent and I went. Afterwards there was a prayer meeting. It was a 7 o'clock Mass. I went by myself; got home around midnight and I had one upset husband. He thought I was going to leave him with all the kids (no he didn't really). I remember during that Mass crying throughout the whole Mass because it was so holy and touching with these Catholic spirit-filled people. We got to know a lot of them, especially at that prayer meeting and afterward we met Fr. Hopkins. Anybody remember him? Later we met Fr. Hinnebusch. Through our Protestant friends, we got invited and attended the Bill Gothard Institute of Basic Youth Conflicts with all our big kids. It had an enormous impact on all of us. There was, of course, a lot of emphasis on the Bible.

So how Catholic were we? We were very attracted to others in other churches. We learned many basic scriptural principals that were so exciting. One principal that rang my bell was to be certain that the Lord's leading was coming through my husband rather than my old way of running the spiritual show. Now I had been alerted to watch for God to direct our family through the father of the family. That was a biblical teaching. I had heard about Community. It sounded authentically Christian to me, but I was waiting for God's direction coming through the right way, through the father of the family.

It seems God was working on Doug too. Doug had met Peter Darby when they were both members of the Dallas Diocesan School Board. Doug had asked Peter about his "underground church." That was what he would say in those days. Peter had shared about CCGD and then Peter picked up on that because he was a good friend, of course, of Dick Williams. He called Dick Williams who worked at the same company with Doug and made a suggestion to Dick. One afternoon Doug called me from work. His co-worker at Lone Star Gas, Dick Williams, had invited him to a Life in the Spirit Seminar that was just starting at Mount St. Michael. Doug asked me if I wanted to go. How was that for clear direction from the Lord? I mean, he never initiated anything like that before, so I knew it was not me, it was the Lord.

We started going to the Wednesday prayer meeting at Mount St. Michael, then the Life in the Spirit afterwards. I was kind of testing the Lord, expecting the teachings to be like a catechism lesson. We were blessed that Joe Tinker was the leader of Life in the Spirit. He taught us all about Jesus and our relationship with him. We were hearing the truth. That was very clear to me as I had given my life to Christ before, and I knew that I had made that commitment. I even wrote the date of my commitment to Christ on the inside cover of my little Bible Study book so I could readily share with my sweet Protestant friends that "yes I had done that" and I even knew the date and time. I took care of that.

So now here we are hearing the truth in a Catholic situation. I didn't have to change religions. I was being taught by the Holy Spirit in my own beloved Catholic Church.

Lots of coincidences, that we don't call coincidences anymore. The evening of our Baptism in the Holy Spirit our college kids came home on Thanksgiving break. They were so excited because they told us about some small prayer meeting they had been having down at St. Mary's where they had been led to receive the Baptism of the Holy Spirit. So they are ahead of us! We found out that they had been praying for us, of all things, to receive the Baptism of the Holy Spirit. Nothing is impossible with God.

Of course the Lord has led us closer to himself through all the love and friendships and teachings in the Community. It was as if Jesus said that he didn't want us to leave his true Church. He led us to deeper truths in the happiest of ways, our life in the Community. No more agonizing about the possibilities of changing churches. God opened our eyes to the depths of his truth in our own beloved Catholic Church.

That is basically my testimony, but Doug and I were talking about this also – how all these years we have been in Community – the support, the prayerful support that we have received through some difficult times. Like when our son Jeff died more than 11 years ago and when our little grandbaby Mae died last year we had so much prayer support. Now we are grateful for the wonderful prayer support for Marcella, our daughter-in-law and their whole family. We are surrounded in this Community and submerged in prayer. Thank you.

Community Gathering, 9-11-16

Advancing his kingdom in prayer

By Tracy Rosachi

When I was praying about what to share during this talk on the Time for God Appendices by Fr. Liebermann and Br. Lawrence, the Lord kept giving me the first part of the Our Father prayer:

Our Father who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name, thy kingdom come, thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven.

This seems to fit in well with some of today’s sharings. We are connected to God's kingdom by prayer, and it is only through surrender in prayer, a willingness of heart and faith in Christ Jesus that we are able to enter into the kingdom.

Faith in prayer

So how does prayer connect us to the kingdom of God? Prayer is the language of the kingdom and, just like any language, if we don't use it, we lose it. Many of us are taught a different language in high school, and I would guess most of us haven't used it since then. I learned French, but I couldn't tell you many words in French these days because I haven't continued to use it. We must continue to practice the language of prayer because prayer is how God speaks to us and we speak to him.

If prayer is the door to the kingdom of God and our means to speak to God, then faith is what opens that door. We have to have faith that he is there and that he is speaking to us in prayer. It is important to know that our faith is us saying in prayer, "Yes, God, I am here,” and trusting that he is always there waiting for us to open that door.

Practicing the presence of God

In the second appendix, Br. Lawrence talks about practicing the presence of God. Sometimes when my life is so busy, God reminds me to "practice my presence." What does that mean? Well, what does “practice” mean? First of all, it means doing something over and over again until you don't even have to think about it anymore. It just becomes a part of you.

Practicing his presence is about remembering throughout the day to just stop and say "Thank you, God. Here I am, God," and having faith that he is present. I will use an example that happened to me this week. I was running some errands and had to stop to get gas. I don’t know about you, but a lot of times while I’m at the gas station, I’m thinking about what I have to do next, or where I have to be next. All of sudden, I just looked up and realized it was a beautiful day and saw a bird flying by, and I remembered to say: "Thank you, Lord, for being present and allowing me to be with you while the gas is pumping."

Whether he brings it to our mind, or we make an effort to practice his presence, I have found that it is a great way to draw nearer to him, and it puts back into perspective what is truly important. If we open ourselves up to his presence, we will realize those brief moments that can touch our lives in an intimate way and help us grow in our faith. We also open ourselves up to his will and allow him to give us the courage to respond to his will. The more of an effort I have made to practice living in his presence, the more it's become a habit and the more fruitful it has become.

The gift of tongues

ne of the greatest gifts that many of us have as charismatics is the gift of tongues. We talk about that being a heavenly language and the language of the kingdom. Therefore, another great way to practice his presence is to pray in tongues. I know for me, it is very easy to sit down with good intentions of praying in his presence, but I'm too distracted by everything else going on to really enter into his presence. Praying in tongues allows my spirit and God’s spirit to talk to each other and takes my brain, and my distractions, out of the equation. Whether it's a long prayer time or just a short practice of his presence, praying in tongues allows us to connect to him in a much deeper way than if we tried to use our own words.

I have learned from my spiritual director over the years that we all have our different faculties that aid us in prayer: memory, intellect, will, imagination and emotions. When we begin to pray in the way discussed in Time for God, and have faith in the Lord’s presence in our prayer, and we allow the Lord to work with the faculties he gave us and enter deeply into his presence in prayer, we often find that the things that we sometimes get lost in – life’s distractions – become less distracting We see the Lord’s will start to take shape in our lives instead. I encourage everyone to be on the lookout for the moments where God can speak to us and practice entering into his presence in the moments you would normally allow distractions to consume.

Advancing his kingdom in prayer

A few weeks ago at prayer meeting, we talked about being in awe of God and appreciating his creation around us and the people he brings into our lives. When we bring our whole self into prayer and allow ourselves to be in awe of him, God brings us deeper into his kingdom. The more in tune we are with his presence, the more we allow him to use us to advance his kingdom.

In Dan Burke’s book, Into the Deep, he uses the term “sacred attention.” Burke defines sacred attention as a simple attentiveness to Jesus. He goes on to describe it as allowing ourselves to slow down, relax and begin to shift away from all things other than what God wants to reveal to us. Even if it is only for a short amount of time while we pump gas, are in line at the grocery store or the bank, or sit in the waiting room at the doctor’s office, it is those moments that we would normally give over to distractions that the Lord wants the most and can sometimes do the most with to advance his kingdom.

It is amazing the changes I have seen in myself since I have started practicing his presence. I have learned to revel in the solitude of his presence and find joy there. Again, it takes faith in knowing that he shows up for us to understand that even when we don’t hear his voice in our prayers, we are not alone. Prayer is not a lonely place; he is always with us. I have also learned to stop and ask, “Lord, what do you want me to do here?” before I react in certain situations. In doing so, my reactions have become more thoughtful and calm in stressful or difficult situations.

I also have seen growth in my life in advancing my discipline of the liturgy. In making this more of a priority and practicing that discipline, I am again allowing the Lord to advance his kingdom through me. It really is a beautiful thought that we are able to help advance God's kingdom in real ways every single day just doing what we do when we do it in his presence.

It can be a scary thing to turn our lives over to him and trust his will without knowing where that might lead us. As we slowly become more and more comfortable being in his presence and grow in the faith required to trust in his presence, he teaches us what we need to know to enter his kingdom. So I encourage everyone to practice his presence and to practice the discipline of giving him our little moments of distraction in order to grow closer to him and so that he might use us to advance his kingdom. God bless you, and God bless all of us. Amen.

Community Gathering, November 13, 2016

You are invited to participate in the 
5:30 pm Christmas Eve Mass

with the Sisters of Our Lady of Charity of the Good Shepherd

on the Mount St. Michael campus on 
Saturday, December 24th. 

It is our custom each year to celebrate this
special Mass with the Sisters.

(December 25th and January 1st - no Sunday Community Gatherings)

January 8 - First Gathering of 2017– As has been our recent tradition, we will begin the year with a special gathering where we dedicate the entire meeting to praying in the New Year.  Please join us on Sunday, January 8^th at 4pm in the gym  as we will meet as a Community to pray for a blessed 2017.

By Cordelia Nwankwo

My name is Cordelia Nwankwo. I was born and raised in a Catholic home in Nigeria where I met and married my husband, Basil Chike Nwankwo, in 1976. The Lord blessed us with six children – three boys and three girls.

My husband, Basil, was also born in Nigeria and was a petroleum geologist. He was called home to the Lord on December 5, 2005. He was a wonderful man who had a strong devotion of the Blessed Mother. He would say the Memorare every night, no matter how tired he was; it was his favorite prayer. I want to share with you the story of the night the Blessed Virgin Mary appeared to us while he was on his sick bed.

Basil’s diagnosis

In November of 2004 my husband traveled out of the United States to drill oil in Nigeria. A couple of weeks into his travels he became sick, but managed to continue working until the end of the year. When he came back to the states in the New Year, he spent several weeks visiting doctors, who never reached a diagnosis. Therefore, he returned to Nigeria and continued working. He grew sicker while in Nigeria. Finally, I encouraged him to get on the next flight home, and he landed in the states on March 10 with very severe abdominal pain. He went to see his internist, Dr. Hampton, right away who diagnosed him with an incarcerated ventral hernia and referred him immediately to a surgeon.

The following day, March 12, Basil went to Dallas Medical Center for surgery, only to find out the diagnosis was wrong. After being in surgery for an hour and 20 minutes, the surgeon comes out and informs me that he doesn’t have good news. He says Basil had a lot of fluid in the stomach that they had to drain and they took a biopsy, but it looked like cancer. I was totally shocked. I was shivering, my teeth were knocking together, and I was speechless.

The doctor held me and tried to calm me down, and then God came to me. I immediately felt his presence. The shaking and trembling stopped, and God reassured me that everything was going to be okay and that I needn’t be afraid.  The doctor said he would talk to my husband, but I told him, “No, I will do it myself,” and I did.

My husband got the results of the biopsy the following Monday, March 14. It was cancer. Needless to say, we didn’t sleep much that night. The following night, however, we were determined to get some sleep, and instead our lives were changed forever.

An apparition of Our Mother of Sorrows

On Tuesday, March 15, I pushed the little couch as close as I could to the right side of Basil’s bed and after covering him with a blanket, I turned off all the lights. I laid down and covered myself up with my own blanket then noticed there was still a light coming from somewhere. I asked Basil, “Where is that light coming from?”

He said, “Look, the TV is on.” He asked me to switch it off. I got up and switched off the TV which made the whole room very dark.

Sometime that night, I’m not sure the exact time, Basil woke me up. He told me he was sweating all over and the bed sheets were very wet from his sweat. I got up, went across to the other side of the bed, and changed the sheets. When I was done, I started to go back to my little couch and noticed that the TV once again switched on. The same TV that I had switched off right before going to bed, and the lights on the screen were very bright. I turned to Basil and said, “Did you not tell me to switch off this TV and I did?”

He said, “Yes.”

I asked, “Did you turn it back on?”

He said, “No.”

I looked at the TV again and realized that the bright lights that were illuminating the entire room were from an image of the Blessed Virgin Mary in a white robe. The robe had red blood spots all over. The image filled the entire screen of the TV. There was no voice, no sign of a channel, nothing. Without thinking, I reached my hand up to the switch and pressed it. My hand was still suspended in the air when I got the message from the Lord that it had been a real image of the Blessed Virgin Mary. I said to myself, “Oh my God, Blessed Virgin Mary.” I quickly looked at the TV again, but she was gone and I didn’t say anything to Basil. I took the first step to my couch and said to myself again, “Blessed Virgin Mary.” What was I thinking to switch off the TV! I should have waited and talked to Mother Mary.

Then I took a second step to the couch and said for the third time, “Blessed Virgin Mary.” I became a little angry with myself. I regretted switching off the TV, but then I convinced myself that it must have just been a Catholic channel and not a real apparition. I got to the couch, covered myself, and slept until the next morning.

In the morning, my brother, Joe, and some other people were in the hospital room with us, and Joe wanted to say a prayer. He got out his Bible and we joined hands while Joe read from Job. In the middle of the prayer, God came to me and might as well have hit me on the back of the head, and said, “Can’t you remember what happened last night? Have you forgotten what you saw last night? Go ahead and tell them what you saw.” Then I shouted out, in the middle of the prayer, “Everybody, wait a minute! Something happened last night.”

Everyone was looking at me surprised as I started telling my story of what happened the night before. Halfway through Basil shouts, “I think I saw her first!” He then took over the story and described the image of the Blessed Mother just as I had seen her. Basil told us that when he first saw the image he made the sign of the cross, and remembered he had been stricken with fear, sweating profusely, and was totally soaked and that’s why he woke me up. At this point I knew the image of our Blessed Mother had been real, and we started praising the Lord.

The faithfulness of our Mother

On Thanksgiving Day, Basil was put on life support and moved to the ICU. I called my parish priest who came and gave him Last Rites. On Sunday, December 4, he was in critical condition and I didn’t make it to morning Mass. I was able to go to the evening Mass, where the priest asked about Basil. He was surprised to hear he was still holding on after having seen him on Thanksgiving to give Last Rites. Fr. Henry said, “Cordelia, he loves you so much that he is waiting for you to give him permission to go. When you get back to the hospital tonight, tell him that you love him so much and that you want him to stay, but if God wants him, he has your permission. Give him your blessing to go to God.”

So I raced back to the hospital where I found Basil alone in his room and said just that. It’s strange, in that moment, I felt as if our hands were unlocking, and I knew that was it.

I received the call at 4 a.m. on December 5, 2005. By 3:25 p.m. that day, he had gone to the Lord, in the Hour of Mercy. I truly believe that our Mother of Sorrows came to us that night back in March to comfort us and to give special assistance to Basil at this death. He faithfully prayed the Memorare every day, and in the end, Mother Mary did not leave him in the dark.

Finding the divine bridge

After Basil’s death, my life was changed forever. I became so hungry for God that I kept searching for his face. Something in me wanted to know him more, but I didn’t know how. I thought of God as being on the other side of a divine bridge and I desperately wanted a way to cross that bridge. In November 2009, I called my parish, St. Elizabeth Ann Seton in Plano, and asked about charismatic prayer groups. They said they didn’t have one, but that they would find one for me, and 30 minutes later they called and said they’d found one that meets every Sunday at 4 pm at 4500 Davis, Dallas. I was so excited!

The following Sunday, November 1, 2009, I drove straight to Mount St. Michael, and as soon as I stepped in the door, I said, “God, this is it!” I had a feeling that the missing link had been found; I’d found the divine bridge I’d been searching for. On December 5, 2009, I completed the Born in the Spirit Seminar and was baptized in the Holy Spirit. I experienced something that I cannot even explain here, but I knew it was the beginning of a richer and fuller spiritual life. I wasn’t sure what I was expecting to happen after being baptized in the Spirit, but I was told to go home and just relax in the Spirit.

The following day, December 6, I got up to pray. I remembered I was told to relax in the Spirit and as I knelt down to pray I started speaking in tongues and crying aloud like a baby! I can’t remember ever crying like that before in my life. I tried to control the tongue, but I couldn’t. It was like I didn’t own my lips anymore. I couldn’t stop it. I spoke in tongues for two hours nonstop. I felt as if God was right in front of me and I was speaking to him in that language that only he understood. My divine bridge. God touched me in a way that day when he gave me the gift of tongues.

I became a covenant member of the Community March 15, 2012.

Community Gathering, December 18, 2016

Desiring His Very Best

By Mike Wagner

I have suffered from chronic allergies all my life. I started taking allergy shots by the time I was four years old. After a while the shots no longer seemed to help, and all the doctors could do was manage the symptoms and hope that I would grow out of them. Instead of growing out of them, by the time I went to college, I was just miserable all the time and that misery became my normal.

After I graduated, I was told that there were new medications for my allergies that could really make a difference. I went to the doctor, and he put me the new medications, and suddenly I started to feel better. It wasn’t until after I had been on the new medications for a while that I suddenly realized one day how very badly I had been feeling.  I was just beginning to realize what really feeling “good” felt like.

That’s is the difference that these book studies have made in my prayer time and relationship with God. I didn’t realize how unfruitful my prayer time had become until I read Time for God and was inspired to really renew the frequency and quality of time that I spent with the Lord in prayer.  It has awakened and refreshed my relationship with him and given me a path to grow deeper in love with God. I am a big fan of Fr. Jacques Philippe’s book and his book that we are starting today, In the School of the Holy Spirit. Time for God was all about getting us into an authentic relationship with God. This book focuses on discerning our mission and purpose.

Fr. Philippe, reminds us at the beginning of the book that holiness is the work of the Holy Spirit. He poses this question: how well are we plugging into what the Holy Spirit is wanting to do with us? We know that God creates every person for his loving plan and purpose. He promises that his plan for us is that our “joy will be complete” as we fall in love with him in this life and that we live forever in love with him in the next. His loving purpose for us is to become fully the unique person that he created us to be for by doing so we too will bring life to the world.

Holiness in life comes from discovering, accepting, and pursuing Jesus' loving plan and purpose for our lives. Fortunately, Jesus did not leave us as orphans to try to figure this out on our own. Fr. Philippe teaches us that we have been given the Holy Spirit to lead us into the fullness of God’s purpose and plan for our lives if we will learn to hear his voice and resolve to follow his lead.

This is the path to holiness. Things become holy as they fully become what they were created to be. So it is with us also. The degree to which our lives align with God’s unique purpose and plan for which he created us is the degree to which we experience the holiness for which we were created. Holiness is not about what others think that we should do or not do, or what we achieve or don’t achieve. It's not about what we acquire, our prestige, our education, our power, or all the other things that the world promotes as our ultimate purpose. It's about authentically and completely being the real person who God created us to be and entering into that reality by following the guidance of the Holy Spirit.

In the pursuit of holiness

Chapter one reminds us that this pursuit of holiness is impossible to do alone. We all know this; it’s why we are all here today. We are also reminded that we each have a unique path that God has prepared for us and that only God knows each person’s path. It’s easy enough to think we know our potential, but let’s face it, we have no idea what our true potential is. Only the Lord can know that since he created us, and he’ll often ask us to go beyond our self-defined potential because he knows we are capable of so much more.

This is where discernment is necessary. We need to know and understand the voice of the Holy Spirit and the ways in which the Lord speaks to us. We need to listen to his voice when he does speak in order to follow the right path and meet our true potential, and ultimately, holiness. Jacques Philippe then goes on to say that our faithfulness to grace brings down further grace. He explains that the more we say “yes” to the Lord, the bigger our “yeses” become and the more grace he pours out on us. This gradual increase in the size of our “yes” and the amount of grace received with each one teaches us how to give our “yeses” more and more wholeheartedly and trustfully.

In the prayer meeting today, the Lord spoke to us about the Holy Spirit coming down and being a sign to us of Jesus as the Messiah. Every time we give Jesus our “yeses," we allow the Holy Spirit to fill us with grace. We become a sign of Jesus as the Messiah to the world. If we let the Holy Spirit permeate, renew and make us wholly into the person that God created us to be, imagine the life we could lead. A life unafraid of facing a messy world with no use for discouragement, fear, anxiety, depression – all because we know our future is not our own and that the one who holds our future has a far better plan for it than we could ever imagine. We don’t have to live in the things that are driving our culture crazy today. We are called to live in the light of Christ, to know that he has called us out of darkness into his wonderful light and that he always desires to give us his very best through the Holy Spirit.

Discerning my unique path

In August of 2016, I shared in my wrap-up of the prayer meeting about I had finally been able to authentically pray from the heart, “Lord, I’ve done everything that I really wanted to do in my life. I’ve known you and I have loved you, I’ve raised some good kids; I’ve traveled to places that I wanted to go, I’ve achieved what I wanted to achieve in my career. I want to follow your plan for my life.” A few weeks later we started reading and practicing the teachings contained in Time for God, I was inspired to pray “Lord, I believe that I have not achieved all that you created me to be and I am ready to give you my life totally to you and follow your plan for my life and I trust you to lead me into the purpose for which you created me.” Promptly 60 days later, I was laid off from my job. That is how the Lord works, right? He answers prayers.

The company was struggling and my situation at work had not been great for a while. So, I was not shocked, but I was surprised to be laid off. Interestingly, I had a certain peace about the entire episode, I seemed to know that the Lord was in all of this. I began to ask in my prayer, “Okay, Lord, what are you doing?”

Two days later, a colleague referred me to a firm who needed someone with my professional skills.  Within a day or two, we met and I had a job offer, but the position was in Austin. The offer came as a relief, obviously, but the move to Austin was a problem. I just wasn’t sure that the Lord was calling my family and me to move to Austin.

As I prayed about this and discussed it with my wife, I felt the Holy Spirit was saying, “You can go to Austin or continue your career with someone local and I will take care of you and continue to bless you and your family if that is what you want, or you can trust me.” I have come to realize that I don’t know what will make me happy, but I have also come to trust that the Lord does. So instead of praying “Lord, give me the job,” or “Lord, tell me what I should do,” I just prayed, “Lord, I just want your very best for me and my family. Whatever that is, I just want your very best. I trust in you.”

I was sincerely ready to give everything over to the Lord. If he called me to missionary life in Cucamonga, I would have started packing. Just like the prophesy we heard tonight, “I ask you to do what you cannot do. I send you where you do not want to go. But if you ask me, I will take you into my very heart and I will lead you where you cannot go, and I will help you do what you cannot do.” I knew that all I wanted was the Lord’s very best in my life.

As I continued to meet the Lord in prayer about this the Holy Spirit began to inspire me about starting my own consulting firm. Then praying in Mass one day after communion, I felt the Holy Spirit say, “If you trust me, I will take care of you and as a sign, I will heal you of your allergies.” As I said earlier, I have suffered from severe allergies since I was a young child. But as I was sitting there, I could feel my sinuses begin to open up. Since that day in October 2016, I have not had any trouble with my sinuses and have been completely off all of my daily allergy medications. I felt like the Lord gave me this healing as a concrete sign in my flesh to hold on to as I pursued starting my own business.

A few days later I was walking and listening to a Fr. Mike Schmitz podcast, and I heard the Holy Spirit say, “1 Kings 17.” Now, the Lord knows I’m Catholic and that I don’t know 1 Kings 17 by heart. So, I said, “Lord, if this is you, remind me to look this scripture up when I get home.” Later that night as I was getting ready for bed, the Holy Spirit reminded me again of the Bible verse. I looked it up and found that it was the story of Elijah the prophet when he was kicked out of Israel after proclaiming a drought.

He didn’t know what he is going to do. But in verses 2-4, it says, “The word of the LORD came to Elijah: Leave here, go east and hide in the Wadi Cherith, east of the Jordan. You shall drink of the wadi, and I have commanded ravens to feed you there. So, he left and did as the LORD had commanded. He left and remained by the Wadi Cherith, east of the Jordan. Ravens brought him bread and meat in the morning, and bread and meat in the evening, and he drank from the wadi.”

As I continued to read, Elijah’s wadi ran dry because of the drought and the Lord told him in verse 9 to “Arise, go to Zarephath of Sidon and stay there. I have commanded a widow there to feed you.” When he got there, the woman only had enough food for one more meal for herself and her son before they would starve to death. Elijah promised her that the Lord would provide for her if only she gave him what little they had left.

The chapter ends with the woman’s son dying and the Lord raising him from the dead through Elijah.  As I read this, the Holy Spirit seemed to confirm to me again and again that the Lord would provide for me if only I trusted him to lead me and that it was he who was leading me to start my own business.

Up to this point, my wife, Sue, knew nothing of what I was experiencing in prayer. To be honest, I was afraid to tell her because I thought she would think that I was crazy.  After all, who would start a new business with two children at home and in private school as well as another in his first semester in college. We were still paying off our daughter’s wedding earlier that year. I knew she would think was too risky.

When I finally struck up the courage to share all of this with her, I was amazed at her response. She said, “Yes! This is exactly what we are supposed to do!” Once again a testimony to the Holy Spirit making clear our paths, if we but trust him.

The grace received when we say “Yes!”

I shared this story with you to show that just like with my allergies when I realized how crummy I felt when I thought I was feeling good, I didn’t realize how hard I was working in my career and how much I was missing out on so many opportunities to love, and to serve, and to enjoy my family and others. I had slowly and over time, let the demands of work negatively impact the amount of energy I had for my family and for my brothers and sisters in the Community.

It wasn’t until the Holy Spirit allowed me take a step back and I let him to take over, that my eyes were opened to a world full of joy and potential that I may have never realized because I was so focused on living within my self-defined potential.

Tomorrow I turn 55 years old, which means I have now been living in this Community for forty some years, and still the Holy Spirit is doing things to surprise me. He is always laying out before me God’s purpose and plan for my life, so that by his grace I may become a sign of Jesus as the Messiah to the world.

I encourage you to not only follow along with us in reading this book, but also take it with you to your prayer and allow the Holy Spirit to speak to you and show you how to give your life over to his inspirations. The Holy Spirit is moving in this Community, and I believe this book will help us all to discern that movement and prepare our hearts to say “yes” to wherever he may lead us. We may not always know where the Lord is taking us, but we know that the Holy Spirit is our faithful advocate and guide. Let us enter the School of the Holy Spirit together. Amen.

Community Gathering, January 15, 2017

Obtaining Inspiration from the Holy Spirit

By Ann Miesch

Last week we learned from Mike Wagner that if we allow him, the Holy Spirit will guide us to the very best he has to offer us. I read this week in scripture: “Give ear, Oh my people, to my teaching. Incline your ears to the words of my mouth" (Ps 78:1).

The Holy Spirit wants to speak to us; he wants to teach us. In Chapter Two of In the School of the Holy Spirit, Fr. Jacques Philippe gives us some strategies to encourage those inspirations and put us in a position to be disposed to receive them. Here are the 10 strategies:

1. Practice Praise and Thanksgiving
2. Desire and Ask for Inspirations
3. Resolve to Refuse God Nothing
4. Practice Filial and Trusting Obedience
5. Practice Abandonment
6. Practice Detachment
7. Practice Silence and Peace
8. Persevere Faithfully in Prayer
9. Examine the Movements of our Hearts
10. Open our Hearts to a Spiritual Director

Five of these 10 strategies have had a big impact on my life.

1. Practice Silence and Peace

I have a very active imagination, and my mind is always very busy. It is hard for me not to be distracted in prayer. I can completely relate to St. Teresa of Avila who said, "My mind is full of galloping horses." For me to practice silence is extremely difficult, and I've traced it back to the fact that I was an only child. We lived in the country, and I had a little yellow Alvin radio that I kept for company. I loved all of those radio shows like The Lone Ranger and Sergeant Preston of the Yukon, but listening to the radio developed a habit in me of always having background noise.

I developed this automatic reflex to pick up a remote, or punch that button on the radio. The Holy Spirit had convicted me about this, but I didn't seem to be able to overcome it. I finally asked the Holy Spirit "Help me with this. I know you want me to have silence so I can hear you." The Holy Spirit was faithful. It got to where I would pick up the remote and I would have a check in my spirit. Or I would start to hit that button on the radio in the car, and I would almost feel the Holy Spirit's hand touch mine. I knew he was helping me to overcome this need for background noise. I am finally to the point now that noise is an irritant and I even fast from noise occasionally.

2. Practice Praise and Thanksgiving

The second part of this strategy is to remain in peace in that silence, especially in difficult situations. This is so that we can listen to his voice in these situations and know how to respond in the way the Holy Spirit is prompting us to and not in our human way. This goes hand-in-hand for me with the strategy of Praise and Thanksgiving.

One day I was sewing at my home with some women and Mike came in and said, "I've burned the engine up in our car, I put on the wrong oil filter." Well, I lost my peace instantly, and I could no longer concentrate on sewing or my company.  I got up and went to the kitchen and whispered prayers to the Lord, saying, “Lord, I'm getting upset about this, and I just know that you have been teaching us if we praise you in all situations that you can turn it to the good. So I just offer you this situation and want you to help me not be upset and I praise you for who you are." I could feel the peace coming back to me. I rejoined the group and finished the day.

A day or two later our friend George Allman found a new engine for our car that only had 16,000 miles on it, less that the 25,000 miles on our car. Shortly after a check came in the mail that paid for that new engine. So practice silence, remain at peace especially in difficult situations and offer praise and thanksgiving always.

3. Examine the Movements of our Hearts

One day I was sitting in Mass at St. Luke’s and a little class of elementary school students was sitting in front of me. I just said a little prayer, "Lord, call one of those little boys to be a priest."

I heard as a response, "Pray bigger."

"Okay. Well call boys from other classes to be a priest,” I said.

Still again, "Pray bigger."

"Okay, from the public school,” I said.

"Pray bigger,” came the same response.

This went on and on until the Lord had me praying for vocations from all over the world. He used those few little minutes before Mass to teach me an extremely important thing that he wanted me to know: at any time we pray we should expand our prayer to the biggest possible group that we can. This has been valuable to me in my personal prayer, in praying with other people, and in our intercessory prayer group.

Also, I have found that reading the writings of Luisa Piccarreta have taught me how to pray bigger. Jesus taught her to pray by embracing everything, compensating for everyone from the first person to the last. So whenever you feel those movements in your heart to do something bigger, take the time to examine them and see what God is trying to teach you or what he wants to tell you.

4. Practice Filial and Trusting Obedience

My husband Mike is an example of Trusting Obedience. In 1973 we had tickets to go to Israel with a Protestant Pentecostal group, Christ for the Nations. While Mike was in his morning prayers, he heard the Lord tell him "Take your in-laws to Israel with you." When he told me this, I was shocked. While my parents were Pentecostal, my dad had been so against me marrying a Catholic that he didn't even come to my wedding. But Mike was obedient. He bought them tickets. They went, and it was the most thrilling, wonderful experience they'd ever had.

To go to the Holy Land meant everything to my father. So much so that on the day that we were to go to the airport to come back home, on a bus driving from Jerusalem to Tel Aviv, my dad got up from the back of that bus, walked all the way to the front, asked the tour director for the microphone and turned around to speak. Mike and I looked at each other wondering, "what is he going to do?" My father said, "I have a confession to make, and I want to ask your forgiveness. I have been prejudiced against Catholics. My son-in-law is a Spirit-filled Catholic, and he is a good man."

Mike and I received this instantaneous healing from the hurts caused by my father not coming to our wedding. My dad ended up loving the Catholic Charismatics so much that he would go to Bishop Lynch to the prayer meetings. He even went to several conferences with us. You may not always understand why God asks you to do something until after the fact, or even multiple months if not years later, but we should always try to practice trusting obedience.

5. Open our Hearts to a Spiritual Director

My small family of three was very insular, and my dad would always say, "We don't share family business or problems outside this family." Growing up that way always made me very untrusting. When I came to Community, I didn't trust anyone enough to open up to them about a problem or ask them for their prayers. I was afraid that they would judge or gossip. One day I had something really heavy on my heart. I was at Mass at UD when I saw Cathy Coward. I was speaking with her after Mass, and for the first time in forty-some years I opened up to someone about a problem. I received a lot of peace from that conversation.

Several years passed and we went to an Unbound Conference in Fort Worth. Something came to mind while that I needed healing for and I just broke through that reserve and went straight to Deana Alexander and asked for prayer. Two times now in forty-some years I have gone to someone for counsel.

I recently attended a Women's Conference where Fr. Michael Scherry gave a talk, and he said, "You know you can have a spiritual sisterhood or companionship with three women." I looked up after the talk and here came, if you can believe how personal the Holy Spirit is, Cathy Coward and Deana Alexander -- the only two people that I've ever opened up to. Trust me, I know it is not easy to always let yourself be vulnerable with other people, but if we trust the Lord, he will put the right people in our path.

I encourage you this week to go back over these 10 strategies for obtaining inspiration from the Holy Spirit and let him guide you to the holiness he is calling you to.

Community Gathering, January 22, 2017

We Must Persevere

By Brenda Lenzen

Today we are going to press on in our book study of In the School of the Holy Spirit. in the second chapter called "How Can We Foster Inspirations.”

In this chapter the author gives us 10 ways to foster inspirations.

Last week Ann talked about five of Jacque Philippe’s strategies for fostering inspirations from the Holy Spirit that he discusses in Chapter Two. Just as a reminder, the ones she talked about are:

1. Practice Praise and Thanksgiving
2. Practice Filial and Trusting Obedience
3. Practice Silence and Peace
4. Examine the Movements of our Hearts
5. Open our Heart to a Spiritual Director

This week I am going to talk about the remaining five, which are:

1. Desire and Ask for Inspirations
2. Resolve to Refuse God Nothing
3. Practice Abandonment
4. Practice Detachment
5. Persevere Faithfully in Prayer

Before I get into too deep into these five strategies, I'm want to talk just for a second about the title of the chapter, “How Can We Foster Inspirations.” I've been thinking about this ever since I was assigned this chapter. Does this mean that I have a part to play in the working of the Holy Spirit? I always thought that if I just prayed "Come Holy Spirit" and he showed up -- great, and if he didn't -- he didn't, and that I wasn’t in control. For sure the working of the Holy Spirit is independent of each one of us; we do not control him. We do not know why sometimes in history the outpouring of the Holy Spirit is so obvious and at other times it seems that he is nowhere to be found. However, I think that the title of this chapter is suggesting that we can predispose ourselves to recognizing the Holy Spirit. Just like we sang tonight: "Let us become more aware of your presence," that is what this chapter is about. We can safely say that the Holy Spirit, because he is God, is always at work in every moment. This chapter talks about things that we can do to clue in on identifying his presence and his prompting.

Desire and Ask for Inspirations

This seems rather obvious. As a people of prayer we frequently pray "Come Holy Spirit,” but the author reminds us that we need to pray this unceasingly, not just in the critical times or in the times when we need to make a major decision. He reminds us in Luke 11:9 “Ask and it will be given to you.” The author also writes: "It would be strange if God were to refuse us his inspirations."

Resolve to Refuse God Nothing

The author tells us that the way to foster the Holy Spirit is to "Focus on being determined to obey the Lord in everything big or little without exception." I remember when I was a little girl I was taught that the first time you lie about something it's hard and your conscious might really bother you. But the second time you lie about it, it becomes a little bit easier and eventually if you ignore your conscious and you continue telling untruths, lying becomes easy and second nature and you are not bothered by it at all. Obeying God is a little bit the same, actually it's very much the same. When we respond to his prompting, we condition ourselves to recognize more readily when he is prompting us in the future. When we don't obey, gradually we lose the ability to recognize his promptings. The author says that "the more God sees our willingness to respond, the more he will favor us with his inspirations."

Now I know that God's inspirations have been witnessed in this very room. We've heard about some of them tonight. One story that I would like to share with you is a story by a young woman that I heard last year at the Steubenville Conference. This young woman was totally on fire with the Holy Spirit, you could just tell. She said that she was driving home from a very long trip and she was all alone in her car and she got hungry and she heard the Lord say, "Take this exit and go to this restaurant." Now in my mind I'm thinking, "Hmmm, okay, where is she going with this?" But she did. And the Lord told her that he had someone that he needed her to speak to in this particular restaurant. She got to the restaurant and she found the person readily identified who God wanted her to talk to, and she knew what she had to say, but she became afraid. So she went into the bathroom and she tried to psyche herself up and prayed, “Lord do you really want me to say this, is this really you or is this just in my mind?"

And he replied, "Yes, I really want you to say this."

So she went back out into the restaurant and she said her word to this person and this person started to cry and said, "I just prayed that prayer this morning and you have given me the answer to my prayer."

In this case the Lord was glorified in both the receiver of the word and the giver of the word. I love what Fr. Philippe said says next in his book though because I fall into this trap personally. He says that we have to be extremely dedicated to our prayer life in order to hear the Lord in these ways and obey. That we can be scrupulous and we can become paranoid and we can doubt. And here's how my mind works, "Was that you Lord? No, no, no that wasn't you. Wait, yes, maybe that was you, Lord. Of course, of course that was you. Wow, Lord, that's sure asking a lot. Surely you don't want me to say that." And I get confused and I make myself doubt.

The author beautifully addresses this. He says that we should pray for the resolve to not neglect a single one of God's wishes, no matter how small. But we must remember that God prompts us with love and not with fear. If we are confused about something the Lord is asking of us, or even if it is the Lord at all, we have to remember that he loves us and that we can ask him for clarification. We always must be generous with our response to him and we must realize that inevitably we will fail, but that through prayer, our Lord will continue to teach us his ways as they relate to this very topic.

Practicing Abandonment

Of the 10 strategies in this chapter, this was my favorite. Fr. Philippe says that we should practice obedience or abandonment to events. This is a very complex area. The chapter states that many things happen that God does not will, but that he allows.

I am reminded of a situation where a friend of mine, she was a brand new convert to the faith, observed a priest who was obviously doing something very, very far outside of God's will. The new convert, being bold and brazen, went to someone in authority over this priest, it was another priest, and that authority turned a blind eye to the circumstances and refused to confront the priest for his very egregious ways. This was a scandal to my friend's budding faith, but the Lord allowed this to happen.

For all of us, when we see evil in the world, when bad things happen to good people, when injustice goes unanswered, we must realize that, while God doesn't will evil, he allows it. We must then abandon ourselves to these events and say, "I trust you, Lord. I don't understand, but I trust that you have a plan and that all things work together for the good." In doing this, however, we have to be very careful. A very wise person recently told me this, there is a fine line between detachment and not giving a hoot. Think about that. That there is a fine line between holy detachment and a passive, apathetic, as my teenagers would say: "Oh, whatever"-type abandonment to situations, things, problems with children, health issues, world issues, relationship issues, issues with a spouse, employment issues, etc. Not giving a hoot connotes an apathy that ultimately is rooted in despair or fatalism or laziness or some other form of unhealthy resignation. Whereas true abandonment places yourself at the foot of God's throne and you adoringly lay the event at his feet with great hope.

Practicing Detachment

Just a few quick thoughts on this one because it's very similar to abandonment. Whether we see it coming a long way off or we are surprised that the Lord is asking us to detach from a material thing, an idea, or a point of view, the author tells us not to tense up. Whether we see it coming and we know the Lord is going to ask us to detach from something or we are just blindly hit upside the head with having to detach from something, we're not to tense up or become defiant. When we tense up we make it hard to recognize the Holy Spirit in our lives.

Corrie ten Boom prays on this topic a very famous prayer. She says, "Lord please help me never to hold onto something so tightly that it hurts when you pry my fingers loose." Fr. Philippe says that material detachment is difficult and a challenge, but often it is the detachment from a point of view or from our own wisdom that it is most difficult to let go of. He ends with this quote, "Our wisdom and God's practicality never coincide perfectly and this lack of congruence means that at any stage of our spiritual journey we shall never be dispensed from practicing detachment from our own personal ideas, however well-intentioned they may be." I would ask that you ask what personal idea you are attached to today. Is there a deep-seated thought that you've clung to too tightly that the Lord is asking you to consider laying at the foot of his throne?

Persevere Faithfully in Prayer

The last book that we studied, Time for God, was all about this topic and it seems that persevering in prayer is the answer to everything, doesn't it? We must persevere in prayer if we are having trouble fitting prayer into our schedule. We must persevere in prayer if we are experiencing a lack of faith. We must persevere in prayer if we are experiencing a dry time. We must persevere in prayer if we doubt that God is even with us. We must persevere if we find ourselves unable to pay attention. We must persevere in prayer if we find ourselves tending to always fall asleep when we pray. We must persevere in prayer if we are bored with our prayer time. We must persevere in prayer if we are discouraged because it seems like things that we are praying about or those around us or our situations never change even though we pray for change. If you have tried to persevere and keep failing, persevere.

We must keep on, my friends, we must persevere. There is always a sunrise tomorrow. God is calling us to round that next bend. Never give up, never give up, never give up. The Holy Spirit is speaking. Are your ears ready? Are you eyes ready? Is your heart ready?

Community Gathering, January 29, 2017

March 11 - Men's Forum at Mount St. Michael - contact Bill Schaad

March 18 - Women's Forum at University of Dallas - contact Sharon Harman

Born in the Spirit Seminar at Mount St. Michael - contact Bob Montgomery

Small Acts of Obedience

By David Peterman, Jr.

Last fall we read and reflected on the book Time for God together. We learned that as we set aside time for God, we will hear his call to holiness. Very quickly we will realize that we cannot be holy through our own will and power. We need his Holy Spirit. This was the message of Chapter One of our new book, In The School of the Holy Spirit, which Mike Wagner shared about a few weeks ago.

For two weeks, we have been reflecting on chapter two which covered ten strategies to foster inspirations of the Holy Spirit such as Praise, Silence, Asking, Obedience, Abandonment and Detachment. Ann Miesch and Brenda Lenzen shared what we can do to be open to the Holy Spirit and foster his work in and through us. Our job is to practice these so that we foster his inspirations more today than we did yesterday, allowing his inspirations to grow in us each day.

Today and next week we will reflect on chapter three, which covers the topic of discernment.

As charismatics, we know that the power of the Holy Spirit is essential and that, apart from God, we can accomplish very little, and usually just get in the way. But, when we defer to his power within us, we can be a small part of God working miracles. This is why we pray for, and surrender to, the power of the Holy Spirit. As charismatics we make our life’s work fostering and acting on the inspirations of the Holy Spirit. As a result we witness his miracles. Every Sunday we hear his Spirit speak and many Sunday’s we hear miraculous witnesses and testimonies which are proof of his presence and love for us.

Chapter three helps us answer the question: How can we know that an inspiration comes from God? For the next two weeks we will discuss the importance of discernment and how to determine, amongst the cloudy mental mix of ideas, emotions, and feelings, which promptings are the Holy Spirit and how to not confuse them with our own imagination, our own wishful thinking, or worse, a temptation.

God does not contradict himself

According to Jacques Philippe, the first criterion of discernment is: God does not contradict himself. We will never hear the Holy Spirit ask us for anything that contradicts his Word, the teachings of his Church, or the demands of our vocation.

This speaks to the importance of reading and studying his Word constantly and having a spiritual companion who can help us work through inspirations that might appear to be in conflict.

As I have shared with you in the past, I have been meeting regularly with Lawson Taitte for decades. His counsel and advice have been invaluable if for no other reason than it is from a different viewpoint. I treasure this relationship, and if you do not have an active spiritual companion, I encourage you to seek one and build a relationship with someone who can help you discern. If you need help starting this relationship, ask your Area Coordinator or a woman serving the Area as a Mary or Martha.

Inner Peace

Another criterion of discernment is inner peace. A divine inspiration may be challenging or unsettling at first, but we can discern it from selfishness or a temptation, by taking time to pray and reflect on it and allowing the Holy Spirit to either build our inner peace or not.

As an example, I find myself bringing my work challenges to the Lord frequently. When I have a conflict at work, I try to hold off any immediate reaction. Then in the subsequent morning prayer times, I bring it up again and present my proposed response to the Lord and reflect on it. I have to confess that very often I hear the Lord say “Let it go,” and I realize that my proposed response is not consistent with his will, with selfless love and inner peace.

As a young adult growing up in Community, I recall a teaching on discernment that made the observation that the right choice is often the most difficult choice. Jacques Philippe also covers this point in this chapter and there is a lot of truth in it. My wife’s favorite saint, John of the Cross, wrote,“Let the soul apply itself ceaselessly not to what is easiest, but to what is most difficult, not to what pleases, but to what displeases.”

The road less traveled

Jacques Philippe further clarifies this point to say that while it is true that God calls us to love, and that loving often requires taking the road less traveled, God’s aim is not to complicate our lives but to make them simpler. Jesus is clear in Mathew 11:30 when he says, “My yoke is easy, and My burden is light.” Following God’s inspirations will often be a challenge at first, but the more we surrender and let go, the more we feel free, joyful, and spontaneous.

When pondering this point, the Lord brought back to mind my anxiety with hospitals. After getting married, Bobbie Cavnar asked if I would serve as the area coordinator for the North District. One of the responsibilities was to visit those in the hospital to pray with them. I experienced a strong anxiety about going to hospitals. The Lord also brought to mind a time where a very close friend was in the hospital dying from complications of HIV. I discovered the more I surrendered to his will and obeyed the prompting to be with my friend the more I was “cured” of my anxiety. The “burden” became lighter and lighter each time I went and eventually I recall the moment, walking the halls of that hospital, saying to the Lord, “Thank you for curing me of this anxiety.”

The implications of our response

Jacques Philippe makes a very good point about understanding the magnitude of the implication of responding to an inspiration with the quote “the greater the implication, the greater the need for time and wise counsel.” If we hear a prompting to do something unusual, that might impact our vocation or have serious implications to others, we should take more time and submit the inspiration to a spiritual companion.

Last weekend, when I was reviewing this talk with Laurie, we discussed her inspiration to take Communion to a couple of members of the Community who were in Plano hospitals. This is an example of a low-impact inspiration. It only meant giving up one evening, so it did not require a lot of careful discernment. We just did it. Despite the low impact to us, we could tell from the response that it had a major impact on those we visited. We had the confidence of knowing we were cooperating with the Holy Spirit. On the other extreme, I recall a time in 1997 where it seemed Laurie and I would need to move to Houston. The impact was very significant which led to a long discernment process and seeking counsel from Bobbie Cavnar. The magnitude of the implications of our response to discernment should certainly correlate with amount of counsel we seek to ensure we are discerning his will accurately.

One small act

My final point is an exhortation for us to be faithful to the discerned inspirations of the Holy Spirit. Reading from page 59 of the book, “one small act of obedience to God can cause us to make more progress spiritually than years of effort according to our own plans. Fidelity to small graces draws down bigger ones.”

Sisters and Brothers, this is the principle with which I try to serve you. As much as possible I try to get out of the Holy Spirit’s way. Over and over, as I plan a Community meeting or whatever I am doing, I try to get out of the Lord’s way and let the Holy Spirit lead. As I do this I see his power and majesty at work!

In the School of the Holy Spirit we learn to recognize his voice and be faithful to it so that he can work though us. It is in this way that we fulfill our calling as a covenant people to be a strong body of Christians that he can use for his purposes.

Candidly, the best way that I think that I can live In the School of the Holy Spirit is to continue to live this covenant life with you. Thank you!

Community Gathering, February 5, 2017

Finding Peace in Discernment

By Esmeralda Lopez

Discerning the source of inspiration means that we question its source. Is it the fruit of our imagination? Is it wishful thinking? Could it be a temptation or is it the Holy Spirit? We are called to acquire a spiritual sense, which is an interior action. It is developed by experience and improves over time. We have to be patient, especially with ourselves. I love what Fr. Philippe says, "It facilitated our distinguishing the voice of the spouse within a chorus of sound that greet our ears." The Holy Spirit uses this tone of voice that is distinct for each of us and we recognize it over time because it becomes familiar to us. It’s like Jesus as the Good Shepherd; the sheep follow him because they know his voice.

The third chapter of In the School of the Holy Spirit discusses the criteria confirming that an inspiration comes from God. There are two major criteria: External and Internal. We know that in the external level, God doesn't contradict himself. He is always consistent in his will for us. We have to see things begin to line up: the Word of God, the teaching of the Church and the demands of our vocation.

To have consistency with Holy Scripture, a divine inspiration cannot ask us to do something that contradicts what the Word of God says. We know that Holy Scripture is transmitted and explained by the teaching authority of the Church, not by our wishful thinking, individual fantasy or interpretation, which seems to be kind of the norm these days. True inspirations go in the direction of the spirit of obedience to the Church. St. Francis de Sales said, "When God puts inspirations into a heart, first he gives is obedience."

Inspirations will also always be consistent with our vocation. Each of us has a vocation and in those vocations there are certain demands from our situation. Inspirations cannot ask us to contradict something that is a duty of our state. Inspirations will always go in the same direction as our duties of the state; they don't divert us from them, but rather help us to fulfill them.

Internal criterion

Now we are going to address the internal criterion. A tree is known by its fruit, and we know Godly inspirations will bear fruits – fruits of peace, joy, charity, communion and humility. Conversely, an inspiration from our flesh or the devil will be sterile and it bears negative fruits of sadness, bitterness, pride, etc. The only bad thing about this is that we can only apply it in retrospect, so we need to gain experience and then certain fruits become apparent such as peace and joy.

In building up our experience of discerning inspirations, we know that sometimes we are going to make mistakes. Our pride may be hurt and we have to understand that trial and error, successes and failures, are what is going to help us reach holiness. Our goal is to learn lessons with humility and not get discouraged.

There are some simple discernments that can help us on this journey. The marks of good and evil have unmistakable signs in themselves. The devil is incapable of producing good fruit in a lasting way. We may think, "Oh, I thought that was from the Lord!" But the Holy Spirit cannot be the source of trouble and sadness. There is a sadness that holy inspirations can cause, but it is very short-lived because it leads us to repentance and quickly turns to joy. The most characteristic mark of the Holy Spirit is peace and the mark of the devil is agitation.

In more complex discernment, some inspirations from the Lord will cause turbulence in our lives because we resist the temptation. Once we stop resisting, our hearts will settle in peace. Some inspirations do arouse fear because we have attachments to bad habits. Fr. Philippe gives an example of a whirlpool created in a tranquil river. We have to silence our fears and consent fully to God's inspirations. Fr. Philippe says we will still have worries and questions, but just go with it. An inspiration from the devil or from our own selfishness never leaves our hearts in total peace but results in disturbance.

Finding peace in discernment

Let's look at the complementary signs with constancy and humility. God's spirit, we see on one side, is stable and constant. Our flesh, or the evil spirit, is unstable and changing. God's spirit gives us a deep sense of humility, knowing that good is from God, whereas our flesh, or the evil spirit, is presumptuous, self-satisfying or vain. In God's spirit, again we have obedience. Conversely, with the flesh or evil spirit, we have rebellion. So divine inspirations establish in us peace, are not changeable and impress on us a sense of humility.

Is God's choice always the most difficult? Sometimes God's will goes in the opposite direction from our immediate tendencies because we have a desire for selfish comfort, ease, and laziness. We have to be careful not to go into false or exaggerated voluntarism because that has nothing to do with the Holy Spirit. The devil may suggest that God is always asking of us what is most difficult. He does that to discourage us. We don't want to listen to that. Be careful not to impose your own burdens on yourself, which God is not asking of you. God invites us to give him everything. He still gives us our free choice. We are called to grow in love and his aim is to make our lives simpler. Docility to God sets our hearts free and expands them. I love this little saying that Fr. Philippe says in the book, "God's will is where there is the maximum of love, not necessarily where there is the maximum of suffering."

We have different reactions depending on the importance of the inspirations. Do your best not to neglect a single one of God's inspirations. What may seem insignificant may be more important that we imagine. A small act of obedience to God guides us to make more progress spiritually than years of effort according to our own plan. We have to have fidelity to the small graces to draw down the bigger ones. We have to make rapid evaluations of ideas that are not part of our normal activity.

When we consent to the inspirations of the Holy Spirit, we feel at peace. If we are wrong we realize, by the movement of vainglory, presumptuousness, etc., that it was an idea of our own; and should become useful for our spiritual education. When we have to make serious questions about our vocation or choices, it is essential not to decide anything without first submitting to a spiritual director or superior. Scripture says: follow the advice of one to two persons. It is better to do that than to do something on your own, first reflecting for a long period of time. It's better to go on the advice of one or two persons that your trust.

Responding to an inspiration

Several years ago, when my sons were preschoolers, I received an inspiration from the Lord. It's one of those that you just kind of get and I could have ignored it easily. It was a time where I felt the Lord was being really, really heavy-handed with me. My ex-husband seemed to be making it his goal in life to hurt my sons and I. We had very few resources and I worked night shifts mostly so I could raise my kids, since I was playing mom and dad.

My mom had talked to me about her brother and how he helped her when she wanted to go to business school as a young woman. My uncle's current situation was really challenging, he had a Down's Syndrome child. Unfortunately she was very overweight, probably about 200-300 pounds. She never learned to walk or talk, feed herself or even toilet herself. You can imagine the tough situation. His wife, my aunt, had been recently diagnosed with breast cancer. She was the sole breadwinner of the family. She would get up before dawn and prepare hot tamales and some Mexican drinks that she would sell on the streets of Mexico to people that were rushing to work. My uncle had been an alcoholic and was diagnosed with diabetes. Because he didn’t give up the drinking, the disease progressed to the point where he had to have both his legs amputated up to the knees and he went completely blind. He became wheelchair bound. He was the main caretaker my Down's Syndrome cousin. He bathed her, changed her diapers, fed her and cared for all her needs. She was a challenge, taking advantage of his blindness and resisting his care every step of the way.

When my mom explained to me the direness of his situation, I felt a small prompting to send him $200, and as I said, I was barely making it myself. I had very, very limited income, no child support and lots of medical bills. I let the inspiration sit until I had discerned it was surely from the Lord. I remember a sister in our Community used to teach us to let the cream rise when you receive a message. I waited until this message got really thick and creamy and then I moved on it. I had been reading the Book of Job at that time, and applying it to my life, trying to understand and address how my current situation of living in constant fear wondering how do I do this, how do I have joy in this situation. The prompting grew to write my uncle about Job and so I did. I wrote him a long letter about Job's challenges and included the cash. Once I sent the letter off I thought, "I'm done." A good deed done and that would be the end of it. Over a month later my mother received a call from my aunt and she recounted the testimony of my uncle. He prayed one day in desperation and despair. He told God he is going to stop believing in him if he didn't give him a sign that he was real and present in his life. If he did listen to him, he would be a faithful follower. On that same day my uncle received my letter.

When my uncle read the letter and learned of Job, it made a desire grow for God's Word in his heart. My uncle's life changed and my aunt reported that my uncle became a joyful man. That joy was really contagious because I can tell you I was having a pity party for myself with my own situation, which didn't compare. It is awesome how in your own suffering when you watch others who suffer more and have joy, that joy is super contagious.

Anointed music

I told my mother of another prompting I received. I remember when Bobbie Cavnar would tell these great stories and one was about how he would play tapes of anointed music for a possessed man. I knew my uncle was really hungry for scripture so I purchased the entire set of the New Testament in Spanish and I felt it was Jesus' way of making himself further present in my uncle’s life. I received subsequent reports of my uncle that he was known for his joyful spirit and that he would play scripture all day long, feeding his soul. When family visited, he would recount to them the stories of Jesus. I continued to receive inspiration and send him money. Miraculously even my income began to increase. I learned first-hand we cannot outdo God's generosity.

This went on for years. My situation too began to dramatically improve. I was able to complete my Bachelors and Masters Degrees, and place my sons at the Community school. I had a chance to visit my uncle in Mexico and he showed me a drawer where he was actually putting all the cash I had sent. It was his savings account. He wanted to buy me a gift and I said, "No, no, no. I have the same goal as you; I want a home." So, I said, "I don't know why, but God doesn't seem to want me to have a home." I had meant to stay at my mom's house for six months until I got on my feet, but it had been ten years. A few years later my uncle was able to purchase a small apartment free and clear and he sent message to me that this was my home also. I felt touched. I was proud of him for achieving his goal, but it was a little bittersweet I have to admit, as I still didn't have a home of my own. Then just a few years later I received word that my uncle died. I remember thinking that he would now be in heaven praying for me.

The fruit of responding

Within a few days of his death I was house searching, which I did from time to time because I just thought "Who knows, maybe the Lord will make a miracle out of nothing." I came across a neighborhood that I liked. The agent told me there was a home that contracts kept falling through on and it would be back on the market the next day. It was actually larger and cheaper than all the homes I'd looked at. Up until then I had been living in a really cramped house with my parents, and I couldn’t help getting my hopes up. We went to look at several homes and ended with the one that was going back on the market. My sons are very prophetic, and they said, "This is our home; we are going to live here." You can imagine how I was feeling, I was panicked I thought, "No, I'm not ready for this. I've been asking for this, but I'm not ready for this." I had just gotten a sizeable increase again in my income and so I was able to afford it. It was exactly what we desired. There are so many more miracles I could share: getting part of the closing cost back, being able to buy furniture, the seller purchasing my fridge, washer, dryer, upgrades thrown in for free, the house had never had any noxious chemicals, which I am very hypersensitive to.

The gift of my home provided me with a gift of gratitude that sometimes overwhelms me; sometimes just going into my house I am overwhelmed with gratitude. It increased my faith in large and small things. It taught me total dependence on God. Taught me it's ok to tell God the desires of my heart. All this began with a small inspiration that I listened to and obeyed. Only in heaven will I know the true impact of each inspiration I obeyed and the fruit it bore, not only for my salvation, but for others too. Now can you imagine what each of your fiats done in love has accomplished for God's Kingdom? The story reminds me of how each of us plays such a critical part in salvation history.

I was fortunate enough to be assigned the conclusion of Chapter Three of In the School of the Holy Spirit, and today we sang a song that talked about beholding God's splendor. When I think of our Blessed Mother, I think of those words because she reflected God's splendor so beautifully. Everything we've learned in Chapters one, two and three wouldn't be complete without one final addition: filial love for our Lady. The Virgin Mary is the one person who lived most in the shadow of the Holy Spirit. She lived her whole life as a perfect act of consent. Imagine the perfect act of consent to all operations of the Spirit in her.

I listened to one inspiration and look what happened. She achieved the most ardent and highest degree of love. St. Francis de Sales said, "Mary's love grew steadily because the Holy Spirit met with no resistance in her." Mary is our Mother in the order of grace. She gives onto us the fullness of grace that is hers. Those who take her into their homes share in her total availability to grace, her capacity to let herself to be led by the Holy Spirit without resistance. As a mother Mary passes on to us her humility, her trust in God, her total self giving to God's will, her silence and her inner listening to the Spirit. So entrust the whole of your spiritual life to Our Lady. Finally, Our Lady teaches us to recognize clearly, receive the full trust and put into practice the total fidelity all the suggestions of grace by which God will work marvels of love in our lives as he did in the life of his humble handmaid.

Community Gathering, February 12, 2017