By Stuart Burman A&B CDSC Co-ordinator
My attendance at the CNSC formation weekend on the 9th and 10th November was in doubt and then seemed impossible. There was a clash with my son’s 18th birthday celebration and family has to come first, after all being a husband and father is my first vocation! The Lord though had different ideas and a few days before the weekend, my son decided that revision for his mock A-level exams must take precedence and he’d like to postpone his celebrations to the next weekend. He then confirmed that he was happy for me to go to Milton Keynes, famously the place of the concrete cows!
Even though my preparations were hurried, I’d been praying for the weekend for some time. I sensed that the Lord was calling those in the Charismatic renewal to not be puffed up, but to be stripped back. To be in a place where in our weakness we have to rely on God’s love and His power and not ours (Ezekiel 16:8 was the word), after all we are not superhuman.
On arrival in Milton Keynes, after a very early 5:30am start which turned out to be two hours later than my colleagues from Hexham and Newcastle (poor souls!), I found around 50 people taking part in the opening Mass. The spirit of the event was encapsulated by the pentecostal worship band in the room next door partly drowning out our Mass with a rhythmic boom and bang of the bass and drum. Through supernatural grace they were quiet during the Gospel and Eucharistic prayers – God carefully protecting the silence of his passion, death and resurrection for our service.
We then were called to the other room for Maria Heath’s talk called “The Journey”. She reminded us that our Catholic Charismatic Renewal started through a vision given to an Italian nun called Elena Geurra. She wrote letters to Pope Leo XIII asking for all Catholics to pray for a greater outpouring of the Holy Spirit and in response, on New Year’s Day 1901, Pope Leo XIII invoked the Holy Spirit over the worldwide church. On that same day, a woman named Agnes Ozman, in a protestant church in Kansas, asked her congregation to lay hands on her so she could become a missionary. Through this prayer she received the Holy Spirit in abundance, only being able to speak and write Chinese for three days. The teachings from this church in Kansas led to the birth of the Pentecostal church. The Catholic church had its own outpouring of the Holy Spirit, described as a “current of grace” when in 1967 Catholics from Duquesne University attended a Protestant worship service when they were “baptised in the Holy Spirit”. This was the start of the Catholic Charismatic Renewal and fifty years later Pope Francis founded CHARIS to be a “current of grace” for the whole church. It’s on these memories that we now stand.
Bishop David Oakley in his talk “The Fullness of Baptism”, reminded us that our baptism plunges us into the life and death and resurrection of Jesus and that the birth of the Charismatic Renewal, which was brought about through the power of God, helps us to understand what baptism is all about. He also advised against being too full of ourselves and that we need to empty ourselves out. With divine inspiration he echoed the words spoken to me in prayer from before the meeting. He went on, “We need to lean into supernatural grace like those hanging onto a piece of wood after a shipwreck”. He outlined that the Catholic Charismatic Renewal has a mission to rebuild the church, like St Francis of Assisi. In our life in the Holy Spirit we are reborn as sons of God and are made sharers in the mission of the Church. Pope John XXIII prayed for the Holy Spirit to come as on that day of Pentecost. Jesus answered that prayer and the Holy Spirit is with us as on that day of Pentecost. The calling of the attendees in our diocesan roles, is to take these supernatural charisms given by the Holy Spirit, to use them in a new way to help us serve our Bishops and our local churches. Amen!
Abhy Thomas, the CHARIS Co-ordinator for England and Wales, gave a powerful talk where he exhorted us in many ways. Memorably his call was to join the universal church in prayer for 2023, which marks 2000 years since the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. He asked us to set an alarm on our phones for every day at 20:33 so that we can pray together with all christians, “May your kingdom come on earth as it is in Heaven, come Holy Spirit. Veni Creator Spiritus”. He set out that the Jubilee next year will be a season of grace and as “Pilgrims of Hope”, we should increasingly strive to spread the grace of the Holy Spirit to everyone in the church.
He also asked for us, as diocesan teams to focus on three areas, communion, formation and mission. For communion we need to be aware of the present times, and be aware of the need to expand the tent making sure that we involve every expression of the renewal into our Diocesan teams so that gifts, charisms and inspirations can be widely shared.
For formation we need to bring about disciples who can bring the love of God to the world, leading people to the fullness of baptism, to be a transformative force for the renewal in the Church and society.
And finally for mission, by 2033, Abhy aims to have 20 Missionary hubs across the UK and these will be dedicated to evangelistic social outreach. The vision is to train, commission and equip 3,000 missionary disciples so that they can lead and serve in ministry and outreach. Finally, the goal is to have three major gatherings for missionaries from all charismatic communities and expressions to bring fellowship, formation and collaboration. If you didn’t notice, the numbers used for each goal spell out 2033! He closed with the words from Habakkuk 2:3, “For the vision is yet due at an appointed time. It will surely come. It will not tarry.”
Enthused by Abhy’s vision and powerful teaching, we reflected in small groups on our respective diocesan missions through five memories and three challenges. It was wonderful to hear the different approaches being taken to live out the CHARIS vision in our local churches and also to look back with some satisfaction on all that has happened since when we were last together in Northampton two years before. We are now two years wiser, two years more experienced and two years older (maybe not so much a positive!) but we are ageing, faithful children in the eyes of God, who are led and nourished by the presence of the Holy Spirit. During this time I also got to know Alex more deeply, our latest recruit to our A&B CDSC team. I could see that he had an astonishing testimony, from full on atheism to being full on on fire in the Holy Spirit in an inspired flash in Gaudi’s cathedral in Barcelona. Here, he knew in an instant that the Gospel was all true while looking at a statue of Judas kissing Jesus at the last supper.
Abhy had every right to be annoyed with me as the weekend went on, every time I met him I said, “You’ve got to speak to Alex”. Little did I know that Alex had already told Michelle Moran his story while on a train after a Divine Renovation meeting a few weeks before, so Alex’s part in the event and the sharing of his story was secured, you see God can’t keep a good thing to himself and as such, He wants to share all that is good despite our lack of trust.
In a flash the first day was over and we retired to dinner and then to the bar. The sharing across the diocesan CDSC teams at this time was powerful while reflecting on our first day together, our CDSC work and on God’s calling and work in our lives. We shared our testimonies and could see that our many times of struggle brought about fruit that we didn’t plan and couldn’t have anticipated. There were many ‘God-incidences’ shared and this became increasingly apparent as we talked together. For those that don’t know, a ‘God-incidence’ is a phrase that refers to a coincidence that had been divinely arranged by God. We could see that God was leading us through our work in prayer groups, our parishes and in the Charismatic Renewal and through our families and professional lives to serve him in our CDSC work to support the vision of CHARIS. It all was making sense, at least for now!
Day two was Sunday, the Lord’s day, and it started early with breakfast and more sharing with CDSC colleagues. I had a good discussion on our respective missions with Liz Corcoran from Southwark over a coffee and afterward we quickly walked along the long cold corridor to get to the room on time for Michelle Moran’s talk called “The Road Ahead”.
Michelle reminded us of Maria Heath’s talk from the day before with Pope Leo’s intercession for the coming of the Holy Spirit bringing about the birth of the Pentecost movement. She outlined that we are now living in a special time in the Holy Spirit. This is a quickening where charismatics must step-up and go deeper into the well of the Holy Spirit. She asked us to Bring, Build and Serve. Bring the grace of the Baptism in the Holy Spirit into everyone’s lives, Build the body of Christ through prayer and being Holy Spirit led. Then to Serve as the CCR is not a middle class, prayer group movement but a place from which we can serve the poor and needy. After all, this is a ‘Season of Surprises’, the ‘Season of the New Wineskin’, a ‘Season of Expansion’ and the ‘Season of the Harvest’, a time where the Holy Spirit is quickening, a time when God is calling his people to him more powerfully but concurrently a time where many are increasingly losing heart and hope, and are choosing to desert Jesus and the Church. These times are much like those outlined in Acts 4.
Then I could see that Abhy did indeed listen to my nagging (or was it another ‘God-incident’) and Alex (the newest recruit to our A&B CDSC team) was given the microphone by Michelle to tell the whole meeting his powerful testimony. Indeed our Lord is seeking the lost souls, from the darkness and turmoil of atheism to bring them into the fullness of His truth and life. This work of calling the lost is being done by Him in our times and through Alex’s testimony we are all witnesses of this. Alleluia!
The final talk of the weekend was with Abhy Thomas who gave a talk called “Heart for Mission”. This was a powerful reminder of the need for social outreach, to serve the poor and needy with the heart of Jesus. We need to have eyes to see the poverty and to use what the Lord has given us to respond. St Therese of Avila said, “Mine are the hands with which He blesses all the earth”. Abhy shared three interviews with us, the first was a remarkable story from North Somerset where Christians against Poverty are ministering to people helping them to manage household debts. As part of the service the team offer prayer to those who have received help, “ Would you like me to pray with you?”. When they agree this often gives a remarkable and unexpected outcome. Fr Chris Thomas outlined his work on the Irenaeus project, where in the Liverpool Archdiocese they help people to have opportunities to pray, explore the Scriptures, reflect on what it means to be human and alive and to know the truth that God is with us. Real and powerful social outreach in action. The last interview was for me the most inspiring, we were shown a video of the Emmanuel City Mission in Australia which is a daytime sanctuary for the most vulnerable people in a centre based on Catholic Christian values and behaviour. The centre consists of regular activities, basic facilities such as laundry and showers and other services to assist those with many basic needs and those with more complex needs, including addictions. Even offering daily Catholic Mass to those who come. Could it be possible and please, let it be God’s will to have one of these centres in every city across the UK. Please God, please!
Abhy inspired us to go forward from the meeting with an open heart of love so that we can serve our communities in many ways. To quote St Augustine, “Our hearts are restless until it rests in Him”.