Summer institute to focus on Building a People of Praise
I Am Building a People of Praise will be the theme of the fourth annual Our Lady of Pentecost Summer Institute, to be held Aug. 11-16 in Kelowna.
The Catholic discipleship and leadership formation event will hold its main sessions in a new location, Immaculate Conception Church on Sutherland Avenue. Accom-modation will be at Seton House of Prayer.
The institute is aimed at charismatic leaders and all those interested in a deeper growth in spiritual life, from anywhere in B.C. and beyond. It is sponsored by the Nelson Diocese Catholic Charismatic Renewal Service Committee and endorsed by Catholic Charismatic Renewal Services of B.C., the provincial service committee.
Featured speakers will be Catholic lay evangelist John Connelly of Burns Lake. B.C.; Sylvester Ibekwe, a seminarian of the Nelson diocese; and Gladys Miller, chair of the diocesan service committee. Co-ordinators are Linda Adams, Bernadette Barry and Piera Quarenghi, with Flo Reid as master of ceremonies, Fr. Don Wilson as host and Gladys Miller and Johanna Tournemille leading music.
In addition to two-a-day talks from the guest speakers, followed by panel discussions or other group activities, the institute will offer devotional events most evenings, and the sacrament of reconciliation at lunchtime Tuesday to Thursday. Opening Mass will be Sunday evening, Aug. 11, and closing ceremony and commissioning Friday morning.
John Connelly is head of God’s Revolution Today, a multi-media ministry, as well as a popular speaker at charismatic confer-ences, a newspaper columnist, and a musician and songwriter. He teaches in a workshop style and tries to inspire people with practical tools they can use to grow in their personal life mission. He has spoken at two previous summer institutes.
His topics are The Great Catholic Renewal, The Renewal of Praise, and the two-part Jesus Living in Us Today.
Sylvester Ibekwe received his early formation from the Capuchin friars in Nigeria, and also studied theology there. He is currently attending St. Joseph Seminary and completing his master of divinity degree at Newman Theological College, both in Edmonton.
Gladys Miller has been in the Catholic charismatic renewal since 1976 and is chair of the diocesan service committee as well as leader of the People of Peace praise group in Grand Forks. She was chief organizer of the first summer institute in 2009 and has served as featured speaker, master of ceremonies, and in the music ministry on various occasions.
Her talks will cover Praise-Faith-Trust (Psalm 148:13) and Praise Is Our Weapon (2 Cor 10:4).
Scheduled evening devotional events, in addition to Sunday’s opening Mass, are a healing Mass on the Monday, living rosary Tuesday, and praise music Thursday. Wednesday evening is set aside as free time.
Cost of the institute is $350 ($400 after June 15) for all sessions, meals, and accommodation at Seton House; $250 “commuter rate” for all sessions plus lunch and dinner; or $75 per day with lunch and dinner. For registration, contact Maria McManus at 250-707-1423, email untamedspirit@telus.net, or write to 22-2035 Boucherie Rd., Westbank BC V4T 1Z6. Fees must accom-pany registration to hold rooms at Seton House.
Billeting may also be available.
Clergy and religious are invited to attend the institute without charge, but must register in advance. Housing for clergy is available in local rectories.
Immaculate Conception Church is near downtown Kelowna, about two miles north of the previous location, St. Charles Garnier parish.
FROM OUR CHAIR
Life in the Spirit takes to the road
By FLO REID
chair, CCRS of B.C.
For the past year we have examined our mandate as a provincial committee. One initiative we undertook was to develop surveys to distribute to prayer groups, individual Spirit-filled Catholics, and diocesan service committees to ask how the provincial service committee can better help them in their own work in renewal.
Responses to the surveys articulated the ongoing need for good communication, for making our presence visible, helping prayer groups understand our role as a committee, for organizing and supporting the development of service committees and prayer groups in unorganized dioceses.
I am happy to report that as a result of the survey responses, the CCRS of BC is offering to visit parishes, upon invitation, to offer Life in the Spirit Seminars, Holy Spirit retreats, and information on forming charismatic Prayer groups. We are most hopeful that those wishing to access these opportunities for growth will contact us.
We continue to communicate through our website, www.bccharismatic.com as well as through Facebook and our printed newsletter, BC Charismatic.
We invite your feedback and your comments so that we can continue to meet your needs. Please feel free to contact me at 250-426-7570 or through email to fmreid45@gmail.com .
New faces, new jobs on B.C. committee
The provincial charismatic service committee has a new chair, a new secretary, and a new treasurer.
Flo Reid of Cranbrook, secretary since 2007, was acclaimed as chair of Catholic Charismatic Renewal Services of B.C. in November, succeeding Richard Dunstan. Lindael Rolstone of Kamloops succeeds Reid as secretary, and Linda De Abreu of Langley has been named treasurer, succeeding Pierre Roy.
Dunstan, of Nanaimo, remains on the committee as newsletter editor. Roy has stepped down from the committee to take on new responsibilities with the Catholics Come Home campaign.
Reid and her husband, Jim, are Nelson diocesan representatives to CCRS of B.C.
A convert to Catholicism, Flo Reid has been active in the charismatic renewal for 30 years, at the local, diocesan and provincial levels. She has worked in music ministry, prayer room ministry, MC, and as coordinator of Nelson diocesan conferences as well as maintaining full involvement in St. Mary’s and Christ the Servant parishes in Cranbrook.
She has also been part of the coordinating team of Our Lady of Pentecost Summer Institute in Kelowna, both as a representative of the CCRS of BC committee and as a member of the core group of the Nelson diocesan committee. She is current leader of the People of Unity prayer group in Cranbrook.
Rolstone is also a convert, in 1995, and has embraced the richness of Catholicism—“the more one learns, the more there is to learn,” she says. She has made six pilgrimages to Medjugorge, and has also visited Marian apparition sites in Fatima, Lourdes, Knock and Walsingham. She is also devoted to the Eucharist, the rosary, and the charismatic renewal, and is currently studying Franciscan spirituality, She joined the provincial service committee in October as Kamloops diocesan representative.
She works in Lax Kw'Alaams (Port Simpson), north of Prince Rupert, as a mental health counsellor, and attends El Shaddai in Kamloops when her work schedule permits.
De Abreu has been a member of St. Matthew’s prayer group in Surrey for 16 years and is a core group member, and she and her husband, Jerry, sing in the parish 5:30 p.m. Saturday choir. They also belong to Couples for Christ, and sometimes attend St. Joseph’s parish in Langley. She is a retired accountant.
Provincial conference
Sept. 20-21 in Surrey
Father Trevor Nathasingh of Trinidad will be featured speaker at the 2012 B.C. charismatic conference, to be held Sept. 20-21 at St. Matthew’s Church in Surrey.
Theme of the conference will be A Prophetic Voice to the Charismatic Renewal and the Church. The event is sponsored by Vancouver Catholic Charismatic Renewal Services and Catholic Charismatic Renewal Services of B.C.
Father Nathasingh is a convert from a Muslim-Hindu-Presbyterian background. He came to Christianity in part through the ministry of a charismatic prayer group, and was ordained in 1989. He travels widely, speaking at crusades, missions, revivals and Life in the Spirit Seminars, and founded Franciscan House of Prayer, a Catholic charismatic lay community, in Trinidad in 1994.
He says his mission is "to proclaim without compromise the action of the Holy Spirit at work in the Church today."
More information on the conference will be announced as it becomes available on the provincial and Vancouver websites, bccharismatic.com and www.vccrs.ca .
St. Matthew’s Church is located at 16079 88th Ave., Surrey.
KNOWLEDGE, DIRECTION, ENCOUNTER WITH JESUS
Pick up your Bibles, charismatics!
By DARIUSZ JEZIORNY
The Bible is the Word of God, which means men who were inspired by the Holy Spirit wrote it. That is one reason why it was rediscovered by Catholics in the charismatic renewal when it appeared in the Roman Catholic Church. The movement started by the Holy Spirit was being drawn into the written richness inspired by the same Holy Spirit. This became one of the most important fruit of the renewal in the Spirit.
Of course, the Church had never forgotten the Bible, but ordinary people had rather rare contact with it in their lives of faith. Once the charismatic renewal was born, many lay persons were amazed by the depth and power of the Word of God.
Now, after 45 years of its existence, I sadly observe that people in charismatic groups have become lukewarm towards the Bible. I notice they do not even take their Bibles to their weekly prayer meetings. There is some strange contradiction between this lukewarmness and the will to follow Jesus in everyday life.
There are many ways we, as charismatics, can use the Bible. I would like to emphasize three of them:
KNOWLEDGE OF OUR FAITH
1. The Word of God gives knowledge in what we believe and why. Knowing the Word of God means I can defend my faith in front of people who disbelieve or even attack me.
I can say from my experience that there is no better way to test our level of Bible knowledge than to have an appointment with Jehovah’s Witnesses. There is no doubt their interpretation of the Word of God is far from the truth. However, there is also no doubt that few Catholics (even charismatic Catholics) are able to prove their error during conversation with them.
The Bible also gives a justification for the charismatic renewal. I remember my first steps in my prayer group in the second half of the 1980s, when we still lived under the Communist regime [in Poland]. There were few books on the charismatic renewal printed in our country. However, it was fortunate that Fr. Francis Sullivan’s book on charisms and the charismatic renewal was available. As I read it, I checked with my Bible and was convinced that something that attracted me strongly was really from the Lord. That was the way the Holy Spirit showed me to go deeper and deeper in Catholic charismatic renewal.
A CLOSER WALK WITH JESUS
2. The Word of God allows us to get to know Jesus better. I mean Jesus who is a resurrected person, who is “the image of the unseen God” (Col 1,15) and who takes care of me.
If we go deeper and deeper in our prayer, we can have a real experience of this exceptional person. It is much more than theoretical knowledge—it is a very strong spiritual experience. St. Ignatius, a master of spiritual life, encourages us to “ask for what I want.” In the second week of his Spiritual Exercises he says, “ask for interior knowledge of the Lord, Who for me has become man, that I may more love and follow Him.” He then proposes to contemplate scenes from Jesus’ life where we can involve our imagination and take part in these scenes paying attention to their sights, sounds, tastes, smells, and feelings. Afterwards, St. Ignatius advises to “reflect to draw some profit from each of these things.” There is no doubt that the Holy Spirit is the only one who can make such a deep prayer possible.
DIRECTION FOR OUR LIVES
3. Many members of the charismatic renewal who are full of zeal to follow Jesus in everyday life ask the Lord, “what am I to do?” God gives answers through the Word of God.
There are, of course, various ways in which the Lord communicates with people. For many years, I was reading the Word from the daily liturgy to know what the Church is saying to Catholics. It was also the way of God’s conversation with me. I was amazed to find the answers in the Word of God I was reading in the morning to questions I heard or dilemmas I was facing during the day. It was possible only through the action of the Holy Spirit to be so wise in many difficult situations and I was increasingly aware that it came to my mind from the outside.
Finally, I can only encourage you to read the Bible because “all scripture is inspired by God and is useful for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, so that everyone who belongs to God may be proficient, equipped for every good work.” (2 Tim 3:16–17).
—ICCRS Newsletter March-April 2013
Catholic Charismatic Renewal Services of B.C.
Flo Reid (Nelson diocese), chair
phone 250-426-7570 fmreid45@gmail.com
Lennie David,
Linda De Abreu,
Richard Dunstan,
David MacIntyre,
Roy MacIntyre,
Flo (chair) and Jim Reid, Nelson diocese 250-426-7570
Lindael Rolstone,
Fr.
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World’s Catholic charismatics
to mark Pentecost in Rome
On the Day for the Movements, the Associations and the Lay Associations with the Holy Father Francis, International Catholic Charismatic Renewal Services has planned a special program of ‘Pentecost of the Nations’ to be held on the afternoon of Sunday May 19 for Catholic charismatics from all over the world. The celebration will be held at St. Paul Basilica Outside the Walls with Fr. Raniero Cantalamessa and Msgr. Joseph Malagrecca as speakers. The event will begin with praise and worship and end with Mass.
—edited from ICCRS Newsletter
Upcoming events
April 26-27 Nelson diocesan conference with Fr. Bart van Roijen Kelowna
contact Gladys Miller 250-442-8589 russ-m@telus.net Immaculate Conception
May 18 Pentecost celebration Surrey
contact Lennie David 604-597-8227 St. Matthew’s Church
May 19 Pentecost celebration Victoria
June 1 Nelson diocesan core meeting Grand Forks
Contact Gladys Miller, 250-442-8589 russ-m@telus.net Sacred Heart Church
June 10 Healing Mass with Fr. Don Wilson Osoyoos
7 p.m. contact Laurie Martin 250-495-2964 St. Anne’s Church
June 11 Healing Mass with Fr. Don Wilson Penticton
7 p.m. contact Bernadette Barry 250-492-3478 St. John
July 13 Family Day picnic North Delta
contact Lennie David 604-597-8227 Annieville Park
Aug. 10-18 Community of the Risen Lord, various events Vancouver
contact Lennie David 604-597-8227 various locations
Aug. 11-16 Our Lady of Pentecost Summer Institute Kelowna
contact Maria McManus 250-707-1423 (see article, page 1) Immaculate Conception
Sept. 20-21 Provincial/archdiocesan conference with Fr. Trevor Nathasingh Surrey
contact Lennie David 604-597-8227 (see article, page 2) St. Matthew's Church
Sept. 27-29 Nelson diocesan leaders’ retreatKelowna
Sept. 27-29 Nelson diocesan leaders’ retreat
contact Gladys Miller, 250-442-8589 russ-m@telus.net Seton House
B.C. Charismatic
CCRS of BC newsletter
published spring and fall
editor
email:
phone: 250-753-8919
fax: on request
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or other charismatic event in this listing, email bccharismatic@yahoo.com
DONATIONS TO CCRS OF B.C.
All donations promote the work of CCRS-B.C. Tours, provincial conferences, leadership workshops and the CCRS of B.C. newsletter. CCRS of B.C. is a registered non-profit organization, and issues receipts for income tax purposes. Indicate below if you wish a receipt (over $10 only) and print your name and address plainly.
Please make cheques payable to CCRS of B.C. and mail to CCRS of B.C.,
c/o Linda De Abreu, treasurer, #319 – 5430 201 Street,
Name: __________
Address: ______
City: Postal code: _ _
Phone: Donation: $ Receipt? __
Your prayers and financial support are appreciated.
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