Praise the Lord!

Summer institute to focus on Building a People of Praise

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Billeting may also be available.

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

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

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 88^th 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 828-14th Street South, Cranbrook, BC V1C 1X9 phone 250-426-7570                 fmreid45@gmail.com Lennie David, Vancouver archdiocese    604-594-7296 Linda De Abreu, Vancouver archdiocese, treasurer    604-514-4935 Richard Dunstan, Victoria diocese, newsletter editor    250-753-8919 David MacIntyre, Victoria diocese    250-383-9955 Roy MacIntyre, Vancouver archdiocese, webmaster   604-523-2769  Flo (chair) and Jim Reid, Nelson diocese    250-426-7570  Lindael Rolstone, Kamloops diocese, secretary Fr. Don Wilson, Nelson diocese, spiritual director

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

   2-4:30 p.m.     contact David MacIntyre 250-383-9955                                                St .Joseph the Worker

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 Vianney

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 area     

                        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’ retreat                                                     Kelowna

                        contact Gladys Miller, 250-442-8589 russ-m@telus.net                        Seton House

                                                                                                                                                           

B.C. Charismatic CCRS of BC newsletter published spring and fall editor Richard Dunstan 120 Townsite Rd. Nanaimo BC V9S 1K4 email: bccharismatic@yahoo.com phone: 250-753-8919 fax: on request website: http://bccharismatic.blogspot.ca www.bccharismatic.com

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

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, Langley, BC V3A 0A2 Name:                                                                                                                    ­­­__________                                                                                                       Address:                                                                                                               ______ City:                                                                                                Postal code: _      _            Phone:                                          Donation: $                    Receipt?               __   Your prayers and financial support are appreciated.

 

Do Whatever He Tells You

By Richard Dunstan -

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

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

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

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

FR. LOUIE

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

TERESA

“Docile” does not mean “weak.”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

FR. GERALD

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

FR. BART

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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