GOODNEWS IN IRELAND

In August the Community of Nazareth in Dun Laoghaire contacted all the prayer groups on the old subscription list for New Creation, sending them a complimentary copy of Goodnews to see if they would like to subscribe regularly. They received quite a few orders from this, with groups ordering between 2- 21 copies. Cathedral Books in Dublin and the various Veritas bookshops round Ireland are also stocking Goodnews regularly, for those who prefer to buy their magazines over the counter.

Prayer groups that didn’t write back immediately with firm orders were sent three copies of the September/ October issue of Goodnews to try and sell. Altogether 600 copies were sent out. We would be grateful if people could find out how many would be interested in receiving Goodnews regularly. According to the feedback from this we will print the appropriate number of copies for Ireland. Please be prompt with payment. If you or your group haven’t seen Goodnews and would like to see a complimentary issue please contact Aidan McMorrow, Goodnews, Community of Nazareth, PO Box 9005, Glenageary, Co Dublin or telephone him on Dublin (01) 284 9746

 

SINGLE IRISH COPIES OF GOODNEWS

For those ordering a single copy of Goodnews, this is managed through the London office. Although we accept payment for subscriptions and donations in Euros, we have found the charges we are paying to clear cheques drawn on banks outside the UK are extortionate. In some cases we have to pay £3 to process a cheque for 25 euros. This amounts to a loss of about 20% of the value. We are trying to arrange a facility to reduce this but in the meantime it would help enormously if overseas subscription payments could be made by credit card or sterling cheques. We can take credit card payments over the phone at the London office. Telephone number London (020) 7352 5298.

 

INTERCESSION FOR PRIESTS

Every August the Intercession for Priests is held in All Hallows College in Dublin. It was started 28 years ago by Fr Kevin Scallon a Vincentian priest involved in the Charismatic Renewal, who felt priests needed spiritual support and time out with God. The first year only 16 priests booked on and Fr Kevin went to see Bishop Dermott O’Mahony, the liaison bishop at the time for the Catholic Charismatic Renewal to ask his advice. The bishop was not put out by the numbers, “Small is beautiful” he said. Sr Briege turned up with her healing and ministry gifts and the rest is history.

Intercession for Priests is unusual in that unlike a normal retreat it lasts a whole month. Participants, however, can come and go as they please. Local priests will pop in every day for a couple of hours, to hear a talk or attend one of the services, while others travel from afar and stay a week or longer. This year participants came from Germany, France, Poland, England, Ireland, Scotland, New Zeland, Australia America and even a bishop from Papua New Guinea. The maximum at any one time was 102 and the lowest number was 38 during the month.

It is very much a time of prayer and ministry rather than formal input. The morning is spent in the prayer of the Church, adoration of the blessed sacrament and Mass. While in the afternoons, Sr Briege is available for personal prayer and ministry to the priests on a one to one basis, when she runs what she calls her “heart clinic”. Depending on the day, in the afternoons at 4 pm there is some kind of service. On Mondays it’s a reconciliation service and on Tuesdays, a healing service. In the evenings there is more prayer – the prayer of the church and the rosary – followed by a talk. This year the two invited speakers, who preached for a week each in the evenings, were Fr Francis Martin from the United States, who is well known in Charismatic Renewal circles as a retreat giver, and Fr Peter Cameron, a young Dominican priest, who is the editor of The Magnificat, a well known devotional publication, also from the States, who spoke on the mysticism of preaching.

For the other two weeks of the month, the evening talks were given by the core group of eight priests who run the retreat. They come from a variety of religious backgrounds including Vincentian, Dominican, Franciscan, Palletine and the secular priesthood. Patricia Mitchell, the chairperson of the National Service Committee, always helps out with the registration during the month. She comments, “I’ve been year after year and to me this seemed one of the most powerful ones. I felt because of the problems the Church has been going through in Ireland, particularly the priesthood, that this would affect the atmosphere of the retreat and everyone would be very depressed. But on contrary, it was the most fantastic atmosphere. Very peaceful and hopeful and joyful. I didn’t attend the retreat itself but you could pick up the joy on the priests’ faces.”

 

PRAYER GROUP FOR RECONCILIATION IN IRELAND

Fr Kevin Scallon CM, who was the inspiration behind the Intercession for Priests, was also behind the setting up the weekly prayer group that meets at St Vincent’s Church, in Navan Road Dublin on Tuesday evenings between 8 –9.30 pm to pray for peace and reconciliation in Ireland. Coming from the North of Ireland, himself, Fr Kevin had experienced at first hand the troubles and felt prayer was essential if peace was ever to come. The group which was set up in 1976 still meets today. Anyone who would like to join them would be welcome.

LIVING WATER MINISTRY

Canon William Fraser, a diocesan priest from Argyll and the Isles for 30 years, this autumn has brought together a small team of evangelistically minded young people, to reach out to the youth of Scotland. The team, all volunteers, is small but international with two Canadians, two Scots and one Australian. The programmes they offer are very flexible and they are prepared to run retreats in parishes and school varying in length from an hour to a full weekend on a variety of themes like: Experiencing the Father’s Love, Who is Jesus? Forgiveness, Discipleship and so on. A taste of who they are was given this September at the Glasgow conference when they introduced themselves and did a short drama on keeping Christ in our lives.

The aim of the Living Water team is to introduce Christ to young people (and older) as someone alive and relevant to their daily lives. The team’s message is that a Christian life is attainable even for youth, and that in every place and situation God is with us. This is done through personal testimonies, talks, dramas, small group discussions, music, games, and prayer ministry.

Catholic Evangelisation School Planned

The establishment of the Living Water team has been a long time coming and is part of a bigger plan by the Kilmore Trust, who for seven years has been planning the establishment of a Catholic School of Evangelization modelled on the John Paul II Bible School in Radway, Alberta, which was set up by the Charismatic Renewal in 1984. Canon Fraser comments, “I was very impressed by this school, and the way they lived in community. Most of the teaching was done by outside speakers, who taught on their specialities, which meant you could draw on the best that is available.” The programme for the planned Scottish evangelisation school will consist of eight months of teaching followed by a month of outreach and evangelisation. From September until April various clergy, religious, and lay people from all over the UK will come to teach for one week in their particular area of expertise. This journey is divided into five sections: Laying Spiritual Foundations, Prayer and the Fruits of the Spirit, Knowing the Message, Catholic Vision, and Personal Mission. It is “designed not as an academic programme, rather as a ‘Degree of the Heart’.” says Kevin Lynch the director of the current Living Water team.

Canon Fraser, comments “Bishop Ian Murray gave me a year to launch the School. I felt this wasn’t really enough time for such a big work, so we decided to start with a smaller outreach team and see what develops.” Bishop Ian Murray has fully endorsed the Living Water Ministry and Commissioned the team at a special Mass on Sept. 14th. Amy Shier, the group leader and a 22 year old Canadian, has come to spend a year with Living Water. Like Kevin Lynch and Sarah Grant the directors she too is a former student from John Paul II Bible School in Canada. She comments on her time there. “When I finished high school I went to college for a year. One of my friends meanwhile went to John Paul II. I kept in contact with her and was struck by the happiness that she and her classmates had compared with what I was experiencing. My dad had passed away earlier that year and I was filling the void with all kinds of worldly things that weren’t bringing me happiness. Once I saw her happiness I knew that’s what I needed, so I chose to give up the things that were making me unhappy and go to Bible School. The Lord has filled that void and is now bringing me closer and closer to Him.”

She adds “I grew up Catholic and went to Mass every week and would go on retreats but I didn’t have a personal relationship with Jesus and that meant that somehow I never really understood what my faith was all about. It was just something I did. Just living in community at John Paul II and the schedule we had of prayer and study, helped me realise God’s love for me and what a life for Christ is all about. After I finished my year there I spent a year as a youth minister in a parish and then my friend, Sarah, who was helping to set up Living Water told me about it, and I decided to apply. I am really enjoying my time in Scotland. The team is great, we’re having fun getting to know each other and preparing our dramas and talks for the road. We’re excited about the retreats and all those we will be ministering to.”

“I didn’t have a personal relationship with Jesus and that meant that somehow I never really understood what my faith was all about.” Amy Shier

Canon Fraser comments, “There are so many influences taking young people away from the gospel message, we must give them another alternative. The Church has to be there with the youth giving them the message at their level. It is important that we make it alive for them. If we don’t we are not fulfilling our responsibility.” Living Water Ministry depends entirely on donations to support their living and travel needs. Parishes and schools interested in having the Living Water team visit them or in the proposed school of evangelissationshould contact: Living Water, The Visitation, Taynuilt, Argyll PA35 1JQ. Details on the web at www.kilmoretrust.org.uk

 

CARFIN, THE HEALING GROUND OF SCOTLAND

Teresa Dalrymple, from Livingstone in Scotland, shares how the Lord seems to be fulfilling a prophecy her brother received many years ago about Carfin, the national marian shrine of Scotland.

My brother Michael always loved Carfin, Our Lady’s shrine in Scotland and he used to go a lot when he was a child. He used to get inner locutions and one of them was about Carfin, and he received a vision that it would one day be the healing ground of Scotland.

I worked for the Church of Scotland for three years and made a lot of friends there. I had been to Carfin many years ago but I suddenly felt this prompting of the Holy Spirit to go back there and to pray not just on my own but with others, not just Catholics but Christians from other churches. I shared this with my colleagues and friends from the Church of Scotland and they agreed to come.

So at two o’clock on the last Saturday of every month a small ecumenical group of us come to praise the Lord and pray together. Our priest, Fr Ronan Walls has a vision for a new chapel to be built at Carfin, that would an ecumenical chapel and one dedicated to the Holy Spirit. We have found that somehow this praying together across the denominations has a great power in it and over the last few months, more and more sick people seem to be turning up at the shrine, almost by co-incidence, and we have been able to pray for them. It made me really excited, because it was as if I was seeing the first fruits of Michael’s prophecy about Carfin becoming the Healing Ground of Scotland and being able to be part of its fulfilment as well.

 

MARRIAGE IN THE HOLY SPIRIT

David and Margaret McGill, founders of the Risen Christ Community in Glasgow, and Fr Jim McManus CSSR, the rector of St Mary’s Retreat centre in Kinnoul, are collaborating together to put on special weekends for married couples where they can explore the idea of marriage in the Holy Spirit. David and Margaret, who have been married for 42 years, have a lot of experience from their own life and in their preparation and support of married couples in their community, and the weekend will draw on this.

Topics covered over the weekend will include practical aspects such as communication in marriage and how to have a successful argument, but it will also major on what it means for Jesus to be Lord of the marriage. David comments, “When we are baptised in the Holy Spirit, we say Jesus is Lord of our lives but when we are married this extends to the marriage itself, and we want to unpack what this means in practice and how the Holy Spirit can help us in our relationship.”

It is particularly hard for married couples today, says David, as there are few good role models around and the message from the media is that commitment and sacrifice are to be avoided. Yet these are key. Many people too, have been wounded by life and find it difficult to be the people they would like to be for their partners and their children. Part of the weekend will involve a talk on healing and forgiveness by Fr Jim McManus with prayer for inner healing and an opportunity for counselling.

It’s not about experts, however, telling people what to do, insists David, but more of an opportunity to share and explore together what it means to be a Christian married couple today and how to build strong relationships that can be the basis of going out and serving the Lord in the Church and the world.

One weekend has already taken place at Kinnoul at the end of October and the next one will be 14th-16th February 2003 (appropriately including St Valentine’s Day!)For further details contact 18 Stamperland Avenue, Clarkston, Glasgow G76 8EZ.

ILLNESS STOPS MYLES DEMPSEY FROM ATTENDING NEW DAWN

This year’s annual New Dawn conference at Walsingham was notable for the absence of founder Myles Dempsey, who was taken into hospital the day before the conference started. It was the first New Dawn he has missed since the conference started in 1987. In his absence he nominated a quartet of people to run the daily conference programme. These were Charles Whitehead, the NSC Chairman, who was one of the speakers, Fr Michael Gwinnell, who is the chaplain to the Friends of New Dawn and a co founder of the conference with Myles, Enda Devine, the New Dawn site manager for many years, and Peter Hobbs, who has been assisting Myles for the last couple of years.

The conference was very blessed and numbers were larger than usual – between 2500 and 3000. The children’s ministry for the first time was run by a parish team from St Margaret’s in Twickenham, and parents were asked to help at a session each, which many enjoyed. Eunice Pennant, a grandmother from St Vincent’s parish in South West London, was delighted to teach the children how to braid friendship bracelets, something she had learnt as a child in the West Indies.

The main speakers at the c o n f e r ence were Babsie Bleasdale and Fr Michael Moses from Trinidad, as well as Charles Whitehead, Canon Jimmy Collins, Fr Chris O’Donnell O’Carm and Fr Stan Fortuna CFR as well as a long list of others who ran workshops on a variety of subjects. Notable among these was Peter Garratt, who spoke on pro-life issues. Among the participants were a couple from Brazil, who came from Cançao Nova a large community there, where they hold fortnightly meetings of up to 15,000 and huge annual ones of up to 300,000. They were interested in the family dynamic of the conference and were particularly struck by the number of “old people praising the Lord”. Their community is mainly young people and they said they found it very inspiring to know that people could maintain the same fervour when they were old! Next year their founder plans to visit New Dawn. Over a thousand pounds was raised in a collection to help support the first New Dawn Conference that was being held in Uganda the following week.

 

RALPH MARTIN’S WORD FOR BRITAIN – Read the mystics!

Ralph Martin was the main speaker at two c o n f e r e n c e s this summer in Britain, one in Birrmingham (12th –16th August) and one in Glasgow (6th-8th September) where his cospeaker was Mark Nimo from Ghana. His message was Pope John Paul II’s vision for the Church and the call to holiness. In his talks he drew a lot on the teaching of four of the mystics, John of the Cross, Teresa of Avila, St Therese of Lisieux and Catherine of Sienna, which Pope has underlined for the Church to pay particular attention to and which he has been led to study for the last decade or so (see front page article). Interestingly it is not only Roman Catholics who are feeling called to study the writings of these Catholic mystics but other traditions too. Ralph was asked recently to give three talks about Teresa of Avila to the big non-denominational church headed up Mike Bickle in Kansas City.

 

THE POTTA CONNECTION

The visit of Fr Augustine Mundackatt VC from the Divine Healing Centre in Potta, India to England this summer was a great success. The first time he came to England was in 1999, when he attracted mainly participants from the Indian community, who are familiar with the reputation of Potta style healing retreats. During his trip this year, however, which lasted from August 9th to 2nd September Fr Mundackett attracted a wider group of people and spoke at 14 different venues round the country, including an evening organised by Anna Querci, one of the Goodnews volunteers, who organised a healing evening at the Scalabrini Centre in Brixton. Central to the tour was a special residential weekend retreat at Digby Stuart College, which was attended by 161 people.

Next summer, Fr Matthew Naikamparambil, who began the famous Potta retreats, which attract over six thousand people every week, (see Goodnews May/June isssue 1997) will be coming to Britain for three weeks from 3rd-20th August 2003. During this time he will also be running a residential healing weekend and the co-ordinators of his trip are looking for somewhere which would take up the 400 people they expect to attend. Those who might know of somewhere suitable or are interested in hosting Fr Matthew during his stay, should contact Christy Sebastian, who is helping prepare his itinerary. His address is 48 Outram Road, East Ham London E6 1JR.

International News

 

NEW DAWN UGANDA

Between 6000-8000 people attended the first New Dawn Conference at Mbarara in Uganda. Many had walked for days to be there. They slept under the stars in the field that had been cleared of bush for the conference. Two babies were even born here during the sessions!

The conference which was organised by the Ahuiire community took place during the second week of August. Fr Emmanuel Tuiisime, the community leader was on a sabbatical last year in England and came to New Dawn. He was so impressed at what he saw, that he decided he wanted to run a similar conference in Uganda.

Myles Dempsey was supposed to speak but couldn’t due to ill health. Mark Nimo, an African evangelist from Ghana, stepped in. He proved to be the ideal choice. The theme of the conference was “Jesus healing our Nation – Uganda. As well as Mark, talks were given by Joseph Alumansi, the chairman of the NSC in Uganda, the Provincial of the Daughters of Mary and Joseph, and and Fr Ernest Sievers, a missionary priest working in Uganda, who came to England in July and spoke at the Men’s weekend. The healing service was led by Fr John Bashibora, who is well known in Uganda and Italy for his healing ministry. One of the most spectacular healings that occurred was of a little boy who had been paralysed but who walked for the first time on stage. (see photo).

Two English couples, associated with New Dawn, also attended the event. They were Gloria and Laurie Nobbs, who are part of the House of the Open Door community, and Vanessa and Martin Mason, who have been involved in Charismatic Renewal for many years and have connections in Kenya.

For Gloria Nobbs the highlights were the candlelit ceremony and watching the sight of the light spreading among the huge crowd of pilgrims in the black of the night. “When they began to sing and wave the lighted candles from side to side, it was like a glimpse of the gates of heaven opening. I shall never forget that sight!” Another great moment was the Eucharistic procession, in which the Blessed Sacrament was carried through the crowd in a huge wooden monstrance. At the sight of it, the people threw branches and cloaks in front of it, in a modern day re-enactment of Jesus’ entry to Jerusalem. The conference culminated in a service at the cathedral at Mbarara, ten kilometres away, which the people walked to, carrying all their luggage and cooking pots with them. Here the Archbishop ordained 7 young men to the diaconate. The archbishop was very impressed by the whole conference and also by the work of the Ahuriire community and what they have created on the site of land he gave them. Due to lack of resources, the community can’t run New Dawn annually, but hope to run it again sometime soon. Fr Emmanuel is keen to foster links between Ahuiriire and parishes or groups in Britain and they are willing to welcome people to stay with them for a while. Those who are interested should contact Fr Emmanuel Tuisiime, Ahuriire community, PO Box 1973, Mbarara, Uganda.

 

 

AUSTRIA LAUNCHES OWN “CELEBRATE”

Following their visit to “Celebrate” 2000, Hans-Peter and Verena Lang were inspired to launch their own version (“Frei-Zeit mit Jesus”) under the auspices of the Austrian NSC. The Conference which took place in the beautiful ski resort of Schladming from August 25th to 31st attracted about 1,000 people, and closely followed the vision and programme of “Celebrate”. Sue and Charles Whitehead were invited to launch the Conference and to be among the list of speakers, and took with them as a gift one of the special “Celebrate” Holy Spirit banners. The weather was excellent (much warmer than “Celebrate”!) and there were plenty of young people and families with children. Among the highlights were the Kisi Kids who performed a wonderful musical, a concert by Outi and Lee, a comprehensive Adventure Club programme for the children, guest bands for the youth, a special Alpha supper, excellent speakers, Mass on top of a mountain, and a special ecumenical evening featuring members of the Austrian Round Table, an association of leaders from all the different Christian churches and fellowships. The response of the participants was overwhelmingly positive, and everyone hopes the organisers will make it an annual event.