Put your Nets out into the Deep

Put your Nets out into the Deep

Bernadette Kearney and Simon Cameron share how a small group of Catholics in a rural area in the Cardiff Arch Diocese got together to pray for God to move powerfully in their locality- and how a new Catholic Family Conference resulted, which will take place 22nd-24th October 2004 in Ledbury.

The Community Whenever people ask "and what parish are you from?" most of the time, they will never have heard of Ledbury in Herefordshire. "Near Malvem" sometimes helps. We are a comparatively small parish in the Archdiocese of Cardiff, on the boundaries of the Dioceses of Clifton and Birmingham. Outpost is not quite the word, but as a Catholic community, we've certainly become very pro-active in our parish life, given our geographical position.

A few years ago. It became clear when we would meet up with other parishes in the deanery, that there was a hunger for more: more fellowship, more prayer, more of the Holy Spirit working in our lives. After one music day in Hereford, two people made a remark to each other as they left, suggesting that it would be good to get all the people interested in renewal together.

The following month, October, thirteen of us met in our church in Ledbury to intercede before the Blessed Sacrament for an hour. Then we went to our little parish hall at the back of the church for tea and coffee. The atmosphere was electric. It seemed that the hunger for revival and for God to move had a momentum that was unstoppable. Words of prophecy came tumbling out. from Isaiah: arise! Shine out! Your light has come! Words about shouting aloud from the rooftops. Enthusiasm and excitement just spilled out. A picture of a beautiful flower bud opening into bloom was given to someone from Hereford.

A married couple from Ross-on-Wye were bursting with encouragement and hope. We had a common aim: to help our Catholic parishes and families grow in their faith and for the Holy Spirit to be poured out as never before on our locality. Many years earlier someone else in the group had seen a picture of a map of the British Isles with lights dotted around it..... and clearly marked on the map, as one of these lights was Ledbury. It seemed that God was saying that He was ready to move. We returned home excited, busily imagining the wonderful events that we would put on as soon as possible.

God's timing though was not our timing and his ways were not our ways. After the initial burst of enthusiasm had subsided, it gave way to a much tougher time of quiet prayer, discernment and suffering. On reflection, God had given us His vision but now He wanted to lay the foundations for it and soak it in prayer. For most of us, this was the hardest thing to do. He also wanted to teach us to listen to Him and to wait for Him to confirm how and when we were to move. This was not easy. We wanted to be busy DOING. We wanted to put on events, fix dates, contact people, and spread the Word.

But God wanted to form us, as a group and as individuals. We needed to learn how divisions and sin can block what God is doing. We had to leam to forgive one another; we had to learn to accept one another's gifts and failings. We had to learn to be real and stop wearing masks. We had to watch as our numbers went from thirteen to seven. At one point we even stopped meeting until God through a third party brought us back together again.

Our meetings, once a ' month to start with and then later on every fortnight, focus around the Blessed Sacrament. We would meet to adore, to pray, sometimes silently, sometimes sharing a word or an intercession aloud. During this time we would beg for God's grace and for his help to listen with our hearts. For many of us these meetings were often like Ezekiel's valley of dry bones. But God is faithful and all the time he was working.

Last September, we had a very successful Parish Mission in Ledbury led by Sister Maria Natella OP. At the end of it our parish priest said that he felt that we should take what we had received to the wider deanery. Sister Maria confirmed that she had been thinking the same during Adoration. These words from our parish priest were like manna from heaven. And so the Hereford Catholic Conference was born. The fruit of so many people praying was suddenly beginning to show. A date was set and this October, exactly two years after our little group first got together, we are holding the first Hereford Catholic Conference. It will run from Friday evening 22nd October until Sunday 24th October and will be a family conference with streams for all the different ages. We have the support and help of lots of people including Steve Murray, who has been to Ledbury before for our Fanning the Flame Youth mission week, also Roy Hendy our very old and good friend from the House of the Open Door community. We also have Father Matthew Jones who was parish priest in Ledbury some years ago. And of course Sister Maria who as well as preaching at the conference is also helping in its formation. We are involving as many local people as we can for the music, the healing team, youth and children's groups as well as for all the other hundreds of things we are discovering one needs to do in order to put on a conference.

We have written to our local bishops, who have all given us their blessing for the conference. Our Archbishop, Peter Smith will be celebrating Mass for us on the Sunday afternoon. We have also had blessings from Cardinal Murphy O'Connor and from the Holy Father. We are really excited about the conference because it is all God's initiative and we know that he will bless it abundantly and we expect great things. At the same time we also having to continually keep our eyes focused on Him and remember that it is His conference, not ours.

Please do pray for the conference and also be encouraged by our testimony. Maybe you have been praying for something to happen in your area and it hasn't yet happened. God is on the move. He wants to renew us and he wants to renew His Church. He has promised us we will do greater things than His Son if we would run the race with Him.

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