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News from Ireland
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IRISH NATIONAL CONFERENCE “That they all may be One”
About 750 people crammed the church of the Holy Spirit on the Ballymun estate in Dublin for a healing service at the beginning of December last year.This was something of a miracle in itself as the Sunday Mass attendance is about 1.5% of 20,000 Catholics. The service was part of an outreach of a Charism School weekend, organised by Rob Clarke from Kerygma Teams in Ireland. This was led by Damian Staynes and the Cor et Lumen Christi community from England. About 100 people had attended the school. Each charism school has a healing outreach service where those who have been trained are given the opportunity to put what they have learnt into practice. The inspiration to come to Ballymun came from Tomas Jenkins, who is a lay missionary and has lived on the estate with his family for 17 years. Seven years ago when he was feeling particularly down about the fruits of his work, he had a vision of the wind blowing, and he felt the Lord promising him that he would bring the power of the Holy Spirit to Ballymun in a special way. Tomas was convinced that Damian was the man the Lord had promised and he persuaded him to come to the estate for the healing outreach. Only a third of those attending the healing service had any experience of Charismatic Renewal, and 200 people hadn’t been in church for a long time. As a result of the outreach there were about 40 physical healings, including a 12 year old girl, who had a damaged eye which was healed, and someone who had suffered chronic arthritis for 18 years. About 50-60 also gave their lives to Christ in a renewed commitment of their faith. A TV company, which happened to be at the church, filmed the proceedings. The priests in the parish were delighted with the turnout. Tomas is now hoping to do the Alpha course as a follow up to the event. Please pray for this wonderful work.
About 120 leaders involved in the new evangelisation in Ireland met together at the beautifully situated Hodson Bay Hotel outside Athlone from 27th-29th January for the second TINE (“Fire”) conference. The meeting, which was an opportunity to network and be encouraged, was the inspiration of Fr Pat Lynch from the Ceili Community in Buncrana, Co Donegal.The range of those participating was a sign of the breadth of the work of the Holy Spirit and an encouraging sign of the unity of purpose that evangelisation can bring between those of quite different spiritualities and backgrounds. The participants included representatives from Alpha Ireland, An Tobar Nua, an ecumenical outreach in Galway, Catholic Faith Exploration, Ceili Community, Community of Nazareth, Families Aflame, Irish Christians Online, Irish School of Evangelisation, Kergyma Teams, Koinonia John the Baptist, Mount Carmel House of Prayer, Our Lady’s School of Evangelisation, Knock Youth Ministry, Pure in Heart, Regnum Christi (the lay association linked to the Legionaries of Christ) Scripture Union, Focolare, Legion of Mary as well as several Charismatic prayer groups and the members of the Derry diocesan service team for Charismatic Renewal. Fr Neal Carlin who is known for his reconciliation work in the north was also there and Fr Pat Collins CM.
Our Lady’s School of Evangelisation, which
we mentioned in last month’s issue, is moving into their new home
in Knock this April. The owner has been so supportive of the project
that she is allowing them to rent the property while they raise the
full amount of the money needed to buy it. The supporters of the school
have already raised €125,000 of the €1million needed to buy
the property and get the school going, after only a few months fund
raising. The trustees have appointed a director, Albert Galea from Malta
who has 20 years experience of running schools of evangelisation and
Patti Fitzgerald, director of Youth Arise from the USA, who’s in
Ireland on sabbatical. The school will be holding an open day the first
week of April for those who would like to hear more about the project
or potential students. Two lecturers who have already been contacted
and asked to come are Christopher West, an expert on the Theology of
the Body and Ralph Martin. The school will begin this autumn.
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The
National Catholic Charismatic Renewal Conference will take place this
year for the second time in Athlone Institute of Technology from 23rd-25th
June 2006. One of the main conclusions to be drawn from the Newman Consultation
last year was the priority for the Charismatic Renewal of focussing
on Christian Unity. The theme is “That they all may be one”
and 
the
speakers have thus been deliberately chosen to reflect this, drawing
on the wisdom of other Christian denominations. They include the Northern
Irish House Church leader now based in Romford, Rev David Matthews,
Presbyterian minister, also from Northern Ireland, Rev Ruth Patterson
and Fr Jack McArdle, the popular retreat giver and author. Marie Beirne,
the
chairwoman of the Irish NSC comments, “We have not asked them to
speak specifically on unity but to tell us what they feel the Holy Spirit
is saying to us in Ireland at the moment and what it means to be a disciple
of Jesus today.” For further details and booking forms contact
either Marie Beirne on 00353 71 9624404 or the NSC office in Dublin
and leave a message 00 3531 6670570.
The
theme of the talks was Celtic Christianity and its influences. Mgr Pat
Lynch spoke about St Patrick and showed how effective Patrick’s
strategy, guided by the Holy Spirit, had been for reaching Ireland at
the time. The other speaker, Dr Karl Renner from Germany, is an expert
on Celtic influences on the continent. He showed how important the Irish
missionary monks had been in contributing to European civilisation and
culture. Literally thousands of them had gone over the centuries. At
a time when things are difficult for the Church in Ireland, these talks
had a huge energising effect making participants more aware of their
glorious heritage and have hope for the future. This together with the
conversations over meal times about all the various activities that
people were involved in created a real sense of zeal and renewed fire.
There were also four tracks of workshops looking at youth evangelisation,
the family, adult formation and the parish and spiritual growth. The
conference ended with a concelebrated Mass led by the papal nuncio Archbishop
Giuseppe Lazarotto, who gave an inspiring address.