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I feel the Lord is saying two things which are
linked. What I think is happening at the moment is that we are
going through a time of change and we are going to have a different
type of leadership in the future, who will not be big names. The
Lord is raising up good leaders but they won’t be household
names any more. They will be people not known outside their own
areas. There is going to be a levelling of leadership with more
humble approachable people.
I think
there is a tension at the moment between structure/organisation
and relationship. The key is relationship between individuals,
not structures or big organisations and ministries, big financial
things, big events and conferences. The Lord is calling us to
resist over-organising things and instead build relationship.
Charles
Whitehead, England
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At
the end of every year I pray and ask the Lord for a word indicating
what to expect during the following twelve months. The word I
received this year was “Behold, I make all things new.”
As I prayed further I felt the Lord was saying that he is about
to do something mighty which will be a clear sign of a new creation
but that, in the earlier stages of the year, we would experience
a period of lamentation, during which there would be a collapse
of structures and general insecurity worldwide. Arising out of
this there would be a readiness for reconciliation and an eagerness
to work for the reclamation of discarded values. In the Church
we would see many prodigal sons returning. There would be some
signs indicating a new beginning following a direct intervention
from the Lord whereby we would see how God is acting to “make
all things new”. We must not be fearful, but confident in
the Lord, and ready to encourage one another to rest secure
in him.
A
true prophetic word always gives hope to people who hear
it. We have to guard against prophets of doom or those who would
manipulate the word for their own purposes. “If we have died
with him, then we shall live with him. If we hold firm, then we
shall reign with him.” (2.Tim. 1:11)
Myles
Dempsey, England
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Inspired by Ephesians 1:13,14 and the promise
of the Holy Spirit , I believe the Lord is asking us to pray and
use the Gifts of the Holy Spirit to `renew` God`s action (the
Holy Spirit) in everyone in a personal way and to support small
house or cell groups in forming Spiritual Communities which will
serve the larger Church Community in love & giftedness.
I believe we need to receive, accept and share Jesus`s love with
our separated Christian sisters and brothers - see John 13: 34-35.
Tom Mullen, Scotland
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Since 40 years is a very significant number
biblically, I believe the Holy Spirit wants to mark the anniversary
of CCR in a very significant way. Could it be that through the
personal renewal of each of us involved the Holy Spirit intends
to renew as it were the Charismatic Renewal itself?
Sr Elizabeth Tuttle, England
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“I am the Lord your God the holy one. My people,
do not compromise with sin. If there is mortal sin in your life,
do not deny or excuse it. Repent, receive my forgiveness, avoid
the first stirrings of temptation and believe that I will deliver
you from the web of evil that holds you captive. If there is venial
sin in your life, do not tolerate it. Be aware that secret and
un-repented sin in the lives of those who believe in me is the
greatest single obstacle to the work of my Spirit.
I want you to be holy, I want you to turn away
from the ways of the world. Be assured that I will not only enlighten
your heart to know your sins but I will enable you to turn away
from them by a great and liberating outpouring of my grace. Be
holy as I am holy. There is no substitute for this holiness. There
is no plan, effort or activity, no matter how well intentioned,
which will accomplish my purposes if you are not holy like Me.
When your heart is cleansed, my Spirit will pray ardently within
you, it will guide you in ways you have not known, it will empower
and protect you from the deceptions of the evil one. It will fill
you with my joy.
I weep for the world and my Church. There are many,
who because of their great and repeated sins, are travelling the
wide road that leads to perdition. Call them to repentance, before
it is too late, so that they may come back to me. I promise you
that many of them will heed your words when they see my holiness
shining forth in your lives. My people, the time of breach-mending
is at hand. I will enable you to re-build the walls of Jerusalem.
I am about to accomplish a great work of restoration”
Fr Pat Collins CM, Ireland
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I sense:
- A call to leaders – protect your hearts
and keep them pure to deal and not cover over sin either in their
own lives or collude with it in the lives of other leaders.
- A call to enter more deeply into the anticipation of the Second
Coming of the Lord and into the mystery of Israel
- A renewed call to the return to the Upper
Room in its fullness. It is only the beginning and we have only
just begun to unpack what this means.
Kim Kollins, Germany
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For me as a Catholic, Christian Unity is something
that the Holy Spirit seems to have been emphasising in my life
over the last two years. It has come up in my prayer life and
I have received various scriptures about it. It also has come
up in conversations at university, with friends of my own age
and others who are not Christians. They ask me “Why is there
this divide?” It is a particularly strong issue at the moment
on campuses in the debates about the Christian Union. I also have
been strongly influenced by the teaching of Fr Peter Hocken about
the eschatological importance of unity and was struck by his words,
“Jesus is coming for a Bride, not a Hareem.” It seems
the Holy Spirit is using all kinds of means to bring this to our
attention and as a leader of the Joel’s Bar stream at Celebrate,
the other leaders and I, are looking at what it might mean to
act on this leading of the Holy Spirit and put it into practice.
Sarah Goldsmith, England
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I feel that the emphasis today should be on the
fruits of the Holy Spirit rather than the gifts of the Holy Spirit.
The gifts are for getting the job done, but the fruits are the
job. The fruits are what opens for us the gates of paradise. What
give us life in abundance, the life that Christ promised. There
is nothing better that anyone could give us than the fruits of
peace, joy, love, amiability, fidelity, generosity, self-control.
It is what makes our lives worth living. It is what the whole
of Christianity is all about. That is why the focus should be
on the fruits of the spirit rather than the gifts.
Fr Tom Forrest CSSR, USA
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While
praying for the CCR, I got this word, Acts 2: 7-11 – “And
they were amazed and wondered, saying, “Are not all these
who are speaking Galileans? And how is it that we hear, each of
us in his own native language?...” The insight that came
to me was that the CCR in London should lead the multi-cultural
community of the country to praise and worship the Lord together
with one heart and soul. I am praying for a mighty anointing of
the Holy Spirit on the members of the Charismatic Movement in
London and for all blessings to strengthen the renewal and take
it to greater heights.
Fr
Augustine Vallooran, India
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“One day in my prayer the Lord told me I needed
to open the main door to heaven. When I asked what it was. He
said that prayer opens small doors and windows into heaven, but
there is a big door, which can fill us with overwhelming joy and
blessings. But you have to get a key for that door… and if
you have got that key you will get access to everything in heaven.
When I asked him what that key is, He said, “Holiness…
I am holy.. if you want to get closer to me, you need to be holy.”
I feel the Lord has asked me to help Him create a wave of holiness
thinking in the CCR. We have produced many successful preachers
in 40 years of CCR but how many saints?
Joseph Dasan, England
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Surrender to Me. Give Me your preconceived ideas
about other denominations and cultures and how people live. Surrender
your pride, your need to be right, your jealousy, your broken
dreams, your mistakes, your family, your future. Draw close to
Me and seek My ways. Stay little in My hands and I will move through
you, I will love through you, forgive through you, heal through
you and bring others to Life through you. Surrender and keep your
heart open and your eyes on Me. I love you.
Linda Schubert, USA
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At this moment I feel the Holy Spirit is prompting
the CCR to become more aware that the Second Coming of Jesus may
very well happen fairly soon and that we should as far as possible,
prepare for it by evangelising. We should also be alert to remain
fully Catholic, aware of the healing power of Jesus in the Eucharist,
and yet fully open to what the Holy Spirit is doing within the
Charismatic Renewal in the other churches and in the wider world.
Dom Benedict Heron OSB, England
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I had a dream in which I saw a huge
field of wheat. In the corner I saw a cute little mouse. Then
as I looked the mouse began to eat the wheat until the whole field
was almost all gone. I asked what can I do? I felt the Lord say,
“it is going to come to pass, but pray and fast”.
Kate Moir, England
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That which we need above all in this moment of
history are men who, by means of an illumined and lived faith,
render God credible in this world. The negative testimony of Christians
who spoke of God and lived against him has obscured the image
of God and has opened the gates to unbelief. Only when men and
women allow themselves to be touched by God will the world be
changed….
My real programme of governance is not do my own
will, not to pursue my own ideas, but to listen, together with
the whole Church, to the word and the will of the Lord, to be
guided by him, so that He himself will lead the Church at this
hour of our history....”
Perhaps the time has come to say farewell to the
idea of traditionally Catholic cultures. Maybe we are facing a
new and different kind of epoch in the Church’s history,
where Christianity will again be characterised more by the mustard
seed, where it will exist in small seemingly insignificant groups
that nonetheless live an intense struggle against evil and bring
good into the world……The Church of the first three centuries
was a small church and nevertheless was not a sectarian community.
On the contrary, she was not partitioned off; rather she saw herself
as responsible for the poor, for the sick, for everyone. All those
who sought a faith in one God, who sought a promise, found their
place in her.” Pope Benedict XVI
Remember my words, “As the Father has loved
me, so I have loved you; abide in my love” (Jn 15:9). Do
you really love one another when you assemble in My Name? Your
lack of love and forgiveness is scuttling my plans for renewing
the face of the earth. Strive towards rooting out the weeds of
division, mistrust, hostility and accusation and bring healing
to My Body. Build my Kingdom on forgiving love, humility and mutual
respect! I love unity and will bless your efforts towards attaining
it. Be united, stand together, be of one heart and one mind and
I will pour out my Spirit afresh on you. I exhort you, my dear
children, become instruments of love, forgiveness and unity, thus
says the Lord.
Cyril John, India
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I believe
this is a time for sharpening up. Time to throw off the sloppy
ways, and for the fear of the Lord to be in the church and in
the land again. (Ps. 19.9 the fear of the Lord is clean)
(Heb.12..let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin
that so easily entangles)
( Is.41:15. See, I will make you into a threshing sledge, new
and sharp)
Godfrey
Birtill, England
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The words of Gregory of Nazianzen came to me, “How long
are we going to keep our light hidden under a bushel? Now is the
time to set the light on the lamp stand so that it can give light
to the whole Church , to souls and to the whole world.”
I feel our light has grown dim and it needs to be dusted down
and washed clean before it can be put on the lamp stand. Before
any great outpouring of the Holy Spirit there has to be repentance,
and I believe the Lord is calling us back to him in a spirit of
repentance. To give everything He has given us back to Him. To
let go completely. To repent for the mess we have often made of
things. To admit we don’t know what the way forward is, and
to ask Him to lead us and to show us what to do. We need to go
back to prayer. We need to cry out for the Lord to send His Holy
Spirit again.
Marie Beirne, Ireland
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Because of the decrease of
the Christian faith in the Western World I believe the Holy Spirit
is calling individual Christians and Christian communities to
give themselves more completely to God in prayer and to stand
before him in intercession on behalf of the whole world. When
Mother Teresa was asked what would convert America and save the
world she said, “Prayer! Each parish should pray and adore
Jesus in the Holy Eucharist for hours and hours”. This is
what Mary called for at Fatima and Medjugorje, when she promised
that prayer can stop wars.
Human disasters, like the Tsunami
at Christmas 2004, are not to punish us, but are holy shocks so
that our nations will wake up to what they are doing. That is
why we must fast and pray, because I believe part of our mission
as the CCR is to pray for the others and to ask for grace and
forgiveness for the people of our world so that many will be saved.
I also believe the Lord is
calling us to continuous prayer of the heart, which the monks
in the Eastern Church practice. This is a gift we need to pray
for and ask the Lord to grant us. Through this we will be able
to remain constantly aware of being in God’s presence whatever
we are doing, and be able to be guided by him in all our actions.
He is also calling us as Christians to be reconciled with one
another and have unity so that our evangelisation may be effective
Urban Camenzind, Switzerland |
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Ten
years ago at the 30th anniversary celebrations of the CCR in Pittsburg,
I was given a prophetic word, which has stayed with me ever since
and has affected my whole life and ministry and is as strong today.
I feel deeply in my heart that the Lord is calling the Catholic
Charismatic Renewal to real spiritual unity. This means loving
what the Lord is doing with the other people and rejoicing that
he is using them. St Paul tells us this in Corinthians when he
underlines that we are all part of one body and we need each other.
The Lord promised that if we in the CCR would do this He would
send a new outpouring of the Holy Spirit even more powerful than
what happened in 1967. This unity is still very far off but it
is what Jesus asked of us so we must constantly struggle for it
in whatever way we can and pray that that the Lord will grant
it to us.
Oreste
Pesare, Italy
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What is the Spirit saying? What comes
to my mind are the lyrics, ‘there must be more than this,
fill us anew we pray’. There is a fear in me that I’m
not living all that God has for me to live, that I’ve missed
it, but I know it’s because I need to be seeking the Spirit
more. I believe that the Spirit is preparing the ground, in parishes,
and in all denominations. Fill us anew we pray. I think God is
doing a new thing, and it’s starting with real relationships
at grass roots level with each other and with members of other
churches. Choosing to build God’s kingdom with freeing relationships
letting love cover the wrongs/ hurts, the differences, the past
and it is in this coming together and praying that revival will
come. God is saying, ‘you must all be one, the time of waiting
is not over’, but we mustn’t lose hope. We also need
to keep asking ourselves ‘what is the Spirit saying?’
Marianna Miller, England
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I think that the Holy Spirit is stressing
the importance of being grounded in Jesus Christ and knowing him
personally. What He is doing in the CCR is, rather than increasing
the numbers, deepening people’s relationship with Jesus Christ.
I believe that the Spirit is drawing people ever closer to himself
and leading them to follow Him in thought, word and deed and for
everything that is going on in their lives. This will be different
for different people. All this is to equip us to be better witnesses
in the future for the kingdom of God.
Tom O'Dwyer, Ireland
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“ For me what the Spirit is saying is revealed
in Scripture and mirrored in the teaching of Vatican II”.
This was encapsulated by John XXIII in his opening speech to the
council, when he said: “Divine Providence has provided us
with a new order of human relationships”.
Then Pope Paul VI speaking about the scriptural
vision of Vatican II said this “All this has been planned
to develop among the faithful a greater hunger for the Word of
God. Under the guidance of the Holy Spirit, this word leads the
people of the New Covenant to the perfect unity of the Church”.
This doesn’t mean everybody becoming a Catholic, but that
all humanity achieve their divine potential and enjoy the experience
of living in peace and harmony. So, as I look to the future, I
am filled with confidence and peace for I see that God will still
be at work. I see God calling each generation to enjoy the wonder
of a human society enjoying the fruits of racial and religious
reconciliation. Glory to God
Archie Cameron, England
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I have been getting similar pictures and words
over the last year or so. It started with pictures of cities that
were in a state of destruction. I and my companions, some of whom
I knew, were able to travel through these cities without being
harmed, and I felt the Lord was saying to the people of CCR to
not be afraid but to go into situations that might seem very hostile
and the Lord will protect them.
The second picture is of our own city of Aberdeen
being changed by the Lord and that the churches are going to be
filled to the full and that there will be a great Catholic Christian
Revival that will cause people to return to the Church in their
hundreds if not thousands. And we are already beginning to see
the first signs of this in our own situation.
Jamus Smith, Scotland
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In our experience something changed in the spiritual
atmosphere about 3 years ago. It was as though there was all of
a sudden more grace among people to respond to God and a huge
shift in the miraculous. It wasn’t like the other graces
we have seen for revival coming out of a particular place or ministry
or person, like Toronto or John Wimber in the past. It was simply
that the atmosphere now is just not the same as it was. People
now seem ripe to respond to God in a way they were not before.
However I believe there are two things the Lord is looking for
from us if we are to know his miraculous anointing in this new
season. The first is a new humility. “Before the glory first
must come humility” (Proverbs 18.12) And secondly faith.
We must cry out for faith for the miraculous (not just in healing)
that all might be done in his strength and power. We are entering
a new phase in which more will be demanded and far more will be
given by the Lord.
Damian Stayne, England
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