Young People & CCR

Forty years on, we can sometimes forget that Catholic Charismatic Renewal (CCR) began among young adults, university students in their early twenties, whose fire and enthusiasm for the Lord played a key role in spreading this wonderful grace of the Holy Spirit. They might not have had a lot of experience in the ways of the Lord or much theological knowledge and formation but their experience of what they had seen the Holy Spirit doing in their lives and in those of their friends gave them the impetus to go out and tell others. CCR is basically not about head knowledge but about a personal experience of the love and the power of the Lord. It is this experience and realisation which gives us the courage to give our whole lives to God and to go out and evangelise.

The Lord is still baptising in the Holy Spirit young people and inspiring them to do great things for him. This summer I was very blessed to meet some of them.

Dominik Tarczynski(28, right) and Robert Rogalski (28, left) are from Poland. They were baptised in the Holy Spirit about four years ago and have set up their own TV station on the internet to preach the Good News. Dominik tells us his story.

Domini & Robert

A friend and I had just come to England to find a job and earn money. We heard that there was this woman called Helena Quinlan who doesn’t eat and only lives on the Eucharist. She was speaking at the all night vigil for Polish people in Harlow, so we decided to go along and see what it was all about. We went because we didn’t have many friends and we thought it would also be a good place to make contacts and find a job. As we came in Helena was finishing her talk and offering to pray for people. She laid hands on them and they started falling down. I’d never seen anything like that before, adults falling on the floor crying and hugging, even strong guys. I wondered if it was some kind of strange sect but then I saw the Blessed Sacrament and a catholic priest so I knew it couldn’t be wrong.

As time passed I got more curious and wondered what is the power that makes people behave like this. I could also see that people were happy and it was essentially something good. At that moment Helena came to me and asked if I wanted her to pray over me. She said, “close your eyes and don’t think about anything, just think of Jesus. This is Jesus in the Blessed sacrament in front of you”. I remembered the little picture of Divine Mercy that I had had as a child and I thought about this. In this moment she put her hand on me. It was a dark room, but I could see light coming from somewhere. Physically I couldn’t stand up because of the love I felt. It was a mystical experience of some kind that I can’t explain, but in that moment, like St Paul, I was converted.

It wasn’t a process thing. Although I did need to change my life I had no real problems and was generally a happy person. I was successful at school, with the girls and jobs and money. I was studying law and planned to go into this as a career. I was a Catholic and I believed in God but this moment changed me. Because of my background I immediately thought I must become a priest. This was a bit of shock for my girlfriend when I rang her up and told her out of the blue. I thought of becoming a Jesuit, but with prayer and discernment I realised you don’t need to be a priest to serve God, and two years ago I got married to my girlfriend. But my life did change. There were three of us who were converted at the same time. Robert had run away from his family and after three years in one moment he was filled with forgiveness for his father. No one even prayed over him. We were so full of joy and enthusiasm for God that we went to Charismatic meetings every night. We went to about five prayer meetings a week. We had jobs on the building site and at noon we would say the Magnificat and the Angelus and the Divine Mercy at 3pm. Every day after our jobs finished we went to Mass and we used to play Christian music loudly in the car.

I have always liked nice suits but now I wore a big crucifix too over them. My family thought I had gone a little crazy and wondered what had happened to me. But it was Jesus who had got me. We started going regularly to the Westminster Cathedral Hall prayer group and stayed there for about two years.

We had a vision to evangelise but we didn’t know how to do it or what to do. First we thought we would go to Africa and tell people there, but then we decided we would go back to Poland to tell people that Christ is alive. So we left everything here and went back to do that. But it was not a success and in fact a very painful experience. Everyone just thought we were crazy. We realised we had to come back to London, only now we didn’t have a house anymore. We went to stay with a friend. But his home is always full because he can’t say no to people in need, so it was a quite a crush.

But it was amazing how God provided. We had been very impressed by Helena and her story and the gifts God had given her. We wanted to record it on camera for others because otherwise they wouldn’t believe it. So we prayed for the money to buy a camera. We collected money from among our friends and we got £3000. But we were still short and emptied our pockets and someone went to the cashpoint. There we found that someone had dropped £20 and we realised now we had enough money. When we got to the shop, however, the man there dropped the price by £700!

I had started to work in internet radio. A guy had set up a secular station to reach the Polish people in London and offered me a 3 hour slot to do any programme I wanted. I chose to do Christian music and chat and he didn’t mind as he knew Polish people are religious. This made me realise, however, how through the internet you can reach thousands of people on line. So I thought as we had a camera why not do catholic TV on line.

We started meeting people from round the world who were telling us about their catholic traditions from their countries and I thought I want to show people what is happening round the world, that the Catholic Church is big. We want to be an alternative. We believe that God is present in this work. We have a web site. Our first report was from Walsingham from New Dawn 2007. It was great. God helped us with everything. Everything we asked God for He has provided in one way or another, although Robert’s wife wasn’t thrilled when she found Robert had used the money he got from the bank for a mortgage to buy a broadcast camera! But everything is sorted now and he has the mortgage too! We are so happy because we are doing what we feel called to do, to use the media to spread the news about the kingdom of God. We hope one day this will be our main job and Robert can give up the plumbing! We have just returned from filming a 3 days Conference with Myles Dempsey and Fr John Bashibora at the Divine Mercy Basilica, Krakow with 4000 people and we plan to go to Uganda in January and Brazil in March to report on what’s happening. Life is so exciting!

For more details contact them on 0770 2872720

Marie Acheampong, 28, comes from a Ghanian background but has grown up in the UK and works as an RE teacher at St Joseph’s College in South London. A regular at the New Dawn summer conference for over 15 years, this year she brought with her a party of 54 people, including 40 pupils plus teachers from her school, for the first time ever. She tells something of her story.

Marie I first came to Walsingham and New Dawn when I was twelve years old. I was persuaded to come by my auntie Juliet who is an amazing christian. My cousins had been coming a few times and because they were young too I agreed to go. I was quite a rebel. My mum had died a few years before and I was always getting into trouble and getting suspended from school. I felt very different from my brother and sister who were always well behaved and did well at school. I’d also been abused as a child and
felt rejected.

At the same time I also was very aware of God. even when I was very young. My mum if she wanted to get me to do something wouldn’t give me sweets but holy pictures of Our Lady. I always had a close relationship with Mary. My mum

taught me to say the rosary before she died and I have continued this throughout my life. Because I was so naughty at school however I was sent to the Ursuline convent, a boarding school, to rectify my behaviour. The nuns here were very good to me and I owe everything to them. I was contradiction. On the one hand I was a rebel but I also loved God and Our Lady. At the school I set up a rosary group and about 25 of us kids would come and pray the rosary each morning at 7.30 am. The nuns couldn’t believe it and would spy on us to check what we were up to.

Dad always wanted us to achieve and be doctors or pharmacists and made me do science subjects which I hated and was no good at. I didn’t do very well at my GCSEs and only got 3 passes. I even fell asleep in my RE exam and only answered one section because I had been up late and naughty the night before. Despite this, Sr Catherine, the deputy head, who had always supported me in my faith, and the head, allowed me to do my A levels. This was the start of my life and I got two A levels in theology and English.

I then went to study theology and history in the Midlands. I couldn’t relate to the life there and the way people behaved, however, especially the promiscuity and after three months I left. Another of the nuns, Sr Kathleen, whom i was close to, asked me to work in a primary school which I did for the rest of the year. It was doing this that made me realise that this was something I enjoyed and could do. I remember when I was 21 crying in my car feeling I had had enough and I remember a voice saying distinctly, “bring my children back to me” This all made sense when I became a teacher and although I still struggled with my studies I finally graduated from Digby Stuart College in Roehampton and started work as an RE teacher.

It is amazing. I always thought I was a failure but in teaching I discovered where my gifts lie. I have found that I am a magnet for young people. At first when I started I thought it was just because I was young like them, but now I have realised it is a gift that God has given me, it is my vocation. It has taken me 28 years to realise who I am and who God has called me to be.

It’s all been a journey. Even three years ago I was suicidal. My life wasn’t good because I was focussing on the bad things in my life, the rejection I have had and kept comparing myself to my brother and sister. Now I can appreciate everything about me. I am now a woman who is nearly 30. I looked in the mirror of my car the other day and I was suddenly struck. “Who is this woman?” I thought. “She is beautiful”. Then I realised it was me. I realised I have to let go of my past, the disappointments and the hurts. I don’t care anymore what anyone thinks about me. I just care what God thinks about me and I refuse to hate people anymore.

In the past I have done a lot of hating people and holding grudges and I was fearful of certain people in my life. I talk to the boys at the school every day about God and I realise I have to practice what I preach to them. Because of some of my past experiences I can identify with them and they can with me. In the same way God has put people in my life to help me, so he has put me in their lives to help them. Some of them have difficult family lives. I like to think I am planting seeds in their hearts and whatever happens, whether I am their teacher or not I will always be there to help them. I love them and they know I love them, which is why they are always around me. People believe that you have to be funky to bring young people on. But you just have to be yourself and to love them because everyone needs love. Because of all I’d received at New Dawn it was my dream to bring some of the kids here. I tried last year but there were too many obstacles. This year, however, every door seemed to open. Although the kids are learning things in RE I wanted them to experience the power of the Holy Spirit and Christian community. RE lessons aren’t enough for this. I expected only about 12 people to sign up but I got 40 boys, plus a waiting list and I had to hire a coach. Some of the staff were shocked at certain names on the list as they are ones who are always in trouble. One boy was being expelled but I got a call from him begging to come. This week at Walsingham has been a really great experience for them all. If the teachers back at school could see how the boys are behaving here they wouldn’t believe it. The people in the youth hostel haven’t stopped praising them and the coach drivers too. We really haven’t had any problems. These boys have a big influence in the school and if they get converted it will have a huge effect.

Dominick (15) and Edward (15) from South London.

We weren’t sure what it would be like here (at New Dawn). It is very different from where we come from because it is very quiet. We are getting used to it now and it’s going to be weird to go back to our environment. Here people are very friendly and you are free here. You can walk where you want without someone trying to mess with you. Back in London if you are going somewhere out of your estate you have to think all the time about whom you are going with and how you are going to get there. It is always a hassle to go anywhere. Here you can go where you want. We enjoyed Fr Stan and the healing thing and the Ugandan music. It was deep too the way everyone got into it. A lot of us hadn’t seen anything like it before. I felt the presence of God and something has happened, but I don’t know what it means for my life.

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Dominik Tarczynski(28, right) and Robert Rogalski (28, left) are from Poland. They were baptised in the Holy Spirit about four years ago and have set up their own TV station on the internet to preach the Good News. Dominik tells us his story. A friend and I had just come to England to find a job and earn money. We heard that there was this woman called Helena Quinlan who doesn’t eat and only lives on the Eucharist. She was speaking at the all night vigil for Polish people in Harlow, so we decided to go along and see what it was all about. We went because we didn’t have many friends and we thought it would also be a good place to make contacts and find a job. As we came in Helena was finishing her talk and offering to pray for people. She laid hands on them and they started falling down. I’d never seen anything like that before, adults falling on the floor crying and hugging, even strong guys. I wondered if it was some kind of strange sect but then I saw the Blessed Sacrament and a catholic priest so I knew it couldn’t be wrong. As time passed I got more curious and wondered what is the power that makes people behave like this. I could also see that people were happy and it was essentially something good. At that moment Helena came to me and asked if I wanted her to pray over me. She said, “close your eyes and don’t think about anything, just think of Jesus. This is Jesus in the Blessed sacrament in front of you”. I remembered the little picture of Divine Mercy that I had had as a child and I thought about this. In this moment she put her hand on me. It was a dark room, but I could see light coming from somewhere. Physically I couldn’t stand up because of the love I felt. It was a mystical experience of some kind that I can’t explain, but in that moment, like St Paul, I was converted. It wasn’t a process thing. Although I did need to change my life I had no real problems and was generally a happy person. I was successful at school, with the girls and jobs and money. I was studying law and planned to go into this as a career. I was a Catholic and I believed in God but this moment changed me. Because of my background I immediately thought I must become a priest. This was a bit of shock for my girlfriend when I rang her up and told her out of the blue. I thought of becoming a Jesuit, but with prayer and discernment I realised you don’t need to be a priest to serve God, and two years ago I got married to my girlfriend. But my life did change. There were three of us who were converted at the same time. Robert had run away from his family and after three years in one moment he was filled with forgiveness for his father. No one even prayed over him. We were so full of joy and enthusiasm for God that we went to Charismatic meetings every night. We went to about five prayer meetings a week. We had jobs on the building site and at noon we would say the Magnificat and the Angelus and the Divine Mercy at 3pm. Every day after our jobs finished we went to Mass and we used to play Christian music loudly in the car. I have always liked nice suits but now I wore a big crucifix too over them. My family thought I had gone a little crazy and wondered what had happened to me. But it was Jesus who had got me. We started going regularly to the Westminster Cathedral Hall prayer group and stayed there for about two years. We had a vision to evangelise but we didn’t know how to do it or what to do. First we thought we would go to Africa and tell people there, but then we decided we would go back to Poland to tell people that Christ is alive. So we left everything here and went back to do that. But it was not a success and in fact a very painful experience. Everyone just thought we were crazy. We realised we had to come back to London, only now we didn’t have a house anymore. We went to stay with a friend. But his home is always full because he can’t say no to people in need, so it was a quite a crush. But it was amazing how God provided. We had been very impressed by Helena and her story and the gifts God had given her. We wanted to record it on camera for others because otherwise they wouldn’t believe it. So we prayed for the money to buy a camera. We collected money from among our friends and we got £3000. But we were still short and emptied our pockets and someone went to the cashpoint. There we found that someone had dropped £20 and we realised now we had enough money. When we got to the shop, however, the man there dropped the price by £700! I had started to work in internet radio. A guy had set up a secular station to reach the Polish people in London and offered me a 3 hour slot to do any programme I wanted. I chose to do Christian music and chat and he didn’t mind as he knew Polish people are religious. This made me realise, however, how through the internet you can reach thousands of people on line. So I thought as we had a camera why not do catholic TV on line. We started meeting people from round the world who were telling us about their catholic traditions from their countries and I thought I want to show people what is happening round the world, that the Catholic Church is big. We want to be an alternative. We believe that God is present in this work. We have a web site. Our first report was from Walsingham from New Dawn 2007. It was great. God helped us with everything. Everything we asked God for He has provided in one way or another, although Robert’s wife wasn’t thrilled when she found Robert had used the money he got from the bank for a mortgage to buy a broadcast camera! But everything is sorted now and he has the mortgage too! We are so happy because we are doing what we feel called to do, to use the media to spread the news about the kingdom of God. We hope one day this will be our main job and Robert can give up the plumbing! We have just returned from filming a 3 days Conference with Myles Dempsey and Fr John Bashibora at the Divine Mercy Basilica, Krakow with 4000 people and we plan to go to Uganda in January and Brazil in March to report on what’s happening. Life is so exciting! For more details contact them on 0770 2872720 Marie Acheampong, 28, comes from a Ghanian background but has grown up in the UK and works as an RE teacher at St Joseph’s College in South London. A regular at the New Dawn summer conference for over 15 years, this year she brought with her a party of 54 people, including 40 pupils plus teachers from her school, for the first time ever. She tells something of her story. I first came to Walsingham and New Dawn when I was twelve years old. I was persuaded to come by my auntie Juliet who is an amazing christian. My cousins had been coming a few times and because they were young too I agreed to go. I was quite a rebel. My mum had died a few years before and I was always getting into trouble and getting suspended from school. I felt very different from my brother and sister who were always well behaved and did well at school. I’d also been abused as a child and felt rejected. At the same time I also was very aware of God. even when I was very young. My mum if she wanted to get me to do something wouldn’t give me sweets but holy pictures of Our Lady. I always had a close relationship with Mary. My mum taught me to say the rosary before she died and I have continued this throughout my life. Because I was so naughty at school however I was sent to the Ursuline convent, a boarding school, to rectify my behaviour. The nuns here were very good to me and I owe everything to them. I was contradiction. On the one hand I was a rebel but I also loved God and Our Lady. At the school I set up a rosary group and about 25 of us kids would come and pray the rosary each morning at 7.30 am. The nuns couldn’t believe it and would spy on us to check what we were up to. Dad always wanted us to achieve and be doctors or pharmacists and made me do science subjects which I hated and was no good at. I didn’t do very well at my GCSEs and only got 3 passes. I even fell asleep in my RE exam and only answered one section because I had been up late and naughty the night before. Despite this, Sr Catherine, the deputy head, who had always supported me in my faith, and the head, allowed me to do my A levels. This was the start of my life and I got two A levels in theology and English. I then went to study theology and history in the Midlands. I couldn’t relate to the life there and the way people behaved, however, especially the promiscuity and after three months I left. Another of the nuns, Sr Kathleen, whom i was close to, asked me to work in a primary school which I did for the rest of the year. It was doing this that made me realise that this was something I enjoyed and could do. I remember when I was 21 crying in my car feeling I had had enough and I remember a voice saying distinctly, “bring my children back to me” This all made sense when I became a teacher and although I still struggled with my studies I finally graduated from Digby Stuart College in Roehampton and started work as an RE teacher. It is amazing. I always thought I was a failure but in teaching I discovered where my gifts lie. I have found that I am a magnet for young people. At first when I started I thought it was just because I was young like them, but now I have realised it is a gift that God has given me, it is my vocation. It has taken me 28 years to realise who I am and who God has called me to be. It’s all been a journey. Even three years ago I was suicidal. My life wasn’t good because I was focussing on the bad things in my life, the rejection I have had and kept comparing myself to my brother and sister. Now I can appreciate everything about me. I am now a woman who is nearly 30. I looked in the mirror of my car the other day and I was suddenly struck. “Who is this woman?” I thought. “She is beautiful”. Then I realised it was me. I realised I have to let go of my past, the disappointments and the hurts. I don’t care anymore what anyone thinks about me. I just care what God thinks about me and I refuse to hate people anymore. In the past I have done a lot of hating people and holding grudges and I was fearful of certain people in my life. I talk to the boys at the school every day about God and I realise I have to practice what I preach to them. Because of some of my past experiences I can identify with them and they can with me. In the same way God has put people in my life to help me, so he has put me in their lives to help them. Some of them have difficult family lives. I like to think I am planting seeds in their hearts and whatever happens, whether I am their teacher or not I will always be there to help them. I love them and they know I love them, which is why they are always around me. People believe that you have to be funky to bring young people on. But you just have to be yourself and to love them because everyone needs love. Because of all I’d received at New Dawn it was my dream to bring some of the kids here. I tried last year but there were too many obstacles. This year, however, every door seemed to open. Although the kids are learning things in RE I wanted them to experience the power of the Holy Spirit and Christian community. RE lessons aren’t enough for this. I expected only about 12 people to sign up but I got 40 boys, plus a waiting list and I had to hire a coach. Some of the staff were shocked at certain names on the list as they are ones who are always in trouble. One boy was being expelled but I got a call from him begging to come. This week at Walsingham has been a really great experience for them all. If the teachers back at school could see how the boys are behaving here they wouldn’t believe it. The people in the youth hostel haven’t stopped praising them and the coach drivers too. We really haven’t had any problems. These boys have a big influence in the school and if they get converted it will have a huge effect. Dominick (15) and Edward (15) from South London. We weren’t sure what it would be like here (at New Dawn). It is very different from where we come from because it is very quiet. We are getting used to it now and it’s going to be weird to go back to our environment. Here people are very friendly and you are free here. You can walk where you want without someone trying to mess with you. Back in London if you are going somewhere out of your estate you have to think all the time about whom you are going with and how you are going to get there. It is always a hassle to go anywhere. Here you can go where you want. We enjoyed Fr Stan and the healing thing and the Ugandan music. It was deep too the way everyone got into it. A lot of us hadn’t seen anything like it before. I felt the presence of God and something has happened, but I don’t know what it means for my life. << Top Home >>