The Catholic Charismatic Renewal over the last 40 years has been a sovereign work of the Holy Spirit bringing many people alive in their faith in a new way. In some countries, strong structures and communities developed to carry this grace, but in England, the Lord has used certain individuals, who by their witness and openness to the Holy Spirit, have acted as catalysts for the Lord’s plans. One such man is Irishman, Myles Dempsey, the visionary for the annual New Dawn conference, and a pioneer of the CCR from its earliest days.

Myles was born in a small village in Co Kildare on 1st May 1928. Not feeling called to the farming life and wanting adventure he entered the Irish army very young, the rumour was under-age! Here he was a physical training instructor for 8 years. This concern for physical fitness has continued throughout his life and at the community house in Beckenham years later, when he was well into his 60’s, he would be found lifting weights with the young men. Like many young Irishmen, when he left the army in his 20s, he planned to go to America, but en route, he went to Birmingham where he became involved with the Catholic Evidence Guild. Here he fell in love with Joan, a local girl, who was also in the Guild. Joan explains, “I couldn’t leave England because I was nursing my sick mother so Myles stayed too.”

An enthusiastic street preacher

Initially she didn’t much care for the enthusiastic Irish country lad, but they spent a lot of time together and with their shared faith, they grew closer, and eventually they married and had three children, Ronnie, Patrick and Paul. Myles found work in the building trade on the management side, first in Birmingham and later in London, but his passion was always his Catholic faith,

The Catholic Evidence Guild, gave him plenty of opportunity to deepen and proclaim this. He enjoyed the cut and thrust of debate and his powerful voice was more than a match for most hecklers. The training and formation helped him grow in his faith as well as equipping him with oratorical skills that have stood him in good stead in the years since, when he has found himself not just addressing small groups from a soapbox, but large crowds all over the world.

Myles has always been a good solid, traditional Catholic, but in the late 1950s, he had a deeper conversion to Christ. This came about through a crisis he experienced at work when he found himself at the end of his personal resources and turning to God in desperation, he was filled with the Holy Spirit in a new way.

The incredible joy that accompanied this experience lasted for several months but he never quite understood what it was until years later when he first started hearing reports about the CCR and the baptism in the Holy Spirit.

Charismatic Renewal changed his life

Throughout the years Myles has always been very committed to the life of the Church in all its aspects. When the Catholic Evidence Guild started to decline he became enthusiastically involved in the World Development Movement and was also chairman of his parish council. It was the charismatic renewal, however, that was to really change his and Joan’s life from that of a devout but conventional Catholic couple, to that of radical religious pioneers.

By the late 60s rumours of the strange phenomena called the Charismatic Renewal and people speaking in tongues had reached Myles’ ears. In 1971 he found a book about it and was desperate to be prayed over and reconnect with the earlier experience he had had with the Holy Spirit. To his amazement he found there was a small prayer group meeting in London in Soho. He came and insisted on being prayed over and received at once a new outpouring of the Holy Spirit.

Prayer meetings in the house

He realised immediately that this was what he had always been looking for. He felt it was also the answer to the problems he saw in the Church. Thus he gave himself wholeheartedly to this new move of the Holy Spirit. Joan shared in this new experience and the couple started a charismatic group in their home. Myles’ enthusiasm and spiritual giftedness drew more and more people to attend these meetings. Joan recalls that sometimes there would up to 60 people in their 3 bedroomed terraced house. She comments, “We used to move all the furniture into the hall, and people would be sitting practically on each other’s laps, and on stools in the hall and right up the stairs. It was often hilarious! What the neighbours thought I don’t know!” Right from the beginning these meetings were very Catholic, and Mass was always part of them. Joan remembers, “We never organised for a priest to come, but there almost always was one – sometimes even up to 5 would turn up and once a bishop too.” This love of the Mass has been a hallmark of Myles’ life. Enda Devine, a friend, comments, “It’s quite amazing.Sometimes I have been with Myles in places where it is hard to get to Mass and yet we would always find one. It’s as if the Lord honours Myles’ love and commitment for the Mass to ensure that he can go every day.”

False rumours about a maverick Irishman

The early days of Charismatic Renewal were exciting times for all those involved as people began to realise that God wanted to give them the same gifts of the Holy Spirit that had been manifest in the Acts of the Apostles. It soon became clear that Myles had strong healing and ministry gifts and people began to flock to him. Rumours and accusations then began to reach the hierarchy about a maverick Irishman doing strange things. Nothing could have been further from the truth as one of the hallmarks of Myles’s life has always been a great respect for and obedience to the Church and its hierarchy. This misunderstanding was eventually sorted out and since then Myles has always enjoyed a high regard from the hierarchy.

Right from the beginning of the prayer group there was talk of community. In 1986 a small group of ten lay people and one priest, including Myles, his wife Joan and their youngest son Paul, moved into a convent in Greenwich and the Prince of Peace Community was officially born. By this time Myles had been working for some years full time for Charismatic Renewal. He had been made redundant some years earlier from his work, and when he didn’t seem able to get another job, he felt the Lord saying that God didn’t want him to do secular work anymore but concentrate on his healing and preaching ministry and that the Lord would provide for him and the family. Joan remembers, “In the beginning I was frantic. We had young children and I wondered how we would survive. But when he told me what he felt God wanted him to do I said, “Go for it” and God did provide and we never went short.”

Cash multiplied in the safe

The community recount amazing stories from those early days in Greenwich, when it seemed that cash literally multiplied in the safe! Greenwich was to be the first of many homes. After five years the nuns sold the property and the community had to move. This they did to a large girls’ school in Beckenham, in Kent. Later they moved again to Baldock, in Hertfordshire, then to Ormskirk, Lancashire and finally, to St Emilies in Liverpool where they are now, and where they share a property with a community of retired missionary nuns.

Although it has undoubtedly been hard to move so many times, Myles never seems to be daunted and always manages to see the wonderful opportunities there are to be found in each new place. And wherever he and the community has gone, he has acted as a catalyst creating vibrant prayer groups.

A pioneer and a prophet

The long term residential community he had always hoped to found however, has perhaps not materialised as he had thought. Instead over the years young people and not so young, have come to stay for a season, taking part in the community’s activities, learning skills and deepening their relationship with God, and then moving on. Several ex-members have become priests or religious, and others gone on to found their own communities or ministries, like Damian and Cathy Stayne of Cor et Lumen Christi. Only the faithful Joan still remains from the original community in Greenwich, although, Stephen and Frances Gaynor, a mature married couple, moved up with Myles and Joan from Baldock and still remain. A vibrant non-residential group has also formed round them at St Emilies. But maybe founding a community has not been Myles’ calling as he is more a prophet and a pioneer than a consolidator and builder by temperament and calling, and it will be up to others to build on his legacy.

When you meet Myles what strikes you most of all is that here is a man of faith and enthusiasm full of stories of the great things God is doing. I know I am always amazed that after all these years, and in the face of all the ups and downs and disappointments of life, Myles is always so consistently cheerful and full of enthusiasm. It is this faith that lies at the heart of God’s ability to use him.

Prophetic word for New Dawn conference

In 1985 Myles received a prophetic word from God while at a charismatic family conference in France to start a similar event in Walsingham called New Dawn, he didn’t hesitate, even though his community had no real resources or experience. But Myles’ unwavering faith and certainty in the Lord helped others to believe too and using the family home as collateral Myles stepped out and simply did it. The first New Dawn, which took place in 1987, attracted 800 people. Twenty years later, over 3000 people annually attend and many are blessed, healed and converted there.

Although he has travelled the world, speaking to huge crowds, Myles remains a very humble and accessible person, and one hears stories of him travelling across the country to pray for healing for a single individual in need. In recent years his health has been badly affected and he suffers terribly with a kind of gout, which swells his legs and makes it difficult for him to stand for any length of time. But when he is ministering, God seems to give him supernatural strength and one time in Uganda, he laid hands on people and prayed for 5 solid hours. Above all he is God’s man and spends many hours in prayer with his beloved Lord. And it is from this that his real strength and source of fruitfulness comes.

Thank you Myles for everything, for your faith and your witness and your courage, which have helped us all so much! (see the Coming Events section for details of New Dawn)