I haven’t felt so excited for a long time. It really does seem that there is a fresh move of the Holy Spirit going on. This summer the first New Dawn in Scotland is taking place, after a prophetic word was received by a group praying at the Carfin shrine (see page 30). Elsewhere when I was ringing round to remind people about the deadline for coming events, everyone was telling me, whether it was at the Catholic Bible School or the monthly evening of Renewal at Stroud, in Worcestershire, that numbers at their gatherings were inexplicably up and that there was a new anointing on their speakers. There are also reports of a growing Catholic Charismatic Renewal among the Travellers community, particularly in Wales and the London area, with many conversions and healings being reported. The Travellers Catholic Renewal who are at the heart of this are organising for the third year an outreach in June at the famous Appleby Horse Fair in Cumbria. Last year the group involved was 25 or so. This year Margaret Doran and Anne Casey, two of the organisers, said they were expecting to have to cater for 500 people! (Next month we will have a full report of what is happening). Also to look forward to is the Catholic Miracle Rally in June (see flier enclosed). In Season of Miracles we hear some of the great things that have been happening through the ministry of Damian Stayne and the Cor Lumen Christi community. All this has reminded me of Myles Dempsey’s word for 2010 which was a year of “Moments of opportunity and surprises of the Holy Spirit!”

One of the callings of the CCR is to help the wider Church to get in touch with the graces of Pentecost. This was one of the reasons why the English NSC produced the Road to Pentecost booklet for parishes (this year co-published with the CTS). There are lots of things we can do however as groups and as individuals to help increase the profile of Pentecost in our parishes, and we feature some of these, including a special Pentecost poster. which we suggest you may like to display. In doing this we are very much in line with what recent popes have been saying, and Barbara Mason, in her piece “We Need Pentecost Now” draws our attention to some of their recent exhortations.

This is the beginning of the conference season. Celebrate in Ilfracombe will have taken place. As always the conference has been a sell out, drawing huge numbers and enabling whole families to be renewed in their faith. For those who can’t afford to get to Devon there are also Celebrate weekends in Southampton, Brighton and St Albans and the West country over the coming year, as the grace and format of the original inspiration has been taken out and weekends organised locally. The Northern Catholic Conference too is growing in popularity and now seems to have found its true home at the Liverpool Hope University. Last year the conference was held at the university for the first time. It was so successful that this year the university, which is catholic in inspiration and ethos, wants to be much more involved with the conference and is giving them unprecedented support to the delight of the organisers.

Numbers at recent Life in the Spirit seminars have also been much larger than expected – the maximum they could cope with, two groups said. You can read the reports of what happened at the Soul Food seminars in London and the Abingdon seminars at the beginning of the year. There is also a wonderful testimony of how the Life in the Spirit seminars transformed the lives of a group of poor local fishermen in India, as well as a report about some Life in the Spirit seminars for children on Mossside, Manchester. In Ireland too despite the general negativity towards the Church in the press, on the ground there seems new sense of hope in some of the charismatic prayer groups and there are two charismatic initiatives this year focussed on the marian shrine Knock – one a Pentecost vigil (see the back page advert) and another a weekend Life in the Spirit seminars organised at the end of August by the Monaghan prayer group. On the teaching side of the magazine, Fr Chris O’Donnell, in his second article on Intercession, helps us to reflect on what it means to pray in the Name of Jesus. Pat Kennedy continues her series on the charisms of the Holy Spirit and in this issue looks at the charisms of inspiration and their importance in the life of a disciple. Dominque Ferry, who is French and a member of the Chemin Neuf community, as well as being part of the English NSC, writes about the journey that every disciple has to go on to become a mature follower of Christ. In this he draws on the life of St Peter and what we can learn from the lessons Peter learnt along the way. Fr Chris Thomas too unpacks, in his inimitable way, what the essence of being a disciple of Christ means for him.

As we approach the end of the year of priests, we have an extract from Fr Kevin Scallon CM’s book on the priesthood. In this Fr Kevin, who has worked with Sr Briege McKenna for many years, shares about an early experience when he worked as a missionary in Africa. In our Irish edition readers get some background about the 3 speakers at this year’s National Conference in Athlone, who are Fr Ciaran McDonnell, Sr Miriam Duggan and Fr Peter McVerry SJ. We also have an interview with Fr David Neuhaus SJ, who is a convert from Judaism and currently serves as the Latin Patriarch Vicar for Hebrew speaking Catholics in the Holy Land. Fr Raniero Cantalamessa OFM Cap, the papal preacher, in a short testimony reflects on how Baptism in the Spirit changes people, making them God-centred instead of self-centred, and exhorts everyone to open themselves to this experience