Don’t throw tradition under the bus

A few days ago I was at Mass and there were clouds of incense wafting across the pews and up to the heavens. It reminded me of something. Years ago I attended an Alpha Course (the Anglican version) in a small village in Warwickshire. 

Whilst the course was very good indeed, scripture based (and great food) ; the latter part following the prayer for Baptism in the Spirit may have been a bit mishandled. Some of the facilitators were rather antagonistic to the older traditions, or anything that seemed outdated and encouraged the enthusiastic newcomers to the Spiritual life to find a ‘good’ church, meaning a ‘happy clappy’ one with the minimum of props. 

I had to interject to give them a little of my journey and why I did not jump ship to any other more modern or exciting church but rather stayed on as a Catholic after being ‘born again’ because I knew that what we have has been there for a long time, and, ignorant ‘cradle catholic’ though I was, I knew there must be a reason for that. And so, armed with a new view of the world that the Holy Spirit gives us, I began an exploration of the mysteries I had known only superficially.

This has been the greatest  adventure of my life. The intimacy of the life in the Spirit does not replace the traditional: by no means, it enables you to understand what you have with greater depth and so the reverence and awe of the Mass for example, is greatly intensified. Reverence and Intimacy are not opposites or conflicting but synergistic as they were in the apostolic times.

The Baptism in the Holy Spirit is a wonderful gift to believers and the church; but lets not throw our tradition under the bus.

The Wall ... a story from China

A story from the persecuted church in China about a lay missionary 's visit there:

On the second night of his visit, he was awoken in the middle of the night by the noise of people moving around the house. A little scared, he got up out of bed and went to his door. Opening his door he grabbed one of the men living in the house and said to him "what is going on ?" The Chinese man replied "we're going to the wall". He inquired further " What is the wall ?" The Chinese man replied "Come with us and we will show you"

He got dressed and ventured out into the night with this group of people, walking for miles. On the way they were joined by 2 other groups until they numbered about 120 people. They came to a forest and he noticed that some of the men were climbing up the trees. (it turns out that they were look-outs).

They got to a clearing in the forest and there was a small half-built wall from an old derelict building. As they came closer, everyone fell down on their knees before the wall.

Moments later, one man got up and walked towards the wall and reaching forwards removed one brick, behind the brick was reserved the Blessed Sacrament. They adored the Blessed Sacrament for one hour in silent prayer. Then the brick was replaced, the men came down from the trees and they went home.

Two or three times a week they would go to the wall in the middle of the night, risking imprisonment or even their lives, to spend an hour with Jesus, their greatest friend.

Repentance is the Precursor of Healing

The Miracle at the Tomb of Sister Faustina

Before the age of 15, Maureen Digan enjoyed a normal healthy life. Then she was struck down with a very serious, slowly progressive but terminal disease called Lymphedima. This is a disease that does not respond to medication and does not go into remission. Within the next ten years Maureen had fifty operations and had lengthy confinements in Hospital of up to a year at a time.

Friends and relations suggested she should pray and put her trust in God. But Maureen could not understand why God had allowed her to get this disease in the first place, and had lost her faith completely. 

Eventually her deteriorating condition necessitated the amputation of one leg. One evening while Maureen was in hospital her husband Bob went to a film called Divine Mercy, No Escape, and there he became convinced of the healing powers of intercession by Sr. Faustina. Bob persuaded Maureen and the Doctors that she should go to the tomb of Sr. Faustina in Poland. 

They arrived in Poland on March 23rd 1981 and Maureen went to confession for the first time since she was a young girl. At the tomb (now the Shrine of Blessed Faustina) Maureen remembers saying in her own inimitable style "O.k. Faustina I came a long way, now do something". 

Innerly she heard Sister Faustina say: "If you ask for my help, I will give it to you." Suddenly she thought she was having a nervous breakdown. All the pain seemed to drain out of her body and her swollen leg which was due to be amputated shortly, went back to its normal size. 

When she returned to the U.S.A. she was examined by five independent doctors who came to the conclusion that she was completely healed. They had no medical explanation for the sudden healing of this incurable disease. The accumulated evidence of this miracle was examined in consultation by five doctors appointed by the Sacred congregation for the causes of saints, having passed this test it was examined by a team of theologians, and finally by a team of cardinals and bishops. The cure was accepted by all as a miracle caused by Sr. Faustina's intercession to the Divine Mercy.

Urgency of praying for souls in Purgatory

( a padre Pio story)

“One evening, while I was alone in choir to pray, I heard the rustle of a suit and I saw a young monk that stirred next to the High altar. It seemed that the young monk was dusting the candelabra and straightening the flower vases.

I thought he was Padre Leone rearranging the altar, and, since it was supper time, I went to him and I told him: “Padre Leone, go to dine, this is not the time to dust and to straighten the altar”.

But a voice, that was not Father Leone’s answered me”: “I am not Padre Leone”, “and who are you? “, I asked him. “I am a brother of yours that made the noviciate here. I was ordered to clean the altar during the year of the noviciate. Unfortunately many times I didn’t reverence Jesus while passing in front of the altar, thus causing the Holy Sacrament that was preserved in the tabernacle to be disrespected. For this serious carelessness, I am still in Purgatory. Now, God, with his endless goodness, sent me here so that you may quicken the time I will enjoy Paradise. Take care of me.”

I believed to be generous to that suffering soul, so I exclaimed: “you will be in Paradise tomorrow morning, when I will celebrate Holy Mass”.

That soul cried: “Cruel!” Then he wept and disappeared.

That complaint produced in me a wound to the heart that I have felt and I will feel my whole life. In fact I would have been able to immediately send that soul to Heaven but I condemned him to remain another night in the flames of Purgatory.”

Prepare for Miracles

A few days ago, in a small town in the Cordillera mountain range, we sat at a table having dinner opposite a man with a vision. I was surprised by it and at the same time knew that it would be magnificent. 

Earlier that day after Mass the Priest asked people to share any testimonies or insights on the goodness of God and my wife gave witness to a period in our lives where through prayer for healing, both the laying on of hands and prayers over the phone from overseas, I had been healed by God following a rather unpleasant brain haemorrhage I had 9 years ago. I left the hospital without any operation, without medication or any permanent ill effects.

Whenever we go away we always bring blessed oil (a sacramental) and prayer cards from our prayer group for whatever local community we encounter; but this trip was different. The apostolic zeal and intense hunger for God of the town’s folk took our breath away. We were invited to speak at different prayer and church groups, taken out into the hills, to the many dwellings on the rice terraces where the sick were waiting for prayers. 

And together with the priest and praying community so many were prayed over: a patient with multiple sclerosis, a stroke patient and finally a lady with gall stones and heart complications who was in such agony when the group arrived. By the next morning the lady we last visited was sat on the porch enjoying the sunshine and praising God, feeling better. Serious illness is a lonely place for patients and their care givers alike, and hearing testimonies of healing and receiving prayers for it injects a ray of hope into the gloom.

As we finished dinner with the Principal of the local High school, he shared his dream of Catholic groups from their community visiting the sick in their homes and hospitals, not only for company or sympathy, but to bring the healing power of God to them. His own experiences with the long illnesses of his wife and children have shown him that it was only the non-Catholic Christian sects who sent people to pray for healing. Surely, as Catholics we must do likewise. Now they will begin.

It was a beautiful thing to see such love in a community for their sick and elderly neighbours as well as this intense desire to serve them and put their faith in the living God. The parishioners have purity of heart and purity of intention; that is a rare sight. Somehow I know God will honour that and we will hear of great miracles in that town. Is anyone among you sick? Let them call the elders of the church to pray over them and anoint them with oil in the name of the Lord. (James 5:14)

War against Self-Interest

Padre Pio commented once that “only a general knows how and when to use one of his soldiers” There is as wide a variety of men and strategies as there are battles to fight. 

I suspect the Celtic part of my ancestry led me to embrace the idea that you can get a lot further in battle with an axe and a kind word than you can with just a kind word but I am also inspired by the diplomacy and patience of an Englishman, William Wilberforce who stood valiantly against slavery for most of his life, completing the task of its abolition across the whole British Empire just three days before he died. 

The key to success for this great man of God was that he not only had a clear vision of what was right and wrong in the sight of God but also he knew why his opponents (almost everyone at the time) could not see it. As he put it in one of his speeches “...how self interest can draw a film across the eyes, so thick, that total blindness could do no more; and how it is our duty therefore to trust not to the reasonings of interested men, or to their way of colouring a transaction...”

He knew and made allowance for the weaknesses of man. Self-interest can justify absolutely anything in the mind of the one who wants it badly enough. Anyone can produce a litany of reasons for pursuing whatever he desires; he justifies what he wants so he can have it regardless of whether or not it is right. 

Wilberforce knew it and patiently made the blind to see, lifting the film off gradually through prayer, words and deeds until the nation understood, through a gift of grace, the horror of slavery and the ugliness of their own selfish hearts.

The same is true in the smaller details of life and this is where it becomes personal. What are the motives behind our daily decisions, choices, and speech? Do we give reasons for our actions to justify them or are they pure enough that there is no need to qualify them?

Every human heart is the battlefield and it’s only the amazing grace of God that can win the day as it enlightens individual hearts, heals the blindness of self-interest.

Whatever kind of Christian soldiers we are, whether savages or diplomats, we must hold our place in the line and with the weapon of prayer we will overcome.

‘Ancient Paths’

When my grandfather was born, the steam train and walking were the means of transport as they had been for a long time. He lived to see supersonic flight and a man on the moon. Our last century seems to have produced such advancements in technology that it’s almost as if someone had nipped back to Eden for another bite of that apple.

Some are indeed amazing, from the heights of the Cordillera mountain range, with a laptop, a mobile broadband and harnessing the satellites that are encircling the earth, I can zoom in to the roof of a shed in old Trafford to see if my cat (Max) is sleeping in his favourite spot after a hearty lunch. His is. No amount of technology can change his nature, but alas ours has been.

In that same mountain range, I had the privilege to meet people who, in their hearts, have not moved too far from Eden.A tribal people living a simple agricultural lifestyle, very much in harmony with their ancestral land and the seasons.Organically grown food, using other plants as fertiliser and for pest control, water from a crystal clear river and mountain springs above.Vegetarians, except when a deer or a wild boar wanders by.

But the most astonishing thing, was the beauty of their hearts. A natural hospitality that welcomes strangers as family, without question. At first I found it slightly unnerving, having lived mostly in rather inhospitable places by comparison. It was an all embracing loving community, seasoned by Christianity (only a few centuries ago). Minimal crime if any, a small school and some of the most beautiful mountains and valleys that our Creator ever trod.A dead-zone for cell phones, no internet, no TV, and an improvised hydro electric system for lighting. Just what was useful.It is holy ground.

.There is something in the pace and noise we have created in the modern world that deadens the soul, crushes the spirit, we become machine-like, on a production line from birth to death, sometimes without entering into the purpose of our existence at all. We have disconnected the workings of our lives (and government of our world) from God and from each other almost entirely and so our problems multiply. The natural rhythm of life and the planet were disrupted.  How we need to go back and discover the ancient paths, the simplicity of life, see what we have lost... just how much we have given away

One retiree I read about remarked that whilst he had ‘climbed the ladder of achievement all the way to the top’ he had come to realise that the ladder was leaning against the wrong wall!

I am fortunate that circumstance has given me the opportunity to simplify my lifestyle over the years and the more I do, the more I gain. When I give something up or get rid of something I don’t really need, mostly what I feel is relief.