Hearing From The Lord

by Father Bob Bedard, CC


What, do you think, is the response of the average Catholic, when somebody asks the question, “So…what’s the Lord been saying to you lately?”

I’m afraid the most common reaction is a puzzled look. As a body of believers we’re not familiar with the notion that God speaks. But it’s not just a notion. It’s a reality, a truth.

When I received the grace of being baptized with the Holy Spirit, the most surprising revelation, to me, was the news that God wanted to run the Church. When that truth broke in on me, I was amazed. I wasn’t ready for it. What were they teaching us in the seminary if not how to run the Church? Who knows? But I knew now quickly that the Lord Himself wanted to be in charge and call the shots. We were to seek His word, His word of wisdom. He would convey it to us and then help us to carry it out.

The Lord’s desire to run things extends to the lives of individual people and families. Does this mean He wants to run everything? Actually, yes. He wants us to be little more than puppets? Not at all. Was Jesus just an automaton? No! But He knew that the Father, who alone can see the future, has a specific will in every important situation. He Himself chose His Father’s will in all things. In the Garden of Olives, He said: “Not my will, O Father, but your will be done”. He likewise said: “My food is to do the will of my Father”. And again, ( Jn 5:19), Jesus says: “The Son does only what He sees the Father doing.” The Father simply wants us to choose freely to do His will in all significant things. He won’t force us to do it. He will merely encourage us in that direction. As we choose His will, we are blessed and, likely, so are many others. The smartest decision we can make, is always, to do the Father’s will in all things. This will, of course, involve each of us in consulting Him frequently.

Yet people will ask: “Does He want to dictate every little thing in our lives?” No, not really. That would be carrying it much too far. He’s given us common sense to take care of such things. But in every choice we could call significant, He has a specific will, a will that He wants us to undertake and can convey to us.

Consulting the Lord in order to catch His word in particular situations is one of the most basic of all the instructions the Lord has left with us. To the degree that we are faithful to the calls He has placed before us, to that degree can we expect Him to bless what we’re doing.

One of the clearest memories I have in this regard dates back about 13-14 years when we were approached by the board of Governors of the television program, “Food for Life”. They wanted us to take on the weekly telecast. The founder, the late Father Bob MacDougall, felt the Lord was taking him out of the picture there and his discernment, he said, pointed specifically to the Companions of the Cross.

In those days, our council was not elected as it is now, but comprised all of the community’s priests. We met every two weeks. When I presented the question first, I was very leery of our getting involved, was inclined to say “no”, but, at the same time, had a lingering sense in the back of my mind that God might just, in fact, want us there. I went around the circle and asked for a preliminary feeling from the men. All were negative. I urged further prayer. “We’ll take it up again in two weeks,” I said.

The following meeting, although every man was still negative, there seemed much more openness to the idea. I asked for two more weeks of discernment. We prayed some more. Two weeks later, all were positive. We took over “Food for Life” and continue with it to this day. It was quite a remarkable experience.

Seeking the Lord’s word is a standard procedure in the Scriptures. And, in our day, we believe the Lord still wants to lead His people that way. What is told again and again in the Old Testament is continued in the same way in the New Testament. Barnabas brought Saul to Antioch, because something was happening there that the Church had not yet experienced – the conversion of both Jews and Gentiles (non-Jews) to Christ in equal large numbers. The leaders in Jerusalem (Peter, James, Andrew etc.) chose Barnabas to go north to check it out. As the latter met and prayed with Saul and the church in Antioch, the word of the Lord began to manifest itself through prophetic utterance. The most startling example is the word of God coming to the believers “while they were celebrating the Liturgy of the Lord” (A13).

There are, it’s to be expected, some conditions we have to fulfill in order to catch the Lord’s word for our lives.

First of all, we have to believe it. We have to cast away all the skeptical words that are thrown at us by the world. We’ve all heard them: “Are you crazy? Imagine!. God talks to us! Ridiculous!”

We should as well be in a state of repentance, better known as the state of grace. If there is something seriously out of order in my life, the Lord simply can’t get through to me. As well, we have to want the Lord’s word. It’s amazing how many people are afraid of what God might say. And, obviously, we have to ask. Too many people hold themselves in such low esteem that they feel unworthy of God’s intervention in their lives. Thus: “Oh, God would never speak to me. You’d have to be holy for Him to do that”. That’s not correct; but that’s where most people are at.

The most important condition for hearing from the Lord is what we could call abandonment to His will. This, in fact, is the key. Without it, there is little likelihood we’ll hear from Him at all. I have to tell the Lord I’ll do what He wants no matter what it is before I even know it. This is what stops a lot of people. There’s a fear many have of God, a lack of trust, actually.

The classis example that comes to mind here is the young chap, 20 or so, who had come to a gathering of young adults early in my years at St. Mary’s. A very likeable young guy, a good athlete, not noted for a lot of church attendance.

The young leader of the group was getting right down to business with the attendees, challenging them to turn their whole lives over to Christ. Anyone doing so would quickly receive hands-on prayer.

The Lord tends to honour such a response often in a very concrete manner and without a lot of delay. The night in question saw the 20 year old up in my office in a hurry. The Lord had touched him so powerfully that he was shaking. The dialogue between him and me follows:

He – “This is amazing, Father, I didn’t know God was so close and real. What do
I do to grow in my relationship with Him?” He was just bubbling over
and ready to charge. I thought he was going to tear the place down brick
by brick.

I – “Calm down. That’s the first thing to do. Just calm down. The second thing
is to tell the Lord you’ll do absolutely anything He wants you to do.”

He – “Oh yeah! I’ll do anything for Him. All He’s got to do is name it.” Then he
stopped short. “But…but what if He wants me to be a priest?”

I – “So what? I’m a priest. Is there something the matter with that?”

He – “But I don’t want to be a priest. I want to get married and have my own
family.

The crux of the situation is precisely that. God will only ask us to do something, we can do, something that’s best for us. The fact that I want deeply to do something else is a good sign that’s what He wants. There’s nothing complicated about it. It’s not a command from him. It’s a call.

If all of us would only follow the Lord’s calls upon our lives, what a different place this world would be. How different the Church would be! How different my family, my parish, my own life would be!

It’s very simple. Just follow the Lord. Do what He asks. Everything falls into place after that.

The Power of the Holy Spirit

by Father Bob Bedard, CC


Back in March of 1975, the Lord gave me a very special gift. It was a gift of personal prayer. It changed my life.

As a boy, as an adolescent, as a young man, I was very lazy. The dirtiest four letter word in the English language for me was “work”.. I never had to be coaxed to take it easy. One of my father’s favourite maxims – “Anything worth doing, is worth doing well” - was a continual challenge, I found, a challenge I became very skilled at ducking.

Ordination changed that. From being a dedicated drone, I galvanized into action. Although not ever being a fast mover, I became very purposeful. The job that had to be done got done. Although never a whirl wind, I became a very dedicated grinder. Maybe the early lessons from my dad had begun to sink in.

Quickly enough, my reputation grew as a very dependable guy. As I moved from parish ministry to the task of establishing, with the help of a few young priests a new high school from scratch. I began to take on the tasks that nobody else seemed interested in taking on. That is how I got into basketball. I took on the coach’s job with the juniors because nobody else would do it. I took over the program of Canadian History when a need in that department became clearly evident. I became principal at 32 and rector a year later. I took on the grade XIII Religion program as well. All of the above jobs needed some shoring up when I when I stepped in, as well large portions of just plain hard work.

I guess I had become a prime example of somebody who was caught up in the heresy of works. Anything could be accomplished by human effort, aided and abetted, of course, by the grace of God.

It took my assignment as pastor of St. Mary’s for the Lord to begin teaching me just what the blend should be between human effort and the Holy Spirit. His clear word to me was that He Himself not only had all the plans for the parish, but also that the Holy Spirit would do almost all of the work. That successfully disabused me once and for all about the works heresy. With the growth of the CCs and the growth of the parish itself, I couldn’t handle everything myself anyway. It was in desperation, more than anything else, that prompted me to turn everything over to the Lord.

I was simply to surrender all the control buttons to the Lord, take my orders from Him and carry them out while He remained in the control room sending out the messages. I wound up simply running a message centre, receiving and sending out His instructions and appointing ministry folks to carry out His wishes. It’s an amazing system. Since it works beautifully, I recommend it to absolutely everybody.

I should have known. Earlier, I feel the Lord had revealed to me that the Holy Spirit is the One who gets things done. He has the power to accomplish things, anything in fact. Not only difficult things, but impossible things as well. There is no need whatever for us to quail before difficult assignments from Him.

The power of the Holy Spirit is precisely what the Church needs in our day. My contention has been that the power (or grace?) of the Holy Spirit admits of degrees. In that way I maintain it took a greater measure of power for God to bring Mary Magdalen to conversion than it did to raise Lazarus from the dead. In fact, a conversion of a person from no faith at all to a lively relationship with the Lord wherein he falls madly in love with God requires a greater degree of grace than just about any thing else.

The Holy Spirit is not worn out. He has not retired. He is ready to swing into action if only we will give the invitation. The age of the Holy Spirit, heralded regularly by the popes of our day, is still on the go. Take heart, O Catholic people. The victory is in sight.

Woe Canada

Father Bob Bedard,CC

I quite distinctly remember, back in the summer of 1970, spending the month of July in Tucson, Arizona. I covered for pastor of Holy Family parish there. I drove both there and back with other priests, fellow teachers at St. Pius X High School.

I have always enjoyed my sojourns in the United States. There’s something about the American spirit that I admire. It may have something to do with the consistent optimism I pick up in the peoples’ attitudes.

But as we headed back through California, Oregon and Washington, I realized that I missed my own country. The car ferry took us to Vancouver Island and the city of Victoria. As we got closer, although I had never before been there, I began to say to myself: “This is my native land, my Canada.” And I choked up a bit as a few tears trickled down my face. It hit me that I actually had a real love for my country.

Now, almost 30 years later, I have to report, sadly, those patriotic emotions have dried up altogether. I used to be proud of my country. I’m not any more. I once had real hope this nation could become a beacon to the world. My hopes have been dashed.

We have no law at all protecting the unborn. The slaughter continues unabated. Abortion can be carried out at any time with no reason other than the mother’s own decision that she doesn’t want the child.

The contraceptive mentality has taken over at all levels of society. People of faith and no faith together embrace it, Catholics included, who feel justified by the Winnipeg Statement of 1970 which continues to stand today as a clear repudiation of Pope Paul’s Humanae Vitae.

Our courts have handed down progressively bizarre decisions. A couple of year’s ago, a woman, about to give birth, took a gun and shot the emerging child in the head. The court’s decision? No crime. Not even a misdemeanour. Off scot free. All but one of our Supreme Court judges are pro-abortion.

The courts have also attempted to re-define the family. The top court in the land has recently decreed that the concept of family must be broadened to include same-sex couples.

A court in B.C. recently, ruled it is a human right to possess child pornography.

Our politicians have continued to let us down. Former Prime Minister, Paul Martin, came down hard on any member of the ruling party who dissented from government policies on life and family issues. The present premier of Ontario, also a Catholic, is on record with his aggressive pro-abortion and pro-homosexual stand. He will refuse, he says to sign a potential candidate’s papers who is pro-life or pro-family. He even made a special trip to Toronto from his home in Ottawa to walk in the militant and blasphemous so-called “Gay Pride” march. Mayor after mayor in municipalities across the country have been bullied by the anti-God lobbies into doing the same thing.

The media has supported the new ‘movement’ almost 100%. It is so rare to read a newspaper editorial or column that supports God’s order or the Church that we react in joyful amazement.

Our foreign aid record has been mediocre at best. Domestically, the rich still get richer on the backs of the poor. Our immigration policy has improved, thanks be to God, and is no longer based on discriminatory principles of national quotas.

The missionary efforts of the Church have weakened badly. Some communities have made it clear that they don’t go to foreign lands any more to convert people to Christ, but rather to learn from them while helping them in matters of health, development and education.
Sounds pessimistic, doesn’t it? But, oddly enough, I’m not a pessimist. I know a great many Christian people, Catholics included, are lamenting with the Lord over the state of things and are praying hard that he will bring about a big turn-around. I’m with them. Will he do it? He certainly can. He was willing to save Sodom if He could find but a handful who were on his side. He couldn’t find them.

As I sing our national anthem. “Woe, Canada”, I want to shout out to the nation “Whoa, Canada! Slow down! You’re on a slippery slope to destruction. Come back to god. He can save us yet”. If only we would turn to Him….

Medjugorje

Father Bob Bedard, CC

The word Medjugorje, means in Croatian, we’re told, between the mountains. The small hamlet is in the relatively new republic of Bosnia-Herzegovina, one of four independent states that broke off, after the collapse of Communism in eastern Europe, from their previous union with Serbia, the union which had been known as Jugoslavia (the country of the south Slavs). The other new nations are Croatia, Slovenia, and Montenegro. Serbia and Macedonia have hung in together and continue to be known as Jugoslavia.


Medjugorje is nestled between the Herzegovinian hills. It is best known in the Catholic world as the site of the reported apparitions that began in Medjugorje June, 1981 and have continued every day for the last 25 years. Millions have visited there during that time. Nothing more than jagged rocks mark the place of the Blessed Mother’s supposed appearances in the beginning. Vigorously denied and opposed by the communist regime, the people involved were harassed brutally. A heavenly personality visiting an atheistic country? How very embarrassing for the government!

Coming to their senses eventually, and realizing the economic bonanza it could become, the territorial officials softened their stand and actually began to co-operate with the visitors and those who organized the crowds coming. Now the place is built up with hotels, stores, and all kinds of conveniences. If a lot of people are going to come into our country, the government reasoned, bringing money with them, we might as well get in on it. My own question is why it took them so long to figure it out. Maybe it meant that the average communist of the time wasn’t too bright.

Medjugorje is in the diocese of Mostar-Duvno and the parish is in the care of the Franciscans.

The local bishop, the Most Rev. Ratko Peric, visited the parish, St. James by name, June 15 , ’06 to preside at the Sacrament of Confirmation. On that occasion, he reminded his listeners that the Church has never affirmed the claims of the visionaries and he urged them to stop making public claims of authenticity. The whole thing is spurious, he said.

He reminded the people of the interim decision rendered by the Conference of Croatian Bishops about ten or twelve years ago which declared that no supernatural intervention could be attached to the alleged apparitions. Furthermore, the body of bishops forbade any official diocesan pilgrimage, as occur regularly at Lourdes and Fatima, from being undertaken. But, it was understood, individuals could visit and such persons should be provided with the appropriate pastoral services.

The Vatican has never ruled on the authenticity, or lack of it, of the phenomena. The simple reason for Rome’s silence is that such decisions are never made until the reported apparitions cease. They’re said to be still going on daily.

Bishop Peric said Pope Benedict expressed the same sentiments when the Croatian bishops met with him at their recent “ad limina” (every 5 years) visit. He made reference as well to several Franciscans, having been suspended, who have continued to administer the Sacraments. This disobedience is a poor example, he said, to the faithful.

The Medjugorje controversy rages on. I have no opinion any more about the genuineness of the visions. What I do know is that large crowds continue to gather and virtually every person I’m aware of who has visited the site has been rather richly blessed. In addition, the fact is that many pilgrims have been converted there. If skeptics are becoming believers, making their first Confession in 30, 40, or 50 years, the grace of the Holy Spirit is obviously at work.

The authenticity of Medjugorje may officially be in doubt, but it seems without dispute that the Lord is working there. Our Lady, too.

da Vinci

Father Bob Bedard, CC


Profanity is the casual and inappropriate use of the Lord’s Holy Name. Blasphemy is contempt for or abuse of God or sacred things.

The “da Vinci Code” is blasphemous. Though the author says it is fiction, he also says in many ways that the facts (which ones?) contained in the ‘novel’ are true.

But, in any case, the story involves Jesus conspiring with a band of followers to fake his death on the Cross and to co-operate with a tissue of lies that traces a story of His subsequent activities. These include a marriage with Mary Magdalen and children from their union. This is obviously blasphemous.

Included in the story is the Catholic Church as a conniving institution, concerned only about its status and influence. If not actually blasphemous, this is at least grossly insulting.

Unfortunately, people love stories and reports that paint the Catholic Church as evil. The Church has taken seriously its mandate from the Lord Himself to proclaim the truth to all nations and generations. And the truth, as we know, hurts. Those who feel hurt fight back. The Church consistently speaks the truth about everything it knows, including life and sexual morality. This puts it in direct mortal combat with powerful world forces and conspiracies.

An important part of the world powers’ strategy is to support anything or anybody who attempts to damage the Church’s reputation. It doesn’t help that we, in our weakness, play into their hands when some of our members succumb to their sinful inclinations.

The da Vinci Code paints the Church in the most unflattering of colours. Only those who already hate it and those who are gullible will accept the book as based on truth. The rest of us see it as it is: libel, plain and simple.

It is a truism by now that the only acceptable prejudice remaining in our society today is being anti-Catholic.

Isn’t it amazing how careful people are to create a distance between themselves and material that is anti-Islam? The recent world-wide furore over some cartoons originally published in Denmark referring to Mohammed, Islam’s founder, in less than positive ways, is a case in point. But if the Catholic Church can be bombed, side-swiped, blind-sided, libelled, or trashed, it is fair game.

Father Lindsay Harrison of St. Patrick’s Basilica in Ottawa has written a sensible and insightful piece on the da Vinci Code for St. Joseph’s Workers for Life and Family. If you were to contact this ministry at 613.742.7012 or info@sjw.ca, I’m sure you could obtain a copy.

Advise to Pastors

by Father Bob Bedard, CC

1. Be very convinced that God wants your parish to be transformed. He wants all your people baptized with the Holy Spirit. He wants divine fire to burn in you and in your church. He wants to place there such a strong anointing that everyone who enters the building will sense it and be blessed.

2. Preach the basic Gospel message, the call to surrender all to Jesus. As part of the homily, do it every Sunday. Ask the Lord each week for a new way to say it. Ask the people if they’re satisfied with the condition of the Church, their parish, their families and their own lives. Ask them if they think God is satisfied. Ask them if they believe He has power to turn those things around. Then, ask them if they’re willing to let Him do it. This is only one way to put it. There are many others.

3. Try to spend at least an hour a day in personal prayer (not including the liturgy of the hours or the rosary). Keep a journal. If you have questions to ask the Lord, write them down. Any time you think He is saying something to you. write it down too.

4. Give the Lord full permission to do with you and the parish whatever He wants.

5. Stop doing many of the things you’re doing. Don’t do paper work. Don’t lock and unlock the church. Go to very few meetings. Don’t conduct wedding rehearsals. Get your own visitors to the sick to make regular visitations to them. When Confession is required, go yourself. Don’t take responsibility for the physical ‘plant’. Don’t involve yourself with finances at all.

6. Get hold of a personal (not parish) secretary, someone who can be trained to think with your mind. He can answer most of your mail, make most of your telephone calls and bring your word to most of the meetings. Keep informed, but learn how to delegate.

7. Don’t ask for volunteers. Ask the Lord to point to the people He wants you to have. Volunteers may be making themselves available to fulfill needs of their own.

8. Never use the word “charismatic”. Although it’s a good and useful word and you may understand it very well, it simply scares a lot of people and divides congregations. Speak rather of the ‘way’ of the Holy Spirit and the incredible historical treasure of the Catholic Church. Avoid Pentecostal jargon such as “saved”, “born again”, “Spirit-filled”, “burden for you”, “pray over”, “back-slidden”, slain in the Spirit”, “God told me”, etc.

9. Find Catholic expressions that say the same things, like “sanctifying grace”, “spiritual awakening”, “prompted by the Holy Spirit”, “praying for you”, “pray with”, “in serious sin”, “resting in the Spirit”, “I think the Lord may be saying”, etc

10. Cast away all fear. It doesn’t matter what people think of say. We have to stop being people-pleasers. We have only to please God. Don’t be afraid of what the bishop may say or do if interesting things begin to be happening in your parish. Keep him informed. That’s only being fair to him. And, with very few exceptions in the U.S. and Canada, you’ll probably be quite surprised at how pleased the bishop may be when he hears what’s going on.

11. Ask the Lord for a holy boldness. In the Lord’s time, introduce the altar call. Don’t call it that. Call it something like ‘commitment time’. Have the names and telephone numbers recorded of those giving their lives to the Lord and have them followed up.

12. Seek relationship with other priests who are in the same spiritual space as you are. Ask God to lead you to them. Assemble with them on a regular basis, share your blessings and struggles, pray with one another and simply spend time together.

13. Insist on first-class liturgy. Find someone who can understand it and oversee the whole operation, music included.

14. Keep yourself healthy. Eat the right stuff. Get advice from a nutritionist. Exercise regularly. Your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit, a gift from God. Take good care of it and it will be an effective instrument in God’s hand much longer then most people, including you, would predict or expect.

15. Don’t lose your sense of humour. Make sure it comes out when you preach. Poke fun at yourself. Don’t take yourself too seriously. Always take God seriously, but not yourself.


If you’re a parish priest, believe me, Father, I’m on your side. I’ve been there. The above suggestions are based on my own experience and prayer. I’ve seen good things happen. They’re possible. The suggestions actually work. Give them a try. And let’s keep in touch.

I don’t imagine for a minute the above is a complete formula for parish renewal, but how about starting with this?

An Unlikely Agenda

Fr. Bob Bedard, CC

To suggest that the Church needs renewal is not to place one’s self in opposition to it, but
rather to stand within it at its very heart. To espouse the cause of reform is to obey the
voice of God himself, just the way good Pope John XXIII did when he called the Second
Vatican council, just as all the bishops of the Church did on that occasion where they
assembled in Rome to pray, to share, to invoke the Lord’s wisdom, to listen to the Holy
Spirit’s promptings, and to obey his directions.
The Church has always stood in need of renewal. It is divine in its founder and head, but
very human in its members. The Latin statement “ecclesia semper reformanda” (the
Church always needs to be reformed), used repeatedly by Pope John during the
preparations for the Council and as it actually got underway has set the tone for the
Church in this age.
The council’s decisions and documents have charted the course the Spirit of God has
given even though many years have passed, they have only begun to be implemented.
I am convinced that Vatican II was an act of the providence of God, a very tangible
intervention on his part, designed to begin preparing the Church for the momentous times
we are now only starting to move through.
The timing of the council was remarkable. It began as the foundational structures of
human society, for some years weakening and sagging noticeably, began to fall badly
apart. The elation experienced in the wake of World War II came to a jolting halt. The
family, society’s very basic unit, was crumbling in the face of a soaring divorce rate.
Respect for parents went into a corresponding nose dive. Traditional moral values, now
called freely into question, were everywhere sinking.
Those in the forefront of the entertainment industry began to vie with one another to see
who could contrive the most daring or permissive presentation. Scandals broke out in the
highest political circles. Cults proliferated. Violence in the streets and a general spirit of
lawlessness grew. The so-called ‘cold war’ intensified with the Cuban missile crisis and
other frightening confrontations between nations, some of whom had nuclear capability
and were threatening to use it. The abortion movement began to flourish as never before
and the assault on the most helpless of all human beings, the unborn, escalated to new
levels. Authority was questioned on all sides. Certainty seemed to disappear. the media
became more and more cynical as nothing whatever remained sacred. The word
rebellion’ is not too strong a term to describe it. The rebellious generation had arrived.

The Church itself was not unaffected by all this. Attendance at Sunday Mass
began to drop sharply, even in places that had been universally regarded as veritable
bulwarks of the Catholic faith. Quebec, where the alienation from the Church has been
devastating, is only one example of this phenomenon. Dissent became popular as
scholars eagerly lined up to take issue with official Church teaching. The reaction to Paul
VI’s Humanae Vitae was but the tip of the iceberg. Resignations from the priesthood and
the religious life became commonplace as a badly shaken Catholic population continued
to wonder whatever had gone wrong. Seminaries and religious houses, not so long before
fairly teeming with activity, began to empty. Many closed altogether. The Catholic
divorce rate, once strikingly low, climbed in most places to everybody else’s average.
The overall result has been a wide spread confusion throughout the Church.
Vatican II was planted in our midst just as all this was breaking out. Can we have any
doubt at all that the Lord knew well what he was doing?

The Church is in need of renewal. In this age we have simply not had the power to deal
with all this. The Lord has never intended the Church to live without the power
something that only he has, to carry out the mission he has entrusted to us from the
beginning.

It is not as though the Lord’s power is unavailable to us. It is and always has
been. He withholds it only to call us to a deeper faithfulness to him. He wants us to hear
what he is saying to us today. END OF SECTION 1.

I believe the Lord is saying that, in order to bring us forward to minister to a world that is
in the process of falling apart at the seams, he wants to bring us back to unity that we
have not experienced for a long, long time. He is telling us he will not tolerate the
present situation much longer.

The Church is badly divided. Not only are there hundreds, perhaps thousands, of
different Christian denominations, there are serious divisions within the Catholic Church
itself. Although the present Holy Father, Pope John Paul II, is continually and
with great emphasis pleading with us to come together in a unity of belief and practice, to
“be of one mind and one heart” ( ), as St. Paul would say, we remain badly divided.

We demand the right to dissent from official church positions and we don’t hesitate too
long to disobey directives from those who are in lawful authority over us. The Lord
wants us to hear his word. “Obey your elders,” the author of Hebrews tells us, “for it is
they who must give account.” “( ).


The divisions within the Church are a scandal, not only the factions within our own fold,
but also our separation from the other authentically Christian Churches. This has never
been the Lord’s intention. We have to get very serious about patching up our
differences. The Lord ha actually not left us any option.

The New Testament is filled with relevant references, but, to me, the most telling passage
is recorded for us by St. John. He recounts what I would call Jesus’ most fervent and
impassioned prayer on our behalf: “Father, that they may be one, just as you and I are
one….. (John 17:21)
Jesus puts his finger on the basic reason we do not experience the power to deal
effectively with our present situation. Can we not see it? Our principal mission is to
proclaim the Good News of salvation and call people to embrace it by throwing their lot
in with Jesus Christ, but we fall so badly short.

Do we not know that it is our division that rob our proclamation of the gospel
of the power with which God has always wanted to endow it.
Jesus said it plainly: if we are not one, the world will have trouble believing the truth we
proclaim.
Despite admirable efforts, Catholic non-Catholic alike, to reach the world for Christ, the
world does not believe. Although we are practically covering the globe with a televised
witness, our efforts have relatively small effect. Missionaries in every corner of the
world work tirelessly to bring the message of salvation, but the results are not very close
to what they yearn and pray for. We have not even been able to
reach our own cities. They remain largely unevangelized.
Where’s the power? Where’s the power to reach the great mass of non-believers the
world over? Where’s the power to bring those we call ‘nominal’ Catholics and other
Christians into a lively faith? Where’s the power to transform the comfortable pew and
galvanize it into a body of eagerly committed followers of Jesus, fully yielded to the
prompting of the Holy Spirit, and anxious to carry out every facet of the
Father’s will?
Our divisions have done us in. Our disunity is the principal barrier to a powerfully
effective witness to the truth of Jesus’ gospel. END OF SECTION 2.
I believe the Lord is speaking a rather startling word to us today about all this. Unlikely
as it may seem, God intends to restore his Church to a much deeper experience of his
power and to full unity in our day. He means to deal with our present situation, and, in
fact, has already begun.

This is not the kind of prediction one makes if one wants to sound like an astute observer

of the human scene. To suggest that the Church as seriously divided as it is, is coming

soon to a radically new day, a day of power and unity, is to sound preposterous. To

maintain that such a move is already well underway is surely to lose credibility

in the eyes of all sensible people.

Yet, this is what I maintain. It is, to say the least, a very unlikely agenda.

I believe the signs are all in place. I believe the Lord has given us a clear word and

every indication that he is quite ready and able to intervene at this point in history to

renew his Church, to conform it to his original plan.

Unlikely, you say? No question about it: It is extremely unlikely. But that does not have

to stop the Lord. In fact, if it’s unlikely, all the more reason. I would suggest, to believe

it. The Lord seems to be in the business of doing unlikely things. END OF SECTION 3.

Can we not see the Lords’ hand in many of the vents of the last few years?

Even if we limit ourselves to the Catholic context, the one I’m most familiar with, the pattern, I believe, is unmistakable.
When, Pope PiusXII died in 1958, the cardinals, the present day Church’s principal elders, gathered in conclave to elect his successor. Predictions, inevitably came from all quarters as to who would be called to the chair of Peter. But the man selected as bishop of Rome was an unexpected, or unlikely, choice. Angelo Roncalli, the archbishop of Venice, was in his late seventies and was said to be an ‘interim’ pope and one who would preside for a few years until electors could come to more of a consensus. His summons to the papal office was considered a compromise, and very little was expected of him.
But John XXIII surprised everybody. Several months after he became pope, he to a dumbfounded Roman audience, an assembly which included a good number of curial officials, that he intended to convoke a general council of the Church. There hadn’t been one for almost a hundred years and it came like a bolt from the blue. It was unlikely. Pope John told his listeners that he had felt ‘prompted’ in prayer by the Holy Spirit.
The reaction that most seasoned observers expected from the curia, the Church’s administrative arm, was vigorous protest. The work burden to be thrown upon them was enormous. Organizing a council is a gigantic task. But the various congregations, after a bit of mild demurring, bowed to the pontiff’s wishes and pitched in with a will to make the necessary preparations. This was surprising.

The first document published by the Vatican Council, the one that remains as its major achievement, Lumen Gentium, was a statement on the nature of the church. It is a masterful synthesis of what the church of Christ was founded to be. It is widely quoted and is regarded as a landmark in ecclesiology.
(page 14) Unexpectedly, right in the middle of the document, ( ) specific l mention is made of the charisms of the Holy Spirit as outlined by St. Paul (1Cor12: ). The point is made that these have always been present in the church and are intended by the Lord as ministry gifts. They are to be used to build up the Body of Christ, while we are cautioned to focus not on the gifts of the Lord but on the Lord of the gifts, we are urged to cultivate and to treasure the gifts. Surprising?
At the opening of the Council on , 1962, the Holy Father had led the bishops, advisors, and observers in prayer. The text is well known. He had begged the Father in Jesus’ name to send the Holy Spirit upon the Church in this age “as in a new Pentecost.”
Shortly after the Council’s close waves of renewal began to multiply throughout the Church. The surprising charismatic renewal was one of these. The little seen charisms of the Holy Spirit, made specific mention of in the Council’s Lumen Gentium, began to be experienced at every level of the Church. Another unlikely event.
In mid-council, his God given task, we must believe, completed, good Pope John died. His earthly journey finished, he proceeded toward that complete union with God for which he had, like any true believer, long yearned. The archbishop of Milan, Giovanni Baptista martini, succeeded to the papal office.

It was just as Paul VI was beginning his new task that the so many of the underpinnings of human society seemed to begin to give way. The age of protest and rebellion was underway in earnest.
Pope Paul was, by nature, a rather timid and retiring type of man. Though he had accepted his election to the papacy as a call from God himself, the very public nature of his ministry (no office in the world is more subject to such an intense, never-ending scrutiny), was among his greatest burdens. Yet, the way he was able to hold the Church together and keep it on the Lord’s track, despite his being constantly buffeted from all sides, was truly remarkable. It was unlikely.
The death of his successor, Pope John Paul I, was unexpected, of course. But surely the election of the present pontiff was one of the most startling surprises of the modern age. The first non-Italian in hundreds of years and from behind the iron curtain at that! The world was stunned. The hand of God? Unexpected, to say the least.
I was present at the 1954 American charismatic conference at the University of Notre Dame, Indiana. Among the sharings was one by Sally Lynch, one of the directors of the Association of Christian Therapists. She testified to an unusual experience she felt the Lord had given her sometime in the mid-seventies, while Pope Paul VI was bishop of Rome. One night she had a remarkable clear dream in which she saw the face of a man, a total stranger to her. So vivid was it that she woke with a start. She puzzled over it for a minute or two, then sat on the edge of her bed and asked the Lord if he were saying anything to her. She had the sense he was saying to her: “Pray for this man. He will be Pope.”
When Paul VI died and the college of cardinals chose John Paul I, she knew this was not the man in here dream and she began to question the whole experience. But, a few short weeks later, when she saw the picture of the present Holy Father, she had every reason to believe again in the supernatural (nature of the dream. John Paul II’s face was the one she had seen!
I see the hand of God in all this in an unmistakable way. He has something very unusual in mind these days. These are momentous times, pivotal, I believe in the history of the world, and the Lord is leaving no stone unturned to prepare his people for what lies ahead.

And his surprises continue to this day. Without trying to influence or anticipate the officially appointed commission that is discerning it at present, I feel compelled to give my own unqualified endorsement to a series of apparitions of the Blessed Virgin Mary that are reported to be taking place, even at this writing, in Yugoslavia. I cannot say without reservation that these are authentic. I can say only that I believe them to be so.

She comes as a true prophet, sent by the Father with a message for the Lord’s people. She calls us to turn away from the sinful patterns in our lives and to turn back in total conversion to the Lord. She urges those who are in the process of doing this to pray and fast that millions of others will do the same. Unless we come back to the Lord in great numbers, she adds, the world stands in grave danger of a major calamity of disastrous proportions.
These visits of the Lord’s prophet to the five young Croatians have been occurring virtually every day since June 24, 1981. A truly surprising and unexpected initiative of the Lord on behalf of his people. Very unlikely.

These are but a few of the Lord’s many unusual interventions in this current age. And this is only from a Catholic perspective. I’m sure our non-Catholic brothers and sisters could share similar observations.
Lest we lose sight of the Lord’s overall agenda for this time, let us hear it again: God intends to restore power and unity to his church in our day. We all know how unlikely this sounds. Perhaps all the more reason to believe it. END OF SECTION 3.
The prophet Amos says: “The Lord never does anything without first revealing it to his servants, the prophets.” (Amos 3:7). The Lord is ready and able to intervene in human affairs whenever a faithful, repentant people come persevering before him in intercession. Although his moves will catch the world off guard, his people, provided they are listening, will be ready.
St. Thomas Aquinas, the ‘angelic doctor’, expressed the consistent teaching of the church right from the beginning when he said that the Lord never leaves his people without the prophetic word, that he sends prophets to every age of the Church. Our age is surely no exception.
It is my firm conviction that the Lord has provided us with two major prophets today” the man in white who occupies the chair of Peter and the day clothed with the Lord’s own radiance who comes from heaven to us.
As is customary, prophets agree. It is profoundly enlightening and moving to note how strikingly similar are the words that Mary and John Paul are speaking.
One example might be in order for now. Marty is reported to have said in Medjugorje that as the Lord renews his Church, his glory is going to be manifested most in Russia. One doesn’t say things like that if one wants to sound good. It is a very unlikely word. And yet, she said something very much the same at Fatima in 1917. While it was in the throes of a convulsive revolution, a third rate world power at best, she said that Russia would spread its errors (atheistic communism) throughout the world. This has been fulfilled. She also said Russia would be converted and an era of peace would be granted to mankind.
I recently heard Father Tom Forest relate a private conversation he had about a year ago with Pope John Paul. They got to discussing the present State of the Church in Europe, not especially encouraging at the moment. Father Forest told the Holy Father he thought the day was coming when missionaries from the third world would have to come to bring the faith back to Europe. The pope’s reply was astounding. He said something like” ‘Yes, I believe there’s some truth to that. But I have a very deep sense that the major effort to re-Christianize Europe is going to come from Russia. ‘Amazing’! Are we listening to the prophets the Lord has provided for us? Are we taking them seriously? END OF SECTION 4.
The prophetic word has a remarkable consistency to it. The Lord is pointing us to a time of revival within the church that, perhaps, many of us have only dreamed of. He has been speaking of a rather thorough-going restoration of the whole Church, something that, in all probability, is difficult for us to envision. We are anxious to believe him, but perhaps, find ourselves puzzled as to how it will all come about. Though it may tend to boggle our minds a bit, we can understand what the end product may look like. But the process, how we are to get there, may have us puzzled.
However, the Lord, through his prophetic ministers, has not exactly been silent about the process.
Listen to what Pope John Paul II said in Fulda, Germany in November 1980: “We must be prepared to undergo great trials in the not-too-distant future, trials that will require us to be ready to give up even our lives, a total gift of self to Christ. Through your prayers and mine, it is possible to alleviate this tribulation, but it is no longer possible to avert it. It is only in this way that the Christ can be effectively renewed.”
The pope speaks of a time of trial, of testing, that is coming upon the world. But we are not to be in fear or dismay, he says, because it is only through such an experience that the church can be purified. He even seems to be urging us to rejoice in great anticipation of what the Lord is in the process of doing.
Those who know him well and see him frequently say the Holy Father seems to be driven forward by a great sense of urgency. Despite the pleading of many that he make changes in his schedule, that he reduce his sixteen and seventeen hour working days and cut down on his pilgrimages, as he calls them, of faith, hope and love, he presses on. His work-load is staggering. Those who try to keep up with him for even a few days at a time inevitably wind up exhausted. But, if anything, he is actually picking up the pace instead of slowing down.
He said in Winnipeg (September, 1984) that we must never resist the Holy Spirit. As he repeated the word ‘never’ a couple of times with a rising crescendo, the people responded with a thundering affirmation. It occurred to me that this was the sacred behind his seemingly boundless energy, his ----- will, his never-flagging determination to speak the Lord’s word and do what he’s doing. He does not resist the Holy Spirit. The Spirit of God drives him on..
The urgency is not new with him. When, as Cardinal Woytyla from Poland, he attended in 1976 the Eucharistic Congress in Philadelphia, he said: “We are now facing the greatest historical confrontation humanity has ever gone through. I do not think the wide circle of American society or the wide circles of the Christian community realize this fully. We are now up against the final confrontation between church and anti-Church, Gospel and anti-Gospel.”
His reading of the signs of the times comes, I am convinced, from his openness to the Holy Spirit. I believe the Lord is speaking this within him. Unfortunately, not all of us are listening.
Mary, too, appearing in Medjugorje,sent by the Lord to prophesy to the Church, is saying the same thing. She makes frequent reference to the fact that we stand on the brink of world-wide cataclysm, a profound shaking of the structures of human society, something we are ill-prepared for. As the level of din rises, she says, the degree of breakdown increases. A time of severe judgment just may be on its way. But, through it all, the Church is to be dealt with, trimmed up, purified, brought into a far-reaching state of renewal. Again, the prophets agree. And they are not alone.
Catherine Doherty is the foundress of the Madonna House community in Combermere, Ontario. She is a widely read author of several books on the spiritual life. The community has gained admiration and respect throughout the entire Christian world for the admirable simplicity of its life-style, its aggressive pursuit of the Lord’s wisdom through the use of the pustinia in particular, and its total dedication to the service of the poor. Mrs. Doherty, “the B”, as she is affectionately called, has long been listening with great care to the Lord. For the past ten years she has been sensing the approach of a time of profound universal disturbance, a kind of large-scale breakdown of the structures of human society. She has urged the community to become as self-sufficient as it can so that, if need be, they can teach the rest of us how to live as they do.
The gift of prophecy, never absent from the Church in any age, has been undergoing an interesting revival of late, especially within the ranks of the charismatic renewal. Numerous prophecies, well tested and discerned, have been making mention of the coming time of trial for the world, purification for the Church, and triumph for the Lord through his people. At the international conference of 1975, held in Rome, words of just this kind were spoken in St. Peter’s basilica. “Days of darkness are coming upon the world, but a day of glory is coming upon the Church…victory for your God.” the
Message went on to speak of “a day of evangelization that the world has never seen.” In fact, for the last 150 years, the burden of Catholic prophecy has been precisely the same. Different deeply prayerful people, like
Have spoken of a major series of disasters to fall upon the world in the latter part of the twentieth century. Pope Leo XIII claimed to have had an inner vision from the Lord to the effect that the works of Satan would multiply, that he would plunder and divide the Church, and that it would all come to a kind of climax after about a hundred years. That’s why he instituted the prayers after Mass that some of us will remember, the Leonine prayers they came to be called, which, among other things, invoke the protection of the archangel Michael, the one who battles the great dragon (Rev. ---). He received his word from the Lord in 1884.
So, perhaps, we must look to and be prepared for a series of disasters which will massively disturb and re-arrange the structures under which we live. The roots of some civilizations could even be pulled right up.
The nature of the shaking? Hard to say. Most of us think right away of nuclear war. That may or may not be it. Or all of it. It might involve a string of natural calamities, a collapse of the world’s economy, a breakdown of law and order, a rise of totalitarian regimes, or perhaps a combination of them all.
Am I trying to frighten people? Not at all. The word to concentrate on is the promise of the restoration of the Church. The Lord’s own victory. Let’s not forget that at Fatima Mary promised an era of peace. We’re getting close to that, no matter what happens, we really have nothing to fear. Those who trust in the Lord have him, as their rock of refuge. The real believer knows that, even if he has to pay with his life, the Lord will deliver him to eternal glory. Mary speaks encouraging words at Medjugorje. Pope John Paul tells us not to fear, but to anticipate with eagerness the long-awaited purification of the Church.


Let’s try to sum if all up. It just may be that the Lord is telling us something like the following could occur in the foreseeable future, perhaps much sooner than we think.
1) the world may experience a time of severe trial and see its most reliable structures collapse; The Church may experience a thorough going purification in the Lord’s power and to full unity;
2) An extended era of peace may follow the period of turmoil.
END OF SECTION 5.

A very severe shaking may shortly be in store for the human race and the planet we inhabit. The root cause of it all is our sinfulness, our rebellion against God and his law. We have to expect to suffer the consequences of our own actions. We may be in for an experience of what is called the judgment of God.
But there is an understanding we need to have about this that we do not yet have. It is not so much that God is just waiting till our rebellion against him reaches a certain point so that he can then intervene and give us the treatment we deserve. It is, rather, that our society and the earth we live on tend to get out of order to the degree that God’s law is broken.
The Lord has created the universe and everything in it to follow a certain set of laws. All the inanimate things and the non-human animate creatures obey these laws automatically. But mankind, the highest order of the universe’s creation, is free to choose. Because there is a unity to creation, order tends to break down at all levels in proportion to the degree that we human beings disregard the laws of God under which we are meant to live.
We are talking about sin, the breaking of God’s law. We are one with the earth in a way our native people understand better than we do. As we rise in rebellion against God, are more and more sinful nature tends to use in rebellion against us. Earthquakes, hurricanes, tornadoes, volcanoes and the like multiply. Strange weather patterns become more frequent. Drought or flood will be more common, and unfortunate food shortages follow But it isn’t as though God is sending these disasters because we’re offending him. It’s all built into creation’s design. It is planned to follow an orderly set of laws. When the laws are broken, things tend to break down.
If war, crime, violence, poverty, hunger, starvation, disease etc are on the rise, and it would seem they are, we need look no further for the cause than human sin.

It is not that God sends us direct punishment. It is not he who is the cause of our problems. We ourselves are the reason for the ills human society faces. It is our sin, our refusal to submit to the Lord’s order, that does us in.
END OF SECTION 6.
God is on the move. His plans for his people far exceed our own. He means to accomplish nothing less than the restoration of the Church to full power and full unity.

But it will not likely happen without considerable difficulty. The renewal will probably come as the result of considerable purification. It may well be preceded by a period of fairly severe trial.
Is the trial inevitable? It is impossible to say, I guess but it is my own firm opinion that it is. I believe we are headed for very tough times. I feel the intensity of it all can be mitigated by our prayer and fasting. And as well, the length of time it will take can be shortened by what we do.
It is pointless to speculate for very long on the nature of the trial. Most people will think first of a nuclear exchange. This may not be it. It could be an economic collapse. All it would take would be for a few of the nations of the south to renege on their debt payments. The large banks that hold the mortgages would begin to fold and considerable political chaos would not be far off. It could be a proliferation of natural disasters. It could be a combination of many factors.
In any case, the Lord does not want us to concentrate on the trials we may have to face. He wants us to concentrate on him. Jesus continually urged his followers to trust him in such a complete way that there must remain no room for fear. “Fear not, little flock”, he said. “it has pleased the Father to give you the kingdom” ( ).
We have every reason to believe he is giving us the same assurance today. No matter what circumstances conspire, the news is awfully good. A great victory for the Lord is in sight. After all, at Fatima, Mary did promise the conversion of Russia and an era of peace.
These are critical times. Momentous events could well unfold. What a challenge for the Lord’s people, the Church! What a privilege for us if we can be part of it!
As the world endures a through shaking, the Church will undergo an extensive purification. So goes the thinking of many who are trying to listen attentively to the Lord.
What will the Church look like after it is purified? No doubt it will be more conformed to the original pattern left to us by Jesus himself. In any case, we should not really try to anticipate the future inspirations of the Holy Spirit.
My conviction, nonetheless, and it is strictly from me and not from the Lord, as St. Paul would say ( ), is that the Church in its restored condition will be fully evangelical, fully pentecostal, and full catholic.