Cohosts:
Fr. Michael Scanlan, TOR
Mark Nehrbas
"The popes are saying a new Pentecost is for the purpose of a new evangelization," said Ralph Martin, president of Renewal Ministries. "We're given the Holy Spirit to fall in love with Jesus—the way, the truth, and the life—so we can be his witnesses."
Nearly 800 people from 33 states and 4 foreign countries descended on Franciscan University's campus to be "Empowered by Truth" at the June 11-13, 2010, Catholic Charismatic Conference. Coming from as far away as Australia and Slovakia, and as near as Columbus and Steubenville, OH, participants arrived seeking a renewed experience of Pentecost.
"Let the fire fall!" said Franciscan University Chancellor Father Michael Scanlan, TOR. "The power and the fire of the Holy Spirit is unlimited.
"This time 35 years ago," said Father Scanlan, one of the foremost leaders in the Catholic charismatic movement, "we took the charismatic renewal to the Vatican and the pope, who said, 'This is hope for the Church!' The popes have always been excited about it and enthusiastic about it."
Throughout the weekend, participants were immersed in Jesus Christ, "the way, the truth, and the life." They had many opportunities to receive the sacraments, offer up praise and worship to God, and pray for an outpouring of the Holy Spirit.
Deacon Larry Oney, chairman and CEO of Hammerman & Gainer, Inc., shared with participants his own extraordinary life journey in the hands of the Lord, which brought him from near membership in the Black Panther Party and radical political leanings to forgiveness of white people, entry to the Catholic Church, and learning to love as Christ loves.
"God's amazing grace can overcome racial prejudice, racial hatred. That's the bottom line."
"I was a racist—I had hatred in my heart towards white people," said Oney, whose parents had been sharecroppers until his mother, "our Moses," led them down to New Orleans to seek a better life.
Times stayed tough, leading to his first encounter with God's grace mediated by a white person when an unknown woman brought his family food one Thanksgiving. Over many years, the opening made by that act of care allowed Oney to finally find complete healing and conversion in the sacrament of baptism.
"I came up out of the water and the faces of white people looked like the faces of angels," said Oney. "I couldn't hate anymore. I was healed of all the indignities of the past."
Ralph Martin, author of The Fulfillment of All Desire, followed Oney at the podium, addressing the topic, "The Truth Will Set You Free."
"Our love for others should impel us to spread the truth of the Gospel," he said. "As Catholics, we've got the treasure of the truth, the secret of human life and where it's leading. What we have to say has eternal consequences."
Martin, director of Graduate Theology Programs in Evangelization at Sacred Heart Major Seminary in Detroit, said, "Most Catholics these days believe that the way to heaven is broad and easy and most people are going there. And narrow and straight is the gate that leads to hell. The whole witness of Scripture says otherwise."
He quoted Vatican II on the laity, offering participants four ways to witness to the Gospel as lay people: through living a moral life according to the teachings of the Church, performing the works of mercy, renewing the temporal order by seeking a just society, and talking to other people about Jesus.
"Sometimes people say, 'I know I'm called to holiness, I know I'm called to evangelization, but I'm just a lay person.'
"Just a lay person! Think of what it means to be a lay person—having the Spirit penetrating your being, being one spirit, one body with the Lord!"
Living that truth means our entire lives can become worship, said Paul George, co-founder and director of Adore Ministries.
"Worship is relationship," he told the audience. "'I' am the opposite of worship, when 'I' get in the way of this relationship with God."
George, director of the diocesan Offices of Evangelization and Young Adult Ministry in Houma, Louisiana, reminded participants that worship happens at all times in heaven. "We don't create worship, we enter into worship…. The Spirit leads us into deep relationship with the Father and the Son, where nothing else exists but the relationship."
Entering into worship is nourished by having the Scriptures in our lives, said Sister Ann Shields, SGL, also of Renewal Ministries.
"We talk so much about being overweight, but I think that, as Catholics, we're anorexic when it comes to the Word of God," said Sister Shields, author of To Be Like Jesus.
"Scripture says the Word of God is living and active. It separates bone from marrow, it convicts that deeply. If you allow yourself to be convicted that deeply, you will also be consoled and comforted."
She reminded participants that no matter what pain they had in their lives, "Christ experienced it before us.
"It's the breaking in us that sometimes is the very pathway through which God reveals himself to us."
"When we have the cross and the Spirit together in our lives," said Franciscan University Director of Evangelization Father Dominic Foster, TOR, in his homily at the Mass closing the conference, "there is no force in hell that can stop us."
Andrew Wood of Berowra, Australia, had been visiting his sister, an alumna of Franciscan University, in Ohio and decided to check out the conference.
"There isn't anything like this in Australia," he said. Wood was impressed by the number of people and the infectious enthusiasm of everyone involved. He said he'd take some of that back with him to the land down under.
Georgie Kelly from Prince of Peace Parish in Madison, Indiana, agreed. "You always see the enthusiasm here."
She said that the main thing she'd take back with her was "how real all of the speakers are. There's not an aura of 'holy holy whatever.' They're real people with real lives who have fit their lives into their faith."
