The Companions of the Cross are to be, we believe, a community involved in active ministry. While our life together is to come first, and we are to invest a great deal of ourselves in helping the Lord to make it work, the ministry that flows out of it will be an essential part of who we are.

One of the key ministries that we see ourselves carrying out is pastoring parishes, mostly in the central core areas of our cities, to authentic revival in the Holy Spirit.

Much of what is to be shared here is personal testimony, but not so much as it relates to me. Rather, the point in telling all this is to lay out for us the possible blueprint that the Lord wants to use in seeing parishes come alive in genuine renewal.

The suggestion here is not that we have discovered some magic formula that is bound to work, nor that the Lord’s intention would be to do the identical thing in every parish. But we think it is possible for us to identify some principles underlying the experiences we have had that can serve to give us some direction. God doesn’t want us to re-invent the wheel every time we begin something new. One of the ways to catch the Lord’s word for now is to look backwards and see what he has already obviously said and done.

I had spent nineteen years of my priesthood teaching in high school before moving into full-time renewal work. Although I had helped out in parishes all this time, I had never been pastor. In fact, I had avoided it as best I could, making other suggestions to the archbishop every time he mentioned to me the possibility of my becoming a parish priest. I just didn’t have the heart for the task, as I used to say. For some reason, I couldn’t see myself doing it.

In the summer of 1984, I had what I considered to be a unique opportunity. I was invited to speak at three different conferences in Canada, one in the west, one in the east, and one in the central part of the country. Since the themes of the three gatherings were very similar, I gave virtually the same talk at each. I felt the word I was supposed to deliver concerned parish renewal. I tried to make the point that, if the Lord’s underlying purpose in releasing this peculiar grace known commonly as Baptism in the Holy Spirit in such abundance in our day was to work a thoroughgoing revival in the entire Church, this was necessarily going to have to include parishes. Since 98% or more of our people experience Church in parishes, I said, we were not going to be able to talk about the renewal of the whole Church unless something significant could happen in our parishes.

This, of course, was not terribly profound. But I went on to describe what a renewed parish might look like. The celebrations of the liturgy would be lively, with lots of participation. Our churches would be filled with enthusiastic worshippers, most of whom would get there early to get a good place to sit. The front rows would fill up first. The preaching would be powerful and combine with the rest of the celebration to bring people to conversion. We would begin to see, perhaps at first in a modest way, signs and wonders worked by the Lord to accompany the authentic proclamation of his word. Ministry visions would arise as the people touched by God’s grace and brought along the path of personal renewal would begin to get prepared and sent out to do the Lord’s work. There would be all kinds of ministries of evangelization, teaching ministries directed to people at various stages of spiritual growth, and ministries of caring that would reach out to the poor, the sick, the unemployed, the desperate, the lonely, the imprisoned, and scores of others who have been pushed to the margins of society. Relationships would be building and people would begin making commitments, not only to the Lord, but to one another as covenants would take shape. And last, but certainly not least, the pastors would concentrate on pastoring. Out of administration altogether, they would do what the Apostles said they must do: get back "to prayer and the service of the word" (Acts 4:6).

The reaction was electric. I was amazed at the positive response the talk received. I was affirmed out of my mind. Of course, it was easy for me to talk. It is always easier to talk than to act. And, I guess, all present soon concluded it was nothing but a dream, a fantasy. But it was obviously what they were looking for, hoping, striving, and praying for.

All summer, as I prepared these presentations and dutifully gave them, I had a developing sense within me that the Lord had, as well, a personal word for me. It was as though he might have been telling me that the message I was delivering was from him alright and that I should give it as best I could, but, that when my summer run was finished, I should go home and stay quiet because he was going to change my agenda for me. I didn’t know if I was hearing correctly (I fervently hoped I wasn’t), but I just knew that, if my sense was correct, it surely meant parish for me, the thing I was talking so big about and had deliberately stayed away from for many years.

To shorten the story, the personal word turned out to be right on. I returned home late August, and, obedient to what I felt the Lord might be asking of me, I kept very quiet. Within weeks, I was appointed pastor of St. Mary’s parish in Ottawa. It was, to say the least, an unlikely appointment. The clergy moves in our diocese are always made in June, not in September. However, there I was, after close to thirty years of ordination, a pastor for the first time.

St. Mary’s is just on the edge of downtown, not really an inner-city parish, but having some, at least, of the characteristics of one. It had been, twenty years and more previously, a busy, bustling parish, the church jammed to the doors several times each Sunday. There had been lots of involvement on the part of the parishioners. However, the years had taken their toll. Many of the people had moved away. The young families had seen the children into adulthood. The neighbourhood had undergone many changes. It just wasn’t the same any more. The fall-away from the practice of the faith, evidenced across the whole, universal Church, was in clear focus here. Great numbers of people were simply staying away from church.

The congregation was now very small. My predecessor, a man I had known and respected for many years, using a suitably Canadian image, put it this way: "You can stand at the front of the church at any of the weekend Masses, and throw a snowball down to the back without hitting anybody." I thought he was kidding. He wasn’t. The church was quite empty. He explained to me that there wasn’t much going on. The only regular use of the parish facilities was a brownie group that met Mondays at 4:30 in the afternoon. And they turned out to be a district group, not connected to the parish at all.

I panicked. I thought to myself: "I have made a horrible mistake taking this on. I wonder if I can possibly get out of it." I couldn’t. I was stuck.

Although I was very distracted, not my usual calm self, there was one thing I had learned to do - get quiet every day for an extended time and pray. I consulted the Lord. I begged him for the wisdom to know what to do. I had to suppress my very natural tendency to try to get something going. Anything! In fact, I did try a couple of things that didn’t work very well. I might have known and saved myself the trouble.

There are lots of good things we can do for God, thousands of things. The problem is that they will be our ideas, run on our energy and resources, won’t work very well, and we’ll exhaust ourselves in the process. How many highly motivated people have burned out trying to make good things happen for God?

What we need, I am convinced, is not a whole bunch of good ideas, but God’s idea. He has a plan. If we can find out what it is and do it, it will work, work for him and for his kingdom.

So ... I persevered in prayer, seeking the Lord’s particular word for the parish. Over time, I thought he might have been getting through to me. Having discerned correctly, I felt, the word about returning home after the summer and so on, I was developing a bit more confidence about my capacity to hear God speak. What I thought I was hearing this time, and it became clearer through a period of days and even weeks, was something like this: "I don’t want you to do anything, except the very obvious things that a pastor must do. I want to take over here myself. I don’t want any of your programs or ideas. I have a plan of my own. But, what I want from you is your permission. I want you to give me permission to do what I want to do. And, not only that, I want you to tell the people that you are giving me this permission, and that I want their permission, too. If I get enough permissions, I’ll move. When I do, you’ll see it. You can then point it out, and get everybody to support it."

Again, I was obedient to what I thought the Lord might be telling me to do. I gave him the permission he seemed to be asking for. In fact, I still give it to him - every day. Awkward though I felt about it, I did tell the people about it, Sunday after Sunday, and I did suggest to them that they might consider giving God the green light themselves.

Their reaction was, as I might have expected, interesting. It was easy to see they had never heard the gospel call put quite that way. Of course, neither had I. I have heard it many times since from many different people, but, up to that point, early 1985, I had never heard it before. The people, I could tell, were struggling with it. I could see some of them mouthing the word ’permission’ to themselves. The occasional one would turn to the person next, a spouse or whatever, and obviously ask: "What did he say?" The answer would come back just as obviously: "He said God wants your permission." Consternation all ’round.

I felt that the Lord was giving me different ways to say the same thing as, week in and week out, I tried the best I could to get the point across. I talked practically nothing else. "Let God be God," I would tell them. "He’s good at it. God is very good at being God. Let’s let him do what he wants here." More shuffling in the pews. "Let’s consult the Lord," I would say. "God has plans for our lives, both as individuals and as a body. If we consult him, maybe he’ll tell us what they are." Furrowed brows. "Are we satisfied with the condition of the Church, with the condition of this parish?" I would rant on and on. "Are we satisfied with what’s happened to our families, to the kids?" (Lots of tough things had happened of course: youngsters on drugs, gone from home, certainly gone from the Church, premarital arrangements, broken marriages, etc.) More were starting to listen. "Do we think God is satisfied? Do we think he has power to turn it around?" Some seemed to be getting interested. "Are we willing to let him change the things that we ourselves cannot change?" I could see some almost saying to themselves: "Is it really possible, I wonder?" "If we’re willing to let God go to work," I would continue to belt it out, "then let’s tell him so." "God is fed up being a spectator in our lives," I would belabour the point. "He wants to be a participant." This went on for over a year.

We were now involved in an extended waiting game, waiting for the Lord to move. To be very honest, I wasn’t sure he would. We did have, however, what we thought was a word from him about the waiting. "I want you to become skilled" he seemed to be saying, "in waiting for me." A skill? It wasn’t a gift then? He wouldn’t help us to wait, it became clear. We had to decide to do it ourselves. As we made the daily decision and just plain waited, we would be leaving the door open for him to initiate the things he had in mind. If we were to get impatient and start a whole bunch of projects ourselves, we would just be cluttering up the path in such a way as to prevent him from moving freely. So, it was wait.

I’m not sure just exactly how long we did wait. There was no sudden breakthrough, I don’t think. But, gradually, it began to dawn on me that the Lord was actually on the move.

People began at some point to testify to tears. Either they were crying in church themselves, or they saw somebody else crying. Oddly enough, it was mostly men who were doing the weeping. I thought at first they were just overwrought. They were losing their grip. Then I began to think: "Good heavens! Maybe they’re crying because the homilies are so bad!" I finally realized what was happening one Sunday when a former student of mine, a chap who hadn’t been to church in eleven years, since his final year of high school, came to Mass and, before the liturgy even started, broke down in tears that he couldn’t control. He cried all through Mass. I met him afterwards. He was a mess. He said: "I don’t know what’s happening to me. I don’t do this kind of thing. My life is in reasonably good shape, I think. I can’t explain it." I wasted no time explaining it to him. God had touched his life. He has since been set on fire for the Lord and is one of our most involved lay ministers. He is busy now doing the Lord’s work.

His story has been repeated again and again in the lives of many different people. But the action of God is both unmistakable and consistent. He is catching people’s attention and turning them to him. People are getting converted right in the Church in the middle of Mass.

What did it mean? What does it still mean? The Lord wants us, not only to notice what he’s doing, but to understand what he’s up to as well. He has placed, it seems evident, an anointing on the building itself and especially upon the celebrations that take place in it. He was telling us, we soon decided, that he wanted us to become very active in the work of conversion. He wanted us to become a parish placing a high priority on evangelization. We have become just that. We evangelize all over the place. All of our sacramental preparation ministries are evangelical in direction. Whether it be Baptism, First Confession, First Communion, Confirmation, or Matrimony, the teams’ first aim is to evangelize those involved. We do street ministry. We go door to door. We run a coffee house downtown. "Are you folks really Catholics?" people will ask. "You bet we are," the answer will come back, "and we’re proclaiming the same gospel the Catholic Church has taught consistently for almost two thousand years."

When it first started to dawn on us that God was doing his favourite work in our midst, the work of conversion, we sent a few people away to get some training in how to evangelize. This is what we think the Lord meant when he said he wanted us to observe what he did, point it out and support it. When we saw what he was doing, we pulled the program in to support what he wanted done. This is a ministry principle of crucial importance. The priority is to find out what God is doing and go do it with him. If he has initiated it, it will have his power. We won’t have to push it. We won’t wear out trying to make it happen. The principle is simple once we see it in operation. He initiates. We support.

Conversions have continued unabated. People who have been away from the Lord and from the Church for years and years are coming back. First, they come to the Lord himself. At some point, he gets them to church. Some with no religious background whatever are hearing the gospel for really the first time, responding to the Lord’s call, and experiencing remarkable transformation as he goes to work within them. But conversion has not been his only initiative. Ministry visions have been surfacing as the people the Lord is dealing with come alive in his grace and begin hearing his further call.

As I’ve already said, there are thousands of good things we can do for God. But, if we don’t tune in to his plan and his timing, they’ll have only limited effect. I have lots of ministry visions. But I have felt the Lord restraining me. I have felt he was saying one of his favourite words: "Wait!" My sense has been that he has wanted me to wait until a member of the congregation gets the vision and reports it to me. Then, and only then, should the ministry begin. So, that’s what’s happened. We have a good number of ministries. Many of them have come from the Lord through somebody in the pews. There are plenty more ministry visions ones I’d love to see in place. But the time is not yet. We’re waiting.

The most unexpected thing the Lord has done, as I see it anyway, is the development of a community of priests. Young men started gathering around who felt they were hearing a call to the priesthood. As we met together and persevered in seeking the Lord’s word, he seemed to be giving us a vision for the community and its ministry. We were to come under the Lordship of Jesus with all that it implies, be devoted to the Eucharist, even to the establishing where possible of perpetual adoration, be open to using all the ministry gifts of the Holy Spirit, be consecrated to Jesus through Mary, be loyal to the pope and the Magisterium of the Church, live a simple life-style, and minister to the poor. It took hold and grew. A number of young men got on board. Now, priests are coming to join us. Never in my wildest nightmares did I ever see myself being involved in the establishment of a new community of priests. I always thought we had too many. Now I’m helping to organize another one. But, strange as it may seem, I’m convinced it’s what the Lord wants.

The community, the Companions of the Cross, with a vision for ministry that all the members share, will be involved in the Lord’s design for the renewal of the diocesan priesthood. They will pastor parishes and take on whatever other ministries bishops assign to them. In the parishes they pastor, when one moves out, another will move in, taking care, hopefully, of the problem that occurs too often when a pastor is re-assigned, having developed many good things, and a successor is named who takes over and cancels everything. We are not into cloning people, but we are quite determined to clone the vision.

Many good things have happened, instituted for the most part by the Lord himself. My impression is, however, that he has only begun. The parish is not a renewed community; it is merely in the process of being renewed. We have a long way to go.

But, that having been said, we have to admit it: interesting things are happening. Maybe we’re not very different after all from the ordinary parish. Certainly, we are not unique. Interesting, I think, is the best word. The liturgies are joyful and seem to be life-giving. There are too many testimonies from people the Lord has reached for us to suggest they are not. The high Mass, in particular, is loud and long. Three hundred and more, close to half of the congregation, stay around for a good while after Mass to fellowship in the parish hall. The front rows fill up first. Many hands are held aloft in praise of God. We have even sung in the Spirit a few times. One person told me St. Mary’s was the only church he’d ever been in where the people standing in the vestibule are singing. Conversions continue at a regular and encouraging pace. Many solid ministries have developed. In addition to the ones already mentioned, there are groups of young adults, high-schoolers, young boys, young girls, children, a men’s breakfast, a women’s witness group, an outreach to the neighbourhood, and several others. Signs and wonders have begun to appear in a modest way portending greater things to come, I think. Relationships have been building and people are making commitments to one another. And ... the pastors are pastoring and precious little else.

We do not sell charismatic renewal. We have a regular Monday night prayer meeting, but other than that we barely mention the word ’charismatic’. It is our firm conviction that the gifts of the Holy Spirit, including the peculiar charisms mentioned by St. Paul in his first letter to the Corinthians, are not meant to be the preserve of one particular movement in the Church, but rather are intended by God for the whole Church. Vatican II says so (Lumen Gentium, #12). The present Holy Father, Pope John Paul II, says so as well (Christifideles Laici, #20). When people call us a charismatic parish, as many do, my response is: "Not really. We are nothing more, nor less, than a Catholic parish in the fullest sense of the word."

Many people who visit us for the Sunday celebration say something to us afterwards like: "How wonderful! How did you do it?" Of course, we have done none of it. We’re just watching the Lord at work. We’re not making it happen. We’re letting it happen.

There is a question that very much needs an answer. Why is it that, although hundreds, even thousands, of our pastors have been very deeply touched by the Lord through this peculiar grace of the baptism in the Holy Spirit, there are not more parishes that are real beacons of renewal? Why is the landscape not fairly dotted with ports of call, places we could visit, places that are fairly bursting with the Lord’s life, filled with enthusiastic believers?

I would suggest that there is an answer. There is a key to parish renewal. Our experience has taught us that the ’secret’ is to give the Lord permission to work and to wait upon him. We are to give him the green light, then to get out of the way and watch him go to work. How about: "Leave it to the Lord and wait for him" (Psalm 37:7).

Does a pastor see renewal begin to take hold in his parish without taking any flack? Not at all. I have had nasty letters, ugly telephone calls, threats. I have been labelled a cult-master, a fanatic. I have been called insensitive. I have been shouted at on the church steps. I have been slandered. I have been accused of pandering to a right-wing group attracted by my conservative theology and preaching. I have been called a left-wing radical because of my emphasis on lay participation and lively liturgy. There have been walk-outs. Yes, there has been plenty of flack. I believe the Lord wants us simply to stand in there and take it. It’s all part of following Jesus. The Bible says: "My son, if you come to serve the Lord, prepare yourself for trial" (Sirach 2:1). I know what it means.

When things started to happen and feathers started getting ruffled, I remember uneasily asking the Lord: "What if people leave?" I just felt he was replying: "Let ’em leave. For every one that goes, I’ll bring in ten more." That has just about literally been fulfilled. I have the impression God wants us to know that we have to fear only him.

It has to be made clear that the vision for the renewal of the parish must come through the pastor. He’s the one who has to call in the permissions for the Lord to inaugurate his plan. It won’t do if the associate is the one with the vision. Or the prayer group. Or the housekeeper. Or the altar boys. It has to be the pastor. That’s the way the Church works. That’s the way the Lord has set it up.

The pastor has to set aside his fears about what may happen if he lets the Lord loose. He must put away his natural desire to please everybody and renew his commitment to please God alone. He will have to allow the Lord to un-busy his life, to cut him loose from the administrative trap in which so many of our pastors are caught. He must get used to standing around and watching for what God will do. He will have to give up his understandable desire to have a smoothly functioning parish and allow some of the chaos that goes on when God goes to work. And he must be willing to surrender his good reputation or what’s left of it.

God wants to renew his Church. He has a carefully worked-out plan. Let’s allow him to get on with it.

Next: Vocations...