To fulfill our call to bring people - through Life in the Spirit - into the fuller awareness of God’s love, forgiveness and His plan for His people we commit
To encourage the development of wise models of lay pastoral leadership through knowledge and growth in the gifts/charisms of the Holy Spirit,
To help people understand the charisms of the Spirit, their use, and how we are meant to live our daily lives empowered by the gifts of the Holy Spirit and by His anointing.
To lead people into a deep personal conversion to Jesus Christ through the anointing, power and gifts/charisms of the Holy Spirit (the grace of Pentecost)
To draw people to a commitment to personal holiness and building Christian community
To encourage and foster religious vocations by leading people to “baptism/life in the Holy Spirit”
joyful, excited, bold and vigilant in our mission to bring the Word of God and the grace of Pentecost into the life of all to whom God sends us
awake to the danger of the present evil and ready to do “battle” in the armor of God
mutually supportive and in service to each other, joining together in unity to make a greater impact on our Church and the brokenhearted
joyful witnesses of loyalty and submission to our Bishop and the Magisterium of the Catholic Church, especially the Holy Father
radical witnesses to holiness
In our vision, the parishes of our diocese would be communities worshipping in vibrant liturgy, bonded together by the Holy Spirit, serving one another, committed to ongoing conversion and growth, reaching out to the inactive, the unchurched and to the poor -- communities in which the charisms of the Holy Spirit are identified and welcomed -- communities on fire with zeal for the Lord!
John the Baptist told his followers that though he baptized with water, the one who was to come after him, “will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire.” Matt 3:11; Luke 3:16
“Often we do not allow the Spirit we have received (in Baptism and Confirmation) to be as active in us as He wants to be. To use an analogy, He is like chocolate syrup poured into a glass of milk – it goes to the bottom of the glass until stirred up. But when it is stirred up, it permeates the milk and transforms it into something else.”
“We can learn how to “stir up” the Spirit – and how to receive more of Him – from Jesus in the Gospels. The Lord teaches us that first we must thirst for God. We must desire more and more of His Spirit. Then we must believe that Jesus is faithful to His promises and will indeed give us His Holy Spirit. Finally, we must ask God for the Holy Spirit. We must pray with perseverance, asking, seeking, knocking, believing that ‘everyone who asks receives, and he who seeks finds, and to him who knocks it will be opened’ (Luke 11:10). We can follow the example of the early Church by praying for the Spirit in union with Mary and the apostles as they did at the first Pentecost (see Acts 1:12-14).”
“What can we expect when we are ‘baptized with the Holy Spirit’? We can expect an immediate or gradual experience of deeper union with God, our loving Father and with Jesus, our Lord and Friend; a fresh appreciation of Scripture; a greater love for others and a desire for Christian fellowship; the fuller presence in our lives of the fruits of the Spirit: love, joy, peace, patience, and more (see Galatians 5:22-23); the reception of one or more of the charismatic gifts of the Spirit such as discernment, service, prophecy, praying in tongues, healing (see 1 Corinthians 12-14). This gift of new fullness of the Holy Spirit, I believe, is the grace of our age. ‘Ask and it will be given to you!’ ” - excerpts from the late Fr. Harold Cohen, S.J.
Resting in the Spirit or Slain in the Spirit is an experience of intense awareness of God’s peace that involves an ecstatic concentration on God’s presence and usually a shut down of voluntary movements like standing or speech for a short time, with only a minimal awareness of outside movements and sound. Some people “rest in the Spirit” by lying down involuntarily, but some people experience this same ecstatic peaceful encounter of God’s presence while sitting up or standing. This is a time for fully yielding to the Lord for Him to lovingly heal or call to us in a special way. Many people having this meditative personal encounter with the Lord experience healing, joy, peace, and love with manifestations of serenity, tears of healing, tears of joy, light laughter in the joy of the Lord, peace and confidence, and a desire to share this experience with others.