Category: Meditations

The following article is a combination of a parable and an allegory. It highlights the purpose of the spiritual gifts and draws an extended analogy between the gifts and 'productivity software' that comes with most personal computers.

Greg Trainor wrote the following article for his newsletter in April '10. It's a good reminder that the results of the the charisms are to be matched by the fruits of exercising prayer, sacraments and Scripture study.

Five of the eight verses of the following poem (hymn) were written on Saturday morning, Oct, 21, 1967. Three of the eight verses were added almost thirty three years later on the occasion of the thirtieth anniversary of the Charismatic Renewal in Des Moines, IA. At that time, I also became aware of the significance of the hymn. 

I call this a Transfiguration Hymn based on the Gospel story in which Jesus asked His disciples who they thought He was. A week after Peter gave his famous answer, Jesus took Peter, James and John and went up a mountain and was transfigured in their sight.  The hymn below could very well be words describing that transfiguration. The recurring words that speak about light are the tip-off.

I began to see that each of the verses in the hymn contain images that come directly from Scripture. As the Spirit moved me, and as I happened to be listening, I wrote down the Scriptural background for these verses. If you click on the first part of each verse, you'll jump to a section of the document that gives the scriptural background. Click your browser's [back] button to return to the hymn.

There are some intiguing characteristics to the poem. In short, there are three major themes in the poem...

1. TIME /HOUR : the Key Words are Morning  Midday   Evening   Day  Night
2. LIGHT: the Key Words are Shine  Bright   Clear
3. CALLED AND SENT: the Key Words are "Come and go".

Furthermore, there are 180 words total: 90 of these words are unique.

No word has more than two syllables
The poetic form is what I call 'chain-link parallelism',ie., words used to end one verse begin the next verse. Somewhat like the hymn that starts the Gospel of John.

The following article picks up where the first part of my testimony left off.

When I look back at some of the things that happened in my life I'm amazed. I'm also thankful that I had the sense to keep a journal of what was happening.

I eventually transcribed the journal to a personal computer. The original notes were lost in a flood but the electronic version was saved.

The following article is part of my personal witness to the baptism in the Holy Spirit. The events happened in late November, 1967. That's over forty years ago but each time I read my notes from that time the experience becomes as real as it was then. Now, the problem with almost all personal testimonies is that someone may read them and jump to the conclusion that this particular experience is the typical way that everyone experiences the baptism in the Holy Spirit. Please don't make that mistake. Realize that this is my experience. I had a lot of baggage when I came to the baptism in the Spirit. The baggage held a good amount of arrogance, Irish-temper, pride at twelve years of pre-Vatican II, Catholic education. I was too smart for my own good. Jesus had to let me exhaust my own resources before He could get beyond my defensiveness and introduce Himself to me in the power of His Spirit. I hope you have an easier period of labor before you are "born from above."