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Newsletter Volume 2 November
2002 Greetings to all of you and God's blessings on us all as we are well into the fall season and Advent is almost upon us. We are beginning to see a little more progress with AFP growth and influence. Events since the last Newsletter are as follows: 1.) May 9-11 A prayer vigil was held for a week before the event. The nursery at St. Mary's Parish Church, Clarenville, was transformed into a beautiful prayer room where a continuous prayer vigil was in progress while Synod was in session. 2.) June 5 One of our committee members, Elaine Murley, and I did a presentation in Trinity, Trinity Bay, at the District branch Meeting of the ACW. Elaine spoke on Prayer Vigils and I did a mini workshop on Group Prayer. 3.) June 14-16 We organized a three level prayer vigil around the Diocesan Spiritual Renewal Conference in Grand Falls / Windsor. A.) One parish in each of five deaneries prayed for one hour on an assigned day of the week prior to the Conference. This gave us one hour of prayer daily for five days. B) On the Friday night and all day Saturday during the Conference we had one parish in each of five deaneries praying for two hours at an assigned time. This gave us ten hours of prayer throughout the diocese. C) A ten hour prayer vigil was going on in the church while the conference was in progress. 4) Sept. 29 At the Deanery Council Meeting for the Burin Deanery in Grand Bank I did a 2 1/4 hour presentation on What is AFP? And two mini workshops - one on Contemplative Prayer and one on Prayer Walking - an exercise for the whole being – body, spirit and mind. 5) November 2 I did a workshop for parish reps and potential parish reps. We had a blast – laughed a lot and learned a lot. We gained three new parish reps from this! Great day! Praise God! At he moment the Rep list is as follows:
As you can see, things are looking very good in Bonavista deanery. This was the obvious place to start as it is my own deanery and the dean is my rector, which helps a lot! Thanks Rev. Cutler!! Toronto Conferences October 16-19 I was privileged to attend two AFP Conferences in Toronto (one in Pickering and one in York Mills). This was surely a time of great blessing and learning for me. The Pickering Conference was for Diocesan Reps all across Canada. I suspect I may legitimately be blamed for infecting the whole country with the flu virus as I was very much infected myself at the time!! I was able to take part in two workshops there. One was on Youth Ministry led by Jess Cantalon. One interesting suggestion from him was starting a praying grandparents group! The second workshop was "How to Lead a Week of Guided Prayer in a Parish Setting" by Sister Jane Galvin. The York Mills Conference was an AFP diocesan event of the Toronto Diocese. The main speaker was author Margaret Silf, who was very interesting and entertaining. Also, we could attend two of twenty workshops. I chose to attend one given by one of the Canadian founders of AFP, the Rev. Canon Tom Gracie. His talk on "Praying in Persistent Problems" was humourous and profound at the same time for this wonderful man is suffering from Parkinsons disease but is a living example of prayer in action. My second workshop "Listening with the Heart" by Sr. Particia had a very deep effect on me. This was an experience of Lectio Divina which is spiritual reading, meditating, and listening with the heart. As I become more experienced in practising this I hope to be able to pass it on for use in our parishes. The whole experience was truly a blessing to me and I pray it will also , through me, be a blessing to our diocese. Prayer Points • Mrs. Pat Curtis, co-director of AFP Canada, living in Calgary, who is recovering from cancer surgery and chemo. • Pray for the work of the AFP in our diocese and that we will soon have parish reps in all our parishes. • Pray for our Bishop and all our clergy and for their part in bringing deeper prayer to our people. Future Plans Advent: Clarenville AFP will be presenting a series of three Quiet Hours ; one on each Friday evening of Advent. These will consist of quiet music, meditations, and prayer. We are also planning a Power House of Prayer workshop early in Lent and a Home Quiet Day. **CALL TO CLERGY**: There is so much that lay people can do in a parish to fulfill God's calling for the parish and for individuals in it. May I take this opportunity to call upon clergy to 1.) respond to the call to seek out a person who can be AFP rep for your parish. 2.) remember that I am available as guest speaker for Deanery Council Meetings, ACW District Branch Meetings, etc. 3.) note that (most important of all) that what we urgently need is to schedule Parish Rep Workshops like the one we had in Trinity on Nov. 2, where two people were selected from each parish and sent off to the workshop. This worked well and if we keep the need in prayer, we will soon see these workshops in all the deaneries. Some Wisdom from the Rev. Canon Tom Gracie Accentuate the positive Eliminate the negative Latch unto the affirmative And don't mess with Mr. In-Between. "God cannot act until you accept where you are. Sometimes that means taking responsibility for your own actions." "Don't ask, ‘Why me?' Ask, ‘Why not me?' and ask, ‘Who else would I rather have it happen to?'" "Accept what you cannot control. Don't push the river. It will run by itself." "Laugh and be thankful" Elsie Sullivan Diocesan Rep, Central NL Box 614 Clarenville, NL, A0E 1J0 phone/fax 466-2002 e-mail fsullivan@thezone.net |
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