Conference connects the Holy Spirit and evangelization

Karen Kamphaus, a member of St. Nicholas Parish in Ripley County, plays a tambourine during a praise and worship song on March 1 during a conference on the Holy Spirit and evangelization sponsored by her parish and held at Batesville High School in Batesville. (Photo by Sean Gallagher)

By Sean Gallagher

BATESVILLE—“I can feel the fire, Holy Ghost fire. I can feel the fire burning in my soul.”

These words were sung with passion and flowed from a high school auditorium on March 1 in Batesville during a conference sponsored by St. Nicholas Parish in Ripley County.

Some 500 people from across Illinois, Indiana, Kentucky and Ohio attending the conference belted out the song between presentations that focused on how the gifts, also known as charisms, of the Holy Spirit are to be used in everyday life to share the Gospel with others.

The conference, “The Holy Spirit and Evangelization: Go and Make Disciples of All Nations,” featured Bishop Sam Jacobs of the Diocese of Houma-Thibodaux in Louisiana, Sister of Charity of New York Nancy Kellar, Father Daniel Wilder of the Diocese of Peoria, Ill., and Father Gregory Bramlage, pastor of St. Nicholas Parish. (See a photo gallery from this event)

Called by Name, a music group made up mostly of members of St. Nicholas Parish and led by Angie Meyers, led participants in praise and worship songs between presentations and during the conference Mass.

Participants thought it was the Holy Spirit that was the driving force behind all that happened at the conference.

“I think this is absolutely wonderful,” said conference attendee Chris Dickson, a member of St. Mary Parish in Richmond. “This is the best conference that I’ve ever been to here yet.

“It really convicted me because I know that I haven’t been doing the job [of evangelization] that the Holy Spirit has been telling me that I’m supposed to do. I’ve been too timid. And now, it’s like, ‘OK, all the stops are out now. You have no more excuses.’ ”

In his presentation, “The Charisms and Evangelization,” Bishop Jacobs emphasized how the Church’s mission of evangelization has been given to all the faithful.

“You are an evangelizer,” said Bishop Jacobs with gusto. “You are to proclaim the word of God. You are to proclaim the Good News of salvation.

“You are to announce what God has done for you in baptism, and how he has brought you into the fullness of his life. And then, when we’re confirmed and hands are laid upon us by the bishop and he anoints us with the sign of the cross, he’s empowering us to be evangelizers. He’s empowering us to be witnesses.”

Bishop Jacobs explained how an ordinary conversation we have with another person can be a real moment of evangelization.

He called such an opportunity “a divine appointment” where God has brought the journeys of the two people in the conversation together at a specific time and place.

“From all eternity, God has willed that you and that person intersect at that moment,” Bishop Jacobs said. “That’s not an accident.

“That divine appointment might be as simple a thing as listening to another person. It might mean nothing but just being a friend to another person until that person is ready to hear the Good News of salvation.”

In her presentation titled “Being More Effectively Evangelistic,” Sister Nancy noted that the Greek used in Acts 1:8 to describe the power that God gave to the Apostles to work wonders and to preach the Gospel is also the root for the English word “dynamite.”

“I think we’re still playing with little sparklers,” Sister Nancy said. “[God] wants to make us explosive through the power of his Holy Spirit.

“The power of the Holy Spirit was not given to make us comfortable. It was given to make us missionaries. And one of the things that can stifle the gifts of the Holy Spirit is that if we do not say ‘Yes’ to our mission.”

At the end of his presentation, Bishop Jacobs presented a challenge to his listeners to use the gifts given in the Holy Spirit for the sake of the Gospel.

“If not you, who? If not now, when? If not the truth of the Gospel, what? If not in the power of the Spirit, how? If not in your home or school or place of work, where?

“God needs us to do our part to help others to know his great love,” Bishop Jacobs said. “Has God loved us? Yes. Now what are we going to do with God’s love? Go and make disciples of all the nations.” †