To coincide with the 10th anniversary of the Berwick-based Community of the Risen Lord (Melbourne), its leader, visiting preacher Brother Lalith Perera, addressed committee members, known as servers, on Monday, 6 February, at The Grand Metropol in Clayton.
Brother Lalith cautioned the servers against complacency and urged them to recommit themselves for the next phase of their journey.
“The greatest enemy of tomorrow is the good things that happen yesterday,” he said.
He said the vision of the CRL for 2017 was not only a call for collective action as a group but also an individual call to personal prayer as “each and every one of us from the community”.
He said to be able to work for the Lord, his disciples need to spend time at the feet of the master in personal prayer, praise and worship, fasting and intercession for a revelation. He called on them to fast on negativity, frustration and something that’s really hard not just food.
He called on the servers to dispel the “cloud of unknowing” that stifles positivity and prevents them from “seeing beyond” and instead embrace the “cloud of God’s presence and glory” that brings internal rest and a manifestation of God’s miracles among those being served.
He alluded to three recent miracles that took place in Sri Lanka at the CRL prayer meetings.
The first of them being a woman who had two large hernias being healed averting surgery as the scans and reports confirmed one had disappeared completely and the other reduced to a tiny hernia not requiring intervention.
The second cure mentioned was that of a woman who had compound fractures after a collision between a three-wheel scooter and a tractor.
Her leg was broken in several places requiring emergency surgery and pins to keep it in place.
However, the woman required crutches to walk for almost a year as the leg was crooked.
Depressed, the woman had tried to commit suicide more than a dozen times and had completely given up on God.
However, a word of knowledge of healing of a woman with compound fractures given at a prayer meeting at Mabole, Sri Lanka, attended by her mother was claimed.
The timing of the message coincided with the time that the injured woman had woken up and rushed minus her crutches to the dining room to have her dinner. She is able to run and even dance now.
The third example cited was that of a man stricken with cancer and with a tumour in the brain being healed.
The highlight of Brother Lalith’s mission in Melbourne this year is the Four Steps Retreat at St Francis Xavier, Berwick Campus, on Saturday 11 February from 1.30pm to 7pm, and Sunday 12 February from 10am to 5pm. He is here on the invitation of Sale Bishop Patrick O’Reagan.
Canberra Archbishop and former Sale Bishop Christopher Prowse had observed that the Four Step Retreat conducted by the CRL had been a moment of encounter with the Holy Spirit in the spiritual lives of so many people around the world.
“You may wish to consider participating. Let us keep our eyes and hearts on the Lord,” Archbishop Prowse said.
Archbishop of Hobart Julian Porteous said: “Bringing Catholics to a revitalisation of their faith is a very important part of the mission of the Church at this time in countries like Australia.
“St John Paul II spoke of this as the New Evangelisation.
“The Four Step Retreat is a presentation of the basic message of the Gospel in an attractive way which has been proven as an effective expression of the new evangelisation.”
Ahead of the weekend retreat, there will be two talks at Our Lady Help of Christians Parish, Narre Warren, on Thursday 9 February and at St Michael’s Parish, Berwick, on Friday 10 February, from 7.30pm to 9.30pm.
For further details, contact Hashika N. A. De Silva on 0415 737 154 or 8786 7509, Kirk on 0430 945 959, Rukmal on 0411 468 571, Fernando on 0431 315 129 or Michael Powers on 5678 2271.
