So, thank you so much for that beautiful introduction, not only to myself but also to my brother and sisters in the Twelve who are here today. And thank you Fergus. And Fergus and I go back many, many years.
Fergus was once the youth director in the Archdiocese of Armagh, of which I'm a priest in that Archdiocese. And we met there many years ago. And then there was a kind of a blip and we didn't see each other as much. But then something happened.
The Lord had something planned. And he brought us back together again. And we didn't really know what was happening because the Lord knew what was happening. And he brought us back through the power of his spirit.
And I'm just delighted about that. You haven't changed a bit Fergus. Well, you haven't changed much.
Anyway, yes, as Fergus said, I had bypass surgery there about seven weeks ago. And some remarkable things happened through that. I'm not a smoker. Don't drink that much. That much.
And so... you know I was wondering why me I run do exercise and I was just wondering hmm could it be hereditary not really because it wasn't the heart that took my parents so I don't know I I imagine it was some kind of an attack but but the Lord took me away from that took me out of that and it was almost by well in human terms accidental but in Lord's terms he had he knew what he was doing because I said to the cardiologist, I said to him, as I was leaving the building, he was sorting out blood pressure tablets. And I said, by the way, just sometimes you get this kind of like a tension up here in the upper chest.
And he stopped me. I was literally going out. I said, OK, tell me something more about that. And then that led on to an angiogram, which led on to bypass surgery. So I was wondering, like, wow, if I hadn't have, you know, mentioned that I wonder what would have happened and I remember going into theatre and I was holding this cross or hiding this cross because you're not supposed to bring it but I think it was it was taken from me anyway just in theatre but I had it sort of hidden like that and I was saying over and over and over again Jesus Jesus Jesus not Jesus help me help me through this please thank you Jesus Thank you, Jesus.
Because Jesus was in that. Jesus had saved me. And also, when I woke up to the voice of a little Filipino nurse.
There's no Filipino people here. Father, father, wake up, father. That's what I heard.
And I just said, wake up, father. And I took that as not just wake up my body, wake up my soul. So this was a little resurrection.
within my earthly life, wake up. Time to wake up. New things are happening here. I'm not done with you yet.
Okay, so praise God. Praise God for the gift of life, for the gift of God's love. So yes, we're here to talk about unbound ministry, unbound freedom in Christ. But before I get to that, I'd like to speak with you first of all about the 12. Jesus. just a brief introduction about the Twelve.
The Twelve are an evangelisation team who were first commissioned in St Patrick's Cathedral Armagh on the 12th of the 12th, 2012. That wasn't planned. Well, it was planned, but it wasn't planned by us. Someone in the team way back then said, oh, what about the 12th of December to get commissioned? Well, oh, yeah. So it was such a wonderful...
wonderful event. The commitment of the 12 is just one year and people can renew their commitment the following year and the following year so just last December we celebrated 10 years together and the 12 as you will see from the speakers today are those who will pray with you. We are from all walks of life we are single married parents, grandparents and a priest.
And what qualifies us to do this is not theology, not degrees in theology, but the qualification of our baptism. We've also received the baptism in the Holy Spirit when the spark of the Spirit that we received first at our baptism was refreshed, renewed, and fanned into a flame. And through this, we have been called to the Lord. to serve the Lord in this ministry. So not go on to talk about how it all began, but this is where we are now.
If anybody wants to find out more during lunch, we can talk about that. The foundation of the 12 is very much built on prayer. In fact, each member of the 12 has 12 people praying for them. So we have intercessors.
So even as we walk around, there's people praying for us. Wow, just think about that. We've been carried.
on the wings of prayer and each member is called to have a spiritual director to accompany them on the pilgrimage of life. So we have a lot of prayer power behind us and any ministry that has prayer power behind us it cannot fail, it cannot fail. Amen.
The foundation of the twelve. It's about Jesus. And you'll see here our mission statement, to know and love Jesus more, to make him better known and loved. So if we're going to evangelize, spread the good news of Jesus, we have to feed ourselves with Jesus, with scripture and with prayer. So it's so important to do this, to know and love Jesus more, to make him better known and loved.
And we meet every month in the Survive. Priory in Ben Birb, County Tyrone. And apart from worship and praise and planning, a key part of what we do is spending one hour before the Lord in prayer. That's key. That was key to the original 12, to spend time with the Lord together.
And we don't speak, we just spend time with him and just listen to what the Spirit is saying. And then what do we do? We come together and we...
discuss that what what was the Lord saying to us as we as we journeyed with him and we go on what's called our EMS walk in pairs and we come together as a group and share that together and it's it's remarkable the insights that emerge from that listening so to date the Lord has called us to offer four ministries in particular first of all new life in the spirit seminar weekends where we facilitate people to be open, to receive a fresh outpouring of the Holy Spirit. Secondly, days of recollection to help people to discern becoming an intentional or a missionary disciple of Jesus Christ, and offering this especially to those in leadership positions. And thirdly, a program called Called and Gifted.
I don't know if anybody is familiar with that. familiar with called and gifted called and gifted is a program put together by two people a Dominican priest and also a laywoman called She Waddell and it's to help people to discover their charisms charisms are gifts from the Holy Spirit and each one of us have been given a unique gift we're given at the sacrament of confirmation seven full gifts that are freely given to us by the spirit they're called gratuitous gifts of the spirit but we're also given individual gifts of the spirit like leadership administration evangelization teaching music music right um healing intercessory prayer so it's helping people to discern that particular charism that they have been given not for themselves but for others right every charism the spirit gives is for the benefit of others. And fourthly, we also look at this particular ministry, Unbound Freedom in Christ.
In November 2011, while the 12th was still in a sort of embryonic stage, I attended a retreat for priests in the Emmaus. I'll mention that again. The story of Emmaus, or Emmaus, has been with us for quite some time.
But I was in the Moss Retreat Centre in Swords outside Dublin and I went on a priest retreat, a clergy retreat. The theme was deliverance and deliverance was sort of like, well sort of fascinated by that word deliverance. A deliverance retreat just on the theme of deliverance? Hmm, what's that about? So the speaker was a priest from Westminster Diocese London and he was an exorcist and this retreat was organised by the Irish School of Evangelisation, the inspiration of the late great Joee O'Callaghan.
And I remember during the retreat, like, you know, feeling quite uncomfortable at times, especially when he started sharing stories of his experiences of exorcisms. And I went, oh, boy, yeah, am I in the right place? Am I holy enough for all of this? Maybe this guy's a holier man than me.
You know, so it was quite scary. However, after that, but one month later, Joee phoned me. I don't know why he phoned me. And I asked Joee, how many of the others did you phone before you got to me? So anyway, I met up with Joee and Joee showed me.
This book, Unbound, A Practical Guide to Deliverance by Neil Luzano. And he said to me, would I read the book and see what you think? So I read the book and it was a good book.
I was very impressed by it, but that's how far it went. It wasn't until I actually met with Neil Luzano and his wife, Janett, and I was like, what? And they were given a conference in Dublin and Joee was determined to get me to be prayed with through Ombau Ministry with Neil Luzano and his wife, Janett. So I did, being an obedient servant to Joee.
So Neil prayed with me through the five keys of Ombau Ministry. And, you know, when you read a book and when you actually experience the ministry, it's a whole different thing. And and experiencing the ministry.
And I remember in this ministry, what we look at, really, are different impediments or blockages that block the spirit from moving through us. And it could be different things like anger, bitterness, fear, resentment. For me, it was unforgiveness.
In October 2009, my sister died in a car accident. A week before she died, I had a big argument with my sister on the phone about my mother and maybe she could spend some more time with my mother. And then she got back at me and said, oh, you're the golden boy, you're the priest.
You know? And so we had this kind of argument and then put down the phone. that was it.
Then one month later she was dead. So I never really had that opportunity just to be reconciled. So I remember I had sort of buried this for a while, but it started to emerge, come to the surface more and more during that prayer with Neil.
And I remember just like in floods of tears, just, you know, asking my sister for forgiveness and forgiving her. as well. And I felt some, I really felt very much in a tangible way that kind of release.
In a sense, I was being released and she was being released. And I said to people after that, myself and My, my sister, have a great relationship now. Great chats, you know. But it was remarkable. You know, so having experienced this ministry First hand, you know, I want to share it.
I want to share this good news because I've been set free. And when you're set free you want other people to know about it. So then I thought, wow, the 12 are beginning to emerge.
So I brought it to... to the 12 and today it's very much part of what we do, part of our ministry. And I'm in four parishes at the moment and one of the parishes, Knockbridge, that's where we have, it's just outside Dundalk, that's where we have this ministry each month and we're also, we had a little bit of a gap during Covid in the other location, the other location is Benberb, so we conduct this ministry.
in two different locations and each month and it's it's incredible and i'm sure Other members of the group will share some of their experiences of this. So between now and lunchtime, members of the 12, there are five of us here today, six of us here today, but there are also another, I think there's another 14 others now. So we're not just, people say, oh, there's just 12. No, there's more. And we had a baker's dozen there for a while, but we're growing, we're growing.
So anyway, we're going to hear about what... Fergus mentioned this earlier about keys. In this ministry, there are five keys we're going to look at. The first key is called repentance and faith.
I'm going to say just a little bit more about that later on. Repentance and faith. Okay, so it's a general repentance. And we have to know that the person before us is a person who has even that much faith.
I remember on one occasion, I met a person and I said, do you believe that Jesus can heal you? And then I just... discovered that he didn't really have much faith in Jesus. And I said, well, we can't really go on if you don't believe. And again, we had a little discussion.
He came back later on, and we had more discussion about that. But generally speaking, it's so important that the person has some belief that Jesus can heal, even if your faith is as size as a mustard seed. So repentance and faith. The second case.
key is called forgiveness forgiveness unforgiveness is one of the greatest blockages that people have people carry unforgiveness around with them from childhood days right through to adulthood and it can take on all kinds of manifestations emotional spiritual and physical and then we have the third key called renouncing renouncing the work of the enemy so psychologists would talk about anger and fear and and put psychological names on them. We call them, in this ministry, they're called spirits. We call them evil spirits.
Anger, resentment, bitterness, abandonment, fear, resentment, addictions. All these different things that can creep into a person's soul. So we're announcing them.
Later on, just after lunch, we're going to announce all kinds of spirits that may be still clinging to people here. So we're going to... in preparation for ministry we're going to do some renouncing. The fourth key is authority. Through our baptism brothers and sisters, through our baptism we are given the authority.
Jesus said at the end of Matthew's Gospel, Matthew 28, All authority has been given to me. Go therefore, make disciples, teach, baptize, name the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. So he was... handing that authority onto his disciples then, he is handing that authority onto his disciples now. So when we are renouncing different spirits, we don't treat them with respect.
We don't say, Oh, a little spirit of anger and fear. Do you mind just leaving that person, please? No.
We say, in the name of Jesus, I command you to go. In the name of Jesus. I can't renounce, but in the name of Jesus, use the name of Jesus, spirits flee.
Amen. So, repentance and faith, forgiveness, renouncing authority, and the last key is receiving the Father's blessing. This afternoon we will give you an experience of that. We'll only pray one key with you, the Father's blessing. Okay, just to experience part of the ministry.
So I often say to people when they approach me, I often talk about a door and on that door there are five locks. Imagine yourself you're in a prison cell and you have the keys in your hand to get out. Right, you have the keys in your hand.
You turn one key. Turn one key, repentance and faith. Does the door open? No.
Forgiveness? No. Renunciation?
No. You have to open all five locks in order to experience the freedom. So it's so important, that's another thing to mention, so important for people involved in this ministry to prepare.
To prepare. I would say to Catholics, to prepare through... through the sacrament of confession, reconciliation, And also a confidier, also people who are non-Catholics to say, and our Father, because you hear, and our Father deliver us from evil, right?
And even say the words Jesus, it's so important. what I'm trying to emphasize is so important to prepare spiritually for the ministry. You can't just like, oh, so I'm going today. I'll just sit down. If you're not prepared, then you leave yourself open to, and it can happen.
You know, what's wrong with me? And afterwards, I feel so exhausted, so tired, so irritable. You know, spirits can travel.
So anyway, that's something about preparation. So we begin the session with a welcome and then an opening prayer. And then the first key, repentance and faith. And then the person tells their story.
Their story. of woundedness. So we're looking for people, looking at people and different experiences of people who have hurt them, who have wounded them.
And it's usually significant people in their lives. Could be parents, whether living or deceased. Could be siblings. It could be a teacher.
It could be someone who betrayed them, who broke their heart. Could be relationships. There's so many, many different examples of that. So, we let the person tell their story.
And then the prayer leader will jot down a few notes, writing down various people who have caused them pain. And again, we mention to the person who presents themselves for ministry that we're doing this. And we can give the person the sheet, if they so wish, afterwards.
And so it's just help. When you're going through the story again, it's just important to remember the names. of the people, we're just looking first names. So, if it's forgiveness, to say, in the name of Jesus, I forgive my father for abandoning me as a child, okay?
Or I forgive my brother for what he did, if it's abuse, you know, for abusing me. you know, so, or my aunt Janet, or whoever it may be, to mention just the first name, and we write that down. And we'll also include what's called soul ties. Soul ties, that's spirits that have travelled from one person to another through, say, sexual activity, outside marriage, like premarital relationships, and adultery.
So in the sexual act, it's not just the physical fluids that are exchanged, but also everything including the negativity, all the negative spirits that are also being poured into others. So that entire person is being poured into the other person and vice versa. So we want to announce all of that too. So if a person, say, had multiple partners, Jesus think of the spirits that have nested in the soul of him or her through the years.
Also, if a person has been involved in the occult or fortune telling or New Age practices, there's so many negative spirits that can enter our souls through all of this experimentation. So after telling their story with the help of the prayer leader, then we move to the second key, forgiveness, and then to the third key, renunciation. etc.
So each individual session takes an average of one hour. It could take one hour ten minutes, one hour fifteen minutes, it all depends. We try to stay one hour with each person. It's strictly confidential. That's so important to mention too.
I cannot talk to someone else about the person who's come for me to prayer. I can't talk to the intercessor afterwards and say, what do you think of her? Whoa, never heard you know.
Or to say to a person, do you think that's bad? Do you want to hear my story? So that's taboo. Don't do that.
So So it's important that it's confidential. Of course, that's with a small C sometimes, because if it's to do with sexual abuse and that person is still alive, the person who sexually abused that person, and that person is still alive, then we need... We are obliged to say to the person that we need to take this further or even talk to someone about this. It could be say the child protection or the safeguarding person in the parish but generally speaking that It doesn't happen too often at all, from my experience. But if it does happen, it's important to take it further.
But generally speaking, confidentiality is so, so important. This ministry is also a ministry of healing. Yes, the devil exists.
Yes, evil spirits exist. Yes, these spirits have nested in many souls because they don't want to be identified. These prayers don't want to be identified, so when we disturb them, you know, and the person brings out their story, you know, and then, and sometimes a person can get an insight, the prayer leader can get an insight and just mention the spirit. Fear. And I've seen this happen and people, you know, suddenly are jolted back because you have mentioned that spirit, that spirit that did not want to be identified, you know, or anger, resentment, whatever it may be.
So this is all about, as the word says, unbinding and setting free. So the focus is on Jesus and his real, incredible love for us. It's like the story of the Israelites. Israelites.
The emphasis is not on Pharaoh and his oppression, but the emphasis is on the deliverer, Moses and God, the deliverer, the one who sets us free. So the emphasis is very much in that. So don't get hung up about all these evil spirits and the devil.
The focus is on the freer, the creator. Remember, the devil is... a created spirit right so jesus is the creator father son and holy spirit well the redeemer the creator redeemer sanctifier father son holy spirit so that's unbound ministry in in a sort of a summary version um so let's let's just present the the five keys um and i'm just going to say very briefly about repentance repentance and faith the first key.
In one of the parishes, or two of the parishes that I work in, I have a sign in the church porch that reads, only sinners welcome here. Only sinners welcome here. And I said I had, and we have, because every so often the sign disappears. Remember at the start, so where'd that sign go? And then a member of the sacristan said to me, once that oh father the you know some people are you know kind of like embarrassed by it or disturbed by it that's the whole point so and so So anyway, so it's there.
It's pretty much there now, the two churches and porches now as a permanent fixture. I mean, if it had been moved again, I would have like got screws on it into the floor. But it's so important. We are all sinners, brothers and sisters.
God knows how many sins we have committed since this time yesterday. Yet there is no sin God cannot forgive. there's no sin that God cannot forgive. You know, I had people coming to me in different occasions. I remember someone coming to me and we went through the whole unbound session and then it was just something that she said and I went, abortion, there's something about a child.
And then she just started tearing up. tearing up, and she had an abortion. So we prayed through that. But something in her mind, it didn't register. It happened so many years ago.
It didn't register. And then it came back to the surface, and then, bang. So we prayed for the child. We prayed for her. And it was just so incredible.
It's such a privileged ministry. And, yeah. practitioners of Unbound will testify to this too.
You know, when you see a person being set free, it's just incredible. I mean, that movement of sadness into joy, it's incredible. Neil Luzano in his book uses the story of the prodigal son in this.
And do you remember at the end of that story we hear about the father's embrace? That's the fifth key, receiving the Father's blessing. And usually at the end of the Father's blessing, with the person's permission, of course, we give them a hug, we ensure that's represented. the father in the prodigal son, so to speak. You know, you're set free.
You know, this is good news. So the person comes to unbound to repent because they have faith. Remember I talked earlier about even that much faith. That's something we can work on.
Because they believe repentance and faith, repentance and faith. Sometimes people come to this ministry totally clueless. clueless about unbound. We do not encourage this. We try to give them some kind of introduction to it.
And usually in Knockbridge, if there was somebody making an appointment, I would call Joean and Joean would sort out the appointments, but also Joean would talk to the person about unbound. Do you know anything about this ministry? So that's kind of a little introduction to it.
So it's important that they come with something. something and otherwise you're at the at the at the meeting the first meeting it's um you have to go through the five keys again you know it's it's it sorts out a lot of time as well practically um the word repent uh literally means to turn around so they turn uh from self to god to jesus and they come with five keys repentance and faith forgiveness, renouncing the work of their enemies, authority, and receiving the Father's blessing. So total freedom in Christ occurs when all five keys are unlocked.
And once a person steps forward for unbound ministry, the healing process has begun. Once they step forward, what we do in our church, we have people who do not know much about unbound ministry at all, but they are praying, they're in the church praying. All they know is that they're praying for the people who are being prayed with. That's all they know. They don't know much about on-bio ministry at all.
So that's their ministry, to pray for these people. Jesus pray for their healing. Neil Luzano, who introduced this ministry, as I said, quotes the prodigal son.
And it's such a beautiful story of... a turnaround, especially for the younger son who turned around, who came to his senses and said, I need unbound. I need freedom in Christ.
And that embrace of the Father was very personal. God is always personal. Jesus is always personal, brothers and sisters. The Holy Spirit is personal, always reaching out, yet we don't always respond to God in a personal way.
There are many, many people who grew up in the church and accept the teachings of the faith, but do not have a personal relationship with Jesus. They could be in our pews every Sunday, but do not have a personal relationship with Jesus. Think about that. I could be praying rosary after rosary, prayer after prayer, saying Jesus, Jesus, Jesus, but not have a personal relationship. with Jesus.
Not those who say, Lord, Lord, who will enter the kingdom of heaven, but those who do the will of my Father. So it's so important, that personal relationship is so, so important. And it's particularly, I know there's, is there about a third man here?
Is there? It's usually men who, that personal thing and personal relationship with Jesus, they struggle with that, you know, revealing their wounds. revealing the pain. Remember, there's one exception to that. I remember a man coming to me.
Before I actually prayed the prayers over him, he just burst out crying. Actually, the release was happening. The moment he sat down in the chair, you know, because he had stepped forward. He made that step forward, which was a huge thing for him. And another time I was praying with the person who was, you know, who, because she She had a lot of low self-esteem issues.
If she was in a group, she would never speak. Small group, large group, she would never speak because she was put down as a child so many times. I prayed with her.
She came back to the large group. This was in the early days. Joe was there with a group of about 100 people, and she came back to a large group.
And Joe said, any feedback? How was that for you? She wasn't the first person, but she was the second person who stood up and shared.
her story. I went, wow. You know, that's the power of the ministry. So, many people, finally many people, as you know, have lost their sense of sin.
They justify their wrongdoing by hiding behind comments like, sure, everyone is doing it. That's the world. You know, and also people tend to say things like, you know, when they're, as children, as children, and this whole thing.
around affection, love and affection. People would often say to me, I would say, we ever shown affection as a child? They would say, no.
Not really. My great father, definitely not. My mother, maybe sometimes, but no. Church wasn't really done in those days.
People didn't do that. As if it was some kind of an excuse, that's okay then. I mean, we all need signs of affection.
When it's given out of love. And children, especially, need signs of affection. And also words like... doing great you know you know you're wonderful instead of things like you know you never amount to anything you're just you're just useless you know that that can be a curse on a child you're useless and then he grows up i'm useless i'm useless i'm useless you know so um it's it's so so important um to to remember things like that um so with the help of um of a another in unbound ministry where I helped to identify the various stains of sin in our soul we can even trace the origins yeah that's important like like eating disorders that began with being bullied at home and at school you know people calling names because of one's physical appearance I mean children are can be quite cruel to each other and now we have the mobile phones and bullying through text messages or an addiction to pornography which began with being exposed to adult movies as a child or another kind of sexual abuse by an adult or depression or low self-esteem that began with no signs of affection as a child.
So the person, the soul who comes to be set free by Jesus through this ministry has already made a huge step forward in faith. They have heard Jesus say, repent for the kingdom of heaven is close at hand and they have made a decision to step forward and to be set free. So repentance and faith.