Transcript of Abbot Clement’s Talk on January 23, 2007

It is said by some writers that there are three people of the book, Christians, Jews and Muslims. The statement is not fully accurate. The Jewish community and the Muslim community have their book, the Koran, for the Muslims, the Hebrew Scriptures that are the Old Testament for the Jewish community and since they are living by faith they turn to these as a place where they discover the Word of God. So they look at their saints or their holy people and interpret the scripture accordingly.

For us it’s not the same. Jesus died and rose and he is alive today in the church and in the world and therefore our fist encounter is with Jesus and in Jesus, of course, then we see other things.

So here= s the life witness of Henry Lamaize, a Canadian, right now he= s 65 years old and he= s in a ministry of deliverance that he does. But he gives his witness. He said he grew up in a very Catholic home in Canada. They went to Mass together as a family every Sunday and they prayed the Rosary everyday before the Sacred Heart statue in the house. But when he became a teenager somewhere in his sophomore year he began to wonder whether God really existed. He even wondered if Jesus did live and die what does it matter. So he was obviously opening up to faith and he wasn’t getting anywhere but he kept practicing his faith. But at the same time he was getting depression moods. Starting as a sophomore he was ashamed to talk to anybody because he would cry. He would go for walks at night. So maybe about two or three times a year he would just go out and just walk and cry and he kind of felt better then he= d be ok. But when his Senior year came, when he was 17, he could tell this was coming on so he went for a long walk and as he was walking, it was one of those very clear nights, the snow was still on the ground, it was probably around March, and all of a sudden he saw all of the stars and he said there= s got to be a God, all this just couldn’t possibly happen. So he yells out, "If you are there, help me!" Well nothing happens. I don’t really think he really expected anything to happen but he had to get it out because it was coming from the depths of his heart. So when the walk was over he went back home. But during that week the pastor of the local church announced a retreat so he decided he was going to go to it. When he went to the retreat as they were doing the conferences, he began to be honest about himself. He was swearing like a trooper and using God= s name in vain. He had difficulty with pornography he had some magazines under his bed hidden from his parents. He also was kind of feisty, always arguing. And inside he was always arguing with himself.

So he went to the retreat. About the third day of the mission in the parish he decided he was going to do something about how he= s handling his sexuality and he remembered that his father had a prayer book in his library that he once glanced at and there was a prayer about praying in order to overcome his sexual distortions. So he went home and found the prayer book in his father= s library. He went down in the basement because at that time it was a place that he knew no one would bother him and he knelt down next to the ping pong table and prayed that prayer he found with his whole heart. Then placed the prayer book back on the ping pong table and was quiet for a while then all of a sudden the whole place was flooded with the presence of God and Jesus came into his heart. He was over whelmed. He cried a little bit but he began to talk to the Lord and he could sense God= s answer.

So this lasted for about an hour but you know it was a cement floor so it got kind of hard so he decided to get up but he didn’t want to get up and loose what he was experiencing. So he got up very gently, went upstairs and the family was watching TV so he sat with them but he still had the sense of God= s presence. In fact the felt sense of God= s presence lasted for six months. No matter what he did, no matter where he was he had a felt sense of God= s presence as a person in him.

He began to read Scripture and he was surprised that Scripture now made sense to him. It was the same sense that he was feeling in his heart when he asked questions to do this or that he got an answer from his heart so he began to realize that God really speaks in Scripture. Then he went to Mass every day because when he went to Mass the sense of God’s presence intensified. So that on Sunday he went to all the Masses. At that time in 1959 in Canada they had seven Masses on Sunday but he went to every Mass. This went on for a whole six months. So his life was changed quite a bit and he prepared for college and he was accepted into college and just about into the first month of the college the Lord said to him, "I’m going to take away this felt sense of my presence because now you are ready." We know that faith is lived not by feelings but by trust in God and surrender. So sure enough he went to Mass one Sunday and it all disappeared but now he knew God was with him. So he kept his practice up of Scripture and so on.

I’m going to run quickly through his life because I want to get to this point that for us as Christians the living presence of Jesus is first. Then Scripture, well really the church, then Scripture. But the rest of his life he was going to be a priest but it didn’t work out so when he was 24 he asked the Lord to find a wife for him and he did. He got married and was doing well then messed up again and corrected it when he was 34 and ever since then he= s a pretty outstanding faithful, not only Catholic, but a good civil person in his community.

His ministry is doing deliverance. He not only writes but he gives conferences and shows people how to pray against the attacks of the devil.

I’ll give one example and get back to my point. One time he was giving this conference in Haiti and the cab driver said to him, "My wife left me." He said, "What happened?" The cab driver said, "Well, her mother wanted her to be home so she put a curse on her and she went back to her mother." He said, "That’s the only reason?" "Yes, that= s the only reason" "If that= s the only reason I can help you." "Do you want me to help you?" He says, "Yes, please." So right there he said, "In the name of Jesus Christ I command you evil spirit from this woman from the curse that’s on her and go to Jesus and Jesus will take care of you." That= s all he said. Well the conference went on for a couple of days. He was easy to find, he was a white man among the Haitians so the guy runs up to him and says, "It happened! It happened!" "Well, what happened?" "My wife just called me, she’s coming back!"

Then it so happened the next year they invited him again and the same cab driver picked him up and he says, A Guess what?@ Of course he didn’t remember. He asked, "Who are you?", and got reacquainted and he says, "We are going to have our first child. So thank you very much." So I= m just pointing out that the Lord gave him this gift of deliverance.

This means that the same Jesus you read in Scripture as the one that= s talking to you in your heart and this means that he= s available to you and he= s proactive. The same Jesus that is filled with zeal when he= s on earth is still the same Jesus that= s filled with zeal for the salvation of all souls including you and me. So the first thing that demand that constitutes the life of a Christian is the relationship that you have with Jesus and how alive is it and how does it really impact your life and how do you allow the Lord then to guide you? That= s exactly what it means to live by faith. Of course the sources on which you feed that faith is precisely the Scriptures and the Church, your actions, the sacraments, especially the Eucharist, and then of course in the inter-action between you and other people because the Lord reminded us that what we do to others we do to him.