Watch out, God is moving

Here at the beginning of the early Church, the Holy Spirit moves in ways that were outside of the experience of the Jewish Christians. People who were outside of the Jewish faith, those who were uncircumcised, were experiencing the Holy Spirit and coming to know Jesus. Opinions became divided about whether or not these early Christians also had to take on the practices of the Jews. So Paul and Barnabas went back to the Apostles for their discernment.
 
This is a very pertinent reading for our time. What do we do when we see new things in the Church? Do we demand that those who are outside of our perceived ideas must conform to our way of doing things? Do we recognise the work of the Holy Spirit and celebrate but then berate those others who want to do things the same way?
 
We have a third option which is what Paul and Barnabas did. They acted in faith, and they reported the ways they saw God working in honesty and then they submitted all of this to the discernment of the Church. We are being asked by the Church at this time to enter into discernment through the Plenary Council. This process allows us to express where we see the Holy Spirit moving and to surrender our ideas about how we think everything should be and to discover where the Holy Spirit will lead us. It is an exciting time and a time to humbly submit to the work of the Holy Spirit and to trust in the discernment found within the Church- the Temple of the Holy Spirit