My own experience and journey. I was baptized, confirmed and ordained. I read the Word of God and preached the Word. I knew about the persons of the Trinity and I had a personal relationship with Jesus. I approached the plan and power of God as something that happened in the past or experienced by a select group of people, but not me. I was popular among the people, especially the youth. I was a good homilist. I had a regular prayer life. But after five years as a priest, I became aware, by God's grace, that something was missing in my life. There was an inner hole in my heart. I cried to The Lord to fill that void. I feared that I would end up as a disgruntled, negative, critical priest.

A religious sister friend who taught in the parish school had gone to Boston for studies that summer and experienced a charismatic prayer meeting and heard about and witnessed the power of the HS. When she returned, she told me of her experience. She said that she had invited a priest to come to the parish and share with us about the plan of God and the role of the HS. We gathered a group of fifteen people at a camp and listened to the plan of God and the role of the HS. I had read and studied the scriptures before, but now I heard it with a different perspective. I was convicted. Though I had a personal relationship with Jesus, I had never surrendered my life totally into his hand as my Lord and Savior. I was empty and losing ministerial steam because I was doing everything on my own power and not in the anointing power of the Holy Spirit. That night I took both of those steps. I was BIS. No one laid hands upon me. Instead, a fresh release of God's grace from Baptism and Confirmation transformed into a renewed son, witness, priest of Jesus Christ.

The results were immediate. My prayer life became more intense; the Eucharist presence of Jesus became more central in my life; I desired to grow more in love and holiness; my preaching became anointed; I began listening to the lead of the Spirit in counseling; praying for healing