Hey, I'm Brother Mark Mary! Hi, I'm Brother Francesco! We are the Franciscan Friars the Renewal.
...and that's my line...
(laughter)
Hey, I'm Brother Mark Mary. Hi, I'm Brother Francesco.
Get your hand our of your face.
Sorry. Sorry. (laughter)
Hey, I'm Brother Mark Mary. Hi, I'm Brother Francesco. We are the Franciscan Friars...(laughter)
All right, okay, good all right?
Hey, I'm Brother Mark Mary. Hi, I'm Brother Francesco.
We are the Franciscan Friars of the Renewal (CFR)
And this is Ascension Presents. So I have brother Francesco here with me.
We we live together. We've been living together for the last few years.
And one of the fruits of sort of a low-tech lifestyle ‒
‒ not a lot of music or internet or whatever TV where we live
Is we get a chance to talk and share stories.
And Brother Francesco was sharing this story about what happened in prayer in Ireland.
It's powerful, so here it is.
Yeah, so a while back, I was in Ireland, and I was on my yearly retreat.
And it was at a monastery, but it happened to be a really popular place.
So it's kind of on the coast, so there's a lot of tourists who go there.
One of those days, I just felt inspired to ask the Lord if there was anyone in particular that He wanted me to meet that day.
If so, You need to be specific:
Name, Items of clothing, Place, and Time.
They way that I received that was just the initial impression that I got in prayer.
So I said, "Lord, what's his name?"
"David."
"What's he wearing?"
"Red hat, black pants" (or trousers as they call them in Ireland.)
"Where is he going to be?"
"At the fountain."
"Okay, what time?"
"2:00 pm"
So that day, 2 o'clock, I walked out of the monastery
And I actually didn't know there was a fountain there.
I hadn't noticed it, but that's what that word came to me in prayer. I walked out and there's a fountain.
Okay
It's about five till 2:00, and I'm thinking this is...
This, this is out of the ordinary.
At two o'clock
Just walking up next to the fountain I see this old man
With a red hat and black pants, and my heart starts to race.
I'm thinking, "There's no way this guy's name is David!"
And I started to wrestle. I started to question what I had received in prayer. I started to think that was just me.
What am I gonna do? ‒ Go up to this guy and tell him that the Lord spoke to me in prayer?
So I started to doubt what I had received, and I almost turned around.
I almost turned around, and said, you know, another day or not at all.
I'm amidst of all that struggle
And I realized that if the Lord has spoken ‒
Then I NEED to ACT.
He's been faithful to me. I want to be faithful to Him.
This guy: red hat, black pants is...
He's with a group of five people, and they're already about a hundred yards down the road.
So I start running.
I start running up to them. By this stage their group had separated.
So three of them were behind. This guy and and the other one were ahead.
I went up to the group that were behind.
And I said, "Guys, this is gonna sound really strange. I know, but I'm gonna ask you.
Is the guy up there ‒ he's your friend, right?"
And they're like, "Yeah, he's our friend."
I said, "His name isn't David is it?"
And they're like, "Yeah, it is."
And, I said, "Okay, all right."
So I start running up to David.
I said him, "So this might seem a little strange, but your your name's David, right?"
He's like, "Yeah!"
And I just said to him, "You know, I don't usually do this. I've never done this before.
But I was praying this morning if there was anyone that that God wanted me to to meet today
And the words that I got were that his name was David,
that he had a red hat and black pants, and I was going to meet him at the fountain at two o'clock.
And I just saw you at the fountain at two o'clock and
I don't know what the reason is
except that I know that God wants you to know that He's with you; that He loves you.
And he's just looking at me like...(facial expression)
He's pretty amazed, and it was amazing that the way he reacted was he received it.
He knew that this was something out of the ordinary ‒ something strange.
And we had a chat. We prayed together, and then and that was it.
Through that I I felt like it was a it was a gift to me as much as it was to David.
The Lord telling me that, you know, "I hear you,
I hear your prayers.
I want to answer them ‒ Those specific prayers in specific ways.
Yeah, Brother Francesco, thank you for
first for saying, "Yes," to the Lord when He was inviting you into that like really uncomfortable place.
I know it would've been super uncomfortable for me.
I'm sure it was for you as well, but the fruit of that at least my own life is just this:
Yeah, I can pray with confidence, with the expectation that the Lord...
Like I'm not talking to the wall. I'm not just talking to myself.
Like the LORD is ALIVE and in this RELATIONSHIP with me,
I'm talking to Him, and He's talking back.
And I just need to LISTEN and PRAY WITH EXPECTATION, and so we invite you to do that!
But here's the thing!
There's more to the story. There's a chapter 2, and we're gonna tell that story next week.
So come back again next week, and we'll see you then.
See you then guys.
Bye