Direct Infusion of the Holy Spirit – A Witness of Patti Brunner, host of Truth of the Spirit. Pope Paul VI said that Baptism in the Spirit “is a direct infusion of the Holy Spirit—involving release of the power already present in the soul but until then, relatively untapped”. This is certainly the experience of Patti Brunner. Join her for #3 of the “Discovery of Life in the Spirit” series for her amazing personal witness of that “direct infusion” of the Holy Spirit! For Blog of this episode or video and audio links please continue reading below. Also included are discussion questions for group study and homework for you!
As I have shared in earlier talks, the starting place to Discovery of Life in the Spirit is to recognize that God loves us. God reaches out to us in conversion of heart and we reach out to him through repentance through need and through surrender. And then we will discover that there is more! Today I share what this looked like in my life. Remember—everyone is unique and God’s plan for you may look a little different yet the basic ‘kerygma’ will eventually take place. ‘Kerygma’ is the essential Gospel message.
Welcome to Truth of the Spirit and the third talk of our series Discovery of Life in the Spirit. Today’s episode for you is: Direct Infusion of the Holy Spirit – A Witness of Patti Brunner.
Even though as a child I was baptized and confirmed and received sanctifying grace, I was unaware of the fullness that the Holy Spirit has made available for the Church. When I was a young married woman, my mother gave me a New American Bible for Catholics. Checking it out, I saw a prayer to the Holy Spirit: “Come Holy Spirit, fill the hearts of us your faithful, and kindle in us the fire of your love.” It was about 20 years later that I actually heard someone pray that prayer. Over the years my husband and I attended a few small study groups at Church including bible study and socialized with fellow Catholics. We started tithing. We went to mass every Sunday and Reconciliation a couple of times a year, and I volunteered a lot at Church, but as we approached our 25th anniversary, there was something missing in our lives. One of the older women in our Church had been encouraging us to attend a Marriage Encounter. I was greatly surprised when my husband finally said, “Yes.” He had started praying rosaries as he traveled five hours to check on his dad who was dying of lung cancer. While at the marriage retreat, he discovered that God is a part of our marriage and I fell in love with my husband again. We then joined another study group of couples our age. One of them sponsored us to attend Cursillo retreats. My husband was eager to go to the men’s retreat. While there he was healed of life-long depression when he realized that God loved him and that his salvation was assured. He came home a changed man.
A month later, although I had injured my knee, I went to the women’s Cursillo retreat with expectant faith. And the Lord did not disappoint me in the least. We prayed the Holy Spirit prayer multiple times each day. They added, “Send forth Your Spirit and we shall be created. And You shall renew the face of the earth.” During the 1996 retreat something happened that changed my life forever. It started with a truly honest Sacrament of Reconciliation. The next day as we gathered in a circle and sang, I experienced God’s love for each of the women and comprehended how we are all one body in Christ. During a break, as I read scripture, I felt a strong connection with the words and with the Lord. Later, while we said a rosary, I knelt down and asked God for a physical healing of my knee. Suddenly, I had the sensation of kneeling on rose petals, and my knee was healed.
Through God’s grace, a lifetime prepared me for what happened next, and what happened next prepares me for a lifetime. During the retreat, a priest prayed for us to receive the fullness of the Holy Spirit. Now, I really had no idea what that meant but in my heart I decided to receive whatever God had for me.
Later that evening we had a healing service. As individuals went up for prayer we were told to lift our hand toward the person and pray. I was quite surprised that I could feel a flow of power to that person. It was awesome. Each time the energy ceased I could sense the healing had taken place. Sometimes it came in waves, as if several types of healing were being bestowed on the same person. I think if the room had been dark I would have been able to see sparks!
When it was my turn, my time to receive prayer, I expected to experience the fireworks first hand, but….nothing. As the ladies prayed for me, they put their hands on my shoulders. It felt like a heavy blanket had been placed on my shoulders. I was a little disappointed but I told God I was happy to receive whatever He wanted to give me—whether it was a little or a lot.
After this prayer, I returned to my seat, still a little disappointed but I thanked God for whatever He had given me. That’s when the power of God zapped me. All of a sudden a fire started in my chest. There was a rush of wind, a wonderful cyclone, a tornado of fire going on inside my chest and I could barely catch my breath. With bursting emotion, I started crying. It lasted for several minutes. Then I began to feel totally relaxed, like a soft noodle, someone took my hand and it was as if Jesus was holding my hand. After a while things turned back to ‘normal’, but I was changed forever. I looked around expecting everyone to have the same experience, but I seemed to be the only one.
My entire life changed. Communication with God was like going from two tin cans and a string to an IPhone. I could see truth clearly—like going from a black and white television to an OLED 4K Smart TV. My ministry to others was like going from a pencil to a computer. It was a whole new world. I comprehended—I felt—God’s love for me and for others. I was on fire!
During the next few days I began to have wonderful visions and spiritual experiences. I experienced heaven and I lost my fear of death. I also experienced promptings to help others. I felt called to do simple things like writing letters, visiting the ‘sick and the grieving’ and praying for people. Could this be what happened to the apostles in the upper room? In fact it got to the point I would be driving along and I would sense that someone in this house or that one needs prayer and so I would pray.
I was beginning to feel a little odd and there came a doubt if all of this was coming from the Lord. Then I was encouraged to pray for a lady coming out of the post office. I figured she must have just gotten a letter with some bad news and that’s why the Spirit told me to pray for her. When I got a little closer– I realized that she was only reading her bank statement, so I shrugged off the urge to pray and went inside. Only a moment later she ran back into the Post office in a frenzy. She had backed into someone’s truck! You see, the Holy Spirit always knows exactly what we need and tried to tell me that she needed my prayer. I paid closer attention after that and the doubt vanished.
My husband, Rick, told me at lunch one day about a co-worker’s illness. Rick said he had been worried about him for some time. The man had to go to the hospital while out of town, and Rick read on his E-Mail that the man was back in town but was going to have surgery. We prayed for him together. Then I called the man’s house to see if maybe I could help with the kids. The lady that answered said “just pray for him” because he would have surgery in a neighboring town that afternoon at 3. After Rick left for work,I felt a strong prompting to go to the hospital to pray with or next to this man’s family. I had no idea what they looked like or if they would be offended but since I had been asked to pray for him, I had courage. When I got to the hospital I found out that he had been taken to surgery early. I joined his wife and his mother in the surgical waiting room. They were both extremely anxious. We prayed together and I encouraged them to talk to me to keep their minds off worry. I found out that the man and his mother were Catholic and that his wife was attending classes to become a Catholic. His mother told me the Holy Spirit sent me. I don’t doubt that at all. The next day I prayed with them, all of them, in their hospital room. Later on, the man gave my husband his testimony that the doctor had not expected him to survive, and that he felt the prayers, and he felt the prayers brought about his healing.
Later on, I felt urged to visit other people who were almost strangers in hospitals and lead them in family prayer, and God’s healing touched them—especially prayer for forgiveness.
My youngest daughter, who at the time was ten years old, had gotten her ears pierced and one of them had gotten infected- really yucky puss and redness. She was crying because it hurt and she wanted to take her earrings out but she didn’t want the hole to grow back together. To comfort her and to get her to calm down and quit crying, I told I would pray and ask God to help heal her. I didn’t really expect anything. I just was tired of listening to her cry. Imagine how shocked I was the next day when the infected ear looked entirely normal. No redness, no puss, no pain. It looked better than the other ear! At the time I didn’t make the connection to a gift of the Holy Spirit. But I certainly gave the credit to God.
It all was so unusual. So unusual that I searched for someone to tell me what had happened to me. But none of our friends seemed to relate. No one we talked to could explain. I wrote down my various experiences and took it to my deacon and his wife. They thought it sounded great but couldn’t explain it either.
My nose was in the bible all the time. I wanted to know the Word of God more and more. I got one of those “read the bible in a year” bibles and was finished in three months. Later on, when I read the Gospel of Mark 16:18, I knew it was true! Jesus tells us that one of the signs of believers is that “they will lay hands on the sick, and they will recover.”
The desire to share God’s blessings with others led us to sponsor couples’ bible studies in our home. As we studied the Acts of the Apostles and then First Corinthians one of the youngest couples pointed out that the gifts of the Holy Spirit, listed in First Corinthians chapter 12, are still around– contrary to what the rest of us thought. Contrary to my own understanding at the time! Angela invited us to a charismatic prayer meeting that week, because her fiancé, Lann, was going to provide music. And it was there we found answers and a new understanding of God’s power unleashed by the Holy Spirit, from fellow Catholics!
It seems that I had been baptized in the Holy Spirit! Somehow, I had opened my heart to the fullness of God’s love and the Holy Spirit responded by filling me with gifts of grace that were mine for the accepting. I understand now that the Holy Spirit is revealed in the Church. And by that revelation we grow more deeply as the kingdom of God. For where the Spirit is so is the Father and the Son. So, that’s what happened to me 25 years ago. I was baptized in the Spirit, and I began living a life in the Spirit.
Quickly, through contact with the prayer group, God provided opportunities for learning about the Gifts of the Holy Spirit –partially by reconnecting us with a friend from our past who came to our parish to give a workshop on the Holy Spirit in the Old Testament. We had double dated with Dennis Holt & his wife Janet in high school in our hometown. Dennis, who had been a groomsman at our wedding in 1969, had also had a Holy Spirit spiritual conversion, although his journey was quite different from mine. And God called him to write some books. One of the books he had written was on the Gift of Tongues and he had an audio tape, too. They were filled with scriptures that I had overlooked.
Five years earlier, I had heard of the Gift of Tongues from my babysitter, but I dismissed it as “not for me”; I was satisfied with my faith life as it was. A lot of people react that way. I just didn’t understand what I was missing! Now, I was listening to it at the prayer meetings and it seemed a quite heavenly way to pray. This gift of the Holy Spirit has been stirred up again in the Catholic Church. And it is an amazing way to pray. Praying in Tongues sounds like foreign language. But it is the words of the Holy Spirit using my voice or your voice.
I listened to the audio tape on receiving the Gift of Tongues because I wanted to receive that gift, but I kept falling asleep. Not willing to give up I put earphones on and took the cassette to Walmart and listened while I shopped. No snoozing there! Returning home I re-read the scriptures and then asked the Lord for the Gift of Tongues following the suggestions in the book. Surprisingly, I immediately began praying in Tongues. I went in to look at the mirror to see if those unique sounds were coming out of my mouth and they were! You’ll hear more about Tongues and some of the other gifts of the Spirit later in the series.
All kinds of amazing things have happened to me since then. I learned that that feeling of electricity while praying for people was the awareness of the Holy Spirit’s Presence through the expression of the Gift of Wisdom. It also can happen during the Gift of Healing. It can happen anytime you are communicating with God. It is a sensory anointing of the Presence of the Holy Spirit.
The first time I heard the Gift of Prophecy manifest in others –which is the ability to hear the voice of God in various ways– was by Marci Brungardt and her sharing from her prayer journal. I didn’t have a clue at first that she was sharing what God spoke to her for our benefit but I recognized it as beautiful words that touched my heart.
I began to understand that the promptings I had received were also a Gift of Prophecy. I remember one time I was driving through the Wal-Mart parking lot and I heard a voice say “slow down”. I was so surprised! I wasn’t even going fast; but immediately I slowed way down. Right then a toddler ran in front of my car. God is so good!
Jesus promised in Acts 1:8 “you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes upon you, and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, throughout Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.” Some people who travel to the state of Arkansas, where I live, think they are travelling to the ends of the earth! We are a missionary state; and the whole state is one diocese with 5% Catholics. Yet, as my journey continues the Lord has indeed sent my ministry to the ends of the earth via the internet.
As the Lord trained me in his ways we answered the call to evangelize in various ways. In the beginning, my husband and I were asked to travel on week-ends with a team of 16 Catholics, including Fr. Les Farley, around to Catholic parishes teaching them about the Holy Spirit in Living Life in the Spirit seminars, which we did for two years. During healing services of those seminars, the Lord always confirmed his Word and His Presence by signs and wonders. The first time I was asked by our leader, Dr. Dennis Holt, to listen to God and publicly “call out the healings” I was very nervous. I did not doubt God, but doubted my own ability to hear and feel the problem the Lord wanted to heal.
As my elbow began to throb, I sensed that the Lord wanted to heal an elbow. In my heart I quizzed the Lord and asked him if it was Him or just my own elbow acting up. The Lord confirmed to me that the person whose elbow was to be healed was wearing green. As I announced that the Lord wanted to heal an elbow to the crowd who had their eyes closed, a man raised his hand. He was healed. And he was wearing green.
We prayed for lots of people. We prayed for healing for our family members, too. One holiday there were 5 healings in our family including my sister-in-law’s TMJ and my brother’s old shoulder injury from college. Without a doubt these five physical healings all really took place, but remember it wasn’t my doing. It was the power of the Holy Spirit in the name of Jesus and the gift of the Holy Spirit as we gathered in His name. I have prayed for countless numbers of people over the years as the Lord called me and they were touched by God.
This witness has been about the initial outpouring of the Holy Spirit through the Baptism of the Holy Spirit. The manifestations of the Holy Spirit and his charisms are truly amazing. Yet this was just the start of a beautiful friendship. Since then I have been Spirit led and Spirit fed. I have encountered many fellow Catholics and other Christians moved by the Holy Spirit, who have shared the presence of the Holy Spirit with me. I continue to Discover Life in the Spirit by the graces of God.
In the last 25 years, the last 25 plus years, there have been lots of special assignments and big assignments from the Lord. Without the Holy Spirit, there is no way I could have done them. These experiences trained me to trust God more deeply. Even though many of them were out of my personal comfort zone, when I surrendered to the Holy Spirit things worked out– great– and the desires of my heart began to line up with God’s will for me.
Just as God has a plan for me, He has a plan for you! God wants to give you the fullness of the Holy Spirit. God wants you to know how much he loves you. He wants to draw you to Him and bring conversion to your heart. He waits like the Father of the Prodigal Son for you to return to Him with repentance in your heart. He wants to heal you. And God wants to empower you with the many gifts of grace available through the Holy Spirit.
The gifts of the Holy Spirit can show us God’s love and draw us to Him. God does not force his gift of grace, his gift of the Most Holy Spirit upon us. But in loving gestures He provides exposure to what He has to offer and gives us the freewill to ask so we can receive. Is this Catholic? You bet it is! In the years after these experiences I read where Pope Paul VI talked about Baptism in the Holy Spirit and said that “no amount of religious education or listening to sermons would enable a person to be baptized in the Holy Spirit. It is a direct infusion of the Holy Spirit—involving release of the power already present in the soul but until then, relatively untapped”.
In 1973 Pope Paul VI said that the Holy Spirit was coming to awaken the Church, to stir up forgotten charisms and to bring the same vitality and joy that had kept the Church youthful and up-to-date. He said this kind of thing is a part of the history of the Church and is how the Church has been able to proclaim its eternal message. He talked about the eternal youth of the Church. He told us that Pentecost is not a distant event but a continual one. The Church lives because the Holy Spirit pours in divine grace.
Pope Paul VI compared the divine grace to a fountain. The effect is like a supernatural ‘fountain of youth’ pouring into the visible, social and human body of Christ’s followers. “By the power of the Gospel,” the Holy Spirit “makes the Church keep the freshness of youth and constantly renews it… In a fountain, the jet of water remains high, lively and fresh as long as it is fed by the forcing current of water, even though the water itself falls and is spread over the plain.”
The Holy Spirit awakened me. The Holy Spirit stirred up the charisms and brought me vitality and joy. I have truly been “Baptized in the Holy Spirit”!
Please subscribe to continue to hear great topics of Truth including this Discovering Life in the Spirit series and check out other videos on our website, PatriarchMinistries.com, or our free YouTube channel. I am Patti Brunner and you’ve been listening to Truth of the Spirit. Thanks for listening to my story. I’ll continue to share more of my story with you as I continue to share the Truth of the Spirit. I hope you’ll keep listening—because there is more. So much more! With the Holy Spirit there’s always more!
Come Holy Spirit, fill the hearts of your faithful and kindle in them the fire of your love. Send forth Your Spirit and they shall be created. And You shall renew the face of the earth.
O, God, who by the light of the Holy Spirit, did instruct the hearts of the faithful, grant that by the same Holy Spirit we may be truly wise and ever enjoy His consolations, Through Christ Our Lord, Amen.
Amen.
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Questions for Session #3 of Discovering Life in the Spirit: Direct Infusion of the Holy Spirit – A Witness of Patti Brunner
- If new members in your group, introduce each other.
- How is Patti Brunner’s witness similar to your own story? Different? What stood out to you?
- Have you ever had a supernatural experience?
- Was there anything new in this or previous talks that surprised you?
- Discuss your homework from Session #2 session, [Reading Acts 9 (Saul/Paul’s Conversion story) Acts 19:1-7 and Romans 8:3-17]
- Do you have questions about what you have heard so far?
For your Homework this week please pray at least 15 minutes each day and read Acts Chapter 10:34-49
