TOS106 Magnificat Witness Patti Brunner-The Lord’s Calling; For audio only PPN
The Lord’s Calling is the inspiring testimony of Patti Brunner given at the Mary Ark of the Covenant Magnificat Group at Cherokee Village at St. Michael’s Catholic Church. Her witness challenges us to have our spiritual “ears” tuned to hear the voice of the Lord and she gives many examples from her own life when God has spoken clearly to her in powerful ways. Shared with the Truth of the Spirit it reveals the ‘inside story’ of Patti Brunner’s efforts to say “yes” to the Lord’s calling.
Recorded: 2-15-2020 at Mary Ark of the Covenant Magnificat Group at Cherokee Village at St. Michael’s Catholic Church
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Msgr. James Mancini knew the power of sharing our testimony, our witness in public, testifying to the truth. It is not just our ‘history’ but ‘His’ story. Amen? —and how God has been present in our life. When Monsignor Mancini was assigned to North West Arkansas, he always called me every year to come give part of my witness, part of my testimony at his confirmation retreats that he would do every year. And then he would allow a team to pray over the children individually, with prophetic ministry. And it was wonderful to see the visions and the ideas and the healing that came forth for those young people and to expose them to the fullness of the Holy Spirit and the gifts they were about to receive in that fullness at Confirmation. Wouldn’t it be wonderful if every person receiving the Sacrament of Confirmation could have this kind of benefit. Wouldn’t that be great! And We, on the prayer team, we were built up, because there is something about corporately praying together, in the Spirit, corporately affirming and confirming things that come forth that builds up us as the Body of Christ. It’s what the charisms were given to us for—to build up the body of Christ.
Msgr. Jim, God rest his soul, who also served our bishop as his exorcist, also came to Patriarch House and taught us about spiritual warfare. Patriarch House is a house almost as old as my husband and me, that we felt called by the Lord to purchase it, about a block from our parish, to have Spirit-filled ministry there. We partner with our church, with our pastor, and we provide all sorts of small group spiritual formation.
In the first seven years it’s been open, we have had 11 Life in the Spirits, we have done 235 nights of Spiritual Formation training on topics such as the charisms, healing, forgiveness, on the mass, the sacraments, just about anything that concerned with our spiritual nature, we had a night of spiritual formation on that and we had wonderful speakers.
We hosted, also in our house, bible studies for men bible studies for women and Little Rock Scripture Study. We’ve gotten a lot of use for that little old house that we fixed up. When we bought it, we bought it for location–location, location, location! It was a block from our parish. My husband at the time had just had some medical issue, and he wasn’t supposed to get stressed, so I took over as our lead guy in getting it fixed up, so, I know nothing. But the Lord called me to do this , so the contractors would come and ask me a question and I’d say, excuse me a minute, and I’d go in the other room and pray, and then come back with an answer! And it all worked out very nicely. I think that house ended up nicer than the house we live in! We’ve also done a few Christian movie nights, on the week-ends, complete with popcorn! It’s been fun.
My husband & I had as a role model a retreat house in Little Rock where we were part of an interfaith, spirit-filled leaders group from around the state. For 12 years we got together 2 or 3 times a year to pray, praise and eat, and we would minister to each other. Whatever the Lord was doing in our lives, if the Lord was teaching us something, we would share with the others. Dennis and Janet Holt were part of that group.
You know, my husband and I had double dated with Dennis & Janet when we were in high school. Dennis was actually in our wedding as a groomsman. We reconnected, though, through the Holy Spirit, years later. After I had been baptized in the Holy Spirit, he came to our parish to do a teaching on the Holy Spirit, and they he stayed in our house. Now Dennis, the Lord had led him to establish Cornelius House Ministries & Publishing. He had written some books including a book and a tape on how to speak in Tongues. I was brand new, you know, just learning about the charisms and things, so I wanted that gift! I wanted that gift of tongues. I started reading his book, and I would fall asleep! I’d wake up and start reading that book, and I would fall asleep! I think there was a little warfare there. Finally what I did, I took the tape put it into a cassette player and took it to Walmart with me, and I walked up and down the aisles, shopping, and listening to that tape. You know, you can’t fall asleep at Walmart! Later that evening, in the privacy of my home, I reread the scriptures and sure enough, the Lord poured out His gift of tongues on me. And I immediately went into the bathroom and did it in front of the mirror to see if those sounds were coming from my mouth and sure enough, they were! I told my family about it at night prayer that night and they said, “Oh, can you do it for us?” And I said, “I don’t think it’s a performance art. But let me pray for you!” And so I prayed for them in tongues. It was fabulous! Absolutely fabulous!
A few months later after Dennis came he formed a traveling team to do Living Life in the Spirit Seminars. He invited us to come and be a part of it. I had never even gone to a Life in the Spirit, and here I was part of the team. But Dennis saw something of the Spirit in me. And it was great. I think we even came to Cherokee Village in November 1998. I don’t know if any of you were here at that time. But I was very green but I was full of the Spirit. And what a wonderful experience it has been ever since then.
Our last team trip was actually a trip to Israel. And that was fabulous. If you ever have the opportunity to go to Israel and to walk where Jesus walked, physically walked, and to see the churches on the shrines was just wonderful. But while we were there, we had a day off. And on the day off, we visited a missionary’s prayer house that had a prayer meeting, I had read about this and I wanted to go there. I had read some of the books, and the lady, the ministry sponsored this prayer house in Israel. We went, and the anointing was so strong, I’ve never been anywhere where the anointing was that strong; I was drunk in the Spirit! I would just slide down and my husband would pick me up. And I would slide down; and my husband would stand me up, and I would just slide down. And finally he would just hold on to me. But we sang prophetic music. I didn’t even know what we were singing; I didn’t know it was prophetic music. But the lady who was playing the piano would start it and we all joined in. We all sang; we knew the words. And she told me afterwards that it was a brand new song. The Lord gave it to her that day. Yet, in the Spirit, we were all one. And we all sang the right melody and we all sang the right words. If you noticed when we sang in tongues a while ago, how the melodies just came forth; just choirs of angels were joining in and the Spirit was leading us; He was conducting. Wasn’t it beautiful when we were singing in tongues?
Growing up in Pocahontas. I’m from Rogers, but I grew up in Pocahontas. And it was wonderful, growing up in Pocahontas. But that is not where I started out. When I was baptized as a baby I lived in Dell, Arkansas, I don’t know if y’all have ever heard of Dell Arkansas. Our family was one of two Catholic families- you talk about not too many Catholics in Arkansas—there were two families in Dell, Arkansas. Before I made my First Communion, though, my father was killed in a car wreck. My mother was pregnant with my brother, John, at the time. She was beside herself. Years later when she was dying of cancer, she told us she had a journal she wanted us to read. And in that journal she wrote this story: She said, “At the time your daddy was dead, and I didn’t know what to do, I was at Mass, and I was pouring out my heart and on the way back from Holy Communion I looked over at the icon picture of our Lady of Perpetual Help, and Mary smiled at me, and Iknew that everything was going to be ok.”
And so, she moved back to her hometown, and my sister, my family and my little brother who was born by that time, we got to a Catholic grade school and Catholic high school and to be taught by nuns, now, you don’t think that’s rare in Arkansas! What a blessing! What a blessing it was!
We moved to Russellville shortly after we got married, but we came back often. Our parents lived just a block apart. My husband and I lived a block apart growing up. It was real easy to spend our holidays in Pocahontas. The kids would run back and forth between the grandparents. One Christmas eve, when my second daughter was just a baby, it was real cold, so I stayed home with them and the rest of the family went to Midnight Mass. I am laying there in bed, when all of a sudden I hear someone call my name. I figured, “They’re back from church. And they must be in the kitchen having that pecan pie I wanted to have.” So I said, “I’ve already gone to bed!” And I didn’t hear anything, so I got up and the strange thing was, the whole house was dark and nobody was there me and my sleeping children. I went back to bed and you know what? I heard my name called again. And, somehow, I knew it was the Lord. I answered said, “What is it you want Lord? I am listening.” He said, “Take care of My people“. “Yes, Lord. Yes, Lord.”
Now I had no idea what that meant. But I started, everything I could do for the Church, I started doing. I started a ladies group, taught CCD classes, I was on the parish council, I was part of a renew group, I led bible study, I went to bible study first, then I led bible study, all these things. And every time something came up, I thought, “Is this it, Lord, is this what you called me to do?”
My husband and I went to a Marriage Encounter and found out that God is part of our marriage! And from that, we decided to spend more time together and we needed to join a small group, a couples group, and we did, and they were all going to Cursillo. And they said, “You need to go to Cursillo.” And my husband went first; in those days the men went first. Then the ladies went. He had a spiritual experience of being healed from life-long depression. He knew, that he knew, that he knew that God loved him. And he couldn’t wait for me to go because he thought that I was the spiritual one of the family; I needed to go to Cursillo, too. So, I went to Cursillo. Our directors were Diane Bausom and Debbie Eckhart and then Fr. John Marconi and Fr. Malone, who is now Bishop Malone. The Lord really packed that with great leaders for me. Fr. John Marconi said, “We are going to invite y’all to receive the fullness of the Holy Spirit.” I didn’t have a clue what that meant, so it was all great and we had a healing service. And he said, “I want everyone to extend your hand,” like y’all did when you prayed for me, “extend your hand and pray for them while I pray for them.” I don’t know if he was giving them the Anointing of the Sick.
But, when we did that, all of a sudden, I could sense, I could sense a power, that the Lord was doing something with them. I could feel that they were being healed. I could, I could sense that. And sometimes it would be—they got healed of that! And now the Lord is going to heal them of something else! And I could feel that. And I swear if the lights had been out there was sparks between us! It was that powerful. And so I thought, “Woo! It’s my turn next, ‘woo-hoo’ I am going to be part of that, zapping! Whatever it is! When they prayed for me, a lot of them put their hands right on my shoulders ….nothing, nada; it felt heavy, like they had just put a heavy blanket on me. And I said, “Well, that’s ok Lord, whatever you want to give me, that’s ok.” I just totally surrendered to it—total surrender. I was done, and I went over and sat down. And then, all of a sudden, there was a fire within my heart, within my chest. It was like a cyclone or a tornado. The wind was rushing in to me. And it was just overwhelming to me. And I just burst out crying, I was just so emotional. It was just wonderful! And I thought, “Is this what the apostles felt like at Pentecost? And then when it was over I felt kind a like a wet noodle, just totally relaxed. And then one of the other women came and took my hand and she felt like it was Jesus holding my hand. It was just beautiful, wonderful, wonderful! And I looked around and thought probably everyone else got the same thing, right? But I seemed to be the only one. And I brought it up to others and they would say, “Well, that’s nice.” The next couple of days things started happening. I started having promptings or urges, wanting to do things for people, show how much I loved others. I couldn’t wait to get home to pray with my husband. Now we had talked about praying together for a long time. But we actually started doing it that night.
And then, a couple of nights later, while I was in bed, three angels showed up at my bed, and took me to heaven. And it was just the most amazing thing. If you take the happiest you’ve ever been–the very happiest, the most joyful you’ve ever, ever been—and multiply it times a thousand, you can’t even get close to it! And it was like Jesus was standing there in this bright light, brighter than the sun, but it was beautiful, it was wonderful. And it was like you were standing within him and but he was standing within you but he was standing right there before you. And he started up a staircase. And I looked at the top of the staircase and there was God the Father with angels all around him. He was on a throne and then all of a sudden it was Jesus in front of me again. And when I returned back to my bed, it was like coming through a solid cube of darkness. But it was just the earth. We don’t have a clue what’s coming, what the Lord has prepared for us. And we don’t have a clue how much darkness we are living in right now.
Then, a couple of days after that, the Lord gave me an idea of my mission, what he was calling me to do. I didn’t really comprehend much of it at that time. This was 20 years after, 20 years after he called me by name, that all of this happened. He showed me standing at a podium, with a light shining on me, and out in front there were hundreds of people. And then he told me I was going to have a global or international ministry. I thought, “Yeah, right. Yeah, right Lord, Ok.”
A few years later I was at a prayer meeting and one of the ladies on our core team came up to me and said, “You know, Patti, the Lord gave me a vision about you.” Now, I had never told anyone about that other vision. I wrote it down and promptly forgot it. She came up to me and said, “The Lord gave me a vision about you, and I saw you standing at a lighted podium and there were hundreds of people in the audience. And she said—now I was 40; I was in my forties at this time—but you were in your 60’s and you had a little grey hair. When I turned 64 I was invited to be the Emcee at the Arkansas Catholic Charismatic Conference and stood at a lighted podium, hundreds of people in the audience. And in the vision, people in my vision were speaking in foreign languages and I could understand them. Now I think they were praying in tongues is I think they were! You know the Lord hasn’t given me a foreign language except for tongues. I got the grey hair last year. Isn’t God good! He tells you everything that‘s going to happen sometimes. He gives you that mission and he told me “You’ve got to prepare! You’ve got to be formed.”
So all that time, I kept under formation. The Lord was training me. Instead of going on vacations to Italy or to Aruba my husband and I would go to conferences. We’d go to Spirit-filled conferences and we’d go here and there. Whatever the Lord was doing, we wanted to learn what the Lord was doing and to gain some information about that. And the Lord trained me to evangelize in several different ways. When we traveled with Dennis and Janet and the team we had, there were 14 of us who traveled around to do those seminars for two years. We always had a healing service. And the Lord was showering me with the charisms. I was just learning what they were. Like I told you, I had never been to a Life in the Spirit before we started giving them. And Dennis called me up, and he wanted me to be one of the ones who would “call out the healings”. Now, how that worked was that the Lord would tell you what was going to be healed, you would say it, they had their eyes closed, they’d raise their hand if they felt like the Lord touched them when we called that out. I didn’t have a lot of confidence in myself. I had confidence in the Lord, but not in myself. He told me that someone’s elbow –was the first thing he told me—someone’s elbow needed to be healed. And the way I knew that is because my own elbow started hurting. And so I’m thinking, “Is this someone’s elbow that needs to be healed or is this just my elbow? And he said, “And the person is wearing green.” I thought, “Well, I don’t have on green!” I called out the healing. I said, “The Lord wants to heal an elbow.” They all had their eyes closed, and here comes up an arm. Guess what he was wearing. Green sweater! Thank you, Jesus. The Lord has used, manifested, those gifts, that gift, upon occasion, still.
And one of the other healing times, one time a friend asked to come pray for a young boy, he was very young, and he had a recurring bone cancer in his leg and was undergoing some experimental treatment. He was in a special study with Arkansas Children’s Hospital. I prayed a soaking prayer before we went out to pray with him. The Lord showed me, in a vision, in my mind’s eye, he showed that inside that leg the cancer lifting up. I came to his house and I prayed with him with confidence. I prayed exactly the way the Lord told me to pray—to involve his family, to pray against some of the things that had happened in that family. I was very careful how I used the words but the Lord knew exactly, I was praying exactly the way he had asked me to pray and the boy was healed! A friend of his family told us that four years later he was the only one who survived the trial of the group he was in. Isn’t God wonderful! Praise the Lord!
In 2000, one of my daughters said that her ‘uncle-in-law’, her husband’s uncle, young uncle, they were pregnant and had miscarried. She wanted me to pray for them, for Laine and Joe. I was praying for them, and the Lord put in my heart, he said, “I want you to pray life into that baby.” Ok, Lord, whatever you say. And I prayed. And I prayed and spoke the words of life into that child. She went to the doctor the next day. He said, “I was wrong you did not miscarry.” And Daniel just had his 19th birthday! Glory to God!
One time we were at a healing service that was bilingual and we were praying for a Spanish couple and we had an interpreter. And this couple wanted to have a baby. It’s a very strong urge. It is very important for everyone, but especially in the Hispanic community to have children. And so the Lord led me in the way to pray. And it was a little personal. But I prayed exactly how the Lord wanted me to pray. And then we went on and prayed for the next person, and the next person. Well, a year later the lady who had been our interpreter said, “Do you remember when y’all prayed for the couple who wanted to have a baby?” I said, “Yes.” And then she told me the baby’s name. They had had a baby! And now the baby was a sweet little girl.
Our healing services was so well attended that we started having healing ministry once a monthafter all the masses. We have some English teams; we have some Spanish teams. All the masses, and we have six masses at our parish every weekend. That’s a big undertaking. But we have prayer after each of the masses for healing or whatever you need. And we also have one bilingual where we all get together and have a mass with the Sacrament of the Anointing of the Sick at every year. And the Lord continues to use me.
You know the charisms, if you don’t understand the charisms yet, they all work together to build up the body of Christ. And as you pray in tongues, the Lord will release Words of Knowledge and Words of Wisdom, visions, and that sort of thing as you pray, and the charism of Healing. I was praying for a family who came up to our prayer line after mass and the Lord almost immediately told me the little boy—now this wasn’t their prayer request—he said, “the little boy’s having trouble with reading in school.” That was a Word of Knowledge. I told the family what the Lord had said and they were just overwhelmed. They said, “His teacher just told us that.” And they were just so overwhelmed that the Lord cared about their little boy. And the next month they came back, they just had to tell me how much better he doing in school. God is so good! He reveals things about us for our own benefit. It’s just wonderful.
God continues to use me some in healing, but he has sent me in different directions. The Lord had spoken to me several times after I was infused with the Holy Spirit, that’s what I call it now, infused with the Holy Spirit, at Cursillo. But I would hear people at the prayer group meetings talk about giving Words of Prophecy, hearing the voice of the Lord and then sharing what the Lord had to say to his people. And Dennis, especially, he would say, “The Lord told me this. The Lord told me that. The Lord told me this.” And I wanted that! I desired to hear the Lord’s voice all the time. And I waited. And nothing happened. And I waited. And nothing happened. And I thought, “I am going to the Charismatic Women’s Retreat in Eureka Springs, surely the Lord would start talking to me there. It’s a holy place.” Nothing happened! The next week I’m at home, and I’m working doing something, in the front room, and the Lord said, “Sit down.” He said, “You’re not listening! You’re not listening! I’m talking to you, you’re not listening!” And so he told me to take an hour a day just to listen! I listen better at adoration. And in those days we didn’t have perpetual adoration in our parish, yet. We had it one hour a day, five days a week. Those five days I worked around whatever it was and I got there to the church and I listened. On the week-ends I’d make a visitation to the church and I’d listen. Pretty soon, the Lord started speaking to me, conversation, every day, all the time. And I started writing down what he had to say during my prayer journal. And when I first started listening, I would hear all this other stuff. “Well you need, don’t forget to pick up the cleaning.” At first I got two notebooks. And in one notebook I would write those things like, “we’re out of chocolate milk.” And then in the other notebook I would write down the things that the Lord had to say. And pretty soon, I didn’t need have to have that second notebook. Pretty soon I was able to focus just on the Lord. I have filled up 57 journals in the last 20 years, since 1998. Isn’t God good!
You know I have met a lot of Godly women at charismatic retreats, bless them, they’ve all, I’ve grown tremendous bounds by being, sitting with tremendous women who were wise in the Spirit and prayed for me, and would have words and visions. And they would train me, and help the Lord repair me in all of my needs. One time, though, I had a rather startling experience. I was at a retreat. Sr. Francis Claire was the retreat master. And she had written several charismatic books. She was a sweet little nun. She liked to wear purple. And she told us, we were sitting in the chapel at Eureka Springs, of Little Portion, and she told us to put our hand and pray for the person next to us. Well, that’s all good. But when I felt the lady behind me put her hand on me, all of a sudden, I had a vision of snakes on my head, and I had the horrific feeling that God no longer loved me. It was horrible. I was ready–I was ready to commit suicide. It was horrible. And then I thought, wait a minute, that’s a lie! God cannot stop loving me. It’s impossible! God is love. He cannot stop loving me. And that feeling went away. I spoke with Sr. Francis Claire afterwards and I really wanted her insight to help me out, to figure out what had happened and she said, “Oh that was a gift. Don’t even think about it. Don’t try to figure it out.”What? Don’t even think about it? Ok. When I got home from the retreat, the next day, I came across a friend who battled depression. She said, “Patti, you know the hardest thing is that no one knows how I feel.” And I said, “Oh, does it feel like God doesn’t love you?” And she said “yes.” And I said, “Oh, I am so sorry; I know exactly how that feels.” And I was able to minister to her in prayer and word and the Lord and the Holy Spirit. And her depression lifted. Isn’t God good! Isn’t God good? He allows us to go through hard times, because it builds our empathy and our compassion to reach out to others who are struggling at the same time. God is so, so good.
The Lord has given me various visions over the years. One time I went to the Diocese of Tulsa’s Holy Spirit Rally, Deacon Eddie Ensley taught about visions and he encouraged us to ask God to give us a vision. The Lord gave me a vision that has really built me up for many years. This is what happened: The Lord invited me to walk with Him on a warm day through a harvest field. He took my hand and showed me a specific harvest that He lovingly took in His hand. Then we sat beside the field in patio chairs just watching the harvest. It was so relaxing. Can you just picture that yourself? Sitting beside the harvest in a patio chair with Jesus? And then, I knelt before the Lord, because when you are before the Lord, all of a sudden, what is in your heart comes out. And I told Him I was sorry for ignoring the ministry to my own children while I was reaching out to others. Jesus told me that they were not left alone—he was my ‘Nanny’ and he took care of them for me. Then He asked me if I would like to see my children, in his ‘garden’, in his field. Then He took me to a ‘plant nursery’ and here were all these tiny little plants with a string around them to guard them. And he told me this was his most joyful field. And He told me to have patience. We then sat in chairs in the cool of the evening and watched the young plants grow. Then Jesus asked me to come with him, again. He took me to the top of a knoll and all of a sudden I could see an unending number of fields of waving grain. You know how the wind catches the grain, and it looks almost like the sea? That’s what I was looking upon. And He said, “This is seed of your seed.” It was then that I was aware how God took the small seeds of the ministry I’d been doing, the little small seeds, and He multiplied it. Like the loaves and the fishes.
In the beginning of the 7th year after I was infused in the Holy Spirit, I heard the Lord say to me repeatedly: “Come into the quiet. Come into the deep.” I didn’t know what that meant. Several weeks later, I was praying the Luminous Mysteries [Rosary], and the Lord asked me to lay down my ministries and come to Him as a child, to set aside being a “Martha” and just minister unto him what He chose for me to do. I made sure I got lots of affirmations, before I laid down those ministries. Because, I was thinking, that sounds like something the devil might try to do, not the Lord! But no! Time after time after time, I got complete confirmation that this was what the Lord was calling me to do. I found someone to take charge of all the different ministries I had leadership in, and I settled down into a quiet time of ‘non-ministry’. And just a couple of months later, a family member of mine had a crisis; and if I had been busy, busy, busy, I would have missed it.
After the year was up, and I was raring to go back to something, you know, the Lord called me “to minister to the youth of the city”. Now, I had never ministered outside my church before. I had to discern what that was. He told me a place to go ask. And sure enough, there was a need for someone to come minister at the Juvenile Detention Center. Someone had just been in the church, asking for someone to come minister to the children at the Juvenile Detention Center. I went to the Juvenile Detention Center. Within two weeks, all the red tape was cut, I was ministering within two weeks, and I stayed there, I came there every week for the next three years.
About the end of those three years, my mother, who was dying of cancer, needed someone to stay with her in her home. My sister and I took turns. It was very difficult and stressful for me. I kind of took charge her last week in a nursing facility as our extended family came by to say their goodbyes, the priest anointed her everything was beautiful, she had her last communion, everything was beautiful, but I was stressed and anxious because it was so difficult for me, for many reasons. And, when I went home after the funeral, that anxiety would not let go of me. Nothing I could do would get rid of that anxiety. And there was something that I, it was like there was something, ‘Furnace Boy’ was sitting on the shoulder telling me something I forgot to do; I didn’t do it ‘right’. And I could not get past that, for, seemed like forever. It wasn’t that long. But it gave me the understanding of what people who have anxiety go through; they can’t let it go. They can’t let it go. It grabs hold of you. And so we have more compassion. And I started understanding more how healing, when you are healed, that underlying root, then that anxiety has to lift. And I found the importance of inner healing. And I started doing a lot more inner healing with people, the inner healing of memories. And that was just gracious, gracious; it’s amazing how things that happened to us when we are children can affect us all our lives.
At times, any time I have gone into a spiritual slump I got two ways, two quick ways to get rid of it: one is fasting and one is going to a spiritual retreat. One time, shortly after my mom’s death, my husband and I prepared to go to a retreat. We did a ‘media fast’, a modern media fast. We cut off the cable, we cut off the newspaper. And then after the retreat it worked out so well, that we did it for another five years! We found a Christian satellite that just had Christian programing. And, after five years or so, our kids bought my husband a television and showed him how he could get channels with an antenna. Oh, my gosh! Were we surprised! I couldn’t believe how much society had changed in that five years. And it was kind of like the frog that’s thrown into the boiling water and jumps out vs. the frog that’s put in cold water and is boiled to death because it doesn’t even realize what it’s in the middle of. It’s all amazing how the Lord helped us to have the wisdom to do that.
You know, I’ve travelled a lot to conferences but my favorite one of course is Arkansas Catholic Charismatic conference. I invite you all to come. It will be in North Little Rock this year. I have been blessed by people like Fr. Stephen Barham, Fr. Rick Thomas, and Fr. DeGrandis, Fr. John Hampsch, and Fr. Philip Scott who came to our parish, also. One night the mission team took him to supper so we got to speak about our trips to heaven together, because he’s been about three times. And it was the first time I’d ever been able to talk with someone who could comprehend what I was trying to say, because there’s no words, no words to describe it.
And remember, my vision of heaven, and the Lord giving me that mission, and feeling that healing power and stuff, I knew nothing about the Baptism of the Spirit, nothing about Charismatic Renewal. But the Lord infused me with his Holy Spirit and then he put people in my path to teach me, to teach me about tongues, to teach me about charisms. The Lord was manifesting in those charisms in my life, and I was just stupid. I just did not know what they were. And it took me a long time to find someone to say: ‘Oh, that’s the Holy Spirit! You know? That’s a gift of the Holy Spirit! It’s in the bible! It was wonderful to do that.
One day at last year’s conference [the 2019 Charismatic Conference] we. Mary Healy, Dr. Mary Healy was the speaker, and she called me up on the stage to call out healings. You know, I told you about the green sweater. We called out some healings and people would come forth to affirm, confirm that the healing took place. Well, the next day, a lady came up to me, and it was the day of the Mass, and she said, “I felt too bad to come last night for the healing service. But my friend told me y’all called out my healing. Her neck was all distended. She was in pain. She said, “I took morphine so I could come today. And the pain is just 8 out of 10 now.” I gathered a couple of prayer partners. I gently touched her neck. And you could see it; you could see her neck sticking out. I gently touch her neck and said the prayers, and let the Lord guide the words, prayed in tongues, and then all of a sudden I felt her neck go back in place. And she said, “Oh, my gosh! The pain is gone.” And she said, “Oh my gosh! I can turn my neck! I haven’t been able to do that for so, so long! I mean years.” See how good the Lord is! He knew she wanted that healing. He knew he wanted her there, even though she was in such horrific pain, that she was able to come, taking morphine. And then the Lord took care of her. He loves each of us so much! He wants all of us to be healed.
I was thanking the Lord the next day after that, and the Lord told me that: “What you see in the kingdom on earth is but a small seed of the fullness in heaven.” Then He said, “When the fullness of My Spirit is ‘unleashed’ upon the hearts of the world the barricades will tumble down like the Walls of Jericho.” That’s good news, isn’t it? Let’s pray for that!
So, as I told you that the Lord kept sending me in different directions. He sent me in the direction and told me he wanted me to have a radio show. I tried to figure it out. I trusted in the Lord by this time. I said, “Okay, whatever, I don’t know how to do that.” I tried to explore it and I couldn’t find anything out. I took it to the prayer team at a prayer group meeting. And the next day someone came up to me and said, “Oh Patti, did you know our church is getting ready to open a radio station? And to get the feed from the satellite feed from EWTN and Relevant Radio we have to have two local shows? Would you like to do one of the shows?” Thank you, Jesus.
And we went to our pastor, Msgr. David LeSieur, who was brand new in our parish. Because we had permission for our last pastor and we had this new one. And he said, “Well, you know, I’d like to be a part of it too.” And his father had been in broadcasting. He and I got together and we put on a monthly show about the liturgy and it was on our little 5-mile radius radio. And, not quite international, Lord! And then the Lord told me to get a website and post the references on the website. I didn’t know how to do that. I cried about it. I want to tell you there was no such thing as a “Websites for Dummies”! I went to work the next day, I was a CPA then, and I told my co-workers how much trouble I was having to come up with a website, and one the ladies said, who was also a Catholic, “My husband used to do that for a living! He could do it for you!” And he did! Then, they started posting the radio shows online, so that’s kind of international isn’t it? But the Lord is not satisfied with a little.
Two years ago, the same guy who asked me to do the radio station, asked me to a podcast and a YouTube podcast. And I prayed about it, and I said “Okay.” And he said, “Can you do 100 shows?” Okay, okay. And I started doing it and the Lord started telling me what to teach on this podcasts, 15 to 30 minute podcast. And He spent four months telling me what to say in the first three shows, about a month a show, okay Lord that’s going to take a long time! We were doing them every week, so finally He told me I could teach some of the things I had taught before. Because at Patriarch House, I was part of a team and we taught about Spirit things. And the Lord had always given me an outline of what to teach and I had taught at RCIA, and I had taught at the youth group, and I had taught to the women, so I had all of these talks stored in my computer. And the Lord said, “You can teach what you’ve taught before.” And so we’ve done a hundred shows, and we are still going. Our 100th show was about revival for the Catholics. And the show I posted was twenty things the Lord said to “Tell the People”. It’s fabulous! It’s not even me, it’s just stuff straight out of the journal that the Lord told me to say. Now, that’s good stuff! That’s real good stuff, let me tell you. Here I am, I turned 69 yesterday, and the Lord is using me in a new direction, in something I didn’t have a clue even existed! I’ve given you cards so that you can access. I understood YouTube. I didn’t really understand podcasts. Subscriptions are free. That was big news to me. And so you can watch, and you can access our network, it’s on 20 different podcast networks and its on YouTube. You can google Patti Brunner and probably find it the fastest, but or you can use the information on your little card. Watch it, because that’s things the Lord has asked me to do. And we have Fr. Philip Scott, and that’s just wonderful, allowed us to audio tape the leaders retreat for the Charismatic Leaders. And then we have a wonderful thing in there on Our Lady of Guadalupe and I discovered that did you know the mantle had music on it? And just wonderful things like that. And also about Life in the Spirit, about the Sacraments, so God is getting the truth out there before all of us who knew something are no longer here to tell it to the next generation. And it’s on the podcast. It’s on YouTube. And it’s on the internet. It’s ready there for you. And that’s how good God is. He gave me an international ministry that’s been watched in Great Britain and in China, and in Hong Kong, and in Canada and in France. God is good and he keeps his promises. And He promises always to watch over us and love us. And if you hear him calling in the night, it’s not your family calling you to have pecan pie. It is the Lord. And all you have to say is, “Yes, Lord, here I am.” Amen?
In the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. Come Holy Spirit; enkindle me in the fire of your love. Let me then love your people as You do. Stir into flame the gifts You have already placed in my heart by the fire of your love. Refresh me, O Lord, when my patience runs thin. Build in me your kingdom and expand it through me. Jesus, I trust in You. It is not my might but yours. It is not my power, but yours. You have planted the seed in my heart; bring it now towards maturity and fruit. Fill me with your Living Water, your grace; that your abundance may flow to the north, the east, the south, and the west. And then do it again…..and again until the barriers are all overcome in the flood of your love. I surrender to You, O Lord. Grant me Your Mercy. Use me however You will. Amen.
