Fr Ken Barker
 I
was ordained a priest for the Archdiocese of Canberra & Goulburn in
1974. God in his mercy gave me the grace to embrace the consecrated state
of life in 1986. As a priest I was living in the Cathedral presbytery, and
I was heading up a fairly large youth ministry here in this Archdiocese. I
was happily going along in my priestly life, enjoying the work with young
people, and deeply involved in charismatic renewal. Then in 1983 the Lord
called me to join this community, the Disciples of Jesus. It happened
while I was overseas in the United States of America. I was listening to
another priest talk about his journey. He shared how he had sought the
Lord for direction in his life by going for a whole year into a hermitage
in Catherine de Hueck Doherty’s community in Canada. He shared that
during that time he heard the Lord calling him to place his life under the
grace of the charismatic renewal. He knew that meant covenant community,
so he immediately joined a community. That testimony struck me deeply. In
my priestly life I was acting under the grace of the baptism in the
Spirit, serving in ways as best I could. However, I had not placed my
life under the grace of the renewal. So returning to Australia, I
decided to do just that.
Before
joining the community I sought the Lord for a word. He gave me Acts 6:4.
Maybe it will help to explain what is meant by consecrated life. At the
time I did not know the Lord was drawing me towards consecrated life. All
I knew was that I was called into covenant community. You will remember
how the apostles had a problem in the early church in Jerusalem. They had
to do a lot of administrative work, and what was most important for their
task was being neglected. So they elected some other men to do the
administrative work. They said they did this “so that we can continue to
devote ourselves to prayer, and to service of the word.” That is what
the Lord spoke into my heart when I entered community. I knew that
somehow, as a priest, the Lord was setting me apart for prayer and the
service of the word. I embraced community life fully. Then after a couple
of years, quite unexpectedly, three young men independently approached me
to say they wanted to be priests, and still belong to the community. They
wanted to know how this could happen. I suggested that we pray about it.
We used to meet in the chapel in the presbytery where I was living, and
pray for an afternoon each week. We simply sought the Lord as we prayed
before the Blessed Sacrament. We asked him: What do you want? What are you
asking of us? How would you use us for your kingdom? We did that for a
whole year. During that year the Lord spoke to us very powerfully. In my
memory it was quite overwhelming. He spoke that he wanted us to form a
brotherhood; that he wanted us to embrace the same poverty that he
experienced as he walked the pathways of Galilee; that he wanted us to
share his celibacy; and he wanted us to embrace his Cross in a particular
way, to die to ourselves for the sake of others. He told us that he would
open doors that would surprise us, and that he would take us into areas
beyond our imagining. He said that it was his work, and that the doors he
would open could be opened by him alone. He told us that we would have a
special devotion and love for the Blessed Virgin Mary, the Mother of God,
and that we would be consecrated to the Heart of Jesus. These were the
sort of messages that we received at that time.
Around
about the same time something was happening in me that was beginning to
spark off a whole new experience. It was happening because I read a
dangerous book - a life story of St Francis of Assisi. In reading about
Francis something happened inside me. I remember finishing the book, and
putting it down next to me. I was sitting in my comfortable armchair in
the presbytery. I looked around at the library that I had accumulated over
the years. I though of the housekeeper preparing a nice meal for dinner,
and the bedroom suite I had upstairs, and all my possessions that I held
so dearly. I began to ask myself a very important question: Is it possible for me to live the gospel radically in today’s Church
and in today’s world? Is it really possible? I also had echoing in
my heart the words of Pope Paul VI when he asked a similar question in Evangelii
Nuntiandi: “How today can we unleash the intrinsic power of the
Gospel of Jesus Christ in a way that will bring conversion to our
contemporaries?” I began to hear a call upon me to live the gospel as
radically as my poor frail flesh would allow it. I was beginning to
respond to a call of love that the Lord was putting upon me. At the
community gatherings we had been often receiving the text from Mark 10
where the rich young man runs up to Jesus and asks “What must I do?” A
very good question is it not? “What must I do?” And Jesus replied
“Well, of course, you must keep the commandments.” The young man said,
“I have done that since I was a little boy.” They Jesus took him a lot
more seriously, and began to look right into his heart. In the Gospel it
says that he gazed upon the young man with love. He looked steadily into
the depths of his heart and said: “There is one thing you lack. Go sell
all your possessions, give the money to the poor, and you will have
treasure in heaven, and the come follow me.” I heard these words, as
many have in the history of the Church, as directed to me personally, and
to be acted upon in a literal way. I knew what God was asking me to do. I
went to my companion in community, and I said to him: “I think the Lord
is asking me to give everything away to the poor.” He just said, “I
think you are vulnerable to God at the moment. You had better do it before
you change your mind.” So I did. To the best of my ability I
relinquished myself of the goods that I had accumulated as a priest; and,
with the agreement of the Archbishop and his consultors, myself and the
three young aspirants to the priesthood moved into a brotherhood house,
and I began a whole new journey with God, trusting in his provident care.
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