I was at the veneration of the relic of St Carlos Acutis in Manchester. You could feel the presence of the young saint in the crowded Church. There were young and old people from many races, mostly humble people with heart-felt faith, yearning for God. It was the Communion of Saints in full operational mode.

Before the final Mass, as we priests were vesting, some priests were sharing their surprise at the number of new people coming to Mass and wishing to join the Church. In one parish in the north of the diocese the numbers of  those seeking to join the Church have just risen over 20. In another, where last year the priest had given up on the RCIA course for converts, he has needed to start it up again quickly. These new people include two teenage girls who shared that they have been seeking for some years. Another priest was surprised by the increase of people at that Sunday’s Mass – almost double, with no obvious indication of a cause.

Here we see an indication of God’s at work - pure and simple. Many of us have been talking about becoming missionary disciples, and agonising about how to encourage a culture of this in our Churches, but this rising tide of people seeking the Lord and his Church is not a result of programmes or preaching. The Lord is doing this.

I have been expecting for decades this increase of people searching for God and his Church. It started 50 years ago, when an extraordinary lady called Mary came to me and told me that Jesus had appeared to her. He was sad because he could not get through his Church to people. She said he had told her that he was going to shake everything and expose everything, and after that, the people would come seeking. We have had decades of things within the Church being exposed and shaken. I believe this is the time he is calling the seekers.

What we need in our parishes today is a climate of discipleship. That means an atmosphere where we share our seeking to love and know the Lord more deeply. When a community has that, a desire to learn his truth together develops as well. There are wondrous treasure contained in Catholic teaching – it just needs to be opened up in a way that causes people’s hearts burn.

That calls for lay people to take up the ministry of helping others to find answers to the million questions that the lovers of Jesus bring up. Our priests cannot do that on their own. St Paul describes a parish as having apostles, teachers, healers, administrators and other ministries. (see 1 Corinthians, 12:28-30).

We urgently need an atmosphere of naturally sharing about the Lord in our Church communities. The normal weakness of conversations about God when we get together is crippling. We get ourselves organised quickly if there is a crisis of hunger or disaster. Now the true work of the Church, the sharing of the Gospel is calling for urgent action. There is a famine for the word of God among the people we live among.

But it starts not with programmes but with prayer! Jesus said: ‘The harvest is rich but the labourers are few, so ask the Lord of the harvest to send labourers to his harvest’ (Matthew 9: 38).