New Pentecost
I hesitate to make this post but I feel compelled. It is unlikely that anyone will see it but on the possibility that they might, what I have to say must be said.
I have had sparring matches in forums with some of the adherents to the Catholic Charismatic Renewal, which I will refer to as the CCR. It was a supreme effort but I believe that I was almost always able to maintain charity and civility, often in the face of irrational invective. I had to assume that those persons felt that they were being personally attacked, which no doubt they had been in the past and quite possibly assumed that I was another of those attackers before they even had a chance to read what I had posted. What I found most disheartening was a lack of willingness to think, to read scripture on the subject at hand and to look at the magisterial teaching such as it is. Perhaps I had only encountered a select few who were not representative. I am willing to concede that, even anxious to concede that possibility.
What I noticed as well was what I would call a dodge to avoid discussing specifics. I rarely see anyone anywhere who is willing, in the public forum, to describe what it is that happens or is taught in Charismatic Prayer Meetings or Charismatic Conferences or Seminars, other than in general terms. Why this is, I’m not sure. Reticence born of ridicule perhaps? I do not know. However, with careful and systematic study and the reading of postings within charismatic groups to each other, the picture becomes somewhat clearer. There is another part of the dodge that diverts discussion of the specific practices and manifestations to a discussion of the Holy Spirit, and then a dire warning that by discussing the CCR in anything but glowing terms would be to risk opposing the Holy Spirit. I repeat, this is a dodge, and a particularly pernicious one because it is an attempt to avoid scrutiny by the rest of the Church using some sort of immunity wand. Again, perhaps past experience has caused this to come about, but at this point in time, it takes on the appearance of concealment, which raises the question, why? Why is it necessary to avoid the direct discussion of practices and teaching within the movement? To some of us, the fact of that concealment causes the movement to take on the aspect of someone knowing something is amiss yet being unwilling to make the necessary changes. We have all seen this phenomenon in many areas of life.
This article in Inside the Vatican is an example of the finger wagging without the discussion of specifics.
The other side of this is an unfortunate habit of equation of the CCR with any or all renewal by the Holy Spirit within the Church. It would seem to suggest that the CCR has a lock on the Holy Spirit, and that any mention of renewal or revival in the larger Church by the work of, the outpouring of the Holy Spirit, must come through the CCR. Here is a blog post that seems to me to express this perspective.
This kind of thinking I reject for several reasons, the first one being the fact that I personally have had a deep and profound experience of the work and infilling of the Holy Spirit in the process of my own conversion back to Jesus Christ. And I don’t expect that to end as long as I keep seeking to do the will of God and keep seeking to be closer to Him. And all of that totally outside the CCR. Nor is my experience in any way unique.
What all of this requires is a look at person and work of the Holy Spirit, a better understanding of justification, and of the sacraments themselves. That is a tall order to accomplish in a blog post so we will attempt to hit the high points without the benefits of the footnotes of a scholarly work. However, any and all of this is available in the Catechism of the Catholic Church and the Scriptures.
We know that the Holy Spirit is the third person of the Trinity and that after Jesus ascended He sent the Holy Spirit as promised upon the apsotles at Pentecost. It bears remembering that Jesus had become a human being. The incarnation was permanent. Even in his glorified resurrected body he could not be everywhere at once while he was in the world, as Jesus. He even pointed out that he must go so that the Holy Spirit could come. In a sense he was returning to earth to complete the work in all of us that he had accomplished for all of humanity on the cross. But we in all generations need the same salvation, we need the same graces so that we can follow Jesus in faith, and we need the graces that the Church mediates to us throughout history. His work of redemption was done, but our reception of it had just begun, and he knew that we could never do it without his help, day by day, moment by moment. Indeed we could not even have faith without the grace of God.
So how is all of this accomplished? Jesus works in the world, within us, in the person of the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit is one person of the Holy Trinity but does the work of the Father and the Father has given all authority to the Son. Thus, the grace that draws us to God is the action of the Holy Spirit. The grace of faith is the action, the gift of the Holy Spirit. The action of the sacraments is the action of the Holy Spirit. The movement in the hearts of men, on an individual basis and in large numbers is always the work of the Holy Spirit in their hearts. Any gifts of God to the follower of Christ are from the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit is how Jesus acts in the world among and inside of men until he returns at the final day.
So therefore, if we know little of the Holy Spirit it is because he has not been named. But we have experienced the Holy Spirit if we have faith, if we have received the sacraments. Jesus said that without him we can do nothing and the way that he does things through us is by means of the Holy Spirit.
It is the Holy Spirit that washes us clean in Baptism. It is the Holy Spirit strengthens us in Confirmation. The Holy Spirit acts through the priest to confect the Eucharist and make the body and blood of Jesus present there on the altar. The Holy Spirit acts through the priest in the Confessional, in persona Christi, forgiving the sins of the penitent. It is the Holy Spirit that acts through the Holy oils effect healing in the bodies of those Jesus chooses to heal in the sacrament of the Anointing. It is the Holy Spirit that acts to join a man and woman in Holy Matrimony. It is the Holy Spirit that acts through the Bishop and places the mark of Holy Orders on those called to the priesthood and episcopate. The entire life of the Church is filled with the actions of the Holy Spirit.
The Holy Spirit guards the Pope against teaching error in faith and morals to the people of God. And even among our separated brethren wherein the Holy Name of Jesus is envoked in purity of faith and love, the Holy Spirit works in their hearts, leading them to God, giving them the grace of faith and often the further gifts to aid them in living holy lives. When Jesus says “where two or three are gathered together, there I am,” he is present there in the person of the Holy Spirit.
It is the Holy Spirit that speaks to the hearts and conscience of men, gently pursuading them to repentence. This is what happens in times of renewal, of revival. Large numbers of people hear and respond to the voice of the Holy Spirit, convicting their conscience of sin and moving them to repentence and faith in Jesus Christ. In this particularly, the Holy Spirit speaks the message he has been given from the Father. But rarely does renewal happen when there have not been faithful Christians praying for Jesus to speak to the hearts of men through the Holy Spirit. This is a prayer that mothers have seen answered in their wayward children, and it is a prayer that Christians on their knees begging the Lord Jesus Christ for the sake of their fellow man have seen answered in renewal.
But how have we been able to come to the understanding of all of this over the centuries? It began with Pentecost. Until that time, while the Holy Spirit was seen to work miracles, particularly in the womb of the Blessed Virgin Mary, there was not a clear understanding of what Jesus meant when he said he would send his Spirit upon them. So we saw the great sign at Pentecost, the miracle of the speaking in the languages of the Jews from all over the world by men who for the most part were not highly educated. This was a two-fold miracle. It served the practical need to preach the gospel to representatives of all nations in their own language so that they could understand and it also served as a sign. As we follow this miraculous gift of speaking in tongues it then became exclusively a sign of the work of the Holy Spirit. This was one way that the Apostles and new Christians learned about and understood the third person of the Holy Trinity, and his action within the Christian.
By the time that we get to the famous passages in the letter of St. Paul to the Corinthian Church, wherein he teaches directly and explicitly on the gifts that come through the Holy Spirit and the gift of tongues in particular, the understanding of the action and person of the Holy Spirit was much better understood. Without going deeply into that teaching for the moment, suffice it to say that St. Paul teaches that there are many more and higher gifts of the Holy Spirit and that there are greater miracles to be seen and experienced by the power of the Holy Spirit. But over arching all of the discussion is one theme, that all that is done and all the gifts that the Holy Spirit gives and all the miracles that he performs through men are for the purpose of the building up of the Body of Christ, the Church. Those with particular gifts, whatever they are, are responsible to excercise them to that end. But he specifically points out that the gift of tongues, in particular, is in the nature of a sign for Christians, and doesn’t have much use beyond that in the building up of the Body of Christ. It is a mistake to get stuck there, at that point of spiritual understanding and maturity, and further, it is not a great tool for evangelizing those from outside the Church. In fact, it can be counter-productive.
Over the centuries the Holy Spirit has performed many miracles in many places and times often as a sign or wake-up call to Christians whose faith is wavering, flickering and ready to go out. For those who have led holy lives and sought out deep spiritual communion with God the Holy Spirit has often given wondrous gifts, both interior and exterior. One of the most onerous gifts for the recipient has been the wounds of Christ, the stigmata, given to St. Francis of Assissi and St. Padre Pio.
In our own time, despite some irregularity in its beginnings, the Catholic Charismatic Renewal has been the home of a resurgence in the sign of speaking in tongues. This has been evident in some parts of the Protestant ecclesial communion for a long time, the history of which we won’t get into here. Suffice to say, the origins of the speaking in tongues phenomenon are from that Protestant group. That may be somewhat unsettling but we can accept the possibility that the Holy Spirit can and does use something or someone out of the ordinary to accomplish his purposes in the world at any given time. And we can see quite easily how that within the Catholic Church a sign has been needed. Perhaps we should look back once again at the way that the Holy Spirit works within us, with respect to our salvation.
Our Catholic faith teaches us that we have free will to respond or not to respond to the prompting, to the persuading of the Holy Spirit within our hearts. When we are baptized we kow that it is the Holy Spirit the acts within us, whether as babies or at some other point in our lives to wash us clean of original sin. In the case of the baby it is the faith of the Church, the faith of the parents, the faith of the community of the people of God that brings about the action of the Holy Spirit. But we also know that that child must grow up nurtured in that faith so that one day at the age of reason or thereabouts that child can have their own personal faith in Jesus Christ so that the Holy Spirit can further work his graces in the heart of that young person. In the adult coming to faith, the faith is personal and immediate and the graces of Baptism flow as the action of the Holy Spirit, in working that person’s re-birth, makes that sacrament effect what it signifies. The sacrament of Confirmation works in the same way, if given to those whose faith is personal and immediate. The baptism of the infant, however, creates the possibility of a dis-connect, from the baptism itself and the personal faith that is expected later. This has been called a “tied sacrament” if that person never does come to personally interiorize that Baptism and the graces that the Holy Spirit holds ready for the one who responds in faith. The Holy Spirit remains ready to give that gift of faith whenever that person responds to the voice of the Holy Spirit. For every sacrament we speak of ex opere operato, meaning that it does what it signifies, but within that context there is the opus operatum, the action of the Holy Spirit, and the opus operantis, our part, man’s part, which is faith. Thus faith is required for the grace to flow to us in all of the sacraments. Luther was closer to the truth than he realized.
So now we can see that when someone who has not responded to Jesus Christ and whose baptism has therefore been tied, finally comes to a realization of sin and the need for repentance and a return to Jesus Christ, when they call out to God in faith, can find those graces rushing in by the power of the Holy Spirit, filling them up to overflowing. And this might be the occasion that the Holy Spirit gives the gift of tongues, or it may not. However, we have to remember that just as St. Paul teaches, and Vatican II reiterates, it is the Holy Spirit that gives the gifts and to whomever he chooses.
That is why it seems somewhat odd that in order to receive the gift of tongues one must submit to another lay person or a priest laying on hands and praying for this gift. The Holy Spirit has the power and ability to give gifts as he chooses. If we check back to the beginning of this gift we see that in the infant Church, the only laying on of hands was done by the Apostles, whose successors today would be the Bishops. I would personally be wary of anyone laying on hands other than the Bishop or a personally delegated priest.
This dove-tails into the sacrament of Confirmation wherein the Bishop does lay hands upon the person to receive the Holy Spirit. That is perhaps why some would suggest that Confirmation is the only time that the Holy Spirit fills a person. Clearly the Holy Spirit can and does fill people many times during their lives as they submit their will to Jesus Christ. These occasions may or may not invlove some manifestation of a gift received. However, this is quite independent of the laying on of hands by anyone.
Another point about this should be obvious but we must highlight that this is a gift of the Holy Spirit, not a right, nor something that I can teach myself or someone else to do. Sadly, in one seminar I know of, this teaching of tongues was part of the course manual. As if this could be called a gift of the Holy Spirit when we have conjured it up from use of repetition, almost like mantra to empty the mind. This also betrays a certain notion that St. Paul dispells way back in the Corinthian Church that everyone should speak in tongues. I have heard Prominant leaders of the CCR teach this.
(More to Come)
