New Pentecost -Part II
There is something that we must keep clear in our understanding. When we speak of the Holy Spirit we are not speaking of “the force” as in Star Wars. This not some nebulous impersonal power such as the animists or the pantheists believe in. We are speaking of the Third Person of the Holy Trinity. We are speaking of God Himself. It should cause us to fall down in awe and fear that the great God and creator of all things should actually enter into our lives in this way, in person, into our inner being. How he can do this is a mystery only he can answer, yet he does so. He is alive, he is real, he is the God of the universe, right here in our hearts. Jesus is here alive in us through the Holy Spirit for as we know where one person of the Holy Trinity is, the other persons are there as well, because he is one God in three persons.
Can we not then see the implications of this? He clearly knows our hearts so that for us to be anything but holy is to our own shame. But the beauty of it is that he is so close that we can ask him to help us in the battle to live a holy life. Moreover we can ask him to live through us, to work through us, to accomplish his will through us. This takes a great submission of our own will, but is that not what Jesus was talking about all along? Whoever loses his life for my sake shall find it? Indeed. This is the path to holiness and we know it. It is just so difficult for us to give up our own will.
But also in this context we see how it is that the Holy Spirit could give us gifts to build up the Church. This is what St. Paul was talking about. And this is the point that he was making. The gifts of tongues, in particular, was and is a sign, but it benefits internally the person who received it, not the rest of the community. There is a certain irony that a gift that on the day of Pentecost was given for the very purpose of clarity and intelligibility, later is used with unintelligibility, and lack of clarity, for it had become meaningless speaking to those around without an interpreter. But it was a sign of the working of the Holy Spirit.
Now at this point we need to ask, do we drive down the road and when we see a sign we stop, assuming that we have arrived? No, the sign is there so that we know we are going in the right direction, but that we have not yet arrived at our destination. It may be very close, but we are not there yet. In this case the sign is that the Holy Spirit is with us and in us and working through those who are willing to give themselves to him. As St. Paul teaches we must seek the greater gifts of the Holy Spirit. In other words we cannot stop there but must press on to see the greater works that God will do with and through us. I would ask those then in the CCR, are we stopped at the sign? I know for a fact that there are many that are moving on, that understand that the sign of tongues is not the end but only a marker along the way. We know that from the CCR there have come many evangelizers, many holy people who are moving on in the Holy Spirit, giving themselves to the greater work that the Holy Spirit wishes to accomplish. All we can say to that is praise be to God! That is what is supposed to happen. This is what the Holy Father is talking about in his letter to the young people in anticipation of Youth Day 2008. The Holy Spirit moves us to be outward looking, to a deep love and aching of heart for our brothers and sisters around us in the world. The Holy Spirit causes us to lose ourselves, to forget ourselves, to see only the need for the Gospel in the hearts of mankind everywhere. He causes us to see the big picture in a very personal way so that we can no longer remain seeking the internal blessings, cocooned as it were, or in the womb. We must go forth into the world. It is an outward motion of evangelization through our very lives and walk in the Holy Spirit.
In contrast to this, if we remain stalled at the sign, at the gift of tongues and see that as our end, we are missing the great work that the Holy Spirit is asking us to be a part of, for which he gave the sign in the first place. St. Paul uses an illustration that some have been offended by, to make the point. He says that as a child he spoke as a child and when he was grown he put away childish things. Clearly he is suggesting that the Corinthians need to mature in their faith and practice. Perhaps an imperfect analogy would help us to see this. We can buy the most powerful computer on earth, capable of great and wonderful things, even guiding a space ship to another planet or to the moon, and if we sit there and play solitaire with it, it is safe to say it is just an untapped resource, a power unrealized.
Again, we are speaking of the third person of God himself. He has so much to show us, to give us, to work through us. This is the New Pentecost. How can we allow ourselves to be ghetto-ized into a group that meets only to sing and praise and speak in tongues? In and of itself it is not wrong in purpose but is that all there is? Is that what the CCR has become in some places? It would seem to be the case based on indications that I have seen and read. But is that not somewhat inevitable even just based on the name of the movement? Is it not identified with the “charismatic” gifts? I think that there are many within the movement that sense this and are concerned. There are yet others who have not seen that there is not an identity between charismatic gifts and the work of the Holy Spirit. It is also quite possible and happens all the time that the Holy Spirit works in the lives of those that give themselves up to Jesus Christ and the will of the Holy Spirit, completely bypassing any manifestation of tongues or any other so-called charismatic gift. In fact, I would suggest that this is the norm.
I think that St. Paul recognized this kind of difficulty in the Corinthian Church and also realized that they needed motivation of some kind to move on in the Holy Spirit. In his dissertation on the body of Christ, the gifts and the unity of love, the paramount importance of love, he speaks of chaos and disorder that had become the norm for the Corinthians. If we are to listen closely to the descriptions of Charismatic prayer meetings we sometimes have a very up-to-date version of what St. Paul was talking about. So what did he do? Well, from our perspective outside of the CCR St. Paul’s solution is quite extraordinary. We know that insofar as a gift is of the Holy Spirit, we cannot oppose it, even though the gift is control of the recipient. At the same time, even if we think or suspect that what is happening may be something other than the Holy Spirit, which has happened in some places, without the specific gift of discernment we cannot make that determination. And, when there is a chaotic situation, even with the gift of discernment it may not be possible to discover. So St. Paul lays down some rules of order in God’s house, a very practical way handle the situation. He does not specify whether this is only in what we know as the Mass, or at other times as well. But in his reasons he makes the point that if there is someone present who does not know what is going on, the chaos and lack of interpretation will be more likely to drive them away. From that it would seem that he is speaking about any kind of meeting or liturgical celebration where there may be non-believers present. This, it seems to me, in a church concerned with evangelization, would cover just about every church sponsored event. Thus, if this type of meeting is to continue to happen, it should be made clear in advance that it is for charismatics only and that it may involve the uninhibited speaking and praying in tongues, and/or other such manifestations. Any other function should therefore follow the rules of St. Paul as set down for the Corinthian church. This would be the best accommodation that any parish or diocese could offer for the members of the CCR who wish to pursue that kind of meeting. In fact, it seems that this has already happened in many places such that the CCR has isolated itself based on the insistence of their kind of meeting. Its adherents function outside of that within the rest of the Church and are quite active in the life and mission of the Church. If this is the way that they would wish to continue, there is little point to trying to show them that they can move on in the Holy Spirit. That has been tried by many with great frustration and disappointment and has been interpreted as an attack. It would seem best to allow them to discover the larger picture in their own time.
Some have argued that what St. Paul was talking about was “speaking” in tongues, as opposed to “praying” in tongues. Actually, he mentions both and makes no distinction when outlining his rules of order and giving the reasons for them. It is sophistry to make that kind of distinction when the speaking or praying is aloud. If you walk into a room where everyone is praying aloud in tongues it is chaos, just as it would be if everyone were speaking in tongues. It is a distinction without a difference from the point of view of St. Paul’s rationale for the rules. He makes it clear that speaking or praying in tongues should not be forbidden. Absolutely. Insofar as it is a gift of the Holy Spirit we cannot oppose it or forbid it. But because it is in the control of the receiver, St. Paul quite clearly indicates that it must have its place, and those with the gift must adhere to the rules he has set down.
Some object that this was a special case and our modern circumstance is not the same and therefore the rules of St. Paul are no longer relevant or necessary. Actually, our modern circumstance is quite similar, as we read the description St. Paul gives of the meetings in the Corinthian Church. But there is a difference, we can gladly grant. We have 2000 years of theological study, knowledge, insight and understanding of the Holy Trinity and in particular the Holy Spirit. The very fact that a sign is necessary in our times and I will grant that this resurgence of speaking in tongues has been a sign, tells us that we have gone far from the vast storehouse of wisdom that is our patrimony in the Church. We are forced to re-learn the lessons of old. The Holy Father points out that the understanding of the Holy Spirit is lacking. I have no doubt of that. But the reason for that is not a good reflection on ourselves. The fact is, we should know this. The fire of the Holy Spirit and the renewal of the Church should have happened already. Sometimes I think that the Reformation was allowed to happen just for this reason; so that the separated brethren, in their pursuit of the truth of Jesus Christ without the benefit of the sacraments would be forced at some point, as we see in the evangelical movement and the types of churches that kind of theology brought forth, to seek the clear understanding of the Holy Spirit so that in the fullness of time that understanding could be infused back once more into the consciousness of Holy Mother Church. It has been there all the time but we have not seen it. Because we have not seen it we have lacked personal faith. But now we must, in our rediscovery of the third person of the Holy Trinity, move on to the larger and greater gifts and wonders that the Lord has in store for us, not just as individuals, but as the body of Christ, just as St. Paul talks about.
It is indeed fitting that the Holy Father should declare 2008 the year of St. Paul. It is St. Paul who gives us this very deep understanding of the Holy Spirit. He was the original charismatic. His teaching on the gifts has been developed over the centuries and re-iterated over and over including in the documents of the Second Vatican Council, but nowhere has his specific teaching on the gift of tongues been modified, clarified or declared only a product of his time. Moreover his rules of order still stand as the Word of God. We should insist upon them and get on with moving with the Holy Father into a greater, deeper, fuller understanding of the Holy Spirit which should cause us to be outward focused, forgetful of ourselves, but rather seeking the Kingdom of God for all mankind, beginning with the baptized who have fallen away.
There will be those who remain in the bosom of the CCR, unable to move beyond it. There are worse places they could be, to be sure, and perhaps when they see the moving of the Holy Spirit happening in other people, throughout the Church, creating a renewal without the necessity of passing through the manifestations such as speaking in tongues, perhaps they will be enlightened by the Holy Spirit and they will be welcome to join with the rest of us, as they have always been.
The renewal is urgent. That much I believe that we can all agree upon. And we can see that it is already happening in many places. Moreover, in large measure we have the zeal and energy of many from the CCR to thank for much great work in bringing people who have been lost back to faith in Jesus Christ, despite the problems within the movement. It is to the shame of the rest of us if we have not kept pace and in the process helped lead some to the mistaken notion that the Holy Spirit only works for renewal through the kind of avenue that the CCR represents. Perhaps it was lack of understanding, although I find that difficult to comprehend, but in the beginning the CCR saw itself as a much broader movement of renewal than it has become, and I would suggest that the reason they got side-tracked and tagged is the insistence upon unbridled manifestation of tongues and such things as being “slain in the spirit.” From within the movement perhaps it was hard to see the direction it was taking, but surely someone had studied the scripture in this regard. Certainly, we are all susceptible to the tendency, when we have been given a deep and powerful, sometimes emotional experience of God through the Holy Spirit, to want to repeat that experience over and over. This is not just true of charismatic gifts. But when that tendency is systematized and turned into a movement, which I believe happened to the CCR, then the next step that the Holy Spirit has for us is put on hold until we are ready to move on. Meanwhile, they have been tagged for such activities and the many in the mainstream of the Church who may well be hungry for renewal, but who reject the manifestations out of hand because they have seen the excesses on the Protestant side, are left without the evangelization they need because they will never be part of the activities of the CCR.
It is time to move on to greater and higher things. I hope and pray the Holy Father is able to relay that message to the young people in Australia in 2008, and I hope and pray they take him seriously. The rest of us need to get on with the business of praying without ceasing for the renewal of the Church, and the plain unglamourous job of re-evangelizing the faithful one parish at a time, believing with our whole hearts that the Holy Spirit will speak to the hearts of people and that they will hear and respond and be filled with the Holy Spirit and be the renewal of the Church, the New Pentecost.
