August 2006
There's an ancient story from the "Desert Fathers," who lived in the area of Egypt around the 4th century. A disciple went to see his mentor, Abba Joseph, seeking advice about his spiritual life. Like many of us, the young monk said his prayers, tried to practice some spiritual discipline and sought to keep his thoughts pure, but it wasn't getting him where he wanted to be. He asked Abba Joseph, "What else can I do to be holy?" The old man stood and stretched his hands toward heaven. Flame shot from his fingers and he replied, "Why not become like fire?"
Forty years ago next February, the Catholic Charismatic Renewal began when a small group of Duquesne University students had that kind of profound encounter with the Holy Spirit at a weekend retreat. Since then, millions of Catholics have had their faith enkindled and energized by this experience, the transformation that Jesus promised when He said, “you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes upon you, and you will be my witnesses. . .” (Acts 1:8.)
In anticipation of that anniversary, we’re going to spend some time each month exploring what the Catholic Charismatic Renewal is and what it could mean for all of us. Back in the mid-1980’s, our current Pope, then Cardinal Ratzinger, called it “evidence of hope, a positive sign of the times, a gift of God to our age.” Our late Holy Father, John Paul II, saw this Renewal as a “particular gift of the Holy Spirit to the Church.”
When such a personal encounter with God happens to an open heart, it is life-changing. Bishop Sam Jacobs of the Houma-Thibodeaux Diocese has said that the Duquesne students “experienced the fulfillment of a promise of God in a mighty way,” and that “what they had experienced through the sacraments of Baptism and Confirmation became more alive and real in them.”
Above all, many who’ve had this encounter, often referred to as the “Baptism of the Holy Spirit,” will say that they’ve been overwhelmed by an awareness of God’s personal love for them, and who Jesus is. Those two things are at the core of the Gospel, and they are crucial to living out what all Catholics have been called to do as a Church - proclaiming the Good News of Jesus Christ.
September 2006
My four-year-old granddaughter Ali named this column. I was talking with some friends about whether a door was opening for a ministry opportunity. Ali, who had no idea what the grownups were discussing, asked for a piece of paper. With a little spelling help from Granna, she printed out in big block letters "Be Fire" and handed the paper back to me. That was as open a door as I needed to see.
The Holy Spirit speaks to us, not only in sacred scripture and homilies, but also through "coincidences" (there aren't any) and through other people - even four-year olds. That might be a head-scratcher to some, but my reaction to Ali's carefully-lettered note comes from a deep sense of intimacy with God, something that began for me when Catholic lay missionaries prayed with me for the Baptism of the Holy Spirit 20 years ago and continues to this moment. I know that Jesus loves me, and He has far better plans for me than I'll ever dream up. If I'm listening, He'll tell me about them.
Although my wife Donna is a "cradle Catholic," I wasn't Catholic until 1991. I'd asked twice for the Lord’s specific direction on whether to convert. Each time, a clergyman who didn't know about my prayer told me "out of the blue" the next day that I should become a Catholic. They were a priest and a Protestant minister who didn't know each other. God spoke clearly through them and I obeyed.
That sense of intimacy with God and the deep desire to share it with others lie at the heart of the Catholic Charismatic Renewal. When Jesus says in Luke 12:32, "Do not be afraid any longer, little flock, for your Father is pleased to give you the kingdom," we want to shout it from the rooftops.
At Pentecost two years ago, Pope John Paul II spoke of his wish that all Catholics would share this experience of God's love and the gifts of the Holy Spirit:
"Thanks to the Charismatic Movement, a multitude of Christians, men and women, young people and adults, have rediscovered Pentecost as a living reality in their daily lives. I hope that the spirituality of Pentecost will spread in the church as a renewed incentive to prayer, holiness, communion and proclamation."
As the 40th anniversary of this Renewal's birth approaches, Father, may it be so.
October 2006
Most of us know the story of Pentecost. In the Upper Room, the Blessed Mother and about 120 other followers of Jesus are praying when suddenly there is a mighty rushing wind and tongues of fire appear over their heads. Peter, the brash fisherman chosen by Jesus to lead the Church, steps into the street and preaches a fiery sermon that brings 3,000 to faith. Later, after healing a cripple at the Beautiful Gate of the temple, he and John are hauled before the Sanhedrin and ordered to stop preaching about Jesus. Peter flatly tells them, "We cannot remain silent about what we have seen and heard."
"The "power from on high" that the Lord promised had come down, transforming the crowd in the Upper Room from bewildered to bold, and they went out to proclaim the Good News and fill the Book of Acts with miracles wrought in the name of Jesus.
Of course, 2,000 years later in our secular culture it's easy to dismiss Pentecost and all that followed as something wonderful that God did through the apostles to "kick start" the Church or as the product of superstition and exaggeration. The idea that there is Someone who might step into our "reality" by instantly curing the incurable or doing something else we can't explain rationally threatens our deeply-held belief that we control our own destinies. A God who can do that might also hold us accountable for how we live.
Father Raniero Cantalamessa, Papal Household preacher for John Paul II and Benedict XVI, writes in Sober Intoxication of the Holy Spirit that "our first mental illness is unbelief." In Father Cantalamessa's view, many people offend reason by refusing to admit that there is something greater. They reject reason's ability to project beyond itself.
Cantalamessa wonders what would happen if word spread that somewhere Pentecost was happening again, "a 'mighty wind' was moving again and shaking the house, and that everyone returned from this place transformed, with a new fervor and love for the Church."
In fact, for almost 40 years that "new Pentecost" has been happening, and millions upon millions of Catholics worldwide are living it in the Charismatic Renewal. This is not a spirituality, says Father Cantalamessa. "It is Christian life lived in the Spirit" and "an experience meant for all the baptized."
Pope Paul VI called the Renewal a "chance for the Church and for the world." Cantalamessa calls it "a current of grace meant to transform the Church."
Holy Spirit, set us all ablaze! Let us not keep silent about what we have seen and heard!
November 2006
Go
out and sniff the evening air. Is there a hint that
someone's pushing the fireplace season a little? When
I was a kid, you'd smell burning leaves about now. I've
always loved that smoky fragrance because it told me Fall was definitely here, and Thanksgiving
and Christmas weren't far away.
I've
got campfire memories, too - telling stories in the flickering
light and trying to keep the marshmallows from turning into torches. They
usually flared up anyway because fire does that - it heats things. That’s
why fire is life-giving. It'll
cook your food, keep you warm and light up the darkness.
So,
it's no surprise that God uses fire as one of the symbols for
the Holy Spirit, whom we call "The Lord and Giver of Life." The
Holy Spirit brings our Church "power from on high" (Lk.
24:49). Jesus
told His followers to wait in
Recent
Popes have stressed that the whole Church still needs that fire. When
John XXIII announced the convening of Vatican II, he prayed, "Renew
Thy wonders in this our day, as by a new Pentecost." John
Paul II wrote in Mission of the Redeemer that, "It
is not possible to bear witness to Christ without reflecting his
image, which is made alive in us by grace and the power of the
Spirit." (pgh. 87). Paul
VI saw this as the Church's greatest need: "The Church needs her
perennial Pentecost, she needs fire in the heart, words on the
lips, prophecy in the glance . . . she needs the Holy Spirit! The
Holy Spirit in us, in each of us and in all of us together, in
us who are the Church . . ." (General Audience
Nov. 29, 1972).
Benedict
XVI is just as insistent on the need for a new Pentecost and the
gifts it brings for the entire Church. Preaching to a worldwide
gathering of renewal movements in June, he prayed:
"Let
us pray . . . that
the celebration of the Solemnity of Pentecost may be like an ardent
flame and a blustering wind for Christian life and for the mission
of the whole Church . . . Upon all of you I invoke an outpouring
of the gifts of the Spirit, so that in our time, too, we may have
the experience of a renewed Pentecost. Amen!"
Amen!
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December 2006
What
are you doing this New Year's Eve?
There's
a story about an old man, over a century ago, who was praying
in a chapel to welcome in 1901. As
he waited, he sang "Come, Holy Spirit." It was an ancient
prayer from the depths of his heart.
A
curious thing happened. Almost half a world
away in
My
guess is that the old man's prayers in the chapel played a part
in the events later that night in
Pope
John XXIII echoed that call with his prayer for a "new Pentecost"
when he announced the convening of Vatican II. That
"new Pentecost" fell on students on retreat at
Why
all this fuss about opening up our hearts to the Holy Spirit? Fr.
Raniero Cantalamessa,
preacher to the Papal Households of John Paul II and Benedict
XVI, writes that the Baptism in the Holy Spirit is not a sacrament,
but is an act by the Holy Spirit to revitalize our sacramental
Baptism. In the
early Church, Baptism was given to adults who came to a deep faith
in Jesus Christ as Lord before receiving the sacrament. Now,
we baptize infants, and rarely do those people as adults ever
make the kind of faith-driven choice to follow Jesus that the
early Christians made. However, a person
being prayed with for the Baptism in the Holy Spirit makes that
choice. According
to Fr. Cantalamessa, that decision sets
free the grace of sacramental Baptism: "It is as if the plug
is pulled and the light is switched on. The
gift of God is finally 'untied' and the Spirit is allowed to flow
like a fragrance in the Christian life."
There's
a line from a hymn by St. Ambrose that Pope Leo XIII may have
been humming to himself in the chapel that New Year's Eve so long
ago: "Let us drink
the sober intoxication of the Spirit with joy."
Sounds
like a great time to me! So, what are you doing
this New Year's Eve?
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January 2007
Ever
get frustrated with New Year's resolutions that you just can't
keep? Well, don't
feel too bad. Even
An
interesting perspective on this comes from Maria von Trapp, who
was portrayed by Julie Andrews in the wonderful 60's movie "The
Sound of Music." If
you've seen it, you'll remember "Maria" singing with
the von Trapp children and marrying their widowed father. The
real Maria, a devout Catholic, eventually was baptized in the
Holy Spirit. She
told New Covenant magazine, "Well, before we strove
for perfection by the sweat of our brow and didn't get very far. Now
since being baptized in the Spirit, it's not only my own effort,
but the work of the Spirit within me that is at work to make me
a Christian . . . I do want to tell everyone about the gift that
God has for them in His Spirit. I want them all to know
this kind of happiness." (Interview, July
1974.)
Mother
Angelica is more familiar to most of us. She was baptized in
the Holy Spirit in 1971. Before
long, most of the sisters in her monastery had experienced it
and found a new vitality. "It has enriched
our prayer lives, our liturgy and our call to perpetual adoration,"
she told interviewer Dan O'Neill fifteen years later. "We
have been enriched but not changed in our vocations." Mother also
received a new hunger for the Scriptures. That
led to a tape cassette teaching ministry, shaping this cloistered
nun for the TV audience she would have when EWTN was born.
Forty
years ago this February 18th, the Catholic Charismatic
Renewal began when a young student stopped into the chapel on
a college retreat. There, before the tabernacle,
she was flooded with God's love and the power of the Holy Spirit,
her own "New Pentecost." Now
a grandmother, Patti Gallagher Mansfield told Pope Benedict XVI
at Pentecost Vespers in
Let's
all make one resolution this year that we can keep. Let's
give God permission to fill us with that same "New Pentecost"
that Pope John XXIII prayed for when he convened Vatican II.
It's
a very Catholic thing to do.
************************************
February 2007
It's
getting deep into February now, with those clammy days and wind-chilled
nights that make a
Now, picture that
Nothing happened? Try again. Still
nothing? Oops! Power cord's not plugged in. That
Whammyfier isn't worth much that way,
is it? It needs the "juice" so it can "produce."
The sacrament of baptism is
like that for many of us, according to Fr. Raniero
Cantalamessa, Preacher to the Papal Households
of Benedict XVI and John Paul II. We have received the Holy
Spirit through it, but we don't let it work in our lives. Writing
in the Australian publication The Word Among
Us, A Daily Approach to Prayer & Scripture, Fr. Cantalamessa
framed the problem: "Jesus promised power to his believers,
power enough to cast out demons and convict the world. Why,
then, are we so powerless?"
The answer, according to Fr.
Cantalamessa, is that the church baptizes
us in the hope that when we get to adulthood we'll confirm it
with our own personal, free act of faith, but most of us never
do. Without that act of faith, the power of our baptism
will stay bound up.
Fr. Cantalamessa
speaks from experience. Thirty years ago, he was teaching
at the Catholic University of Milan. He'd been hearing about
the charismatic renewal but was very opposed to it and once told
a woman to stay away from a charismatic retreat house. Then,
he attended a large interdenominational charismatic conference
in
A few days later, Fr. Cantalamessa
found himself at a prayer meeting where there was prayer for the
Baptism in the Holy Spirit. He asked God, "Make
me a true son of St. Francis of
He looked up at a crucifix,
and in his heart he heard, "Be careful. This Jesus you
are choosing as your Lord is not an easy Jesus. Not a rosewater
Jesus. This is the crucified Jesus." At that moment,
Fr. Cantalamessa was convinced that
the charismatic renewal "goes straight to the heart of the
gospel, which is the cross of Jesus Christ!"
That was the start of an amazing
transformation from professor to itinerant preacher to preaching
to Popes, all because of Fr. Cantalamessa's
act of faith in being prayed with for the Baptism in the Holy
Spirit, his decision to follow the crucified Jesus as Lord of
his life.
Bishop Sam Jacobs of the Houma-Thibodeaux
Diocese is another well-known priest who knows firsthand the transforming
power of the Baptism of the Holy Spirit. He'd been
ordained for five years and was a man of prayer, but something
was missing. He prayed for an answer, and attended
an abbreviated "Life in the Spirit Seminar" taught by
a charismatic priest from
This month marks the fortieth
anniversary of the "Duquesne Weekend," the college retreat
where the love of God and the power of the Holy Spirit were poured
out on a small group of students and faculty in front of a chapel
tabernacle. From that Saturday night,
Ten years ago on the thirtieth
anniversary of the "Duquesne Weekend," America's Bishops
urged all Catholics to be open to this fire and freedom of the
Holy Spirit: "We encourage the whole Church to look
into and embrace baptism in the Holy Spirit as the power of personal
and communal transformation with all the graces and charisms needed
for the upbuilding of the Church and
for our mission in the world." (Grace for the New Springtime, USCCB,
1997)
Fr. Cantalamessa
sees Pentecost not as power, but as an overwhelming love that
we all yearn to have. "In all the experiences
of our lives-our marriages, professions, friendships, through
all kinds of undertakings-we are longing for love," Fr. Cantalamessa
writes. "We are longing for an experience of love that is
beyond what we know, because no form of love which we can experience
in this life is able to fill our hearts."
You know, even with the power
cord plugged in, I don’t think that Wonderful Widescreen
Whammyfier is going to fill the need
for comfort and fire in my soul. How about you?
********************************
March 2007
I’m
glad I went to
Two
students from that retreat told us the story of how God’s
love was poured out on them in front of the tabernacle in the
chapel. Dave Mangan
said that when it happened to him, “The presence of God was
so strong that the only safe place was on your face.” Patty
Gallagher Mansfield told us that she was “totally undeserving”
of what God did that weekend. “If
I could experience the love of God that way,” she said, “everybody
could.”
Like
the Pentecost “power from on high” promised by Jesus
long ago, this encounter with God’s love quickly spread to
touch millions upon millions of Catholics everywhere. It
was the “new Pentecost” prayed for by Pope John XXIII
when he announced the convening of Vatican II.
But
there’s much more to do. We heard the words
of Benedict XVI, telling us that Jesus "needs witnesses who
have met Him, people who have known Him intimately through the
power of the Holy Spirit.”
Fr.
Tom Forrest, who’s nearly 80 and has spent almost half his
life evangelizing through the Charismatic Renewal, gave us his
vision for the future: 25 years of reliving and declaring anew
the life and Gospel of Jesus Christ, leading up to the “greatest
celebration . . . the whole world has ever had” on the 2,000th
anniversary of His resurrection in 2,033. “For a job that
big,” Fr. Tom said,” We need big power! And
you’ll get it! The name of that power is
the Holy Spirit!”
Pontifical
Household Preacher Fr. Raniero Cantalamessa
reminded us that Pentecost gave Peter and the Apostles both a
new understanding of Jesus and a new love for Him, and that the
first result of Pentecost was to proclaim Him!
"The
Church needs her perennial Pentecost," Paul VI declared almost
35 years ago. The
best way to prepare for that, according to Fr. Cantalamessa,
is to read the story of Pentecost again and again.
And
Diocese of Saginaw Bishop Robert Carlson recommended this prayer: “May
the Holy Spirit have the last word!”
Amen!
***********************************
May 2007
Look up
there - that dark spot on the hillside. Hear
that deep rumble, like a heavy stone being rolled? It's
hard to keep looking into that sudden brilliant light, but watch!
There comes
Jesus, beaming triumphantly.
That's
how I remember the Resurrection from "The Great Passion Play"
in
Jesus
came to His disciples that first Easter night where they were
hiding behind locked doors, and said, "Peace be with you. As the Father has sent me,
so I send you." Translation:
"I've done my job, friends. Time
for you to do yours." Jesus
breathed on them and said, "Receive the Holy Spirit." He
then gave them the power to forgive sins. (John
20:21-23.)
Fifty
days later would come the rushing wind and the tongues of fire
in the Upper Room, but that Easter evening was a Pentecost of
its own.
In
The Mystery of Pentecost, Pontifical Preacher Fr. Raniero
Cantalamessa writes that in Acts
ch. 2, Luke shows the Holy Spirit as
the power that enables the Church (us!) to carry out its
mission of proclaiming the Gospel and unifies the followers of
Jesus. In John's Easter night
account, the Holy Spirit is also the giver of life that Jesus
breathes on His disciples, just as God blew "the breath of
life" into Adam in Genesis.
We
exist to evangelize, Paul VI told us in Evangelii Nuntiandi. To be effective
witnesses for Jesus, "we must make sure that the Spirit is
with us, and, above all, that we are with the Spirit," Cantalamessa
cautions. That requires
that we devote ourselves to prayer (Acts
We've
got a chance to change the world - and ourselves - this Easter
season. Jesus is still telling
us, "Receive the Holy Spirit!" So,
right now, let's all take in a deep breath of what Jesus
wants us to have – the Holy Spirit – all of His power,
all of His new life. A
lot of people still don’t know that Jesus is alive! We've got a mission
to give them the Best News they'll ever hear!
********************************
June 2007
Well,
with Pentecost come and gone, what do we do now? It's often called
the "birthday of the Church," and with good reason. Until
the Holy Spirit descended on those in the Upper Room, they would
not be able to carry out the "Great Commission" that
Jesus gave them - to proclaim the Gospel to the entire world. That's
why, at the Ascension, Jesus told His disciples to wait for the
Holy Spirit's power to come:
"Behold,
I am sending the promise of my Father upon you; but stay in the
city until you are clothed with power from on high." (Luke
24:49). "John
baptized with water, but in a few days you will be baptized with
the Holy Spirit . . .You will receive
power when the Holy Spirit comes upon you, and you will be my
witnesses in
Things
change when the Holy Spirit comes. That should be no
surprise to us - it is the Holy Spirit that changes bread and
wine into the Body and Blood of Jesus at
The
Holy Spirit transformed the followers of Jesus at Pentecost and
filled them with boldness to go forth.
And
there was that moment that shook eternity when Gabriel told young
Mary that she would give birth to the Savior of all. "How can this be,"
she asked? Gabriel explained,
"The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the
Most High will overshadow you." Her response was immediate
surrender of her will to God's: "May it be
done to me according to your word."
This
moment is pivotal to understanding who she is, according to Pope
John Paul II. "We
can say that it is through Mary's total self-offering at the moment
of the Annunciation that she becomes our model, our guide, and
our Mother," he told a crowd during a pilgrimage to
Mary
embraced the Holy Spirit’s power in her life to bring forth
Jesus to the world. She
was also in the Upper Room when the Holy Spirit fell at Pentecost.
If
the Blessed Mother is our model, how can we say anything but "yes"
to the Holy Spirit's power in our lives?
******************************************
July 2007
Last
time, we talked about young Mary’s “yes” when Gabriel
told her that the Holy Spirit would come upon her and the “power
of the Most High” would overshadow her so she could bring
forth Jesus. We also
talked about how Pentecost transformed the followers of Jesus
so they could take the Gospel “to the ends of the earth.”
Well,
that was 2,000 years ago. Mary
is the Blessed Mother, and many of those folks from Pentecost
are Saints. What’s
any of that got to do with me?
Everything! God is still doing
great things if we just say “yes!”
Take
Fr. Bob Bedard, for instance. He’d
never pastored a parish until one summer in the mid-1980’s
when he was assigned to take over St. Mary’s in
So,
for two years, that’s what he preached. And
then, the power of God moved. Men
began to weep when they came into the church. People
were converted in the middle of
And
meet Alex Jones. A longtime Pentecostal
pastor, he was studying the Church Fathers while teaching a Bible
class in 1998 and came face to face with the Catholic Church in
what he read. After several more
months of exploration and study with his congregation, Jones,
his family, and 54 members of his church became Catholics. Today,
he is a permanent Deacon in the Archdiocese of Detroit.
Alex
Jones will be speaking at the Diocese of Lafayette’s Catholic
Charismatic Conference at
**********************************************
August 2007
*************************************************
September 2007
It's
been about a year since my little granddaughter Ali wrote out
her block-lettered message - BE
A
young man named Bill Borden had that kind of openness to the Holy
Spirit. As a
college student in the early 1900's, he heard a talk about carrying
the Gospel to Muslim countries. Bill
knew then that this was the call on his life. He
stood to inherit the Borden Dairy fortune, but after graduation
he renounced his inheritance and went to
We're
not all called to die on the mission field, but John Paul II left
no doubt that we're all called to lay down our lives to evangelize. He
wrote, "No believer in Christ, no institution of the Church
can avoid this supreme duty: to proclaim Christ to all peoples."
At
the Diocese of Lafayette's Charismatic Conference in July, Deacon
Alex Jones warned that we face a "concerted effort to push
religion out of our society." Jones, who became
a Catholic after 25 years as a Pentecostal pastor, said "We
must proclaim the Gospel to the 21st century by any means necessary."
But
how? Deacon Jones noted
that Jesus didn't start His ministry until the Holy Spirit descended
on Him at the
*************************************************
December 2009
Both John Paul II and Pope Benedict XVI have called for a new springtime and a new evangelization in the Church, and for an outpouring of the Holy Spirit "as by a new Pentecost!" In continuing to answer that call, and desiring to emphasize the outpouring of the gifts and charisms of the Holy Spirit, especially through the Eucharist of the Christmas season, the Lafayette Catholic Charismatic Renewal will have their monthly Vigil Mass on the Saturday evening after Christmas - December 26th at 7:00 p.m. What a great time to give high praise to the Lord in celebration of the birth of our Lord Jesus! Bring your families! This Mass, sponsored by the Lafayette Diocese Catholic Charismatic Renewal with approval of Bishop Jarrell, is held at Our Lady Queen of Peace Church, 145 MLK Jr. Dr. in Lafayette. December celebrant and homilist, Fr. Hampton Davis. Music for December will be provided by a group filled with the Spirit with pre-Mass praise session at about 6:30 p.m., prophecy after communion, confessions as priests are available. Fellowship and refreshments in the Parish Library following Mass during individual prayer ministry in the church. All priests and deacons invited to participate. Participants are encouraged to maintain their local parish weekly offering. Call CCR office for more info 265-3773 Mon, Wed, Thurs afternoons.