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In 1974 Time magazine named a South African Pentecostal, called David Du Plessis (1905-1987) as one of the eleven “shapers and movers” of 20th century Christianity. In 1983 Pope John Paul II presented Du Plessis with the gold medal of “Good Merit” for his “service to all Christianity.” Not only was he the first non-Catholic to receive this honour, he was the first Protestant to be invited to attend Vatican II, and afterwards to engage in the 1972 Catholic/Pentecostal dialogues in Switzerland. Du Plessis’s role in the history of Catholic Charismatic Renewal was an important and encouraging one. A Momentous Prophecy We can begin with an incident that occurred in 1936, one that was to have a lasting effect on the Catholic Church. Smith Wigglesworth (1859-1947), a famous Pentecostal leader from England, visited South Africa as a guest of the Apostolic Faith Mission in Johannesburg. Du Plessis was its general secretary at the time. Later he explained how one morning, Wigglesworth walked, unannounced, into his office. He pushed him against the wall and declared: “You have been in Jerusalem long enough….I will send you to the uttermost parts of the earth….You will bring the message of Pentecost to all churches….You will travel more than most evangelists do….God is going to revive the churches in the last days and through them turn the world upside down….even the Pentecostal movement will become a mere joke compared with the revival which God will bring through the churches.” After a pause Wigglesworth continued, “Then the Lord said to me that I am warning you that he is going to use you in this movement…. All he requires of you is that you be humble and faithful. You will live to see this word fulfilled.” Then he concluded by saying that this prophecy would not be fulfilled until after his death. In the event, Wigglesworth died in 1947. The role of David Du Plessis Over the next few years Du Plessis became increasingly influential in the Pentecostal churches and attended international meetings on their behalf. At one such gathering in St. Andrews in Scotland in 1951, Du Plessis met Professor Bernard Leeming, a Jesuit priest from Oxford, who asked for the baptism in the Holy Spirit. This marked the start of Du Plessis’s ministry to Roman Catholics. Fr. Leeming knew Pope John XXIII and arranged for Du Plessis to visit Rome. There he was introduced to Dr. Thomas Strandsky, the secretary for the congregation for the promotion of Christian unity. His boss was Cardinal Bea. He asked Du Plessis, “What do the Pentecostals want to say to Rome?” Du Plessis replied, “Make the Bible available to every Catholic in the world in his own language. The Holy Spirit will make that book come alive and that will change lives and renew the church.” Bea was duly impressed and said, “That is what the Holy Father wants to know .” The Prophecy Fulfilled The Second Vatican Council started soon afterwards. Presumably, Du Plessis, who was in attendance, was well pleased when the Constitution On Divine Revelation, urged Catholics to engage in regular scripture reading, while expressing the hope that it would lead to “a new surge of spiritual vitality from intensified veneration for God’s word, which lasts forever” (Par. 26). I’m sure Du Plessis was also delighted when par. 12 of the Constitution of the Church referred, in an anticipatory way, to the charisms mentioned in 1 Cor 12:8-10. As we know, with the advent of the Charismatic Renewal, a few years after the conclusion of the Council, the Spirit and the charisms were poured out in abundance, firstly, in the U.S., and later around the world. The New International Dictionary of Pentecostal and Charismatic Movements (2002) estimates that in the year 2000 there were more than 500 million Pentecostals and Charismatics worldwide, 119 million of whom were active charismatic and post charismatic Catholics. Peter Hocken has made the important observation that the Catholic Charismatic Renewal, which has received support from three Popes and many bishops, is the only major renewal movement in the Catholic Church which originated outside it. From the moment that Wigglesworth prophesied over Du Plessis, to the origins of the CCR at Duquesne University in 1967, down to the present day, there has been a strongly ecumenical dimension to this great revival. For example, when it began in Northern Ireland, against a background of sectarianism and civil strife, the Northern Service Committee was interdenominational, as were its early conferences. Sadly, since then the CCR has tended to become more denominational and less ecumenical. I feel however, that currently the Lord is inviting us to reaffirm the ecumenical vision that inspired us at the outset, when the Spirit, rather than human thinking, was in control. I’m delighted to see that, this year, the Irish Catholic Service Committee is planning to have the most ecumenical national conference in a long time. As a result, it will surely “command the blessing of the Lord” Ps 133:3. The Word and the Spirit Wigglesworth, as many of us know, delivered another remarkable
prophecy in 1947. Not only did he foretell the rise of the Charismatic
Renewal with its emphasis on the Spirit and the rise of house churches
with their emphasis on the word, he also predicted that when both seemed
to be waning, “there will be evidence in the churches of something
that has not been seen before: a coming together of those with an emphasis
on the word and those with an emphasis on the Spirit. When the word
and the Spirit come together, there will be the biggest move of the
Holy Spirit that the nations, and indeed, the world have ever seen.
It will mark the beginning of a revival that will eclipse ……the
revivals of former years.” Let’s pray that as a result of
being faithful to Wigglesworth’s first prophecy about the ecumenical
dimension of renewal, we can prepare ourselves for the fulfilment of
the second, to do with the greatest outpouring of the Spirit the world
has ever seen. As my good friend Rev Cecil Kerr used to say, “There
is no genuine renewal without reconciliation.”
Fr Pat Collins’ latest book, out in May, is “Mind and
Spirit: Spirituality in Dialogue” published by Columba Press 2006
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