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The Catholic Pentecostal Movement Then & Now
Kevin and Dorothy Ranaghan, from the People of Praise Community in the United States, and early leaders in the CCR, reflect on what were the key elements of the Catholic Charismatic Renewal in the beginning and see in them priorities for the way forward. (Part two of the talk they gave at Westminster Cathedral on the 40th Anniversary celebration day on 5th May 2007.)
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Centrality of Baptism in the Holy Spirit The central element of what happened to and among us in the original Catholic Pentecostal outpouring is being baptized in the Spirit. There are many movements, spiritualities; and works of the Spirit alive today from rosary and sodality groups to social action movements.All have a contribution to make to the life of faith. But the unique entrustment of the Pentecostal movement is the experience of "baptism in the Holy Spirit." It defines who we are and why we exist. Only when we keep this "entrustment" at the forefront of our movement -- without allowing other devotions and spiritualities to dominate -- will we be faithful to what the Lord has done among us. In fact, we believe it is not meant to be just the "possession" of those in a movement. But rather, we believe that our role as movement is to foster the realization that this experience is meant for all, for everyone in the Church. We think there are four key, defining characteristics of this remarkable movement of God which, if alive and well in our renewal groups, will enable us to keep our entrustment of passing on the baptism in the Holy Spirit . Baptism in the Holy Spirit an ecumenical grace The first is the ecumenical "nature" of the baptism in the Spirit and of the movement itself.As uncomfortable as this fact is for some Catholics, even some Catholic charismatics, the truth is that in our experience of this Pentecostal/charismatic movement, we are direct descendants of the 1906 Azusa Street Revival. The Pentecostal movement, the fastest growing phenomenon in the Christian world today, traces its origin to Azusa Street where the Lord used a poor, uneducated Protestant black man to spearhead an interracial, multicultural and international revival that, 100 years later, numbers around 600 million worldwide and is still sweeping the world. Until the mid 1960's Christians in the mainline churches who encountered this Pentecostal experience tended to leave their churches and join in one of the new Pentecostal churches. But when Episcopalians and Presbyterians and others began to be baptized in the Holy Spirit in great numbers and began to choose to stay within their own denominations, the Pentecostal movement as a whole took a giant leap forward. It is among such denominational Protestant charismatics that the first Catholics were baptized in the Spirit. The baptism in the Holy Spirit has been called "an ecumenical grace" for the Church. The earliest prayer meetings at Pittsburgh and at Notre Dame were always ecumenical in spirit, tone and fact. Because of the Catholic Charismatic Renewal, there has been, for more than twenty five years, an official Catholic-Pentecostal Dialogue sponsored by the Pontifical Council for the Promotion of Christian Unity. Because of the Catholic Charismatic Renewal, there have been informal conversations at the international level between Catholics and Non-denominational Pentecostals. There have also been many responsibly planned ecumenical conferences and events and there have been many thousands of new-found ecumenical brotherly relationships in Christ, which have actually increased the unity of the body of Christ. The unity that the Lord prayed for is one of His deepest desires. The Pentecostal/ Charismatic movement is one of the key means He has provided for attaining that unity. The call to ecumenism is a fundamental part of our "entrustment," and where this is still acknowledged in words and in loving relationships, in our personal lives and within our renewal groups, there is a special life and power and blessing from the Lord. One cannot be faithful to the purposes of the Lord for the Catholic Charismatic Renewal, without a desire and an openness to explore the depths of the ecumenical relationships available to us in this work of God. We must carry the unique ecumenical grace of Pentecost into the new Millennium. Importance of charisms particularly healing A Second defining characteristic of the movement was and is the operation of the charisms, particularly the gift of healing. In the beginning, prayer meetings were, and in many places continue to be, like classrooms in which we began to learn how to operate with the gifts of the Spirit. In a sense we were "practicing" the gifts on one another. And we had to learn right away to test them by their content and their fruit. But they are given for more than prayer meetings. We have learned that we can speak the "word of the Lord" wherever we are, that we are meant to use discernment in every situation, and that signs and wonders are meant to accompany our work for the gospel. If we understand that we are being "sent" by the Lord into the world in need of the saving power of the Lord, we don't have to wait for people to come to our prayer meetings. Nor do we need to wait until the latest itinerant healing ministry comes to town. Rather, we can all use these gifts, these tools given to us for the building of the kingdom, in our everyday life. We can and should, for example, pray with people anywhere to be healed. Yet we have discovered that in many places within the charismatic renewal, healing is only offered to people in the context of healing masses, at Eucharistic celebrations. We believe that is a big mistake. Of course the Eucharist is always and everywhere a great good. And offering healing is always wonderful. But to think that healing services must always be combined with Mass is a mistake because the charism of healing is meant for the sick of this world and should not be confi ned just within the liturgy, and should not become the sole responsibility of the priests. The charisms have been distributed among all the faithful and should be used by lay men and women and the clergy wherever they go -- for wherever we go, Christ is there. We must be bold We must not be shy. We can be bold. We are, individually and collectively in Christ. It is precisely the gift of the Spirit to enable us to do the work of Christ. Christ heals. So should we. Wherever we fi nd people who have needs, Jesus has placed us there, as extensions of Himself, to meet them. Kevin and I have seen more healings in the last 10 years than in the previous 30 years. To mention just a few, the Lord healed a friend of ours from 50 years of stuttering. He healed several friends of cancer, even more from allergies. We personally saw a girl in our school healed of blindness in both eyes. And last year I was healed of and spared surgery for a hole in the retina of my eye. The gifts of the Spirit so powerfully present among us in the 1960's, are meant for us today as well. A renewal without the charisms is no longer the charismatic renewal. Healing: physical, spiritual and emotional, even the possibility of healing, was a big attraction in the early days of the renewal. Where expectant faith remains strong it continues to be a regular occurrence and a powerful sign pointing to the presence of God's love and work among us that is real, concrete, tangible, and available. Forty years ago and today, the Lord is saying "I want to heal the sick." If healing is not happening among some of us as regularly now as it was in the beginning, maybe we all need -- in the words of a Pentecostal hymn -- to "get [back] under the spout where the glory comes out." Primarily a movement of the laity The origin of the Catholic Pentecostal/charismatic renewal was both groundbreaking and shocking in yet another dimension. It was primarily a movement of the laity in both membership and leadership. We know that the Second Vatican Council is often called the Council of the Laity. The role of the laity had been largely ignored in the days before the Council. With the Council a greater clarity and sense of purpose was outlined for the laity, a purpose that is both for the sake of the Church and for the sake of the world. Led by the Spirit, Cardinal Suenens made one of the more important interventions in the drafting of the Dogmatic Constitution on the Church, in which he said that the charisms should be mentioned as still present in the Church. The document written in 1964, well before the beginnings
of the Charismatic Renewal, eventually read like this: - It is not
only through the sacraments and the ministries of the Church that the
Holy Spirit sanctifi es and leads the people of God and enriches it
with virtues, but, "allotting his gifts to everyone according as
He wills.(114) - He distributes special graces among the faithful of
every rank. By these gifts He makes them fit and ready to undertake
the various tasks and offices which contribute toward the renewal and
building up of the Church, according to the words of the Apostle: “The
manifestation of the Spirit is given to everyone for profit”.(115) The Vatican II Council paved the way for the acceptance of the charisms The Council paved the way for the acceptance of the charisms in our day. The unexpected surprise of the events at Duquesne and Notre Dame in 1967 saw a re-introduction of these charisms into the worldwide Church. It was no accident or coincidence. The Council opened the way for the renewal of the Church in the modern world and called for the active participation of the laity in that endeavour. It foresaw that the gifts of the Holy Spirit were needed to equip everyone in the Church including the laity for the building up of the Church and for its mission. When the charisms were not just theory anymore but realities among us, it was disconcerting to many. Who were these lay people who were suddenly evangelizing and leading prayer meetings and organizing religious groups? We were the very same lay people who had glimpsed a fuller version of their vocation in the Council documents and who were now equipped and made bold to go out and be the body of Christ in the world. We often worked with priests and regularly under the authority of the local bishops, but we didn’t sit around waiting to get our “direction” or “marching orders” from the clergy. The realization had become clear during the Council and then in the experience of being led by the Spirit, that there was freedom to exercise the gifts of the Spirit and that, as laity, we could act. And happily, more and more of our priests and bishops have joined us. The charismatic renewal did not spread from the “top on down.” Rather, the impetus for and the driving force of the movement itself, came for the most part, from the Spirit filled empowerment of lay men and women. The importance of youth The final characteristic of the early days of the Pentecostal/charismatic movement that we would like to highlight as a key element for the future of this renewal is youth. Forty years ago we had the joy, the zeal, the freshness, the resilience and the vibrancy of youth. The earliest apostles, pastors, teachers and evangelists of Pentecost among us were graduate and undergraduate students. We knew then and we know now that people did not flock to hear us and join us because of our advanced wisdom and status as elders. It was so clearly the power of the Holy Spirit shining through us all, the earnest and zealous youth whom God had found open and willing. In the past few years we have heard a great deal about the “graying” of the renewal. It is not true everywhere, but in many places within the Catholic Pentecostal movement, old folks are the majority. Some groups have not replenished their ranks with younger members and young people are in short supply. It is time to change that. God is not done with His purposes for the renewal. He still wants our unique focus to be the baptism in the Spirit. He still desires that his Pentecostal outpouring among us remain distinct in its ecumenical spirit, with a full exercise of the charisms, and that it remain primarily a youthful and lay-led movement. Young people do not want to be passive spectators Where Spirit filled youth are present in great numbers among us, it is an astonishing breath of fresh air and a true hope for the future. In the past few years, our own covenant community, the People of Praise, has witnessed an explosion of participation and leadership from our young people. Filled with the Spirit and with the zeal of youth, they have taken “ownership” of our life and work with a vision and enthusiasm that reminds us of our own first love. Beyond the sovereign mercy of God who has done this, is a secret we discovered in attracting youth. Young people today do not want to be “ministered to”, to sit in the audience. Neither did we at their age. They, like we, want to come into the presence of the living God, become empowered by His Spirit and then, equipped with the tools He gives, they want to get to work -- with us, and sometimes running ahead of us. They never want to be only passive spectators. They want to share the work, to get into the “action.” They want to be challenged. They want to be full and equal partners in the task of building the Kingdom of God. They want to serve on prayer teams, lead workshops, manage service projects, evangelize, teach, encourage and inspire. It is the task of leaders within the renewal itself to tap into this resource, to get high school and college age youth baptized in the Spirit, and then give them meaningful work to do with the tools they have been given. It is our job to mentor and to teach, but then to release the youth, to let the Holy Spirit fire their imaginations, give them new and bold ideas and direction, and channel their energy so that the generation that only they can reach in this new Millennium will come to know the saving power of our God. It is up to us to ensure that future and to make sure that 40 years from now it will be impossible for anyone to escape knowing about one of the most significant actions of the Holy Spirit in our time. Someday, if this generation of Spirit filled youth does
its work, building upon our own, there will be one question that will
never again have to be heard and that is: “what is charismatic
renewal?”
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There
are several key elements to this Catholic Pentecostal or Charismatic
Renewal, elements which clearly marked the early days of rapid growth,
and which remain at the forefront of this Pentecostal movement today
wherever it is healthy and vibrant. It is worth looking at what was
at the core of what happened THEN in order to know how to judge and
how to experience the fullness of what should be happening NOW.