Yes I agree with you to a point - I feel like praying in tongues is silly personally, but if it works for them, fine. But charismatic people are insistent that praying in tongues is not the same as speaking in tongues, it is just “loosening your tongue” if you will and the words have no meaning. I’m just respecting their definition. Anyone can do it: kids often do it as a joke pretending to be from a foreign country. So I don’t see how the presence of mortal sin would affect one’s ability to vocalise sounds that have no meaning.
Well, as far as respecting what they are saying…
keep in mind there are over 100 million members of the CCR. That’s a lot of people. It’s like a non-Catholic saying, well, a Catholic told me such and such - well, we have to make sure it is a teaching of the Church. There are plenty of Catholics who have rationalized teachings and adjusted their practice in accordance with their lifestyle. Then there are those as I was for a good part of my life, that are ignorant of the teachings - I still working on that.
As a child of the Church, when I am learning something new, I take root in her teachings and with a careful discernment process proceed to learn or grasp the new information which must coherently fit in and be in harmony with the rest. When something is not in harmony, I step back and try to figure out what is going on and vice versa.
I don’t think that people are speaking glossolalia who just will it and start of their own accord making nonsense sounds. Again, my understanding is that Satan and his demons understand and so does the Holy Spirit. So, I can’t just will to speak in tongues to express myself to the Lord and just start repeating things - coco loco, coco loco etc…
Ha, ha. This is not the way it works. It is a Gift of the Holy Spirit.
Furthermore, I do not think that just because a person asks they will be given the gift of speaking in tongues; be that glossolalia or xenoglossia. People have different spiritual needs etc… and someone may not want that ‘weird’ gift of glossolalia (like Padre Fortea) but the Holy Spirit gives it. Even though the Holy Spirit is a gentlemen, he may give a gift that we think we do not want but in actuallity is the best one for us to serve and with the will the person has in general to serve - this opens the person to receive it and for the Holy Spirit to give it.
I am not familiar with Padre Emiliano. I was just watching a video of his. When I was living in France a long time ago a friend went out of her way to tell me that Padre Emiliano was going to be that coming weekend in Lyon. I lived not to far, in Grenoble. But, I didn’t go. The big deal was that he was a famous priests and he was ‘from’ (he was actually Canadian but served in the DR) the Dominican Republic - where I was born. My cousins knew him and are all very familiar with CCR. They go to meetings constantly in Santiago - where Padre Emiliano served. They continue the same meetings.
Anyway, I was just watching a videos of him (instead of doing my homwork) and he said that not everyone receives the gift of tongues. So, he confirms what I stated earlier. It just makes sense. He mentions a Dominican women who in one of the meetings started pretending to be speaking in glossolalia and was saying chon chon chon — and the Priest said that is not glossolalia - that is what we call in Canada (his old country) a pig.
youtube.com/watch?v=MJ9hzUzg_zE
) but the woman is just a pious practicing Catholic and she keeps private. But, of course, her priests knows and her bishop. To say, gifts, stigmata, spiritual experiences, are not necessarily things people go public with but this does not mean they have not been happening nor that they are not part of our faith.