Does God commission Apostles today?

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SarahKate

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Not sure if this is the right place, so feel free to move to a different section.

I have an acquaintance who is very deep into the Protestant Charismatic Movement, specifically the ones coming from Bethel, etc. This isn’t meant to be a post against charismatics, or flame debate about charismatics.

My question centers around men and women who are calling themselves Apostles and saying that their ministry is to impart the gifts of the Holy Spirit to believers. They claim many healings, supernatural events, etc.

What does the Catholic Church teach on this?
These people truly believe they have been annointed as modern day Apostles and are announcing others as Apostles. My acquaintance who is very into this has a desire to one day be named an Apostle.

Thoughts? Official Church teachings, etc.?
 
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Here’s a link that has a few other links within it that might help…

www.catholic.com

The Catholic Charismatic Renewal

In general, the Church has encouraged the Charismatic Renewal, provided it is properly grounded in Church teaching and submissive to Church authority. For examp...
www.catholic.com www.catholic.com

God Bless
 
SarahKate said:
Thoughts? Official Church teachings, etc.?
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I would think that the simplest teaching is that the only apostles were the ones whom Jesus chose during His earthly ministry, and the Catholic bishops of the world are the “successors to the apostles.”
 
Self aggrandisement doesn’t seem to be one of the fruits of the Holy Spirit?
 
SarahKate said:
My question centers around men and women who are calling themselves Apostles and saying that their ministry is to impart the gifts of the Holy Spirit to believers. They claim many healings, supernatural events, etc.
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The Holy Spirit gives each baptized person charisms with which to serve the Church and the world.

The Holy Spirit does work the gift of healing, but one way to tell when such things are authentic is that the persons don’t go around “claiming” these things.
SarahKate said:
What does the Catholic Church teach on this?
These people truly believe they have been annointed as modern day Apostles and are announcing others as Apostles. My acquaintance who is very into this has a desire to one day be named an Apostle.
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The criteria for being an Apostle can no longer be met:

21 So one of the men who have accompanied us during all the time that the Lord Jesus went in and out among us, 22 beginning from the baptism of John until the day when he was taken up from us—one of these must become a witness with us to his resurrection.” Acts 1

Read the Catechism., which affirms that the Holy Spirit does work through these types of ecclesial communities to bring people to Himself. The biggest risk with these types of Pentecostal communities is that they do not have Apostolic leadership (Bishops who are successors from Apostles). All such gifts are to be submitted to the authority created by Christ.

The second biggest risk, in my opinion, is that of emotionalism. People get very excited about such gifts - like opening packages on Christmas, but without the disciplines of a committed spiritual life, can fail to be rooted.
 
MT1926 said:
Here’s a link that has a few other links within it that might help…

The Catholic Charismatic Renewal | Catholic Answers

God Bless
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I think there is a fundamental distinction between such Catholic communities and Pentecostal communities. The Pentecostals deny the Sacraments, where faithful Catholics value them, especially the Eucharist, as the source and summit of the faith.
Lee1 said:
Self aggrandisement doesn’t seem to be one of the fruits of the Holy Spirit?
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This is definitely a dead giveaway!
 
Everyone has made the points I’ve secretly been thinking. The self proclaiming doesn’t really line up with humility, does it? 😀
 
Yes to the emotionalism. I’ve been to a few services with them, and it was very frantic and feelings driven.

I’m still trying to wrap my head around all of The Church’s teachings as I’m in RCIA, so bear with me.

If God uses people like this to draw others to Him, but they do not have any God-given apostolic succession authority as leaders, then how does that work? Jesus said to His disciples when they were upset about non-Christian Jews casting out demons and performing miracles that they were not against Him, so to let them be.

But then Jesus says that He will separate the sheep from the goats and even those who performed miracles and such He will not recognize with His sheep.

What is the Catholic response to this?
 
SarahKate said:
My question centers around men and women who are calling themselves Apostles and saying that their ministry is to impart the gifts of the Holy Spirit to believers. They claim many healings, supernatural events, etc.
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Matthew 7:21 “Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only the one who does the will of my Father in heaven. 22 On that day many will say to me, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and cast out demons in your name, and do many deeds of power in your name?’ 23 Then I will declare to them, ‘I never knew you; go away from me, you evildoers.’

http://www.vatican.va/archive/ccc_css/archive/catechism/p123a12.htm

V. THE LAST JUDGMENT

**[1038] The resurrection of all the dead, "of both the just and the unjust,"623 will precede the Last Judgment. This will be "the hour when all who are in the tombs will hear [the Son of man’s] voice and come forth, those who have done good, to the resurrection of life, and those who have done evil, to the resurrection of judgment."624 Then Christ will come "in his glory, and all the angels with him. . . . Before him will be gathered all the nations, and he will separate them one from another as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats, and he will place the sheep at his right hand, but the goats at the left. . . . And they will go away into eternal punishment, but the righteous into eternal life."625

**[1039] In the presence of Christ, who is Truth itself, the truth of each man’s relationship with God will be laid bare.626 The Last Judgment will reveal even to its furthest consequences the good each person has done or failed to do during his earthly life:

All that the wicked do is recorded, and they do not know. When “our God comes, he does not keep silence.”. . . he will turn towards those at his left hand: . . . "I placed my poor little ones on earth for you. I as their head was seated in heaven at the right hand of my Father - but on earth my members were suffering, my members on earth were in need. If you gave anything to my members, what you gave would reach their Head. Would that you had known that my little ones were in need when I placed them on earth for you and appointed them your stewards to bring your good works into my treasury. But you have placed nothing in their hands; therefore you have found nothing in my presence."627.

Christ said: “As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself unless it remain on the vine, so neither can you unless you abide in me. I am the vine, you are the branches. He who abides in me, and I in him, he bears much fruit; for without me you can do nothing. If anyone does not abide in me, he shall be cast outside as the branch and wither; and they shall gather them up and cast them into the fire, and they shall burn” (John 15:4-6). Time has continually proved the truth of what Christ predicted about schisms and their divisions. This is the reason for the fact that they change so often and finally disappear: they are branches broken from the tree, and must wither as He said.
 
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Apostle means someone who is sent. Missionary probably captures the meaning better than imagining a figure with authority or power. The mission usually comes from God through the Church.

St Paul describes receiving his mission to the Gentiles directly from God in Galatians, but it was confirmed by St Peter and St James. In the Acts of the Apostles, St Paul is not called an apostle until after he and St Barnabas were sent by the leaders in Jerusalem to carry the decision not to circumcise to Antioch.

The sense of mission generally manifests in a humility; they are agents of the One who sent them. They do not perform miracles, God does. But that can also appear in an arrogant way, as they claim to know how the mind of God is manifest in their mission. Ideally they bring the Word of God, the light of Christ, and it is God and Christ you see more than the Apostle, but the ideal is not always realized.

The important thing is to see God and the building up of the Church in a true apostles action. One good source for this is Vatican II’s decree on on the Apostolate of the Laity. We all share in the mission of the Church though we do not all have the same gifts. The gifts and charism are from God and always for the building up of the Church.

The Church uses the term for some saints, like St Boniface, A. to the Germans, St Augustine A. to the English, St Patrick A. to the Irish.
 
Please understand that not everybody involved in Catholic Charismatic Renewal (CCR) runs around announcing themselves as “Apostle” or otherwise being emotional or showing off. In fact, many of the people involved in it, you couldn’t tell by looking, and they come to “regular” church services too.

There are many more people, like me, who will go to an occasional such service though we don’t make it the center of our Catholic practice. Sometimes you just want to get in touch with the Holy Spirit. It is not always a loud raucous getting in touch. Also, many people involved at least peripherally with CCR are seeking healing from some condition, physical, mental or spiritual, and they ask the Holy Spirit to help them. Nothing wrong with that.

Some Catholics do not care for CCR because to them it’s too Protestant or too emotional or they met someone involved in it once who turned them off. I understand all this, and I think it’s good that the Church permits different styles of worship under the Catholic umbrella, so one person can attend a CCR Mass and another person can attend a traditional Latin Mass and still another can attend the ordinary form Mass. But it’s important to realize that all these Masses, though they may have stylistic differences, revolve around the same sacrifice of Jesus, and He is present in the Eucharist at each one. No one type is holier than another type. It’s a matter of personal taste in worship styles. I personally go to all different Mass types. Same way as I like to try different foods off a menu and not have a hamburger, fries and a Coke every single time.

Finally, note that there are also some people who go around calling themself “apostle” who aren’t particularly associated with CCR. However, I agree that any living person who goes around applying that term to themself causes me to look at them suspiciously. True apostles don’t go around announcing themselves as such - it appears to be a lack of humility, as others have said.
 
In the small “a” apostle sense of the word, yes. He sent you to go proclaim Christ.
 
I’m not talking about CCR at all. I’m talking about Protestant charismatic leaders who are calling themselves or have been “anointed” by another leader as Apostles. They are very adamant that this anointing comes from God and is a sign of Apostolic leadership and Apistolic authority.
 
Not talking about small a apostleship. Talking about people who are claiming to be part of the “new wine skins” movement and true Modern Day Apostles.
 
I would agree that the Church views it as missionary, but that’s not what I’m talking about. I’m talking about Non Catholic people who are taking the title of Apostle because they truly believe they have been set apart by God with the power of the original Apostles to be modern day Apostles.
 
You asked for the Catholic Church “response” to this.
What I responded falls in this category.
Catholics respond by having their own movement approved by the Church.

I’m not sure why you’d be asking what is the Catholic response to some strange Protestant movement. Protestants do a lot of strange (to us) things and we don’t respond to most of them because they don’t have anything to do with us, other than just being incorrect in view of Catholic teaching.

There are Catholics who designate themselves as “Apostle” too.
 
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I’m asking because I’m still a Protestant and trying to sort out all of the things God has been doing in my life over the last 2 years and I’m in RCIA.

I’m asking because these people genuinely believe they are sent by God to be true Apostles and I wanted to know the official church teaching on whether or not God calls modern day people to be true Apostles from other denominations and whether these people who have performed healings and signs and wonders are doing it out of having God’s authority and anointing on their lives or if it is a ruse from Satan to draw people from the truth. I’m very concerned for this person and it’s a very delicate situation.
 
Yes, I understood that was your question. I was just trying to give you a broader context for the terminology and how to approach those who use it.

One of the big problems among Pentecostals is the fracturing of authority. New churches spin off as one person after another gets a new inspiration. If Apostle means receiving an authorization from another, it is a step away from that cycle. Maintaining that kind of line helps build up a larger church. I would look at it as a positive, though I obviously think a much larger church is even better.
 
SarahKate said:
Not talking about small a apostleship. Talking about people who are claiming to be part of the “new wine skins” movement and true Modern Day Apostles.
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Yeah, but when you listen to what they say about themselves, they mean it in the sense that I am speaking of.
 
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