There’s something that has been bothering me about this thread for awhile now.
There’s nothing new these days in Christianity. Nothing at all, really. Everything “radical” which is coming up through different denominations has pretty much already been encountered at one point or another over the course of two thousand years.
Protestant services often resemble Mass, such as the Anglicans. Others prefer to make their services centered on the Bible. It looks like something like this:
Pray.
Sing some hymns.
Read a Bible passage.
Contemplate the Bible passage.
Discuss among themselves what they got out of the Bible passage.
Pray.
Sing more hymns.
To some Catholics, this may look familiar. If you said “this looks like Lectio Divina, with some hymns thrown in” you would be correct. If you said “this looks like Lectio Divina as done by folks in religious communities, because they will do Lectio with hymns sometimes” you would be even more correct!
There’s nothing new, there. Just a Catholic devotional practice.
A friend of my wife’s and mother-in-law’s (basically, a family friend) described a retreat she went on, on a boat. She said “there was no phones, no Internet. Just you, getting to know God, reading your Bible and contemplating things. Talking with others sometimes and sharing experiences. There was even some time for silence! We were closed off from the world. I loved it, and I think they will do really well with this new venture”
My response; “That’s the standard method of living in monastic life, and any monastic retreat. I hope they didn’t spend too much time coming up with that model, when the Benedictines have done this for 1500 years or so, and Cisertians have done this for centuries, Your buddies basically took the monastery method and put it on a boat”.
Also nothing new regarding certain doctrinal rejections. Rejection of Mary? Very common during Jerome’s time. Rejection of the Body of Christ? Why, John 6 even states most of Christ’s followers left him after His Bread of Life discourse, so that’s an ancient one.
This brings me to the following post, which I want to address:
For 45 years I was TOLD that Jesus spoke to the apostles or whoever and therefore to the Church leaders. On 28 September 1981(at 7.45PM) the Holy Spirit fell on me and I immediately spoke in tongues (and later demonstrated the other gifts) by the grace of God.
A lot of people say that the Catholic Charismatic Renewal started due to Protestant influences, and it came about in the 70’s. What these people forget is what I mentioned above; there’s nothing new about any of this stuff. The gifts you mention (tongues, healing, and others) are very Scriptural, and have been practiced by Catholics throughout the last 2000 years. Saints have shown these kinds of gifts, and we have seen it at times with others.
The Charismatic Renewal is exactly that; a renewal of items which the Church has always had, but there was less of a focus on until the recent years.
Why the new focus? The same reason there is a newfound focus in traditional practices. Personally, I would (and do) take up the argument that there are TWO renewals which happened during the 70’s, both with the same goal. At the time they happened because of everything that was happening during the world in the last 100 years or so.
Two world wars. Not just wars, but WORLD wars.
Sexual revolution.
Holocaust.
Abortion on demand.
Birth control.
The rise of porn.
Great Depression.
That’s a lot of stuff. World breaking stuff. So, my my opinion, two movements began and started to run:
- The Charismatic Renewal.
- What is referred to around here as “traditionalism” or “traddom”.
Both of these groups have the same goal; build the Church. Both of these groups
had to happen, to kick start a church body which had grown complacent. Not the doctrine mind you, the people. And we see the fruits of these movements now. And look no further than the great men and women who have risen up the last few decades.
Koble. Teresa. Karol. Joseph.
Apologists like Hahn, Akins, and Keating.
People like Scanlen who revitalize and reform Catholic universities to be actually Catholic.
Guys like Bisig (FSSP) and Bedard (Companions of the Cross) who try to reform the Church from within in the same manner as Dominic and Francis.
I foresee the future of the Church being built on these two movements, and it’s imperative that both movements work together and respect one another.
The Holy Spirit UNITES: whenever Charismatics (of all backgrounds) meet there is unity (mostly
).
You know what unites us Charismatics the most? The Holy Catholic Church, through the Eucharist. And in union with the successor of Peter, the Rock on whom Christ built His Church.
I fully accept the Pope as elected leader of the Roman Catholic church as I accept “call me Dave” as elected Prime minister of England. Free speech allows me to question Dave’s speeches and laws, but there the metaphor ends. Criticism of the Pope sentences me to hell-fire, doom and degradation it seems!
Sorry, my baptism in the Spirit has not washed away my sense of humour, rather encouraged it along with a gutsy love of God’s created world. I sometimes wonder if the Catholic water baptism rinses off humour. Chill out, children!
