I’m still trying to see what the downside is, in the article the OP’er’s posted that has caused such debate.
People praising Jesus, is not good?
Jim
I think that some critics are focused only on the more “sensational” aspects of the charismatic movement.
I’m not part of any formal charismatic group nor did I convert from a pentecostal type of background. My first real attention to the Holy Spirit came as I studied to become Catholic! I used to think that only fake TV preachers called down the Holy Spirit and that if someone was “slain in the spirit” (which is a term I didn’t learn until I became Catholic) that it was a big fake show to draw attention to themselves. I thought all of this until I had such an experience myself in the same year that I came into the church. Me, the skeptic who wanted to pray silently in a corner and not draw attention!
I had just been through mass in a beautiful little chapel at a Catholic retreat with a ministry team that I was joining. We were going to have an hour or two of adoration before the Blessed Sacrament. Father asked that anyone who wanted to ask for the Holy Spirit to bless them with gifts they would need for the upcoming year of ministry to come forward. I really thought that I was ill-equipped for the ministry and I really wanted whatever God wanted to give me, but I was even too afraid to get off my knees and go up for a simple blessing.
I was praying for the grace to get up when the person being prayed over by Father suddenly fell over backward. A couple of men standing behind them caught the person, but I was really freaked out! I started having this internal conversation with God where I said that I really,
really wanted His help, but oh
not like that! I just wanted to be prayed over and then return to kneeling before the altar on the floor quietly like the other people had done.
Well, I believe that this was a changing point for my life when I had to truly let go of pride, fear and anything else standing between me and God to allow Him to truly work in me and through me. I finally surrendered my will and said, “Your will Lord, not mine.”
I only heard the first few words of the blessing before I apparently went right over to the floor. I want to say right here that I am not a suggestible or hysterical person. I have never been able to be hypnotised or anything like that because I like to be in control. It makes me feel safe.
I knew nothing until I felt hands under my back and got lowered to the floor. I felt the Holy Spirit rushing through me and over me repeatedly. All of the fear and anxiety of only a moment earlier was gone. I felt serene and warm and safe and I knew that God was with me no matter what. I could not physically move for at least several minutes.
One of the men who caught me asked me about the experience later. They had barely kept me from hitting the floor because I went over so unexpectedly.
I was given gifts that I did not previously have that allowed me to minister to youth at my parish. I still would not particularly call myself “charismatic” except that I can witness to the power of the Holy Spirit in a way that most people never experience personally. I think I was gifted in this way not because I was worthy of such a gift but precisely because I was broken and needed it.
I was privileged to receive an invitation later that year from the RCIA ministry team to share my conversion story with the new group of catechumens and candidates on our January retreat. I felt like my story was nothing special. (They didn’t know about this earlier experience.) However, this was obviously part of God’s plan.
On the morning that I was to speak to the group, the team was rushed and didn’t pray with me before my name was announced. I was in a panic even though I’ve done lots of public speaking. I literally ran to the back of the room, already wearing the microphone pack to get some prayer support. The RCIA director half-jokingly said, they were going to ask for the Holy Spirit to help me but they didn’t have time for me to fall over. Well who knew how close he would be to the truth.
I was blessed to feel the Holy Spirit descend on me once more. It felt like liquid sunshine and peace pouring over me, starting from beneath that very holy man’s hands. No one was more surprised than me! I remember asking him, “did you feel that?” and he just smiled and said, yes, now go on up. I wanted the Holy Spirit to speak through me to reach those people and He did because I only got memory of bits of my talk after people came up later and mentioned specific things I had said that especially touched them. If that is a fruit of the charismatic movement, then I say so be it.