I see that my post below has caused some controversy. First of all, I believe supernatural gifts of the Holy Spirit are for today and not just for the time of the first Apostles. Secondly, I believe there is a lot of craziness out there and credulousness and a huge need for cultivating the seemingly rare gift of discerning spirits. Thirdly, I hope there will be no fear of real supernatural spiritual gifts of the Holy Spirit in the Ordinariates and that they will be encouraged and we will have leaders who can help us to "stir up the gifts" and use them in the building up of the Body of Christ.
I would not be on the threshold of the Catholic Church had it not been for the teaching almost 15 years ago I received from a charismatic pastor from Upper New York State, who met Jesus through reading David Wilkinson's The Cross and the Switchblade, and then became involved in a wave of charismatic renewal in the 1980s. His name is Penn Clark, and while he has had little formal education, it is quite amazing and beautiful what the Holy Spirit can do with a man who fervently pores over the Bible in prayer and earnestly desires to obey God. Interestingly, a lot of his teaching is meant to correct the excesses and extremes he has encountered in the charismatic world. He stresses the importance of testing the spirits, discernment, and of everything being done decently and in good order.
He has intuited by the grace of God many things that he preaches with authority. What authority Father L R might ask? Well, there is a kind of authority that makes your heart burn within you, that doesn't come from academic degrees or even ordination within the Catholic Church, that comes because someone is speaking in the Name of the Lord (in his character) and exhibiting the fruits of the Spirit.
Penn Clark's teaching on headship and how God works through hierarchy and his teaching on how grace is imparted through the laying on of hands — things he has intuited because the Holy Spirit has taught him — were what prepared my heart to accept such things as Apostolic Succession. He has a charism of love about him. He does not shout. He does not do loud, emotional things to put people into trances or hypnotize them. He is a quiet man, but a riveting speaker because of the time he spends in prayer. Here is a link to the three talks he gave at our cathedral in Ottawa last fall at a wonderful ecumenical gathering of the best kind that included Catholics, Pentecostals and Evangelicals as well as members of our parish. The pictures show Penn teaching at our event.
While I disagree with him about the nature of Communion, about the ministry of Peter, and a number of other things, I have no doubt that he is a servant of Jesus Christ. By their fruits you shall know them.
The Catholic Church has many people who have similar charisms AND the grounding in the Church's teaching authority. But alas, some priests have been taught so much historical criticism that anything supernatural about the faith has been turned into a metaphor or psychological insight. Others have been so seduced by liberation theology — that the supernatural has been replaced by social work and social justice. We see this even more so in the Anglican Communion, where the Millennium Development Goals seem to have replaced the Gospel. When the Faith gets watered down by modernism or Marxism, no wonder people are hungry for Jesus and the infilling of the Holy Spirit. Yes, some of the alternatives are abominable health and wealth, name it and claim it travesties, sheer counterfeits and heresies. But some people are ministering and bringing people to know Jesus, healing the sick, casting out demons, doing what the disciples did from the very beginning. What could possibly be wrong with that? Let's let everyone know they don't have to leave the Catholic Church to find everything God has for them — supernatural and grounded in the faith of the Apostles.
Here's the Scripture that speaks to me about where the ability to discern true authority comes from.
If any man will do his will, he shall know of the doctrine, whether it be of God, or [whether] I speak of myself. (John 7:17)
Of course, now that I am entering the Catholic Church I will be relying more on the Magisterium than my inner knowing or inner assent or whatever you want to call it. But listening to those promptings hase brought me to this point where I receive the Magisterium as my authority, because I know in my heart of hearts that's what God wants. What a happy place this is to be. I could not have taken someone else's word for it. I had to discover this, bit by bit, for myself.
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Thank you, thank you Deborah, for this wonderful post.
Folks should realize there is a very substantial "renewal" movement among Catholics that really has very little to do with "happy-clappy Masses", per se. I thinking right now of a group of nuns called the Intercessors of the Lamb based in Omaha, Nebraska, and headed up by a former Protestant who found her way into the Catholic Church. They wear a blue-white habit; met them years ago at a conference in St. Louis.
Their grasp of spiritual gifting for the purpose of a focused ministry of intercession is just awesome, and spiritual warfare and spiritual dynamics are their touchstone. A lot of us may be put off by all this, but they are totally sold out to submission before the Magisterium, which in turns has seen fit to allow them to function with very little (from what I can tell) restriction.
Actually there's a huge Catholic Charismatic movement HQ'd in Bari, Italy that has the Vatican's implicit endorsement (must be St. Nicholas' influence, not a bad fellow that original St. Nick!). Let's hope the Ordinariate is open to these gifts, I think we're going to need them in days ahead.
Charismaticism is an abomination. The fact that many charismatics have 'neo-conservative' views is hardly a rationalisation for it.
Of course, it has been tolerated (wrongly) for years in NewChurch and will no doubt be tolerated in the ordinariates here and there. I, for one, refuse totally to have anything to do with it.
Peter Karl T. Perkins
Traditional Latin Mass Movement
And what happens when the Catholic Church recovers more of its traditional identity in ritual, doctrine, and papal authority, in some time in the future, and could very well suppress the Charismatic movements (as it should do).
It is then that obedience to Rome will be sorely tested.
Thank you, Mr. Perkins, I was begining to think I was the only one here who thought the Charismatic Renewal to be madness gone to seed. It is a movement that did not exist in the Catholic Church until the 1970's. They are the happy-clappy, Sunday-funday, bump and grind, lie on the ground crowd. If the "spirit" is moving the group then anything goes. It is a side current of hippie culture and an example of the smoke of Satan creeping into the Church.
Oddly enough, the charismatic Catholic movements that I see here in Canada, are not excessive at all, and while they may prefer contemporary praise music, they are far more devoted to the Holy Father and the Magisterium than most, even the Traddies.
It is not anything goes. It's quite interesting to see the stereotyping going on here.
What I hope for is for a traditional liturgy but done with great reverence and care by people who are open to the supernatural gifts of the spirit, who are joyous rather than uptight and judgmental.
Deborah
An interesting subject indeed, and a debate that rages even among Protestants. However, I believe we must set aside the subjective appeal to individual "spirituality" and focus upon what Scripture teaches about the matter, and the characteristics of any particular manifestation of alleged "charismatic" gifts.
The Scriptural presentation of such manifestations generally follow a pattern of three periods. First, at the time of the exodus Moses and Aaron confirm the true God's omnipotence by way of mighty works. Second, the prophets Elijah and Elisha (1 and 2 KIngs) perform miraculous signs and wonders again confirming Yahweh's absolute sway over the false gods of those fallen away from the faith. Third, at the time of Jesus Christ and the Apostles the astonishing works are accomplished to confirm our Lord as the promised Messiah and to confirm the establishment of the one true Church. If you will notice the common characteristic of these three periods, the common denominator, is confirmation. Spiritual gifts are always confirmatory, they have this specific purpose (cf. Mark 16:20). They are never ostentatious displays of personal "spirituality," nor presented as an aid to intercession. Additionally, albeit admittedly debatably, I would appeal to 1 Cor. 12:8-10 as indicative that by and large these confirmatory gifts are no longer necessary because the "perfect" is established, that is the one true Church of Jesus Christ under the infallible protection and guidance of His Holy Spirit. St. Paul also in general makes it a habit of critiquing more public displays of such gifts, cf. 1 Cor. 14.
Regarding our discernment of any alleged manifestation of an extraordinary spiritual nature, we must be attentive to that which is alleged, the miraculous. This discernment is quite simple: if I can explain it away, or imitate it through human means it is NOT miraculous. This is the problem with every example to which I have ever been exposed. I can imitate the "tongues" (aka noises) exhibited. I have never seen a profoundly handicapped, or blind person healed; it's always a person with a "lower back problem" or some other unidentifiable malady. A miracle is just that, miraculous, something that even confounds the naysayer.
All this being said, I cannot identify myself (as I once did) as a cessationist. However, I do firmly believe any manifestation of such events in our day would be very specific, confirmatory, and absolutlely disassociated with corportate worship where order is the explicitly articulated will of God.
If charismatics establish a beach head in the ordinariates, I, for one, will jump ship and head straight for the Traditional Latin Mass folks, who tolerate no such nonsense. Sorry, but "the Charismatic Renewal" is a purely modern invention.
Must we continue this tangent? Surely there are already enough venues in currently constituted RC parishes for this sort of activity, if one wants to avail himself or herself of it. I have to assume that most Anglo-Catholics, whose patience for eccentricity when it comes to ritual runs the way of MERRILY ON HIGH and Forse's CEREMONIAL CURIOSITIES rather than snake-handling and speaking on tongues, are not at all interested in it.
Oh, and one more thing if I may. Let us be VERY careful about the appeal to the "authority that makes your heart burn within you." This is one of the canned phrases used for the validation of doctrine by every Mormon missionary I have invited into my home. Actually, their specific phrase is a "burning in the bosom". This is absolutely no way to substantiate a theological point. Additionally, I always point out to them that I can get the same thing from "Taco Bell."
- The Spirit must not be extinguished, yet it must also be proved and we must hold that which is good. Fr. Haydock (of the Haydock Bible) commented regarding this good “we can best learn from the doctrine of the apostles, and the spirit of the Catholic Church. Men can deceive and be deceived, but the Spirit of God, speaking to us by his Church, can neither deceive us nor be deceived.”
- “No charism is exempt from being referred and submitted to the Church’s shepherds. “Their office [is] not indeed to extinguish the Spirit, but to test all things and hold fast to what is good,” so that all the diverse and complementary charisms work together “for the common good.” From the CCC, 801.
Common sense tells us that since there were spiritual gifts in the Church’s beginnings and since the Church has existed immutable for nearly 2000 years we can safely say that the spiritual gifts have been active in the Church since its inception. History teaches us that spiritual gifts, while sometimes first manifesting among the laity, have nevertheless always been proved by the authorities of the Church. History further teaches us that authentic spiritual gifts have always manifested themselves from within the Church and not from without.
It is a simple fact that the Charismatic Renewal and all of its offshoots were born out of the Protestant Pentecostal movement. This movement has its roots in the “Great Awakenings” which took place in 19th century USA and thus the Charismatic Renewal has connections to the Millerites (Seventh Day Adventists), John Nelson Darby, Cyrus Scofield, Dwight Moody, dispensationalism, the “rapture” madness and the Azuza Street debauchery. Charis-mania is not from within the Church, it is from without. The spiritual gifts claimed by the Charismatic Renewal crowd (i.e. visions, prophecies and healings) have never been proven by Church authority. Neither has the Pope said that there is a charismatic patrimony to be nurtured and shared. The word “Charismatic” was coined by a Lutheran; the word “Pentecostal” by a non-denominationalist (whatever they are?).
In conclusion, there is absolutely no touch-point in Church history (prior to the 1070’s) for the exercise of the spiritual gifts ala the Charismatic Renewal folks. It is an uniquely modern phenomenon and it is therefore heretical. It does not promote the “common good”.
“If it’s new, it ain’t true. If it’s true, it ain’t new!”
(Not to mention, it is not part of the Anglican Patrimony.)
Among my problems with the Catholic Charismatic Renewal are the number of initial promoters that left the priesthood (a number of them still considered leaders); as well as the fact that it seems that the majority of people that I have met that consider themselves part of the movement are devotees of every alleged visionary, mystic and healer that pops up. The movement seems to be based largely upon emotionalism. While there are exceptions, the stereotypes usually fit.
"But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self control. Against these things there is no law." – St. Paul
"By their fruits you shall know them." – Jesus
I have to admit that I see very little sign of joy, patience, gentleness, or self control in many of these comments…
"Reprove, rebuke, exhort with all longsuffering and doctrine. For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine: but after their own lusts shall they heap to themselves teachers, having itching ears: and they shall turn away their ears from the truth, and shall be turned unto fables." – St. Paul
"Think not that I am come to send peace on earth: I came not to send peace, but a sword." – Jesus
This is what has been at issue here:
Joy vs. pleasure
Patience vs. anxiety
Gentleness vs. vengeance
Self-control vs. disorderliness
Father, would you describe your contribution to the discussions as long-suffering or exhibiting self-control?
Oh, most definitely long-suffering, thanks for asking. To be honest, I haven't enjoyed one minute of this whole conversation about charis-mania; but heresy must be vigorously contended against. Believe me; I have not lost my self-control – things start flying when that happens!
Gee, I'm almost sorry to have touched off the firestorm, but I then again I'm pleased to witness to what countless Christians have found to be of immeasurable value to their faith.
Lots of you folks who criticize are choosing the most egregious examples of admittedly bad behavior among charismatics, really engaging in but simple stereotyping. You really never have carefully studied and analyzed this movement of the Lord. You allege it's merely "Protestant" in inception, and appeal to rigid order as the summum bonum in worship and ritual.
St. Paul it was who gave explicit instructions to not quench the Spirit, and who also issued equally clear instructions as to how the priests/presbyters/elders/overseers were to assure "decency and order", the idea of which was predicated on there being something to regulate in the first place. No need to exercise active discernment if everything is pat and bolted to the floor, as it were. And BTW, discernment is a powerful gift in prayer, enabling us to direct our supplications in a manner which maximizes our effectiveness before the Throne of the Lord.
No, folks, I'm sort of appalled by what I'm reading in the comment section above. Makes me wonder as to who my bretheren really are out there. I personally have spent years both studying and experiencing these things. I'll never forget the time years ago when my young son Michael had gotten himself into a bit of spiritual bondage through the video game craze. Unbeknownst to me he had apparently tapped into a portal from the Enemy in one particular game, and my wife and I found him shaking one night as we went upstairs to kiss him goodnight. I thought maybe he was ill with a fever, but he had none. Then as gently as a gossomer thread, the Spirit simply whispered to me that Satan had a hook in him, and that it had something to do with video games. We quietly ordered the Enemy out of our boy (no shouting, no frothing at the mouth), and immediately he relaxed and soon was asleep. The next day he simply said, "gosh, I just feel so happy this morning!"
Yea, that's boots-on-the-ground familiarity with the charismatic/spiritual warfare dimension of our faith, folks, and if testimony like this means nothing to you, well . . .
Father, we all do things like that for our children, that's why children need two engaged, loving parents. However, I would not call it "charismatic warfare," in this case I'm more charismatic than you due to the fact that we don't have these problems in my house because we don't give our children un-monitored computer or TV time.
The abuses of the Charismatic Renewal cannot be separated from the word "charismatic". It's that simple. What you and others experience that is truly real are identical to the experience of all Catholics who seek to live godly, the difference being that we will never call it "charismatic" because we will never do the other things associated with that word, like babbling in tongues, raising our arms in prayer, being slain in the spirit, ecstatic prophecy and visions etc.
Unfortunately folks caught up in charis-mania are very reluctant to submit to objective criticism against their movement. Just like Legionaries didn't want to (still don't want to) admit that Maciel was a 100% fraud. I'm waiting to see the reaction of charismatics regarding Medjugorje. There are hundreds of thousands of adherents, many of them charismatic; what will they do when the Church authorities say it's all a lie?
FR L: I'm 100% Catholic Charismatic and I quite against Medjugorje. Medjugorje is not really Charismatic. I know well a priest, leader of a Charismatic Community and the oficial exorcist in a Colombian diocese, that is against Medjugorje. If there are many Charismatics in Medjugorje it is simply because Charismatics enjoy praying and we love Mary. Medjucormaniacs and Charismaniacs are different people… and normal, sane, obedient Catholic Charismatics are another different people… Spanish Catholic Charismatics which go to the Catholic groups will accept whatever Rome says about Medjugorje: most of us do not believe in Medjugorje. The most Medjugormaniac people only occasionaly go to Charismatic groups to invite more people to their own meetings, but they are not in the Renewal. In the Middle Ages, some people thought Franciscans and extremist heretics were the same people… and they were not. Many Franciscan treats are now common culture in Catholic Church… and I think the Charismatic Renewal follows the same path. Anyway, for your Ordinariates maybe you can create a "Charismatic-no-please" Ordinariate, and a "Charismatic-welcome" one. This one could be very welcoming for conservative converts coming from Alpha Course… Soon or later, Alpha anglicans wil be expelled from LGBT Anglicanism, and I would like them to come with us, Catholics, not to go to a new evangelical church.
Charismaticism should evoke only one response – Anathema Sit!
I have always had mixed feelings about the Charismatic way as is usually practised. As a natural sceptic, I tend to think that many of the manifestations are the fruit of psychiatric phenomena, auto-suggestion and hysteria.
Such "enthusiasm" makes me think of the Convulsionaries of Saint-Médard – http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Convulsionnaires_of_Saint-M%C3%A9dard – and other such things happening at Evangelical Anglican places in London like Holy Trinity, Brompton, where people literally roll on the floor.
I don't want to be judgemental or quench the Spirit where the Holy Spirit is genuinely at work. I'm just sceptical in the majority of cases and tend to take a cold scientific view.
Personally, I am English and tend to prefer the self-effacing way of seeking God without appearing to do so. Christ told us to shut the door of our room and pray in secret. But, charismatic gifts do exist, and miracles do happen. St Joseph of Cupertino could fly and levitate. St Philip Neri, who received the Holy Spirit in the form of a ball of fire resurrected dead people. Those are things that absolutely cannot be explained by natural science.
It's rather like exorcism: look for a rational and natural explanation before assuming something supernatural or out of the ordinary. Exclude the possibility of mental illness, hysteria or auto-suggestion. And then, there are signs – for example, speaking a language that the person has never learned, automatic writing, and all sorts of other things that are witnessed and cannot be denied.
I think such an attitude is not uncharitable or judgemental, but prudent and sensible.
I would agree with you about being prudent and sensible on such matters, although I might liken the process of discernment to that which follows the reporting of a miracle since I think that we might be said to be seeking to discover whether it is the work of the Holy Spirit or not.
My own concern about the Charismatic movement is one of proportion. St Paul, in his first epistle to the Corinthian church, listed the gifts of the Spirit in the following order:
"To one is given from the Spirit the gift of utterance expressing wisdom; to another the gift of utterance expressing knowledge, in accordance with the same Spirit; to another, faith, from the same Spirit; and to another, the gifts of healing, through this one Spirit; to another, the working of miracles; to another, prophecy; to another, the power of distinguishing spirits; to one, the gift of different tongues and to another, the interpretation of tongues." (1 Corinthians 12:8-10)
Again:
"And those whom God has appointed in the Church are, first apostles, secondly prophets, thirdly teachers; after them, miraculous powers, then gifts of healing, helpful acts, guidance, various kinds of tongues. Are all of them apostles? Or all prophets? Or all teachers? Or all miracle-workers? Do all have the gifts of healing? Do all of them speak in tongues and all interpret them?" (1 Corinthians 12:28-30)
New Testament scholars do not think that the order in which the gifts are listed is incidental. In dealing with spiritual elitism in the Corinthian church St Paul is seeking to establish the relative importance of these gifts and the more ecstatic ones can be seen to come at the bottom of the list.
It seems to me that Pentecostalism and other Holiness movements tend to place too great a stress on these minor gifts in ways that seem all out of proportion, exclusivist and even unhealthy.
Fr Marziani, Thanks for your measured and helpful comments on the topic. Matt (in the Catholic Archdiocese of Wash DC)
I don't believe we have to worry about charismatic parishes within the Ordinariate. Even in Catholic parishes where there are charismatic prayer groups, they only practice this area outside of the regular Masses etc.
There is a Charismatic Episcopal church as I recall. Otherwise I don't know if any Anglicans have specific services on Sundays for these types of groups.
It is not part of the Anglican Patrimony so it will not be part of any Ordinariate parish.
Let us not be so concerned with a person's individual practices if they are outside of our Ordinariate as these practices will not be part of our Anglican traditions. There are many Catholics I know who are both very traditional and also part of the charismatic movement.
As I mentioned before, whether the actual charismatic movement is of the Holy Spirit or not, God does use many different ways to bring people closer to Him. My former boss's son died of cancer at 16 and although this was a tragedy, it brought him back into the Church and he is very involved. God took what was a horrific event and brought good from it. He can do the same with a movement which many feel are not in keeping with what the faith teaches.
Pace Mrs. Gyapong, I know of a charismatic 'happening' here in Canada in which at least some of the participants got down on all fours and barked like dogs. Admitedly, such excesses are rare in Canada (and one can point to insanities that are not charismatic, such as one liberal parish on Vancouver Island in which invalid matter was used for the Sacrament, and then these yummy little cakes were tossed into the mouths of those communicants who wanted to receive in lingua). The charismatic movement appeared out of nowhere in the 1970s and thsoe who founded it were 'inspired' after having attended a Pentecostalist 'event' of the same kind. These phenomena are demonic and should be extirpated–deracinated–by fire and stake.
Yes, some chosen souls in convents, for example, have been overwhelmed by the Holy Ghost in extraordinary ways. Sr. Josefa Menendez comes to mind. But it is another thing entirely to attempt to bring about these effects in a group by supplication. Those who do so confuse emotionalism with grace.
To be realistic about this, we shall not be able to remove the Charismoronic movement or the Neo-Catatonical Way by our own efforts. We can pray for a cleansing but it will take divine action to remove this error. We can, however, at least avoid such movements like the plague. One lady in our traditionalist movement claimed that charismaticism comes straight from Satan himself. I agree with her assessment, although I think that many supporters of the movement are very good people whose motives are good. I have known some of these people through the pro-life movement.
P.K.T.P.
On charismatics and the ordinariates,
I do believe that some 'evangelicals' have communities within the TAC, but they are few and small.
P.K.T.P.