Novena for Pentecost: a novel community - the Church

Pentecost is at once both a festival of the Holy Spirit and a festival of the Church - it's almost as if the two are inseparable. The "prayer group" of the Apostles, Mary and the disciples in the Upper Room received the gift of the Spirit, not as isolated individuals, but as individuals within a community. The gift then establishes an evangelising impulse that is, in time, to have a universal reach.

It is not a surprise, then, that the gift of Baptism in the Spirit should give rise to new communities rich in evangelising energy. Charismatic Renewal has given rise to a wide range of communities, some of them quite local and others with a national or international reach. They have become schools of Christian life and mission for Catholics in every part of the world. Often these communities include members from different states of life in the Church - men, women, married and single, those in consecrated life. There are also new religious congregations, whose individual charisms are rooted in the grace of Baptism in the Spirit. These communities, whilst being entirely "new," are at the same time faithful to "old" principles of Christian life such as poverty, chastity and obedience lived out according to an individual's state of life.

Such communities are a model for the present times of the "first community" of Christian life that is the Church, actualising in a particular place and time a style of life that is of universal value for the Church and for the Christian life.

Novena for Pentecost: the fruits of "Baptism in the Spirit"

 The Catholic Charismatic Renewal is a little unusual among the range of new movements that have taken root in the Church in recent decades. Rather than representing one community or organisation in the Church it embraces a wide range, from communities with specific foundations and houses to diocesan service committees supporting individual prayer groups. Charis, instituted by the Holy See in December 2018, carries out an office of service to the different expressions of the Renewal throughout the world. It has received a three-fold mission from Pope Francis: sharing the experience of "Baptism in the Holy Spirit" with the whole Church, working for Christian unity (though, speaking soon after the institution of Charis, Pope Francis expressed this in terms of serving "the unity of the Body of Christ, the Church", suggesting a promotion of communion in the Church itself) and serving the poor. Received anew as a mission from the Holy Father, these are features already reflected in the life of the Charismatic Renewal.

The characteristic feature of the Charismatic Renewal is what is known as "Baptism in the Spirit", which can be associated in the minds of those unfamiliar with the Renewal with extraordinary phenomena. But many of the chracteristics and fruits of "Baptism in the Spirit", as described by those involved in the Renewal, are ordinary gifts that would be recognised in many of the other ecclesial movements - love of the Church, Marian devotion, strong sense of evangelisation etc. I am going to post on these fruits in the coming days.

In this post I want to start by suggesting that, just as life in a religious order or life lived in accordance with the charism of any ecclesial movement represents for the individuals concerned a specification in their own circumstances of the universal call to holiness received through the sacraments of Baptism and Confirmation, so "Baptism in the Holy Spirit" represents for those in the Charismatic Renewal the way in which their baptismal and confirmational consecration is made specific to their individual lives. Understood in this way, "Baptism in the Spirit" is at one among a wide range of charisms in the Church that enable the faithful to live, in a specific way, the call to holiness that is addressed to all, though it gains a certain vividness because of a clarity of its connection to Baptism and Confirmation. The recognition of that charism by those in authority in the Church indicates further that it is a charism that, like those of other ecclesial movements and communities, is of value for the life of the Church as a whole. Whilst not everyone will be called to live this charism, it is nevertheless worthy of the attention of all in the Church.

A listening Church ... but listening to what?

It is nearly eleven years since I had the opportunity to hear Fr Raniero Cantalamessa speak at a Eucharistic Congress held in Birmingham. At the end of this talk, the audience showed their appreciation by applauding. Father turned towards the image of the Face of Christ that formed the backdrop to the stage and joined in the applause, re-directing it towards the person of Christ and, for the more reflective in the audience, through Christ to the Father in the Holy Spirit.

I recall Father's action from time to time as being a representation of what happens when a Christian offers a "testimony", a witness to the action of God in their life. In Catholic life, the range of movements in the Church which invite participants to offer such testimonies is more extensive than one might imagine. Some examples I am aware of: a session at the end of a "fundamental retreat" of the Foyers of Charity, at the end of a Youth 2000 retreat, in the magazine and on the website of the Focolare, the Charismatic Renewal. I am sure, in different ways, there are many others.

In all of these circumstances what we listen to may first and foremost be a person who shares their testimony. But most fundamentally, as Father Cantalamessa's action of turning towards the Face of Christ indicates, we seek to listen to the voice of the Holy Spirit speaking through the life and witness of the one who offers their testimony. This does make a significant demand on the person who offers the testimony, a demand that they be transparent to the Spirit and do not project themselves, that they recognise the mix of grace and failing in their story (the tares and the wheat of the Gospel story). But it also asks of the listener a certain discernment in order to hear what in that testimony is "of the Spirit". It isn't just anything that we listen to.

It is worth recalling that Pope Francis is very familiar with the Charismatic Renewal, so that, when he speaks of a "listening Church", we might expect the experience of testimonies to be at least a part of what he refers to.

A synodal Church is a Church which listens, which realizes that listening “is more than simply hearing”. It is a mutual listening in which everyone has something to learn. The faithful people, the college of bishops, the Bishop of Rome: all listening to each other, and all listening to the Holy Spirit, the “Spirit of truth” (Jn 14:17), in order to know what he “says to the Churches” (Rev 2:7).

I have my doubts as to whether listening exercises undertaken by questionnaire and survey response, or in the form of "consultations", actually deliver this ecclesial form of listening. I suspect that they produce a rather indiscriminate listening that gives equal weight to everything that is said, without that element of discernment necessary in order to genuinely hear what the Spirit is saying to the local and to the universal Church.

What Pope Francis calls us to recognise, though, is the real possibility that testimonies offered among the faithful of the local Churches and ecclesial movements can illuminate the Christian mystery in a way that has a universal significance. Testimonies can be an expression of the sensus fidei, in its properly understood sense, an expression deserving of our attention in order to hear the voice of the Spirit. This is true listening.

First Glance at Laudato si

I have just had my first very quick read of some parts of Pope Francis' Encyclical Letter Laudato si.

I haven't by any means read it all, but have read enough to recognise that to characterise the Encyclical as being "about climate change" is simply not to do it justice. It contains a very wide ranging account of mankind's relation to the rest of the created world, and of the relation of that created world to its Creator. This theme in particular tempted me to reflect that, if one follows Pope Francis teaching, one would avoid the danger of an ecological concern that becomes an ideology because it is divorced from a relation to a Person. There is no possibility of coming away from a reading of Pope Francis' encyclical without recognising a teaching about the specific place and dignity of the human person among God's creatures.

Three quick thoughts.

1. I was very interested in Pope Francis' attribution to St Francis of Assisi of what he terms an "integral ecology". The account of St Francis' attitude to the created world in nn.10-12 of the Laudato si appears to me rich in its implications for how we understand St Francis life and his thought.

2. Am I right to recognise in the following passages something of the thought familiar to the FAITH Movement? See here,  here and here.

In this universe, shaped by open and intercommunicating systems, we can discern countless forms of relationship and participation. This leads us to think of the whole as open to God’s transcendence, within which it develops. Faith allows us to interpret the meaning and the mysterious beauty of what is unfolding.... [n.79]

Human beings, even if we postulate a process of evolution, also possess a uniqueness which cannot be fully explained by the evolution of other open systems. Each of us has his or her own personal identity and is capable of entering into dialogue with others and with God himself. Our capacity to reason, to develop arguments, to be inventive, to interpret reality and to create art, along with other not yet discovered capacities, are signs of a uniqueness which transcends the spheres of physics and biology. The sheer novelty involved in the emergence of a personal being within a material universe presupposes a direct action of God and a particular call to life and to relationship on the part of a “Thou” who addresses himself to another “thou”. The biblical accounts of creation invite us to see each human being as a subject who can never be reduced to the status of an object. [n.81]

The ultimate destiny of the universe is in the fullness of God, which has already been attained by the risen Christ, the measure of the maturity of all things. Here we can add yet another argument for rejecting every tyrannical and irresponsible domination of human beings over other creatures. The ultimate purpose of other creatures is not to be found in us. Rather, all creatures are moving forward with us and through us towards a common point of arrival, which is God, in that transcendent fullness where the risen Christ embraces and illumines all things. Human beings, endowed with intelligence and love, and drawn by the fullness of Christ, are called to lead all creatures back to their Creator. [n.83]

3. In the account of "Technology: Creativity and Power" [n.102 ff], Pope Francis refers six times to the thought of Romano Guardini. The particular work referred to has, in English translation, the title The End of the Modern World, though I suspect the original German title, Das Ende der Neuzeit, contains a subtlety lost in the English. My own familiarity with Guardini's thought on the theme of technology, nature and the human person comes from another book, Letters from Lake Como. Two visits to Lake Como in the space of the last year have given me a deeper appreciation of Guardini's book. I was delighted - and not surprised - to see Pope Francis obvious familiarity with Romano Guardini and his willingness to cite him in Laudato si.

See here for an account of the influence of Romano Guardini on Pope Francis and in Laudato si.

Pentecost: high point of the Year of Faith?

The Solemnity of Pentecost - the celebration of the coming of the Holy Spirit upon the infant Church of the Apostles gathered around the person of Mary - should perhaps be one of the greatest celebrations during the Year of Faith. It captures both the element of inner renewal, both communal and personal, of faith that is a feature of this Year, and the impulse for evangelisation that is its hoped for outcome.

I suspect that in many parishes today this significance of the Solemnity for the Year of Faith will be obscured by the celebration of the sacrament of Confirmation, rather than being brought in to focus by it. In Rome this weekend, Pope Francis has met with the new ecclesial movements and associations in St Peter's Square. Some 120 000 people are reported as joining the vigil yesterday evening ( here and here), and Pope Francis is to celebrate Mass with the movements and associations this morning. The pilgrimage for the Year of Faith has taken the same form for the new movements as it has done for previous gatherings (most recently for Confirmation candidates and for sodalities and confraternities), with participants making a pilgrimage to the Vatican Basilica focussed on a profession of faith before the high altar/tomb of St Peter on the Saturday and joining the Holy Father for a celebration of Mass on the Sunday morning. Pope Francis own appreciation of the movement Communion and Liberation has become apparent since his election. I expect that fuller reports and texts of the pilgrimage this weekend will appear in due course.

This weekend's encounter in Rome is an echo of two previous such meetings, one with Pope John Paul II in 1998 (during which the Holy Fathers reference to the co-essentiality of the charismatic and the hierarchical in the Church provided a strap line for the role of the movements in the Church) and the second with Pope Benedict XVI in 2006 (Zero and I were in St Peter's Square for that one!).

Pentecost usually prompts me to look again at the books of Fr Peter Hocken (and here) that I have on my bookshelves. What are in some ways the first and last in a sequence of four - Blazing the Trail: Where is the Holy Spirit leading the Church? and Church Forward: reflections on the renewal of the Church - are the two that I dip in to most often. (The other two in the sequence are The banquet of life, about the dignity of the human person, and God's Masterplan: penetrating the mystery of Christ, whose title speaks for itself.) One thread in these books, and of Fr Peter Hocken's thinking in general, is the conviction that the Second Vatican Council represents a particular inspiration of the Holy Spirit for the Church of our times - reflecting the way in which the significance of the Council has been affirmed by both Pope John Paul II and Pope Benedict XVI and is expressed again in the celebration of the Year of Faith to mark an anniversary of the Council. Another is the way in which he takes that general principle and develops it very specifically in relation to such themes of the Council as liturgy, Scripture, evangelisation, dialogue and ecumenism.

There is no misrepresentation of the Council to be found in Fr Hocken's writing; it offers a positive and orthodox orientation with regard to the Council documents that is fresh air when compared to the antagonism towards the Council implicit in the traditionalist critique of the contemporary situation of the Church.

New Movements and New Media: Discuss

[This post is a response to Fr Tim's New movements John Paul II, new media Benedict XVI: discuss.]

Pope John Paul II's encouragement of the new movements in the Catholic Church has its highlight the meeting between those movements and the Pope on the eve of Pentecost in 1998. And the highlight of the highlight was John Paul II's assertion of the "co-essentiality" of the institutional and charismatic elements in the constitution of the Church, as foreshadowed in the teaching of Lumen Gentium n.12:

The institutional and charismatic aspects are co-essential as it were to the Church's constitution. They contribute, although differently, to the life, renewal and sanctification of God's People. It is from this providential rediscovery of the Church's charismatic dimension that, before and after the Council, a remarkable pattern of growth has been established for ecclesial movements and new communities.

A charism is a specifically given gift of the Holy Spirit arousing in the person or persons receiving it a call to fulfil a particular ecclesial mission. Each of the major ecclesial movements has its own unique charism, but it is interesting to identify common themes.

 

1. As Fr Tim pointed out, a Catholic with an intelligent and well formed commitment to the practice of their faith will, almost without exception, have received a formation from one or other of the new movements. Parish life has not been providing that formation in recent times (personally I am not sure how far it was providing such formation in more distant times either). At first sight this suggests a point of tension between ordinary parish/diocesan life and the life of the movements. However, it is worth recognising that the engagement of a person with the life of a movement should be seen as a specific way of experiencing baptismal consecration in commitment to Christian life. Seen in that way, there should be a continuity between parish life and the life of a movement. [The Marian consecration typical of the Legion of Mary at its Acies ceremony and of the last day of the "Fundamental Retreat" of the Foyers of Charity is explicitly articulated as a specification of baptismal consecration; "baptism in the Spirit", typical of the Catholic Charismatic Renewal, is also understood in this way.]

 

2. The 1983 Code of Canon Law, in c.321 ff, allows a status as "private association of Christ's faithful". In summary, this status allows a movement, subject to the approval of its constitutions by appropriate ecclesial authority (the Bishop or the Holy See, the latter in the case of universal associations), to govern itself rather than being under the governance of an ecclesiastical assistant. This is a canonical expression of the idea of "co-essentiality"; I do not know whether or not there was an equivalent status under the provisions of the 1917 Code, though I suspect not.  [However, this self-governance does not exempt an association from visitation by those in ecclesiastical authority, which should provide safeguard against abuse of power in those associations.]

 

3. If we look at the specific charisms of some of the movements, a number of common themes appear that are worthy of further examination. These common themes run through the more unique aspects of the charisms proper to each movement.  They are: (1) a strong Marian character which is not a "devotion added on" but a natural part of the ecclesial life - the Legion of Mary, Focolare (official title "The Work of Mary") are not the only examples; (2) a natural ecclesial sense, expressed in a faithfulness to the Holy See and the official teaching of the Church that lacks any dogmatic or ultramontane spirit; (3) an interaction of a male and female figure in the founding charism - Pere Finet and Marthe Robin in the case of the Foyers of Charity, or indeed, the relation of the inspiration of Agnes Holloway to the mission of Fr Edward Holloway described in the introduction to the booklet "God's Master Key"; (4) an affirmation of the value of the vows of the evangelical counsels as appropriate not just for priests and religious but also for the lay faithful, often emerging as a group sought to live the charism of the movement in a more radical way - the Fraternity of Communion and Liberation, the life of members of the Foyers of Charity are examples.

4. As suggested at 1 above, there is a question about how the life of the ecclesial movements, perhaps particularly those that are universal rather than diocesan in nature, relate to the life of parishes and dioceses. And indeed about how the life experienced in one ecclesial movements relates to the life of other such movements. This has been part of the process of "ecclesial maturing" to which Fr Tim referred, a process that has involved the explicit articulation of a founding event, often in the preparation of constitutions, and the discernment undertaken by ecclesiastical authority in approving such constitutions. It is at this point that the question of examining and ensuring the authenticity of a founder/founding charism, and questions of behaviours of founding figures, should come to the fore. The task of promoting unity among the movements was a particular task undertaken by Focolare (with its charism of unity) after the meeting at Pentecost 1998. Increasingly the word "communion" has been used to express the ecclesiology of the Second Vatican Council, and the theology of communion perhaps offers a way of understanding the "co-essentiality" of charisms and institutions in the Church and of how they should relate to each other in living the Christian mystery.

5. If one can see Pope John Paul II as a particular promoter of the new movements in the Church, one can also see Hans Urs von Balthasar as being a particular theologian of the new movements. The  evangelical counsels as an option for the life of the lay faithful can be seen in his writings on the states of life in the Church and on the secular institutes. His book Engagement with God is prefaced by a dedication to Luigi Giusani and Communion and Liberation. He recognised in the Focolare exactly the living out of the "Marian profile" that features in his understanding of the Church and shared with them a strong sense of "Jesus forsaken" on the Cross.

Can we see Catholic blogging as a form of new movement akin to those being discussed above? I would suggest rather that, generally speaking, it partakes of an aspect of ecclesial life that has a certain analogy to the idea of the different ecclesial movements, but is not so readily capable of a positive evaluation. Unless I have misunderstood some recent reading, John Henry Newman referred to the Oxford Movement in a significantly different way when an Anglican than when a Catholic. As an Anglican, he would not have seen it as a "party" engaged in a (political) struggle for supremacy in the Church, but as a call to live Christian faith in its fullness; as a Catholic, he asked those who continued in the Church of England to recognise that they could not continue as a "party" (among other parties) following the general rejection by the Church of England's bishops of the Catholic principles of the movement. Colonised largely as it is by those of a traditionalist inclination, I would suggest that the Catholic blogosphere is closer to representing a "party" in this Newman-esque sense than an ecclesial movement in the sense considered above. It's campaigning behaviours, and sense that the Extraordinary Form of the liturgy as the only show in town and the subject to which every Catholic is devoted, seem to me characteristic of a "party".

Just as a final comment, and at  risk of arguing ad hominem but hopefully not without charity. The challenge that a traditionalist Catholic faces in considering the new movements derives from a strong sense of the institutional aspect of the Church. In consequence, the traditionalist might well have a reluctance to recognise the legitimacy of the charismatic and be put off by those who fail to live the charisms of their movements as well as they should; and they might also let their attachment to the Extraordinary Form trump all else as far as liturgy goes. But the witness of the movements, and of the support given to them by Popes John Paul II and Benedict XVI, is precisely a witness to "co-essentiallity" between the institutional and the charismatic.

UPDATE: See also Fr Tim's observations on this post, which particularly respond to my suggestion that the Catholic blogosphere has the nature of a "party".