One final problematic that I had, and have, with the Charismatic retreat and the movement in general will come as no surprise to those who know me—it is liturgical.
The Spirit working in our hearts will of course influence everything we do; including the Mass, but that does not mean that we have to celebrate Mass like “Charismatics” do. Remember God doesn’t force us, and in this case I think God doesn’t desire us to “act up,” because the Mass isn’t about me but we and the Three (the Trinity)! The Charisms are manifestations of God within us that we are meant to take into the world, and one authentic manifestation of the Spirit is art. The music that has come to be associated with the Charismatic movement is thus I think an authentic representation of this art, just as the medieval mystery plays, renaissances poems, Baroque operas were. However in every age the Church has fought to keep these secular forms out of the Churches public liturgy, because no matter how religiously themed they are, they are not religious art. Just like during that last week in Jerusalem the Apostles kept wanting to call the shots determining how the Lord would do things, this temptation exists in all ages of the Church.
“No lord you won’t die;” “No you can’t wash my feet;” “I don’t understand, its bread and wine, why is He calling it his body and blood(?);” “Lord I will never forsake you(!);” “surely you don’t me me (Judas)…
What the Apostles failed to realize, as we do today is that the Mass is God’s way of acting, it is God’s work. We can’t change the nature and tone of it, no matter how hard we try, because the Mass is meant to conform us to Him, not Him to us. The Mass is not praise and worship, its Jesus’ sacrifice of Love, and while there is clearly room for human genius to decorate the Mass, we are meant to decorate the elements that Jesus put in place not to create new elements and themes. This is why in all the Magisterial documents on Music in the Liturgy Gregorian Chant is proposed as prototypical, and all other music that is allowed is to be judged on its closeness to Gregorian Chant. Having experienced almost a dozen of the Oriental rites of the Catholic Church it is amazing how they all have the same elements, and how their traditional music is so similar, though often quite different from Gregorian Chant. Chant is the music of prayer-and nothing else. While secular people might listen to it to relax or meditate it by default puts you in a prayerful mood—some other music can do this, including some praise and worship—but no other genre does this in the same way. That’s why all 22 legitimate manifestations of the liturgy contain types of Chant. Anyway, I think it’s a mistake to use any music to the exclusion of Gregorian chant and it’s a mistake to disconnect the Liturgy from the tradition—I think Benedict supports me in these views. So while I might have grown in my openness to the Spirit this weekend I will just have to settle for being a sign of contradiction: a Traditional Charismatic Catholic Priests. What’s in a label anyway?
What Recompense can I give to the Lord?
Ordination to the Diaconate
Showing posts with label NAC. Show all posts
Showing posts with label NAC. Show all posts
Monday, March 23, 2009
Charismatic Retreat
Ok, so anyone who knows me knows that I am a pretty traditional sort of guy. In college my friends and I used to refer to ourselves at the 80 year olds trapped in 20 year old bodies.
However, despite this persona and my proclivity for traditional liturgy, conservative politics, and playfully elegant antique dress, I have enjoyed praise and worship music for a long time. I enjoy country, folk, and rock & roll so why shouldn’t I enjoy these same genres when they speak about Christian themes? This being said I have always thought that praise and worship was secular music with religious themes, something I still believe. As a secular music form it has its uses promoting thoughts about God and even prayer—as Msgr. Luigi Giussani used to say all music comes from the heart and thus conceals the search for God that is in our hearts—praise and worship does this overtly. Back in the states I had experienced the attempt to impose praise and worship onto the liturgy and was not impressed with the results. However, It wasn’t until I got here to NAC that I had my first experience of Praise and Worship combined with a distinctly charismatic renewal element. I wasn’t too impressed by it—quite frankly I was turned off!
So why would a traditional priest go on a charismatic praise and worship Retreat? For two reasons: first because among faithful Catholics it seems to me that there are two main groups, traditionalists and charismatics, and in my diocese there are probably more charismatics, so if I am to be able to shepherd these people I must understand where they are coming from. More importantly, however, is the fact that I am a traditional priest—I believe in angels and demons, miracles and prophecy, healings and even spiritual warfare—intellectually at least, and so if the Spirit is still working in the Church in these ways, as I believe He is, then maybe the Charismatics are on to something. We have lost something of our practical belief in the unseen realities in the Church, I believe as a result of rationalism and modernism. The Church doesn’t want to be seen as primitive or cultic, it doesn’t want to be seen as superstitious, but its not superstition if its real and the Scriptures reveal to us several aspects of the unseen reality that De Fide we must believe.
Anyway, I went on the retreat to understand and to be touched by the Spirit. I went with an open heart and open eyes so that I could see what I needed to, and I must say that it was awesome—I really did feel God working in my life. As I told some people, it is my firm belief that it was God’s will for me to be on that retreat because he used it to heal some real wounds in my heart and to call me to conversion—and also to help me understand my brothers in Christ who pray and worship in this way.
One of the first things I realized was that the subject plays a big role in how the Charisms of the spirit manifest. As I mentioned during the Q&A at the end of retreat its dangerous to say that the gifts of the spirit are limited to the particular manifestation of the Charismatic renewal. Twenty centuries of Catholic Tradition have shown these gifts manifested in many ways that I would be more comfortable with, that are just as authentically Charismatic—so its important not to claim a monopoly on the gifts! Frs. Francis and John Mark of the Intercessors of the Lamb, did well to acknowledge and highlight this fact. As Fr. Francis did say, however, the gifts of the Spirit are non-negotiable. It makes no sense to call yourself a Catholic and be closed to the Spirit of Jesus with which we were sealed at our Baptism and Confirmation. Amen to that!
Thinking about the workings of the spirit within us it seems to me that the gifts of the Spirit are always being poured out into our spirit, we have only to access these gifts. Two things said over and over again on the retreat, that I think are key, were that God doesn’t force himself on us, ever, and that the purpose for this retreat was to unlock the gifts that we already have that are bound up and chained within us because of sin, fear, and unawareness. God’s Spirit is in us, if we truly believe what the Church teaches about baptism and confirmation—how few of us act like be really do believe this. I think many of us think that we have the Spirit in us like a tenant who will do what he wants when he wants without our cooperation or consent. This is the insight of the charismatic renewal movement—the realization that God’s Spirit will not act in us without us. The subject plays a big role in the manifestations of God’s charisms because the Grace of the Spirit within us is completely on the invisible level, beyond sense perception just as God is beyond this realm. Rather by willing to use, that is cooperate with, the Spirit that because of Faith we know we have our Faith influences our intellect which in turn influences our bodies (sensibly, emotionally, and even mechanically).
For me one of the most interesting conversations was about the gift of tongues—a gift which Paul himself says is one of the least of the gifts and yet EWTNs Fr. Corapi says is one of the most powerful. Tongues for me was one of the things that I was most critical of, but as the Intercessors explained they are simply a gift of humble prayer. Praying in tongues is praying in a language you don’t know, because as St. Paul says, we know not how to pray! When praying for an individual there is no question who knows better what the person really needs: God or us. And so praying in tongues is a way to call up our loving desire for the good of the other without wordiness, providing the basis of language, without provide the content, which we believe will be provided by the spirit. This can take the form, I think provided by us, of groaning, sighing, pure sound, or language like sounds. One of the reasons this appealed to me was that it reminded me of something St. Augustine said about the Christians of Milan—he notes that they sang with such joy that the words became lost in pure joy. “Make a joyful noise to the lord.” While I still may have a problem with, as one deacon called it, the “gibberish,” I see the intrinsic value of this idea and its roots in the apophatic theological tradition.
Fundamentally the Charismatic idea is that we trust God wants to and will work through us when we ask him to share the Spirit in us with others. This isn’t magic, trying to command and control God, but a willingness to be his cooperator and instrument. I think it is important to anchor this idea in the Tradition and Doctrine of the Church, which provides an invaluable too for discerning spirits. If Doctrine is an icon of the face of God revealed to man in Sacred Scriptures then it should also be a good indicator of how he will continue to act in the world. I was slightly concerned at a suggested anti-intellectualism that seems to me not to be intrinsic to the idea.
However, despite this persona and my proclivity for traditional liturgy, conservative politics, and playfully elegant antique dress, I have enjoyed praise and worship music for a long time. I enjoy country, folk, and rock & roll so why shouldn’t I enjoy these same genres when they speak about Christian themes? This being said I have always thought that praise and worship was secular music with religious themes, something I still believe. As a secular music form it has its uses promoting thoughts about God and even prayer—as Msgr. Luigi Giussani used to say all music comes from the heart and thus conceals the search for God that is in our hearts—praise and worship does this overtly. Back in the states I had experienced the attempt to impose praise and worship onto the liturgy and was not impressed with the results. However, It wasn’t until I got here to NAC that I had my first experience of Praise and Worship combined with a distinctly charismatic renewal element. I wasn’t too impressed by it—quite frankly I was turned off!
So why would a traditional priest go on a charismatic praise and worship Retreat? For two reasons: first because among faithful Catholics it seems to me that there are two main groups, traditionalists and charismatics, and in my diocese there are probably more charismatics, so if I am to be able to shepherd these people I must understand where they are coming from. More importantly, however, is the fact that I am a traditional priest—I believe in angels and demons, miracles and prophecy, healings and even spiritual warfare—intellectually at least, and so if the Spirit is still working in the Church in these ways, as I believe He is, then maybe the Charismatics are on to something. We have lost something of our practical belief in the unseen realities in the Church, I believe as a result of rationalism and modernism. The Church doesn’t want to be seen as primitive or cultic, it doesn’t want to be seen as superstitious, but its not superstition if its real and the Scriptures reveal to us several aspects of the unseen reality that De Fide we must believe.
Anyway, I went on the retreat to understand and to be touched by the Spirit. I went with an open heart and open eyes so that I could see what I needed to, and I must say that it was awesome—I really did feel God working in my life. As I told some people, it is my firm belief that it was God’s will for me to be on that retreat because he used it to heal some real wounds in my heart and to call me to conversion—and also to help me understand my brothers in Christ who pray and worship in this way.
One of the first things I realized was that the subject plays a big role in how the Charisms of the spirit manifest. As I mentioned during the Q&A at the end of retreat its dangerous to say that the gifts of the spirit are limited to the particular manifestation of the Charismatic renewal. Twenty centuries of Catholic Tradition have shown these gifts manifested in many ways that I would be more comfortable with, that are just as authentically Charismatic—so its important not to claim a monopoly on the gifts! Frs. Francis and John Mark of the Intercessors of the Lamb, did well to acknowledge and highlight this fact. As Fr. Francis did say, however, the gifts of the Spirit are non-negotiable. It makes no sense to call yourself a Catholic and be closed to the Spirit of Jesus with which we were sealed at our Baptism and Confirmation. Amen to that!
Thinking about the workings of the spirit within us it seems to me that the gifts of the Spirit are always being poured out into our spirit, we have only to access these gifts. Two things said over and over again on the retreat, that I think are key, were that God doesn’t force himself on us, ever, and that the purpose for this retreat was to unlock the gifts that we already have that are bound up and chained within us because of sin, fear, and unawareness. God’s Spirit is in us, if we truly believe what the Church teaches about baptism and confirmation—how few of us act like be really do believe this. I think many of us think that we have the Spirit in us like a tenant who will do what he wants when he wants without our cooperation or consent. This is the insight of the charismatic renewal movement—the realization that God’s Spirit will not act in us without us. The subject plays a big role in the manifestations of God’s charisms because the Grace of the Spirit within us is completely on the invisible level, beyond sense perception just as God is beyond this realm. Rather by willing to use, that is cooperate with, the Spirit that because of Faith we know we have our Faith influences our intellect which in turn influences our bodies (sensibly, emotionally, and even mechanically).
For me one of the most interesting conversations was about the gift of tongues—a gift which Paul himself says is one of the least of the gifts and yet EWTNs Fr. Corapi says is one of the most powerful. Tongues for me was one of the things that I was most critical of, but as the Intercessors explained they are simply a gift of humble prayer. Praying in tongues is praying in a language you don’t know, because as St. Paul says, we know not how to pray! When praying for an individual there is no question who knows better what the person really needs: God or us. And so praying in tongues is a way to call up our loving desire for the good of the other without wordiness, providing the basis of language, without provide the content, which we believe will be provided by the spirit. This can take the form, I think provided by us, of groaning, sighing, pure sound, or language like sounds. One of the reasons this appealed to me was that it reminded me of something St. Augustine said about the Christians of Milan—he notes that they sang with such joy that the words became lost in pure joy. “Make a joyful noise to the lord.” While I still may have a problem with, as one deacon called it, the “gibberish,” I see the intrinsic value of this idea and its roots in the apophatic theological tradition.
Fundamentally the Charismatic idea is that we trust God wants to and will work through us when we ask him to share the Spirit in us with others. This isn’t magic, trying to command and control God, but a willingness to be his cooperator and instrument. I think it is important to anchor this idea in the Tradition and Doctrine of the Church, which provides an invaluable too for discerning spirits. If Doctrine is an icon of the face of God revealed to man in Sacred Scriptures then it should also be a good indicator of how he will continue to act in the world. I was slightly concerned at a suggested anti-intellectualism that seems to me not to be intrinsic to the idea.
Friday, March 20, 2009
I am on retreat and shouldn't be blogging...
I am taking a two day Charismatic mini retreat. Yeah, I know you wouldn't think someone like me would be involved with something like this.
Hopefully when I am done I will have a few moments to share some thoughts about the retreat.
More coming soon...
Hopefully when I am done I will have a few moments to share some thoughts about the retreat.
More coming soon...
Wednesday, April 9, 2008
Homily on John 6 delivered at NAC 04-09-08
I am always struck by the sixth Chapter of John’ Gospel, and not just by its clear and beautiful Eucharistic theology, but by the fact that in it Jesus offers his audience everything. In the Gospel today Jesus offers us the solution to our hunger and thirst, which of course is an analogy for our souls deepest needs. Maybe in our day and age, in which extreme hunger is rare, at least in the US and certainly in seminary(!), this analogy with physical hunger fails to move us, but in Jesus’ day people knew what it was to hunger. And so Jesus offers them the bread of life the answer to man’s anxiety over his impending doom and the answer to our hunger for life without end.
So, what is the crowds response? In just a few verses we will hear it: they start to grumble and then they leave Jesus en masse, and they don’t just leave him, some even start plotting to kill him.
Ok sure, maybe they didn’t understand his words, but offering them his flesh and his blood, Jesus was offering them his very self in toto, and yet they refused it. Its not that he hadn’t earned a little bit of credibility, up to this point in His ministry Jesus had: changed 6 barrels of water to wine; cured a child at the point of death; restored strength to those born lame
and at the beginning of this sixth chapter John tells us; that He even fed the very same multitude who soon thereafter will reject him. We will have to wait another few chapters in John’s Gospel before Jesus restores Lazarus to life and its not until the end of John’s Gospel that Jesus performs his most miraculous miracle, The Resurrection, but even without these confirmations of His authority it seems that Jesus had made a good case for himself, and for his ability to deliever on his promises.
And so when today he promises: I am the bread of life; whoever comes to me will never hunger, and whoever believes in me will never thirst, I question, how could the crowds,
who had just eaten the miraculous feast, not take him seriously, and at least give him a chance? I wonder why they so quickly rejected him?
Jesus offers the crowds hope. If only they had a little Faith in Him, He could offer them hope for eternal happiness, which begets life changing LOVE. Maybe it’s because precisely because of this, because Jesus threatened to stir things up and to change things.
People were miserable, they were hungry, they wanted more, their hearts cried out for fulfillment, as they still do today, and yet in Jesus’ day, just as today people were accustomed to things the way they were to our falleness, to the seeming unobtainability of happiness. By proposing a way to happiness Jesus is offering us our hearts desire, but with it the requirement of change. In seeing the way, they were afraid to take it and in not taking it, they feel regret and guilt. As is written in the book of Wisdom, they said: Let us beset the just one, because he is obnoxious to us; he sets himself against our doings… merely to see him is a hardship for us,
When everyone abandons Jesus—Jesus turns to His Apostles and asks, will you leave me too? They would not; Lord to whom would we go, you have the words of eternal life. Peter confesses not understanding, but faith in Jesus, faith in the truth of His words and more importantly faith in His person. It is this faith, combined with the witness of the resurrection, that prompts the first Christians to continue preaching Jesus’ message. The result is the same: at that time there was a great persecution against the church which was at Jerusalem. Time and time again Jesus will be persecuted for offering people their heart’s desire, and we too, the body of Christ, will be persecuted with him. As Jesus says: the servant is not greater than his master. If they have persecuted me, they will also persecute you
In spite of this persecution, in fact by means of it, we must continue to preach Christ, and Christ Crucified. We must preach the message of absolute love, we who have received everything from God, must now give everything, AND expect some people to reject us for it. We can do this because of our Hope: I am the bread of Life Whosoever eats my flesh, and drinks my blood, will have eternal life; and I will raise him up at the last day. This is the faith, the Gospel, that we preach, and the faith by which we preach it.
So, what is the crowds response? In just a few verses we will hear it: they start to grumble and then they leave Jesus en masse, and they don’t just leave him, some even start plotting to kill him.
Ok sure, maybe they didn’t understand his words, but offering them his flesh and his blood, Jesus was offering them his very self in toto, and yet they refused it. Its not that he hadn’t earned a little bit of credibility, up to this point in His ministry Jesus had: changed 6 barrels of water to wine; cured a child at the point of death; restored strength to those born lame
and at the beginning of this sixth chapter John tells us; that He even fed the very same multitude who soon thereafter will reject him. We will have to wait another few chapters in John’s Gospel before Jesus restores Lazarus to life and its not until the end of John’s Gospel that Jesus performs his most miraculous miracle, The Resurrection, but even without these confirmations of His authority it seems that Jesus had made a good case for himself, and for his ability to deliever on his promises.
And so when today he promises: I am the bread of life; whoever comes to me will never hunger, and whoever believes in me will never thirst, I question, how could the crowds,
who had just eaten the miraculous feast, not take him seriously, and at least give him a chance? I wonder why they so quickly rejected him?
Jesus offers the crowds hope. If only they had a little Faith in Him, He could offer them hope for eternal happiness, which begets life changing LOVE. Maybe it’s because precisely because of this, because Jesus threatened to stir things up and to change things.
People were miserable, they were hungry, they wanted more, their hearts cried out for fulfillment, as they still do today, and yet in Jesus’ day, just as today people were accustomed to things the way they were to our falleness, to the seeming unobtainability of happiness. By proposing a way to happiness Jesus is offering us our hearts desire, but with it the requirement of change. In seeing the way, they were afraid to take it and in not taking it, they feel regret and guilt. As is written in the book of Wisdom, they said: Let us beset the just one, because he is obnoxious to us; he sets himself against our doings… merely to see him is a hardship for us,
When everyone abandons Jesus—Jesus turns to His Apostles and asks, will you leave me too? They would not; Lord to whom would we go, you have the words of eternal life. Peter confesses not understanding, but faith in Jesus, faith in the truth of His words and more importantly faith in His person. It is this faith, combined with the witness of the resurrection, that prompts the first Christians to continue preaching Jesus’ message. The result is the same: at that time there was a great persecution against the church which was at Jerusalem. Time and time again Jesus will be persecuted for offering people their heart’s desire, and we too, the body of Christ, will be persecuted with him. As Jesus says: the servant is not greater than his master. If they have persecuted me, they will also persecute you
In spite of this persecution, in fact by means of it, we must continue to preach Christ, and Christ Crucified. We must preach the message of absolute love, we who have received everything from God, must now give everything, AND expect some people to reject us for it. We can do this because of our Hope: I am the bread of Life Whosoever eats my flesh, and drinks my blood, will have eternal life; and I will raise him up at the last day. This is the faith, the Gospel, that we preach, and the faith by which we preach it.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)