Is Charismatic Renewal for Real? part 17

Letter to Kerry Zmatick, (Must he drone on and on and on?)

Glossolalia as I said in my last thrilling installment, is verbal non-mental prayer. In this it has some commonality with the Rosary. As St. Paul says in his letter to the Romans,  “We do not know what we ought to pray for, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us through unexpressible groans.”  Sometimes you just don’t know how to pray,  or even what to pray for.  That’s the primary practical use of glossolalia. 

Glossolalia is a spontaneous, though not uncontrolled, experience. I first spoke in tongues after hanging up a phone. I was so filled with joy after the conversation in which I learned about this whole business that when I ran out of hymns to sing I started praying in tongues. It seemed like the most natural thing in the world. An old college roommate was very unsettled one morning. He looked at me and said “Not only do you pray in strange sounding languages when you are awake, but now you are singing in them in your sleep!!!” 

I noticed the other day when I dropped by a church to go to confession that the Blessed Sacrament was on the altar. (For non-Catholics, The Blessed Sacrament is another way to say the consecrated communion wafer that we believe is the body, blood, soul and divinity of the whole Christ. Sometime we bring the Sacrament out of the tabernacle, a little box where it/He is kept, and we spend time in His company. You should try it even if you’re not Catholic. It is very sweet to spend a quiet hour in prayer with Jesus present physically as well as spiritually. It is like a taste of heaven.) Where was I? Oh yes I noticed that the blessed Sacrament was on the altar and I knelt to pray, and after a few minutes I noticed my lips were moving and I was quietly praying in tongues. No shouting. No rolling on the floor. No waving my hands around. Just a simple quiet mumbling that couldn’t be heard by anyone except for Him. My spirit was praying before I knew I was praying. The Holy Spirit was helping me in my weakness.

Long before I was a priest I was keeping company with a young woman. (On the up and up. We were both good Catholics at the time). She had been a non-believer when I met her, but had come with me to some prayer meetings and had encountered the Lord. Being a doctrinaire Pentecostal with a capital P at the time, I nagged her about “when are you gonna get ‘baptized” in the Holy Spirit. She would glare at me and say, “When and if God wants to!” Well she “got baptized in the Holy Spirit” but did not speak in tongues. I nagged her again. “When are you gonna get the gift of tongues? Again she glared and said, “when God wants to give me the gift of tongues!!!” A while later as she was riding the subway, she noticed that she was quietly praying in tongues. All my nagging had nothing to do with it. Wisely, we drifted apart. I would have made her crazy in the long run.

There is nothing contrived or forced about glossolalia if it’s the real thing. There is a lot out there that seems to me anything but the real thing. Remember a month or two or three ago when I explained that the crazy politics of the American colonies insisted that in order to be a citizen of a religious colony one had to give proof of “election” that is of being among the chosen? Since then, certain sects have become obsessed with the “evidence of salvation”. 

I know someone who was raised in a very Pentecostal sect that believes in order to be counted among the elect, that is to be able to say I am saved, it is necessary to speak in tongues at least once in your life. It’s perfectly logical. In order to be saved you must be able to say that Jesus is Lord. The Bible says that no one can say Jesus is Lord except by the Holy Spirit, and if you don’t speak in tongues you must not have the Holy Spirit and therefore  cannot possibly be saved. Eazy peazy! A=B=C=CRAZY.  When people tell me they “have the Holy Spirit", I tell them I am much more interested in whether or not the Holy Spirit has them. 

That’s the real meaning of glossolalia. It’s not evidence that one has the Holy Spirit. It is a way, among many, to let the Holy Spirit have you. This is true of all the manifestations of the Holy Spirit. They exist not for evidence, nor for individual advantage, but for the common good. By the way, the above mentioned friend is now a devout Catholic and a professor and I do not believe he has ever spoken in tongues. I do suspect that he is still heaven bound. He and his wife are a lot holier than I am.

Some of God’s special friends think speaking in tongues is an absolute requirement. If you don’t “have” the gift of tongues, you don’t “have the Holy Spirit, and you are not a member of the club. These people will back you into a corner until they are convinced you have spoken in tongues. I remember a preacher whose specialty was helping people to “release the gifts of the Holy Spirit.” He would have people repeat — and mind you I am not making a word of this up --- He would have people repeat the phrase “come and take a ride in my Honda.” Soon they would be babbling away and, hallelujah! they had received the gift of tongues. 

Give me a break. I don’t think the Lord works this way. Perhaps I am wrong, but I suspect that if you force something it is certainly not a gift, and probably not a manifestation of anything, except perhaps a need for an increase in one’s medication. I remember the story of a Presbyterian minister who went into a Pentecostal church to see what all the hubbub was about and before the night was over the congregation had pounced on him with the laying on of hands to get an actual Presbyterian baptized in the Holy Spirit. They weren’t going to let him go until he had been baptized in the Holy Ghost, and that wasn’t going to happen until he spoke in tongues. After a half an hour or so he decided to end the nonsense by praying the Our Father in Greek, having studied Classical Greek in divinity school. There were shouts of acclamation and they let him leave. Later that night, in the privacy of his own home, the Lord filled him with His Presence and the fellow quietly and peacefully began to pray in tongues as the Holy Spirit prompted him. 

Speaking in tongues has a certain sign value, but its greater value is a quiet means of speaking from the heart. Its primary use is for intercessory prayer, as it often is with the Rosary. St. Paul make this clear in his First Letter to the Corinthians (14:2 and following)

"Anyone who speaks in a tongue does not speak to people but to God. Indeed, no one understands them they utter mysteries by the Spirit. ...I would like every one of you to speak in tongues, but I would rather have you prophesy....Since you are eager for gifts of the Spirit, try to excel in those that build up the church....If I pray in a tongue, my spirit prays, but my mind is unfruitful.  So what shall I do? I will pray with my spirit, but I will also pray with my understanding...When you are praising God in the Spirit, how can someone else say ‘Amen’ to your thanksgiving, since they do not know what you are saying? You are giving thanks well enough, but no one else is edified....I thank God that I speak in tongues more than all of you. But in the church I would rather speak five intelligible words to instruct others than ten thousand words in a tongue.”

St. Paul makes it clear that, while he considers this a useful gift, it is not the most important thing. The belief that it is in any way necessary for salvation or even for a full spiritual life is exactly opposite to the sense of Scripture. Above all, St. Paul does not consider this a liturgical gift. It seems in the early Church there were instances of enthusiastic praying in the Spirit such as Pentecost or the house of Cornelius the Centurion and a few other instances, but the idea that glossolalia was used liturgically is unfounded. It is a remarkably quiet gift which can also be used communally in a kind of prophetic worship.

I am often asked is glossolalia a real language? I have no idea. Once many years ago, before I had studied Polish, I was at a prayer meeting, a real barn burner of a meeting. A little old nun cam up to me and asked me if I spoke Polish. I said no, and she said “You’ve been praying in Polish for the last half hour!” 

I remember the testimony of an Irish priest who had spent years with an obscure ethnic group in Africa. He was one of the few outsiders who could speak their language. His assignment was over. He had been reassigned to Boston and was feeling very much alone. He was out walking one evening, and from over a garden wall, he heard that language that he had spoken for so many years and now longed to hear once again. He rushed to the garden gate and the under a tree he found a man, obviously not African, who knelt with eyes closed, pouring his heart out to the Lord. The fellow it turns out had just been prayed over and had receive the manifestation of glossolalia. 

I could go on and on with stories, as you well know, but suffice it to say there is something real and precious about glossolalia. There is also something that is borderline wacko about a fixation with it. I have no idea if glossolalia is a real language, my suspicion is that it is as much a gift of ears as of tongues. On Pentecost the hearers didn’t say, “These men are speaking our languages.” They said, “We can HEAR them in our own languages.”   

I know of no instance of someone recording glossolalia and  identifying a known language. I have heard linguists who study the phenomenon say it certainly has the cadence and feel of a language, if it is a genuine experience, and not just “wanting to ride in a Honda.” Glossolalia is not necessarily a supernatural ability to speak a foreign language, though this has been recorded in the history of the faith. It is a language of the soul that cries out to God. If you want to know more about the whole business, read John Sherrill’s book “They Speak with Other Tongues.”  It’s a classic, not the best theology, but a classic nonetheless. Better still, if you want to know more, ask the Holy Spirit. 

Just don’t let anyone take you for a ride in their Honda.

(I sincerely apologize. I am not done. More next week)

Is Charismatic Renewal for real? part 5

(Letter to Kerry Zmatick continued)

At this point people who have no interest in Charismatic Renewal or other strange religious phenomena will probably have lost all interest in these articles, but I still need to get it out of my system.

So what happened? How was this Charismatic Renewal in the Catholic Church derailed?  First of all, it has not been totally derailed. The vitality of the Church in many parts of the world is the direct result of the rediscovery of Pentecost that was one of the more helpful aspects of the Pentecostal/Charismatic Renewal. 

I am told that in France there is a certain blending of Traditional Catholicism and Charismatic Renewal. Though committed Catholics are fewer in France than in times past, they are dynamic and convinced.  The evidence is admittedly anecdotal, but still there is reason to believe that faith is on the rise in France. Even in the United States, the  odd marriage of traditional and Charismatic Renewal has been one  of the influences in the resurgence of a more traditional Catholicism, especially among young people. 

The resurgence, however, has been among those who don’t necessarily consider themselves part of a movement, or who may even have formally left the movement. Mother Angelica is perhaps foremost among these. She got her start in show business through the Charismatic Renewal. I know this to be true. I was there. I was on a stage with her at a Charismatic conference in Albuquerque. She was thoroughly charismatic and her humor had us rolling in the aisles. When she established the  Eternal Word Television Network (EWTN), she changed the face of Catholicism in this country. I have heard the vocations coming into the church these days called Mother Angelica vocations or JP2 (John Paul the Second) vocations. The World Youth Days, the Rallies and Conferences that are currently popular were first pioneered by Charismatic Renewal, as was the renewed interest in Bible study for non-scholars, like myself.

Among priests being ordained these days it is estimated that 44 percent have attended prayer meetings or Bible studies. A period spent in the Charismatic Renewal is not uncommon for those entering the priesthood and religious life. Again, this is anecdotal, but it seems that the thought of a calling to the Catholic priesthood or sisterhood is not at all dead, and the case can be made that Charismatic prayer groups have helped create a climate in which a religious vocation is valued, because of the belief that we live in a supernatural world. Catholicism is once again an evangelistic religion, aiming at winning converts. The post Vatican II clergy were of the opinion that it was all good -- Hindu, Muslim, Buddhist, Christian, it’s all good. The post-Mother Angelica crowd really seems to think there are good reasons to be Catholic Christians and these all have to do with Christ.

The movement itself, however  seems in large measure to be stuck in the 1960's among its English speaking members, and to continues to develop as a parallel Church that seems more Protestant than Catholic among its Spanish-speaking members. It seems that only in Africa is Charismatic life integrated into the wider church so much so as to be unremarkable. The amazing growth of the Church in Africa seems to take evangelism and charismatic spirituality for granted.   

Again, take all this with more than just a grain of salt, because I am, speaking from my own experience, and can’t back these statements up with hard facts. Still, the English prayer groups I know tend to be populated by older people who reminisce about what things used to be like back when the Renewal began. It seams to me that the intensity of the early Charismatic Renewal has been transferred to another amazing phenomenon that I can’t pontificate on nearly as well: Eucharistic Adoration. I theorize that the growth of Eucharistic Adoration is also a result of Charismatic Renewal, at least in part. 

The traditional belief in the Real Presence of Christ in the Holy Eucharist was certainly bolstered by Charismatic Renewal. Charismatics believe in miracles and nothing could be more miraculous that the transformation of bread and wine into flesh and blood. My progressive seminary training was full of attempts to  de-mythologize and explain Transubstantiation in terms acceptable to enlightened moderns, (Transubstantiation is the belief that one substance can change into another, e.g. bread and wine can become flesh and blood. Only Traditional Christians and some physicists believe this.) 

In the seminary graduate school, we had endless discussions of trans-signification, con- substantiation. A real popular one was called trans-symbolization, the idea that when Mass was over the Eucharistic species reverted to being merely bread and wine. They had only symbolized the Body and Blood of the Lord. This was not new. Before the Vatican Council, the idea of trans- symbolization was called Protestantism, however trans-symbolization looked more Catholic. It allowed for kneeling and bowing and incense and worship, if one insisted on that sort of medieval nonsense, but that sort of thing was only allowed in the context of Mass.  Those who practiced Eucharistic Adoration outside of Mass were derided as “cookie-worshipers.” There was much laughter about the so-called “sacred crumb theory.” How small would a crumb have to be before it ceased to be divine? 

I remember the story of a faculty argument among the progressives and the more traditional faculty members about the whole matter, until one of the priest faculty took a bread basket, place his hands over it and said “This is my Body!” and handed it to one of the more traditional priests. The more traditional priest sat there and ate that whole basket of bread and every crumb he could detect. Tabernacles were moved to this side, that side. Broom closets were cleared out and called Sacrament chapels. I remember going into the seminary chapel and being unable to find the tabernacle. Over in the corner stood an arrangement of potted palms and other foliage. Behind the clump of greenery, you guessed it, I found the tabernacle. The Bible verse comes to mind “They asked (Mary Magdalene), ‘Woman, why are you crying?’ ‘They have taken my Lord away,’ she said, ‘and I don't know where they have put him.’ ” (John 20:13)

No matter what pious nonsense priests and liturgists mouthed such as “One shouldn’t have two focuses for the Eucharist". Or, "I don’t want to say Mass with my back to the tabernacle,” the real reason was a de-emphasis of the belief that the Lord was truly present in the form of bread and wine.

Meanwhile Charismatics were ignoring the clergy and sneaking off to convents where the Blessed Sacrament was worshiped. We would sneak out of the seminary through the woods to the Benedictine convent next door where they had Perpetual Adoration  and we would sneak across the street to a prayer meeting in the Carmelite monastery. The Charismatic Renewal flourished without benefit of clergy, at least ordained Catholic clergy.

Shortly after I was ordained,  no longer a student, but a member of the club, I was invited into the faculty room for a drink with a few faculty members. The conversation turned to things Charismatic, and whether or not I still participated in the prayer groups, to which the answer was and now would still be, “Of course!”   

The discussion was very heady, but one of the more progressive of the group looked squarely at me and asked “Do you pray in tongues?" 

I said “Yes, I do.” 

The conversation had ceased to be theological. It had gotten personal and one by one, the professors left the room. I don’t think they were angry or even dismissive. I suspect that they simply could not fathom that someone who seemed reasonable could be involved in something so unreasonable. They were, I think, embarrassed by me and for me and did not know where to take the conversation. I was left alone, and was quite alone in my involvement for years. 

In the seventies and early eighties, there were only five or ten priests who could be called Charismatic. In the Spanish-, I mean Icelandic-, speaking community there exactly three, two of whom had nervous breakdowns, leaving just me who, being out of my mind already, had no need of a breakdown. 

You may think that the refusal of the Catholic Presbyterate to shepherd the movement meant that the movement was out of control. Quite the opposite. There were all sorts of people who wanted to control the Charismatic Renewal and the leadership vacuum created by neglect became and opportunity for some very dangerous people. The best definition of a prayer meeting I have ever heard is this: “A prayer meeting is a gathering of the people of God for the free exercise of the gifts of God.”   

Charismatic groups as often as not were anything but free.

Next week; the Crazed leading the Blind