Tuesday, February 21, 2023

Whether Paul or Apollos, or Charismatic or Latin

In 1991, when I first responded to the Lord's call to enter the Catholic Church, I belonged to an interdenominational charismatic fellowship. My first bridge into Catholic life was through a charismatic prayer group which was led by the parents of the worship leader at my fellowship (who was an ex-Catholic). The members of that prayer group befriended me and walked with me through my 18 month journey into the Church, and celebrated my Confirmation with me. 

But what formed me the most deeply during that time was my attendance at daily Mass. Going to daily Mass was something the Lord impressed on me within days of my saying yes to Him. As I recall, though, it took me the better part of a year to be obedient on that point. I finally began when I realized I could go to Mass after work. Most of the time I went to Gesu parish on the Marquette University campus, but sometimes, when I got off work early, I went to St. Bernard's in Wauwatosa. From the time I began this practice until I moved to Japan in September of 1994 I was stunned over and over again by how much grace the Lord could pour forth in a 25-30 minute Mass with no music, no fanfare, no lector, especially in the very plain basement church at Gesu. Time and time again, the Lord met me powerfully from the moment I entered the door. He met my miserable heart and began a radical transformation of my soul and mind. 

When I planned to leave Japan and had no idea of what to do next, I came to Steubenville in part because of its reputation as a focal point of Catholic charismatic renewal (and in part because I didn't know of any options for graduate school.) And while I mentally associated the charismatic renewal as something that led me to the Catholic Church, I knew full well that the destination of my soul was... the Catholic Church, or rather the kingdom of God through her. I did not like to label myself as a charismatic Catholic because this is redundant. Being Catholic is the fullness. As John Michael Talbot says, to be Catholic is to be "full gospel."

These days I see a trend that reminds me a lot of the charistmatic renewal in both its good and bad aspects, and that is the Latin liturgical movement. I believe that it is an authentic prompting of the Holy Spirit to draw Christians closer into conformity with Jesus Christ, to purify them for belonging to each other in the Church and bringing the lost to salvation. 

But I hope that these won't become "Latin Mass advocates." I hope that they will become disciples and apostles of the Lord Jesus Christ and of his gospel. I have always cringed hard when I hear people equate the charismatic renewal with a certain style of music, of worship, of prayer, or of anything external. It is about the person of the Holy Spirit, the one who overshadowed the Virign Mary, the one who guides us into all truth, the one sent by the Father and who establishes our identity in His Son. We can and do have our aesthetic tastes, and we do have documents from the Church guiding us in valid celebration of the liturgy. But earthly spiritual attachments form us in beginning stages of growth. St. John of the Cross teaches us that even these need to be surrendered. We long for our senses to be richly engaged in worship, and that is right and good, but we also must eventually leave the world of the senses and die to this to rise to deeper delights directly from God. 

I loved, and was deeply attached to, the powerful way we worshipped in my charismatic fellowship. But God called me to surrender that and to trust He could meet me in liturgy. I grew up with Lutheran liturgy and thought I was entering greener pastures when I left it -- and in some ways I was. All I knew of it was lifelessness. One form of worship or another is not, ultimately, where we find life. Liturgical or free, Extraordinary or Novus Ordo -- it isn't about that. It is about following Jesus Christ in obedience.  

Let us all, together, enter into life.

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