The Birth of CHARIS and its
Importance for Catholic Charismatic Renewal
Rome, June 6th 2019
Cardinal Kevin
Farrell
Prefect
Dicastery for
Laity, Family and Life
Vatican City
I am grateful for this
opportunity to come and speak in front of so many leaders in Catholic
Charismatic Renewal about the vision, which has brought CHARIS into being, and
about why CHARIS is important for the future of Charismatic Renewal and for the
Church. In particular, I would like to thank Jean-Luc
Moens the Moderator of CHARIS and Fr. Raniero Cantalamessa O.F.M., the
Ecclesiastical Assistant, and greet the members of the International Service of
Communion.
When speaking of the
beginnings of CHARIS, the first thing to point out is that the idea comes
directly from Pope Francis himself. I think he surprised almost everyone when
he wrote to the Presidents of ICCRS and of the Catholic Fraternity in 2015
asking them, initially, to reflect on the advantages of forming one single
service for Catholic Charismatic Renewal worldwide, and then, in a second
letter, asking them to enter actively into the process which led to the
creation of CHARIS.
I think it is clear to all of
us that the Holy Father’s principal objective was not organizational, but pastoral.
It is as a good shepherd that he has accompanied the process from day one. I
can tell you that during the three-year period leading up to the establishment
of CHARIS, the Holy Father frequently asked me for news on how the project was
progressing.
Pope Francis’ letters
concerning CHARIS say clearly that the testimony that Charismatic Renewal gives
to the Church is more effective when it is a testimony of unity and of service,
that those who lead must strive for this, and that it is absolutely necessary to
strengthen unity in International Charismatic Renewal. He also underlines that
we are currently in a special time in the history of Catholic Charismatic
Renewal, after fifty years, it is a good time to take stock of things, and think honestly about how best to serve the Lord
and his Church.
We should not be surprised
that the Holy Father has very specific ideas about the role of Catholic
Charismatic Renewal, because he has himself explained that, as a Bishop, he
slowly came to appreciate the growth in an authentic Christian life that
Baptism in the Holy Spirit brings; and at the end of his time as Archbishop of
Buenos Aires he was also the Argentinian Bishops’ Conference delegate for
Catholic Charismatic Renewal[1]
. The vision that Pope Francis sets out for Catholic Charismatic Renewal, and
the tasks that he has set for its leaders and for its members, form part of how
Pope Francis exercises the charism of Peter, and of how he seeks to fulfil his
mission as Pastor for the Universal Church.
What the Pope asks of
Catholic Charismatic Renewal today and for the future requires that it
understand itself as a pastoral instrument in the service of the Successor of
Peter. This means that we must enter with profound docility into an
understanding that Catholic Charismatic Renewal does not belong to its members,
but, rather, to the Church. This might surprise us: after all, the Renewal was
not an episcopal or a pontifical initiative. Charismatic Renewal really has grown
from the bottom up, from person to person, through a series of private
initiatives, powered by the Spirit, like a forest fire pushed by a powerful
wind.
It is a fulfilment of Jesus
desire: “I have come to set fire to the earth, and
would that it were already kindled” (Lk. 12: 49). And yet, this is often
how the Spirit moves the Church: changing people’s lives through a personal
encounter with Him, compelling Pastors to take notice - to discern and then to
confirm the presence of the Spirit and encourage His divine work. There are
examples of this throughout the history of the Church. It is enough to consider
the life of Francis of Assisi, a layman who allowed God to shape his life and
in doing so set the spark for a profound renewal of the Church whose fruits are
still visible today. Indeed, when Pope Francis talks of the Catholic
Charismatic Renewal as a “current of grace”[2],
it reminds us of how the then Cardinal Ratzinger talked of the gift that has
been given to the Church through the docility of Francis of Assisi[3].
Yes, there are Franciscan orders and communities, but there is a spiritual
current that envelops them and goes beyond them and which has become the
patrimony of the whole Church. In the same way, Catholic Charismatic Renewal
has given birth to specific communities and institutes, but this current of
grace goes beyond them, and does not belong to any of them.
Pope Francis calls on the
Renewal, therefore, to enter into an ever-deeper ecclesial
maturity concerning its identity and its mission, and CHARIS is the
instrument given in the service of this process of maturity. Catholic
Charismatic Renewal, because of this ecclesial identity, receives the
confirmation of its identity from the Pastors of the Church.
The gradual maturing of
Catholic Charismatic Renewal and its ecclesial identity is something that all
the Roman Pontiffs who have known the Renewal have encouraged and accompanied.
Saint Paul VI, addressing the
International Charismatic Congress in Rome in 1975, posed an authentic
ecclesial discernment when he affirmed Catholic Charismatic Renewal as “a
chance for the Church and for the world” [4], and underlined three principles of
discernment set out by Saint Paul in order to better “test everything and
hold fast to what is good” (I Thess. 5:12). These principles are:
When Saint John Paull II
spoke to the participants of the Fourth International Leaders Conference in
1981, he repeated these principles as being fundamental for those who lead
Catholic Charismatic Renewal, and noted how, since 1975, the leaders of Renewal
had already “developed a broadened ecclesial vision and [...] made efforts to
make this vision increasingly a reality for those who depend on them for guidance”[5].
It was also Saint John Paul
II, during the Great Jubilee of the year 2000, in a message to the World
Meeting of Catholic Charismatic Renewal, who called on Charismatic Renewal -
and the communities within Renewal in particular - to step forward to greater
ecclesial maturity, and tasked the international leadership with helping to
further develop this ecclesial awareness[6].
When Pope Benedict XVI spoke
to a gathering of Catholic Charismatic Renewal on the eve of Pentecost in 2012
he invited them to welcome the power of the Holy Spirit in order to “grow in
trust and in abandonment to his will, in faithfulness to our vocation and in
the commitment to become adults in faith, hope and charity, [...] mature and
responsible, [...] lowly, humble and a servant before God”[7].
For this maturity he underlined the importance of a “humble and disinterested”
exercise of gifts for the common good, building solidly on the rock of the Word
of God (Mt. 7: 24-25), and guided in this by docility to the Magisterium of the
Church[8].
Clearly, this journey of
ecclesial maturity, as affirmed by Pope Francis, is entering a new phase, and
CHARIS is an instrument wanted by the Holy Father in the service of this. At
the evening in Circus Maximus, during the Golden Jubilee in 2017, the Holy
Father invited us all: “I wish you a time of reflection, of remembrance of your
origins; a time to leave behind all things added by the self, and to transform
them into listening and joyful welcome of the action of the Holy Spirit”[9].
Renewal today is a spiritual
force permeating the lives of millions of people though their individual
Baptism and Outpouring of the Holy Spirit. As well as an organized form of
apostolate; it also takes on tasks and missions that go beyond the autonomy
that the faithful have to organize themselves for
evangelizing and for seeking holiness. Catholic Charismatic Renewal, in this
sense, receives its mission from the Church. In a very specific way, it is the
Holy Father Pope Francis who, in our days, has given clear indications of what
this mission is. It is because of the ecclesial mission vested in Catholic
Charismatic Renewal that Pope Francis inspired the creation of CHARIS. Also, it
is because of the public nature of this ecclesial mission that CHARIS has been
doted with public juridical personality.
The
Holy Father has told Catholic Charismatic Renewal that the whole Church needs
its help in order to live the Gospel. When the Holy Father speaks to Catholic
Charismatic Renewal he addresses at the same time each and every person who
shares in this current of grace, and also those who serve in leadership roles,
because all are responsible, each according to his or her own situation and
role, for how the Renewal serves the Church.
CHARIS is intended to be in the
service of all these persons and group, in order to help them answer these
expectations:
For
this personal conversion we should note that it flows from Baptism in the Holy
Spirit and the personal encounter with Christ. We all know that the adhesion to
the Gospel is not first of all a moral effort of
obedience, but rather willingness, time and time again, to choose discipleship.
We
have already noted Pope Benedict’s reminder in 2012 that building our house on
the rock that is the Word of God (Mt. 7: 24-25) requires docility to the
Magisterium of the Church. He takes this further when he says, on the same
occasion: “It is therefore necessary to form consciences in the light of the
Word of God and thus give firmness and true maturity; the Word of God from
which every ecclesial and human project draws meaning and an impetus, also for
building the earthly city (Ps. 127:1). The souls of institutions must be renewed and history must be made fertile with the seeds of
new life”[13].
During the Great Jubilee of
the year 2000, Saint John Paul II exhorted Charismatic Renewal: “Always seek
Christ! Seek him in meditation on the Word of God, seek him in the sacraments,
seek him in prayer, seek him in the witness of your brothers and sisters”[14].
In his invitation to come back to the essential of what Renewal has received,
Pope Francis exhorts us to rediscover the Word of God as our first love. “In
the early days, they used to say that you charismatics
always carried around a Bible, the New Testament [...] Do you still carry one
today? [...] If not, return to this first love”[15].
Pope
Francis exhorts the Renewal to stay close to the poor. He says, “In their flesh
you will touch the wounded flesh of Christ”[18].
Although this insistence surprised some people, it has been ever present in
what the Popes have asked of Catholic Charismatic Renewal. In 1975, Saint Paul
VI said: “There are no limits to the challenge of love: the poor and needy and
afflicted and suffering across the world and near at hand all cry out to you,
as brothers and sisters of Christ, asking for the proof of your love, asking
for the Word of God, asking for bread, asking for life”[19].
Saint John Paul II, in 2000, said “Serve Christ in those close to you, serve
him in the poor, serve him in the needs and necessities of the Church. Let
yourselves be truly guided by the Spirit! Love the Church”[20].
In loving the poor and binding their wounded bodies, we love Christ. Moreover,
if docile to the Holy Spirit, we can decide to give to these concrete gestures
a further meaning as gestures of love for the Church. In the Golden Jubilee
meeting at Circus Maximus, Pope Francis reminded us that the testimony of the
first Christian community in Jerusalem is that “there was not a needy person
among them” (Acts 4:34), and that Baptism in the Spirit, praise and the
service of our brothers and sisters are “indissolubly joined”.
In
Circus Maximus, Pope Francis identified Catholic Charismatic Renewal as an
instrument of choice for the Church’s ecumenical effort. It is a sign of the
providence of God that the same renewing of the Pentecost experience has
emerged in all Churches and Ecclesial Communities. There is therefore a shared
spiritual experience across Charismatic Renewal for Christians of all
denominations. Charismatic Renewal is providentially placed as an experience
that unites Christians: it was born as something ecumenical[22].
In the maturing if it’s ecclesial identity, Catholic Charismatic Renewal is
called by Pope Francis to participate in his
task, as the successor of Peter, of reconciling Christian Churches and
Communities, ‘so that all might be one’. On the same evening, Fr. Cantalamessa
reminded us that this ecumenical path of love could begin at once: each person
can do it now. At the same time, he continued, the shared spiritual experience
of Christians in Charismatic Renewal provides a context in which brothers and
sisters who share the same Spirit can strive to “speak the truth in love” on
the questions that separate us, and in this way strive towards Christian unity.
Clearly, with Pope Francis involving Catholic Charismatic Renewal in this
institutional ecumenical effort, there is an onus on CHARIS to promote, discern
and help shape how the Renewal participates in this. As Saint John Paul II said
already in 1981: “Let us be confident that if we surrender ourselves to the
work of genuine renewal in the Spirit, this same Holy Spirit will bring to
light the strategy for ecumenism which will bring to reality our hope” that all
be truly one in Christ.[23]
CHARIS will accompany the
Renewal as it prays and strives to let the Holy Spirit come down again, as in a
new Pentecost. To paraphrase Pope Francis on Pentecost Sunday 2017: the Spirit resting on each person and then bringing all
together in fellowship, giving new gifts to each person and gathering all into
unity, the same Spirit creating unity and diversity. It is in this logic that
CHARIS will serve Catholic Charismatic Renewal, in the service of all
expressions of Renewal, giving support, providing training and formation,
helping in discernment, encouraging mission, and assisting those who serve at
all levels to avoid the recurrent temptations of seeking diversity without
unity and of seeking unity without diversity.
CHARIS will seek ways to
encourage all people who share in the graces of Baptism in the Holy Spirit to
accept a personal responsibility as men and women of communion, where the
renewed experience of “forgiveness received and forgiveness given” makes hearts
new, and builds us up like new people for the service of the Lord [25].
As Ezekiel prophesied: “I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit in
you; I will remove from you your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh.
And I will put my Spirit in you and move you to follow my decrees and be
careful to keep my laws. [...] You will be my people, and I will be your God”
(Ez. 36: 26-28).
Please allow me to finish
with some considerations specifically for those among you who are leaders in
Catholic Charismatic Renewal. I borrow several points from Saint John Paul II,
speaking to people like you in 1981, for they help us understand how, within
CHARIS, each of us is called to be a servant.
Firstly, “The role of the
leader is, in the first place, to give the example of prayer [...] with
confident hope, with careful solicitude, it falls to the leader to ensure that
the multiform patrimony of the Church’s life of prayer is known and experienced
by those who seek spiritual renewal”.
“Secondly, you must be
concerned to provide solid food for spiritual nourishment through the breaking
of the bread of true doctrine. The love for the revealed word of God, written
under the guidance of the Holy Spirit, is a pledge of your desire to ‘stand
firm in the Gospel’ preached by the Apostles [...] Take care, then, that as
leaders you seek a sound theological formation designed to ensure for you, and
for all who depend upon you for guidance, a mature and complete understanding
of God’s word. ‘Let the word of Christ, rich as it is, dwell in you. In
wisdom made perfect, instruct and admonish one another’ (Col. 3: 16-17)”.
“Thirdly, as leaders in the
Renewal, you must take the initiative in building bonds of trust and
cooperation with the Bishops, who have the pastoral responsibility in God’s
providence for shepherding the entire body of Christ, including Charismatic
Renewal. Even when they do not share with you the forms of prayer which you
have found so enriching, they will take to heart your desire for spiritual
renewal for yourselves and for the Church”.[26]
Please allow me one final
point.
Taking stock of what we have
received and looking to what must be done for the future requires of us that we
plan for a new generation of leaders. One of the functions of good leadership
is the capacity to plan for a time when others must come to the fore and, like
the Precursor John the Baptist; we must diminish and make way (John 3: 30). In
the Church, this is a requirement of good health, and this is
why the Statutes of CHARIS include clear references to the renewal of
our leadership teams[27].
In the Apostolic Exhortation Evangelii Gaudium, Pope Francis refers to various temptations among
those who serve in the Church. Among other points, he talks of the challenge of
providing young people with a sense of belonging in our communities and
structures. He notes that the Holy Spirit “blazes new trails to meet their
expectations and their search for a deep spirituality”[28],
so the challenge for Catholic Charismatic Renewal is that of making our
existing communities places where we allow young people to lead us forward in
holiness and mission.
My reflections today have
made little mention of Mary, but when we talk of life in the Holy Spirit she is
rarely far away. My prayer for all of us is that we might learn from her, this
Pentecost and every Pentecost, how to better receive the Holy Spirit and become
disciples. At the end of the day, this is the reason for CHARIS.
[1] Francis, Address to Participants in the 37th National Convocation of the Renewal in the Holy Spirit, Olympic Stadium, Rome, June 1st 2014 (hereafter, Olympic Stadium).
[2] Francis, Vigil of Pentecost and Ecumenical Prayer on the Occasion of the Golden Jubilee of Catholic Charismatic Renewal, Circus Maximus, Rome, June 3rd 2017 (hereafter Circus Maximus); Francis, Olympic Stadium.
[3] J. Ratzinger, “The Ecclesial Movements: A Theological Reflection on their Place in the Church”, in Pontifical Consilium Pro Laicis, Movements in the Church, Proceedings of the World Congress of the Ecclesial Movements, (Rome, 27-29 May 1998) (Vatican City: Libreria Editrice Vaticana, 1999) 23-51.
[4] Paul VI, Address to Participants in the 3rd International Congress of Catholic Charismatic Renewal, Rome, May 19th 1975.
[5] John Paul II, Address to the Participants in the Fourth International Leaders’ Conference of Catholic Charismatic Renewal, Rome, May 7th 1981 (hereafter, Leaders 1981).
[6] John Paul II, Message to Catholic Charismatic Renewal, April 24th 2000 (hereafter, Message 2000).
[7] Benedict XVI, Address to Participants in the Meeting Sponsored by Renewal in the Spirit, St. Peter’s Square, May 26th 2012 (hereafter, Benedict 2012).
[8] Ibidem.
[9] Francis, Circus Maximus.
[10] FRANCIS, Olympic Stadium.
[11] Francis, Circus Maximus; Francis, Olympic Stadium.
[12] Francis, Olympic Stadium.
[13] Ibidem.
[14] John Paul II, Message 2000.
[15] Francis, Olympic Stadium
[16] Francis, Circus Maximus; Benedict, 2012.
[17] Ibidem.
[18] Ibidem.
[19] Paul VI, 1975; also cited in: John Paul II, Leaders 1981.
[20] John Paul II, Message 2000.
[21] Ibidem.
[22] Francis, Circus Maximus.
[23] John Paul II, Leaders 1981.
[24] Francis, Olympic Stadium; Francis, Circus Maximus.
[25] Francis, Holy Mass for the Solemnity of Pentecost, St Peter’s Square, June 4th 2017.
[26] John Paul II, Leaders 1981.
[27] CHARIS, Statutes, arts. 10 and 14.
[28] Francis, Apostolic Exhortation Evangelii Gaudium, 24th November 2013, no. 105.