The ecumenical dimension of CHARIS is probably one of the 2-3 points of insistence of the Statutes.
These recognize that the CCR is part of a wider current of grace, that started in other Christian denominations: “What we know now as Catholic Charismatic Renewal (CCR) is part of an ecumenical current of grace” (CHARIS Statutes, opening sentence).
For this reason, one of the main purposes of CHARIS is to work for the unity of Christians, the unity of the Body of Christ. It is even the 2nd Purpose exposed by the Statutes, just after presenting the mission to promote the current of grace itself and communion among its members. “Recognizing Catholic Charismatic Renewal as part of an ecumenical current of grace, CHARIS is an instrument to promote and work for unity in the body of Christ, as expressed in the prayer of Jesus” (Jn 17)” (CHARIS Statutes, Purposes, §2).
Let us reflect on why and how.
1. The Charismatic Renewal is born ecumenical and is part of God’s design of unity
It is fundamental to recognize that the CCR is a current of grace that is “born ecumenical”. This is an expression of Pope Francis, who insisted on this point two years ago at Circo Massimo for the 50th anniversary of the CCR: “(We are celebrating) a flood of grace, the flood of grace of the Catholic Charismatic Renewal. A work that was born… Catholic? No. It was born ecumenical! It was born ecumenical because it is the Holy Spirit who creates unity, and the same Spirit who granted the inspiration for this.” Relationship with other Christians and the call to unity of Christians is part of our DNA.
This is a historical fact: we know that the group of Catholics from Duquesne University who received the Baptism in the Holy Spirit in 1967 had been praying and reading the Bible with Protestants during the year the preceded. Indeed, the CCR comes from and was born into a current that started with the Pentecostal communities and spread firstly among Churches and ecclesial communities from the Protestant world. This is a first reason why we are called to put unity of Christians at the heart of the existence and mission of CHARIS. It is a question of gratitude: we have received this gift of God through others. Who takes a present and runs away with it, cutting the bridges with the gift-giver? It is a question of humility. I repeat, we have received this gift from others… Isn’t it irritating when you have an excellent idea that you just air out over a drink with a friend and this “friend” presents it to your boss as his own stroke of genius? In Universities there is a very strict rule and sanctions against plagiarism… In the end, it is a question of politeness/decency (good education).
However, there is a deeper, spiritual reason. God chooses the gifts he will give us, but he also chooses the way he gives them. If he has given us this gift through other Christians, it means something and we need to discern what he is telling us. What is he telling us? It is quite simple: “I give you this gift through others because it is a gift that unifies, it is a gift of unity.” The Holy Spirit, the third person of the Trinity, is the person who sets us in communion with God and with others. He is the Spirit of love, of communion, of unity. God has graced us with a renewed outpouring of the Spirit so as to renew the Church and part of this renewal is the unity of all Christians. The current of grace we are part of spills over the borders and over the walls of divisions of our Churches and communities precisely so as to bring these walls down and to overcome these borders.
Fr Raniero Cantalamessa insisted on this point, also at the Vigil of Pentecost two years ago: “God has poured out his Holy Spirit on millions of believers who belong to almost all the Christian denominations and, lest there be any doubt about his intentions, he has poured out his Spirit with the identical manifestations, including the most unique one of speaking in tongues.” Fr Raniero explains that we are left to draw the same conclusion that Peter did when he was in front of Cornelius and his household who had received the Holy Spirit although they were not Jewish like the Apostles (Acts 11): “If God then has given them the same gift he gave us, who are we to continue to say that other Christian believers do not belong to the body of Christ and are not true disciples of Christ?”
Not only have they received the same gift, in the same way, and shared it with us. Another point in common draws us closer together in these present times. Christians are persecuted throughout the world: it is said that Christianity is the most persecuted religion, in absolute numbers, today. Now these are not only Catholics, or Orthodox, or Protestants. We are already together in what the Popes have called an “ecumenism of the blood”. Let me quote Pope Francis: “Then there is an ecumenism of blood: when they kill Christians, we have so many martyrs…. starting with those in Uganda, canonized 50 years ago: half were Anglican, half Catholic, but the ones [who killed them] didn’t say: ‘You’re Catholic…. you’re Anglican….’ No: ‘You are Christian’, and so their blood mixed. This is the ecumenism of blood” (In-flight press conference of His Holiness Pope Francis from Istanbul to Rome, Sunday, 30 November 2014).
Unity of Christians, carrying the current of grace together, witnessing together, sometimes “to the blood”: this is an incredible responsibility. It is our joy to have here with us brothers and sisters from other Churches and ecclesial communities.
2. A few words about the “ecumenical movement”
More or less at the same time as the Holy Spirit initiated the first manifestations of the current of grace of the Renewal in the Pentecostal communities, at the beginning of the XXth century ago, the Spirit also inspired the different Christian denominations to yearn and strive in a new way for Christian unity. This is what we call the “ecumenical movement”. It too started outside of the Catholic Church but, as with the current of grace of the Renewal, it too was recognized by the Catholic Church as “fostered by the Holy Spirit” (Unitatis redintegratio 1) – this recognition happened during the Second Vatican Council. It is good to learn to recognize the particular “sound” of the wind/breeze of the Spirit, which is the sound of unity.
What is the “ecumenical movement”? The Church has always prayed and labored for her unity: we see this already in Paul’s exhortations in First Letter to the Corinthians and throughout all the history of the Church. But it has taken a special form in the XXth c. In Scotland, in 1910, at a congress of Protestant missionaries, the representatives from the southern countries expressed their gratitude for the Gospel that had been preached to them, but at the same time lamented the divisions that had been exported with the Gospel: “Why have you preached us love and brought us divisions?…” A great desire for unity and a worldwide commitment to do all that was possible to realize it started at the time, and the Catholic Church gave it a major boost when she started being part of it.
What makes this movement of unity special?
1) First, the recognition that our divisions are not exclusively the fault of the “other” who has left us. Objective historical research showed that, as is the case with many divisions and tensions, between individuals, in a family, between nations, the fault of division and rejection is never 100% on one side.
2) Second, the ecumenical movement does not try to attain unity by bringing individuals to change Churches but by bringing Churches and ecclesial communities together. In this way, many Protestant Churches which were divided have officially united; we hope the same will one day be possible with the deeper divisions between Catholics, Orthodox, Protestants. There is a deep conviction that the closer each of our Churches and ecclesial communities grow to Jesus, the closer they grow to each other, until one day they will be one.
3) Third, it does not concern only the pastors and leaders, but as the Council said, “all Catholics are exhorted to take an intelligent and active part” (UR 4). There have been many attempts by Church leadership to rebuild unity during the history of the Church, but the difference now is that it is for all.
4) Of course, we still have differences in our beliefs. Never will unity happen at the cost of truth. However, we also realize all we have in common, which are the central elements of the faith of each Church: the faith in God, Father, Son and Spirit; in Jesus Christ, Lord and Savior; of the Scriptures in which all this is revealed; the shared hope of eternal life; the shared commitment to evangelizing; the love for the Body of Christ, the Church… And we realize, when we do have contacts with other denominations, how putting different perspectives together actually gives us a better understanding of faith. Catholics have been inspired to read and love the Bible in contact with Protestants, and to read the Church fathers through contacts with the orthodox. We can repeat here that we have received the current of grace through contacts with Pentecostals and Evangelical Christians. And others have learned to appreciate the Eucharist and to seek for visible unity in contact with Catholics. What a treasure we would have missed if we had not believed that we should grow closer and that we could learn from each other.
5) An almost final note. It really is a question of love. Fr Raniero says this, for instance at Pentecost 2017: Christ did not command us called to love only those who think the way we do. If we love only those we agree with, what is special about that, since the pagans do the same (cf. Mt 5:46)?… I have seen examples of this love, of deep understanding. On the feast of the Immaculate Conception, a CN member from an evangelical Church was introducing the day. A older Catholic priest, who had been trained in the ‘60s-70s got up an explained that for him the Immaculate Conception was superstition! What did the evangelical do? She explained the deep meaning of the Catholic dogma, in a better way than any Catholic I had hear so far. She told me she did not believe that it was true, but that she tried to understand it as a Catholic should – and she had done an excellent job!
6) A final note: we always need to remember that only God can give unity to the Church. And this is exactly what he is doing through the gift of the Spirit. We, in the CR, are at the center of this work of unity God has been operating and we are called to be aware of this and enter into God’s work.
3. The power of common prayer and common witness
How should we retrieve this heritage, this part of our DNA? And what are the fruits of unity? I will just stress two aspects.
The first step of ecumenism is common prayer. Prayer is powerful! Common prayer is even more powerful. Jesus said that when two or three are gathered in his name, he will be in their midst (see Mt 18:20): “Amen, I tell you. If two of you on earth agree about any matter that you pray for, it will be done for you by my Father in heaven”. This is true of course at an individual level. It is true in a couple: when a couple agrees on something, when a couple agrees to ask God for the same thing, how can he resist?… It is true among generations: when young and old, children and their parents, grandchildren and grandparents pray together, Jesus is happy. When people from different nations pray together, especially nations that have fought or are fighting, how powerful will that be! And when Christians from different Denominations, that have sometimes fought bitterly, pray together, what a source of blessing. Our prayer here in these days pleases God in an extraordinary way and is certainly extremely powerful…
Another dimension of Christian life that is given tremendous power by being united among Christians is witnessing to the Gospel. “If you have love for one another, people will recognize you for his disciples” (Jn 13:35). Our lack of unity is a major obstacle to evangelization. We probably cannot imagine how the world would now be, how many more Christians there would be, how much more love and unity there would be, if we had not been divided for centuries. I remember evangelizing in the streets with a mixed catholic and protestant group. We were giving out flyers for a concert of Christian music, and on the flyer was the sentence: “Together, Catholics and Protestants, we announce Jesus Christ”. People would often refuse even to take the flyers, or change sidewalks when the say us from far enough, but those who did look at the flyer always reacted the same way: “What, Catholics and Protestants together?!” They didn’t react about “announcing Jesus Christ” but about Catholics and Protestants together. And they would ask us how it was possible, why we were doing it. They were intrigued and impressed. There was beautiful fruit…
Of course, one may be afraid of evangelizing with someone from another ecclesial community. What if the people we talk to enter another denomination?! I have had experiences that have obliged me to reflect on this. I was asked to preach on a Sunday in an Anglican Cathedral and the priest, when he introduced me, forgot to say I was a Catholic. At the end of the Eucharist people came to speak to me. There was a young couple who introduced themselves: he was Anglican, she was Catholic. They told me that they went sometimes to the Anglican Cathedral and sometimes to the Catholic one, and that they didn’t know which one to choose. And then they said: “Your sermon was great. It has helped us choose. We will come here…, to the Anglican church!”. Gently I told them that if they were a mixed couple it was probably better if they kept going to both!
However, the Catholic Church does give indications about such questions. The Directory for the Application of Principles and Norms on Ecumenism (1993) insists that “ecumenical cooperation” is a great sign to the world, a sign that faith in Jesus Christ is more important and more powerful than our divisions. And then it adds: “Catholics would want all who are called to Christian faith to join with them in that fullness of communion they believe to exist in the Catholic Church, yet they recognize that in the Providence of God some will live out their Christian lives in Churches and ecclesial Communities that do not provide such full communion.” (PCPUC, Directory…, n° 206)
4. Reconciliation and repentance in the Catholic Church and in the Charismatic Renewal
So far, I have spoken about ecumenism, about the unity of all Christians. However, the call for unity that is addressed to us does not only concern the relations between the Catholic Church and other Christians. It concerns the Catholic Church herself. She too needs communion and peace: between “Charismatics” and “non-Charismatics”, between groups in a parish, between different conceptions of liturgy, between different ideas of what is the center of faith, of what can or should change or not. And there are so many struggles for power, or struggles not to lose power, or not to lose a role. In this situation, how can we be a “sacrament”, a sign and an instrument of God’s unity for the world, as the Church is defined in the Second Vatican Council? How can we be a sign of God’s love?
This unfortunately true inside of the current of grace of the CR. I do not want to be too simplistic but I believe we can say that we started off in the 1970s as a beautiful current with a sense of a common treasure and a common purpose, one big stream or river. But in the 1980s already many divergences and struggles divided us and the river became dozens and hundreds of streams that barely touched each other. Two years ago the CCR celebrated its 50 years, it’s Jubilee. CHARIS is a first fruit of the Jubilee. However, we must remember that in the Jewish tradition a Jubilee is not only a moment of thanksgiving. It is a moment of repentance: we look back and see our sins. We repent and ask those we have wounded for forgiveness and forgive those who have wounded us.
Repentance and forgiveness are central for unity of Christians, unity of the Catholic Church, unity of the current of grace of the Renewal. Repentance and forgiveness are a gift of the Holy Spirit. The Spirit convicts us of our sins, his light shows us both God’s love and our sin. How many of us here have had this experience of “conversion”, of deep regret for our sins that has changed our lives? This is what we are called to live also at an ecclesial level. Repent for the divisions between our Churches and in our Churches. Division is not God’s will; it comes from stiff human necks and sinful hearts.
5. Gratefulness to God for the presence of Messianic Jews
So far, I have only spoken about unity of Christians among classical Christian denominations: Catholics, Orthodox, Protestants, Anglicans, Evangelicals, Pentecostals. However, we are graced with the presence among us of other believers in Jesus. I thank God for allowing us to share this moment with brothers/and sisters/a brother who are/is a Messianic Jews. Messianic Judaism is a current which is historically parallel to the CCR: it also started in the 1960s-1970s and has grown with ups and downs since then. Many Messianic communities are Charismatic, many are devoted to spreading the Gospel and introducing others to a personal and living relationship to God.
Messianic Jews are Jews who receive the conviction that the New Testament is the revealed Word of God and the Jesus – Yeshuah, in Hebrew – is the Messiah, the Son of God. They are Jewish disciples of Yeshuah. They do not enter into a historical Church, often because of it is too difficult and painful for them to be part of an institution that has contributed to their suffering and persecution throughout the ages. They also think that entering a Church will keep them from maintaining a Jewish identity.
They are for us a sign from the first period of the Church: Mary, Peter, the Apostles and all the first Christians were Jews and did not feel they were leaving the Jewish People and its Covenant with the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob when they started to follow Yeshuah the Messiah. They continued to go to the Temple and to the Synagogue, they continued the observances and prayers given by God to the people of Israel. The early Church was composed exclusively of Judeo-Christians and Messianic Jews are a way for the Body of Christ to retrieve its roots. They are a living question to the Church of today: what has become of the “Church of the Circumcision” in our midst? What has become of Jewish believers in Jesus? Have we allowed them to be themselves, to pray and live according to the ways given to them by God as Jews, and play their role?
However, they are not only our past, they are so to speak our future. They are an eschatological sign. In the Letter to the Romans Paul prophesizes the fulness of times, when “all Israel” will be saved (Rm 11:26). That the members of God’s first people discover in their own way the Messiah is a sign that this Messiah is near. The CR has always has had an eschatological dimension: the outpouring of the Holy Spirit is announced in the book of Joel as a sign of the fulness of times, Pentecost is the sign that with Christ the world has entered the “completion of times” (Gal 4:4). Every renewed outpouring of the Spirit is an invitation to remember that this is an integral dimension of our faith. Christians are often concentrated in the past – the story of Israel and of Christ – and the present, the time in which they live. But this is incomplete. Christian faith and salvation itself are missing a central dimension if they are not also focused on the second coming of Christ. God’s promises are that all suffering, injustice, wars and death itself will one day be overcome. And we profess it every Sunday: “I believe that (Jesus) will come again in glory…” This is to become as important in our prayer and thoughts as the past and present of salvation. We thank our Messianic brother/s for being among us a sign of things to come. With him we can pray: “Maranatha, Come Lord Jesus!” (Rev 22:20).
Father Etienne Vetö
International Service of Communion Member
Leaders Conference, 6th June 2019
