Charismatic Renewal – The Challenge

From the beginning of its arrival into the Catholic Church in the 1960’s its leadership have always insisted that Charismatic renewal is not new, indeed it is as old as Christianity itself and can be seen at its inception on the first Pentecost day. Nor can anyone dispute their claims, who has studied early Christianity in general or who, like such a notable scholar as Monsignor Ronald Knox,  has studied in particular Charismatic spirituality in the early Church in his book ‘Enthusiasm’.

 Over the last fifty years, I have watched with great interest but with much sorrow as I have seen how the Charismatic movement has failed to develop as their first counterparts developed in the early Church. That the Holy Spirit called many people through this movement is quite evident to me as it would have been quite evident in the early Church, but unlike its predecessors, it has failed to deliver what was being asked of it.

What Early Christianity Achieved in Fifty Years

After fifty years  the Synoptic Gospels, the acts of the apostles, and the epistles and other works of the apostolic Fathers  had been written. Christianity was now well established and thriving in almost all the major cities in the Roman Empire. St Peter and St Paul with very many thousands of others had been martyred and Pope Linus 1 ruled over a well organised and continually growing Church. If you compare the impact of Charismatic renewal on the modern world in the last fifty years or more to its influence on the ancient pagan world in the same time span it is immediately evident that something is wrong.

In the same period of time since the Charismatic movement swept into the Church in the late 1960’s, I have seen virtually no impact on the wider world outside the Church where its influence has been negligible.  It may well have been a help and inspiration  to individuals for a time, but unless first enthusiasm is properly supported with appropriate theological teaching as it was in the early Church   and directed by a wise and holy leadership it will inevitably flounder. That theological and biblical knowledge was immediately available to the first Charismatics who were predominantly Jews, many of whom knew the Old Testament off by heart. They were  therefore  instantly able to see how all the promises made by God had been fulfilled in their Messiah, who had so recently risen from the dead. God’s plan for humanity, or what St Paul called the Mysterion, was not only clear but so also was their part in helping to bring it about.  But something else was of vital importance that their modern contemporaries too easily forget. I am referring to  the daily time that they gave to personal prayer many times over each day in the synagogue, or in their own homes  that was a well ingrained habit born of the Jewish spirituality that formed them.

It is by their fruits that you will know them

The first apostles led by example. The moment they received the Holy Spirit they did not believe that they were already prepared and equipped to change the world so they retired into a prolonged retreat in Jerusalem as did St Paul elsewhere. The great Catholic historian Monsignor Philip Hughes insisted that St Paul spent ten years ‘as his noviciate’  preparing himself to receive the fruits of the contemplation which he  received from his Risen Lord. (See his History of the Church Vol 1page 56 and see also  see 2 Corinthians 12 :1-7).  Christ said that it will be by their fruits that you will know them and was by the fruits of the contemplation that they shared with Christ that the unprecedented growth and expansion of the early Church took place.

Spiritual blindness

In my experience  large numbers of those who were caught up in Charismatic renew in the late 1960’s had disappeared a decade later. When first fervour had evaporated many drifted away not just from the Charismatic movement but even from their faith or at least they became no more than the nominal Christians that they had been before. The vapours of emotional euphoria  had blinded them to the deep spiritual foundations that were in place in the early Church that guaranteed the growth  of the first Charismatic Christians into the Church that radically change the ancient pagan world into which it was born.

Although the Charismatic movement may like to point out that at the end of each decade or so, their numbers have remained constant or even increased, it is not because the members from the previous decade have all remained and welcomed new members. It is rather that  new members continually come and go without  a constant membership being led on to practise the daily prayer and meditation that leads to mystical contemplation. It was this contemplation in which their heartbeats began to synchronise with those of Christ  that was the spiritual foundation on which early Christianity was built. Many remained even though the spiritual feelings that fired them before had frozen over simply because they have no other home to go to, or because they felt that their leadership was still important.

Sadly this conviction has not been proven by their ability to lead those in need to travel onward through mystical purification to the union for which they yearn. In fact they have encouraged many who were ready for true God-given contemplation to accept its man-made  counterfeit  by generating psychological states of peace and tranquillity by the endless repetition of mantras.

Before giving a talk to a group who were  celebrating forty years of Charismatic renewal, four members prayed over me in tongues. It was evident to me that what had once been natural and spontaneous was now artificial and self-generated.

Spiritual Pride

The immediacy with which spiritual euphoria can envelop newcomers can lead to false conclusions. It can lead them to believe that their first fervour is not so much a means to union with God but an end in itself. This can lead to  new Charismatics believing that they have arrived at the summit of the spiritual life. The same is true for those who, through personal prayer come to the experience of first fervour through meditation. A good and early example of this can be seen in the Exercises of St Ignatius when meditation, or more precisely ‘Acquired Contemplation’ is seen as the high point of the spiritual life because a person is filled with the same sort of spiritual fervour that fires Charismatics. This misconception was exacerbated by calling this meditation contemplation which no other previous spiritual writers have ever done. Once therefore a person experiences first fervour through meditation or what they mistakenly call contemplation, it is believed that contrary to the example of the apostles and the saints who followed them, this is the time to rush out to change the world through what they call contemplation in action. Then they return again and again to be recharged with spiritual enthusiasm, at least until the well runs dry, as it inevitably does.

That is why you find no teaching  at all on the mystical theology that is either ignored as unnecessary or attacked as dangerous in official Jesuit spirituality and for that matter the spirituality of the modern Charismatic movement. But thanks to the consequences of Quietism the same could be said for the other older religious orders who have forgotten their origins, with only a few exceptions from what was the norm in Early Christian Spirituality. Please remember that the essence of mystical theology is to teach the selfless sacrificial loving that can alone open us to the love of God. If this does not follow first fervour then adolescent Christians will never grow up, and we will be condemned to be led, at best, by spiritual striplings and their volatile whims and wishes.

True Wisdom and its Counterfeit

Without receiving the fruits of contemplation that enables them to practise the infused virtues Christians have to act like stoics and try to practise the moral virtues for themselves without the grace given in true mystical contemplation. Failure is only a matter of time, but before this time woe betide those who would oppose them for spiritual pride does not countenance opposition.  Without receiving the Wisdom that is one of the first fruits of contemplation they have to practise  what they call discernment instead.  It is a man-made system of seeking the truth for non-contemplatives that is fraught with danger because it is practised by human beings blissfully unaware that they are  at the mercy of their own unpurified unconscious, or what Freud called the ‘Id’. I have seen this discernment process  devastate both individuals and whole communities in the last fifty years. But sadly practitioners are immune to change. Emotional commitment to those who promote modern Christian humanism is too deeply embedded that it prevents them from  listening to the God-centred Spirituality introduced into early Christianity by Jesus Christ himself.

Charismatic Renewal – The Challenge

If they have the humility to do so it is not too late for the Charismatic movement to do for the modern Church what they did for the early Church. To do this they need proper and ongoing theological and spiritual instruction, they need to realise that they are only at the beginning of the spiritual journey, despite experiencing eye-catching phenomena that can lead them to believe otherwise. Finally they need good spiritual directors who know how to lead them onward into true mystical prayer that was the foundation on which the early Christian Church was founded and the daily commitment to personal prayer that was mandatory in the early Church.

David Torkington’s blogs, books, lectures and podcasts can be found at  https://www.davidtorkington.com/