While preparing for Strong and Faithful Talk No. 5-Exuberant Love (for CFC MM West C on March 26,2017), I came across this lecture by Fr. Ranerio Cantalamessa, OFM Cap entitled: "THE SOBER INTOXICATION OF THE SPIRIT." It is actually his Third Sermon for Advent 2016, given to the papal household (yes, with no less than Pope Francis in attendance)
Four (4) things caught my attention. I summarize them here sequenced according to the level of exuberance I have experienced while reading the lecture.
First. Fr. Cantalamessa explains that there are two (2) kinds of intoxication: the physical and the spiritual.
"The likeness lies in the fact that both types of intoxication infuse
joy; they make us forget
our troubles and make us escape ourselves.
The contrast lies in the fact that
while physical intoxication (from alcohol, drugs, sex, success) makes people
shaky and unsteady, spiritual intoxication makes people steady at doing good.
The first intoxication makes people come out of themselves to live below the
level of reason; the second makes people come out of themselves to live above
the level of their reason.
Both use the word “ecstasy” (the name recently given
to a deadly drug!), but one is an ecstasy downward and the other is an ecstasy
upward."
(With these insights, I whispered my first expression of exuberance: "Wow!")
Second. He then speaks of two (2) paths to spiritual intoxication.
The first path which he refers to as "the old path" is from sobriety to intoxication.
This means that "the way to attain
spiritual intoxication, or fervor, was sobriety, that is, abstinence from
things of the flesh, fasting from the world and from one’s desires—in a word, mortification.... Spiritual intoxication, with all that it signifies, thus comes at the end and
is reserved for the 'perfect."
Fr. Cantalamessa clarifies that "There is great wisdom and experience underlying all this, and it
would be wrong to consider these things outdated," but he ventures to saying: "It must be said, however, that such a rigid plan also marks a slow,
gradual shift from a focus on grace to a focus on human effort,..."
He thus asserts: "The Holy Spirit is given to us
so that we are able to mortify ourselves rather than being given as a reward
for having mortified ourselves."
And so, "One must look on the life of
the Christian in a similar way. He may have fasted, kept vigils, chanted the
psalms, carried out every ascetic practice and acquired every virtue; but if
the mystic working of the Spirit has not been consummated by grace with full
consciousness and spiritual peace on the altar of his heart, all his ascetic
practice is ineffectual and virtually
fruitless, for the joy of the Spirit is not mystically active in his heart.[9]"
The second path is "from intoxication to sobriety".
And this path "was the path that Jesus led his
apostles to follow. Even though they had Jesus as their teacher and spiritual
master, they were not in a position before Pentecost to put into practice
hardly any of the gospel precepts. But
when they were baptized with the Holy Spirit at Pentecost, then we see them
transformed and capable of enduring all kinds of hardships for Christ, even
martyrdom. The Holy Spirit was the cause of their fervor rather than its
effect."
(With these I uttered my second "Wow!" This is awesome!)
Third. After explaining that our journey is from intoxication to sobriety, Fr, Cantalemessa makes this bold challenge:
"We need the sober intoxication
of the Spirit even more than the Fathers did. The world has become so averse to the gospel, so sure of itself, that
only the “strong wine” of the Spirit can overcome its unbelief and draw it out
of its entirely human and rationalistic sobriety, which passes itself off as
“scientific objectivity.” Only spiritual weapons, says the Apostle, “have
divine power to destroy strongholds. We destroy arguments and every proud
obstacle to the knowledge of God, and take every thought captive to obey
Christ” (2 Cor 10:4-5).
Finding these statements very relevant to the CFC theme "Stand Firm in the Faith," I re-read those words, tried to memorize them, after expressing my exuberance:"Wow! This is wonderful!"
Fourth. Then came the fourth point that led me exultant, with my heart jumping with joy.
Fr. Cantalamessa speaks of the places where to receive and experience this spiritual intoxication, i.e. the "Penetrating Rain of the Spirit".
Citing St. Ambrose, these places are the two classic “places” —the Eucharist and Scripture. But St Ambrose also hints at a third possibility,... an “extraordinary” way (extraordinary in the sense that it is not predetermined or instituted), that consists in re-living the experience the apostles had on the Day of Pentecost. "He intended to inspire the faithful to desire the experience of this “penetrating rain of the Spirit” that occurred at Pentecost because "also for St. Ambrose Pentecost was not a close event, but a possibility always open in the Church."
And what is that "third possibility"?
Here.
Fr. Cantalamessa says:
One of the ways in which the Holy Spirit is acting today, outside the institutional channels of grace, is the Charismatic Renewal.To buttress this assertion, he quoted the theologian Yves Congar, who in his address to the International Congress of Pneumatology at the Vatican in 1981 on the sixteenth centenary of the Ecumenical Council of Constantinople, said,
How can we avoid situating the so-called charismatic stream, better known as the Renewal in the Spirit, here with us? It has spread like a brushfire. It is far more than a fad. . . . In one primary aspect, it resembles revival movements from the past: the public and verifiable character of spiritual action which changes people’s lives. . . . It brings youth, a freshness and new possibilities into the bosom of the old Church, our mother. In fact, except for very rare occasions, the Renewal has remained within the Church and, far from challenging long-standing institutions, it reanimates them.
And what is in Charismatic Renewal that makes it a place to receive the penetrating rain of the spirit?
Fr. Cantalamessa points to what he refers to as the BAPTISM IN THE SPIRIT.
"The principal instrument by which the Renewal in the Spirit 'changes people’s lives' is the baptism in the Spirit. I mention it in this place without of course any intention of proselytism, but because I think it is important that a reality which touches millions of catholics around the world be known at the center of the Church.
The expression itself comes directly from Jesus who before ascending into heaven, referring to the future Pentecost, said to his apostles: “John baptized with water but you, not many days from now, will be baptized in the Holy Spirit” (Ac 1:5). This is a rite that has nothing esoteric about it but rather occurs with gestures of great simplicity, peace, and joy and is accompanied by attitudes of humility, repentance, and willingness to become like children so as to enter the kingdom.What calls to mind while reading these is CLP Talk No. 9 - Receiving the Power of the Holy Spirit, the main activity in which is what we used to call as "baptism in the Spirit", now more conservatively termed as "pray over." Especially when one continues with Fr. Cantalamessa's exposition in these words:
It is a renewal and an actualization not only of baptism and confirmation, but also of the whole of Christian life: for spouses, a renewal of the sacrament of marriage; for priests, a renewal of their ordination; for consecrated people, a renewal of their religious profession. People prepare themselves for this, in addition to making a good confession, by participating in catechesis meetings by which they are put in vital and joyful contact with the principal truths and realities of the faith: love of God, sin, salvation, new life, transformation in Christ, the charisms, and the fruits of the Spirit. The most common and beautiful fruit is the discovery of what it really means to have a “personal relationship” with Jesus. In the catholic understanding Baptism in the Spirit is not an arrival point, but a starting point toward Christian maturity and service to the Church.
The exuberance thus becomes more pronounced, with these series of affirmations and citations on the charismatic movement and baptism in the Spirit.
A decade after the charismatic renewal appeared in the Catholic Church, Karl Rahner wrote,
Even an objective and rational theology does not have to reject all these enthusiastic experiences [of grace] out of hand. . . . . Here we are certainly confronted with especially impressive, humanly affective, liberating experiences of grace which offer wholly novel existential horizons. These mold the innermost attitude of a Christian for a long time and are quite fit . . . to be called “baptism in the Spirit.”[12]
Of course this in not the only extraordinary way to experience the outpouring of the Holy Spirit. " There have been and are countless Christians who have had a similar experience without knowing anything about the baptism in the Spirit, receiving a spontaneous outpouring of the Spirit at the occasion of a retreat, a meeting, a reading, or, according to Saint Thomas Aquinas, when someone is called to a new and more demanding office in the Church."
However, Fr. Cantalamessa continues: "what is commonly called the “baptism in the Holy Spirit” or the “outpouring of the Spirit” has shown itself to be a simple and powerful way to renew the lives of millions of believers in almost all of the Christian churches." He even testified having gone through the same experience together with other priests is a charismatic retreat.
Fr, Cantalamessa then concludes:
This is not a question of adhering to one movement rather than to other movements in the Church. Nor is it even a question, properly speaking, of a “movement” but of a “current of grace” that is open to all and is destined to lose itself in the Church like an electric discharge that is dispersed within a mass and then disappears once it has accomplished its task.
Saint John XXIII spoke of “a new Pentecost”; the Blessed Paul VI went further, speaking of a “perennial Pentecost”. This is what he said during a general audience in 1972:
The Church needs her perennial Pentecost; she needs fire in her heart, words on her lips, prophecy in her outlook. […] The Church needs to rediscover the eagerness, the taste and the certainty of the truth that is hers […] And then the Church needs to feel flowing through all her human faculties a wave of love, of that love which is called forth and poured into our hearts ‘by the Holy Spirit who has been given to us’ (Romans 5.5)”[14].
Let us conclude therefore with the words of the liturgical hymn recalled at the beginning:
May Christ be food to us,
and faith be our drink,
and let us joyfully taste
the sober intoxication of the Spirit.
Exuberant after reading (and re-reading) the full text which may be found in https://zenit.org/articles/special-3rd-advent-sermon-from-fr-cantalamessa/ , I simply said to myself -- the brethren's attention should be called to this. They also can relate to this. For indeed, as we all have experienced,
....the CLP is a gift. It dispenses that "current of grace". Sinners we all are, yes, but we may, by grace, really start off our journey with the Lord, with "spiritual intoxication"! The claims in CLP Talk 9 are real. The empowerment is real. The gifts are real.
And so, with my very limited understanding of all these things, I still dared write all these down to share.
(Fr. Cantalamessa's two books on this topic are on the way from the US to my hands :-).
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