Catholic Charismatic Office
of Renewal

Director of Renewal
Diocese of Palm Beach
c/o St. Helen Church
Religious Ed. Department
2025 20th Street
Vero Beach, FL 32960
772-562-5954
Fax: 772-562-2209

John Dean
Director, Charismatic Office of Renewal

Spanish, Rev. Mario Castaneda
(561) 398-6807

Miriam Sosa, Coordinator
(561) 795-0837

CCR emphasizes the goodness of God, and the grace freely given to everyone. Jesus Christ fully revealed God, enabling each person to know God as good, as totally giving, and as one who shares fully in the human experience.

The experience of the first followers of Jesus was that they were empowered by God, through the Holy Spirit, to live a new kind of life — life in a fuller dimension whereby God's power worked in them and through them in order to bring God's love and grace to all who would receive it. It is this experience of God that is at the basis of the Catholic faith, and therefore forms the foundation of Catholic Charismatic Renewal.

It is the experience of God working in and through imperfect people, all seeking to know God, that is the experience of the Catholic Church, and CCR lies firmly within this Church.

What is Distinctive about the Spirituality of CCR

CCR originated in 1967 when some Catholics experienced the presence and power of God working in a new and deeper way in their lives. This experience of God, which they described as being "baptized in the Spirit," drew them into a far deeper spiritual life than before. They wanted to give their lives more fully God. They experienced his love more deeply, and appreciated even more deeply the spiritual riches to be found in the Catholic Church.

They discovered, in particular, that God was wanting to be far more active in their lives than they had previously understood. They experienced gifts of the Holy Spirit that enabled them to help and serve others, such as praying for healing, and teaching and preaching in more powerful ways. They found God to be vitally interested and involved in every aspect of their lives, no matter how seemingly minor. God worked in their lives in a powerful way and, through them, healed and transformed others.

Baptism in the Spirit

Although each person's experience of God is unique, the experience within CCR is that there is usually a moment of deeper conversion in each person's life which brings them into this deeper spiritual dimension. This is called "the Baptism in the Spirit," or "a new outpouring of the Holy Spirit" (as the person has usually already received the Spirit in many ways in their life). The word "baptism" is not to be confused with sacramental Baptism, but simply means immersion — immersion into God in a fuller way, and being immersed in the Holy Spirit. It is a grace of God that often brings with it new spiritual gifts, and sometimes a calling and enabling to move into new roles in serving others.

The receiving of this grace is pure gift, and the recipient does nothing to earn it, but must allow God to act, as he always respects our free will. It empowers the individual to serve others, and to move into a deeper spiritual awareness and longing to know God. It empowers the person to using the gifts of the Holy Spirit, which are always for the benefit of others.

People who have experienced this grace speak of a new love of God, a desire to pray and to attend Mass, to join with other Christians in sharing their faith life, to serve others, to read Scripture and other spiritual reading, and to learn more about the ways of God. They have a new desire to praise God, and experience a deep peace and joy as they find a new awareness of he presence of God in their lives.

Typically, those coming into CCR attend a Life in the Spirit Seminar within a prayer group. The seminar lasts a number of weeks, and facilitates a process of openness to new graces that God might give that person. In one of those sessions, there is specific prayer for the Baptism in the Spirit.

Gifts of the Spirit

For the early Christians, the Holy Spirit was experienced as a real power in their lives. The Holy Spirit empowered them to continue the work of Jesus. When a person came to receive the Holy Spirit, they expected it would make a difference in their lives — one that others would notice.

All Christians receive the Holy Spirit through Baptism, and God's Spirit works in many ways in the world, in both Christians and non-Christians. Yet the experience of being 'baptized in the Spirit' is a time of entering a deeper spiritual dimension, as St Teresa of Avila describes for a person entering her 'Fourth Mansion.' As she says, "supernatural experiences begin here" (Interior Castle 4.1.1).

Those who experience this deeper infilling, or new outpouring, of God's Spirit usually begin to discover new spiritual gifts. Some of these are:

• The Gift of Prophecy:
  The ability to sense what God is saying to a group or an individual, and to pass on that message. This usually takes the form of encouragement, comfort, hope or exhortation.

• The Gift of Praying in Tongues:
  This is a way of praying without words - a form of contemplative prayer which is very useful in personal prayer and in prayer ministry. It enables the person praying to focus on God without worrying about finding the right words.

• Gifts of Healing:
  There seem to be a variety of gifts given by the Spirit to enable people to be instruments of God's healing through prayer.

St Paul describes some of the gifts of the Spirit in 1 Corinthians 12, but the Spirit works in many ways. The Spirit also empowers people to move into new roles of service and ministry to others. In all case, the gifts are given to serve others. God works through people, and these gifts help spread his goodness in the world.

Commissioners List

Diocese of Palm Beach
Charismatic Prayer Groups
Liaison Fr. John Gallagher
updated June 2004
(printable version)

1. Is the Charismatic Renewal "Catholic"?

Check what the US Bishop's committee on the Charismatic Renewal has published in the document; Grace For The New Springtime

Some comments from Pope John Paul II

2. When was the Catholic Charismatic Renewal founded?

There is no true, founding date. The movement is credited as having started at the so-called "Duquesne Weekend" in 1967, with a bunch of college students, but in actuality it sprung up all over the world at the same time. We have a local prayer group, meeting in a home, that began in 1964. See:

Link 1

Link2

There have been many pastoral statements by Pope John Paul II and Pope Paul VI spoke to the leaders in the renewal at their gathering in Rome in 1975, but, other than the formation of the International Catholic Charismatic Renewal Services office. See:

ICCRS.html

However, the "International Catholic Fraternity of Charismatic Covenant Communities" were formally established in November of 1990. See:

Smith_002.html

3. Where can I find Catholic Charismatic Fellowship on-line?

Join the Catholic Charismatic E-mail list (cinchar) at:

cinchar.html

Does the Catholic Charismatic have a differnt outlook on Mary the Mother of Jesus than a non-charismatic Roman Catholic?

Short answer: As a group, No.

Long answer: As individuals, many variations. However, the variations are not necessarily because they are Charismatic, but because Catholics in general have many different outlooks on the Marian devotions and practices.

The Catholic Church, is not the monolithic, cut and dried, everyone believes everything equally, organization that those outside the Church seem to think it is. Just as there are many differing opinions on various practices and devotions in your personal church, there are many differing practices and devotions in the Catholic Church.

We are all called differently: Eph. 4:11,12

That said, in the beginning of the Renewal movement, because of their many ties to other, non-Catholic fellowships, many Charismatics questioned or ignored the traditional Marian devotions. This caused many non-charismatics to accuse them of being non-Catholic in their faith and practices.

However, as time passed, many Charismatics have become very Marian in their devotions, developing a clear understanding of Mary's role as an example for us, a deep respect for her role as the Mother of God, and a strong call to accept her position as our spiritual mother. (The underlying concept being that we, as brothers and sisters of our Lord Jesus, in addition to gaining God the Father as our adopted Father, also gain Mary, the Mother of Jesus, as our adopted Mother.)

Of course, this all ties into the fundamental difference between the Catholic and Protestant conceptions of the role of those who have died in the faith. We, as Catholics, believe that they are alive with Christ, praying and interceding for us. Some of the Protestant Churches, if they discuss it at all, tend to assume that they are asleep in Christ, awaiting the resurrection, while mainstream and evangelical churches believe that when you die your spirit goes directly to be with God. They do not believe that they can pray or intercede for us.

There are sufficient Scripture verses that can be used to defend both positions, making the use of the Scriptures impractical for proving either position.

However, our stance as Catholics is that a study of the non-Scriptural histories of the Church shows that the concept currently taught in the Catholic Church was clearly believed and taught by the Bishops of the various Christian communities throughout the first centuries of the Church, and confirmed by the various councils under the concept of the "Communion of Saints."