I have two questions. 1) What is the Easter Duty?  And, 2) What is the Charismatic Renewal?

Please reply.

May Day

The first question is easy to answer.

The Easter Duty is the obligation each Catholic has to receive Holy Communion and, if in state of serious sin, the Sacrament of Penance in preparation for receiving Communion.  The Easter Season is defined in the US and Canada as the season between the first Sunday of Lent and Trinity Sunday which is the Sunday after Pentecost.  One should go to Communion and Confession much more frequently, but these are the required minimum.

The second question will take a little more time. 

The best definition of the Charismatic Renewal I have ever heard is as follows: “The Charismatic Renewal is an evangelistic movement that brings people to saving knowledge of Jesus Christ through signs and wonders.”

Catholicism has always had a miraculous and prophetic tradition.  We have always believed that, though God doesn't add to the perfect revelation of Christ and the scriptures, He continues to present those truths through miraculous signs, especially through healing, prophetic words, and visions, all of which are often called Charismatic gifts.

Luther and Calvin taught 500 years ago that the age of miracles had ended and classical Protestants have followed their lead ever since.  In 1900 at a small Bible school in Topeka Kansas, a group of Methodists were studying the scriptures and asking what it might mean to be baptized in the Holy Spirit.

A member of the group asked their leader to lay hands on her and pray for an infilling of the Spirit.  She began to speak in strange words and reported an amazing experience of the presence of God.  The other participants in the Bible school soon sought and received the same experience and from this small beginning a Pentecostal movement spread around the world.

Most mainline protestant denomination denounced the movement, saying it was “too Catholic!”  Miracles and  healings weren't part of reformed religion, so the Pentecostals formed their own churches such as the Assemblies of God.

In 1967, students at Duquesne University in Pittsburgh and Notre Dame University had experiences at retreats similar to those at the Topeka Bible school back in 1900-1901.  From these Duquesne and Notre Dame retreats grew the Catholic Pentecostal movement, later called the Charismatic movement to differentiate it from the Protestant Pentecostal Churches.

At first the Bishops in the United States were very suspicious of the movement.  But its adherents reminded them that Pope John XXIII had asked us all to pray that God would renew “...in our time Your wondrous works as in a New Pentecost.” 

Was it so odd that we should pray and that God should answer?  Eventually this movement was accepted by the bishops as authentically Catholic in its teaching and practice. 

The Pentecostal/Charisma tic's were some of the few people who even listened to bishops in the 1970's.  The Renewal has spread throughout the world and is particularly influential in Africa, the Philippines, and Latin America.  It is probably the single greatest force for evangelism among Catholics throughout out the world.

Problems can arise when the renewal is not well pastored.  Pentecostal spirituality is really very Catholic, after you get over the initial shock of hearing people pray out loud with great enthusiasm and, quite possibly, speaking in tongues.  The problems are those of ecclesiology (the meaning of the church) since so many of the Pentecostal churches are Congregationalist in structure.

Another problem is that the so-called “Baptism in the Holy Spirit” can confuse people by it’s very name.  But it is not an eighth sacrament.  It is an experience of the third person of the Trinity who lives in all Baptized Christians if they are in state of grace.  In Pentecostal churches this Baptism in the Holy Spirit is considered necessary for full church membership and in some denominations it is believed necessary for salvation! 

We Catholics believe that, like every religious experience, it is a gift from God and a calling from God to serve the Church.  Different people have different callings from God and membership in the many movements in the Church is a very personal response to the goodness of God.  The Pentecostal calling of the charismatic renewal is meant to bring people to Christ and His church through the outward manifestations of the Holy Spirit.

I hope that a long answer does the trick. 

Your Rev. Know-It-All is uniquely qualified to comment on the Charismatic renewal since he has been involved with it since it’s first days back in ‘67 and ‘68 and had the privilege of being the Cardinal's liaison to the Renewal in the Spanish speaking community of Chicago for almost 20 years.

Thanks for asking,

Rev. Know-It-All