Amazing Grace
3,000 gather in Detroit to celebrate 40 years of the Charismatic Renewal
Robert Delaney of The Michigan Catholic
Published February 23, 2007
Photos by Gregg McIntosh | The Michigan Catholic
Fr. Richard McAlear, OMI, holds the monstrance during a procession of the Blessed Sacrament through the more than 3,000 people who attended the Amazing Grace conference in Detroit last weekend. The Catholic Charismatic Renewal was marking its 40th year. | Detroit — One of the world's foremost Charismatic Catholic preachers told a gathering of more than 3,000 they should be focusing more on the future than on the movement's past.
Even as they gathered to celebrate the 40th anniversary of the Charismatic Renewal, "We should expect a new Pentecost, not just celebrate that others experienced a new Pentecost 40 years ago," Capuchin Fr. Raniero Cantalamessa, preacher to the papal household, told Charismatic Catholics from across the United States who filled the Riverfront Ballroom of Detroit's Cobo Center last Saturday.
Capuchin Fr. Raniero Cantalemessa, preacher to the papal household, delivers the homily at the Sunday morning Mass at Cobo Center during the Feb. 16-18 Amazing Grace conference. | Harkening back to Pope Paul VI, the first pope to welcome the Charismatic Renewal into the Church, Fr. Cantalamessa said the best speech he ever heard the late pontiff give was one in which he said, "The first need of the Church is for a perennial Pentecost — an ongoing Pentecost — in which the Church would have fire in her heart, works in her midst, and prophecy in her outlook."
Fr. Cantalamessa, 73, had his own Charismatic experience of being baptized in the Holy Spirit 30 years ago, and was appointed to his post with the Holy See in 1980 by Pope John Paul II, then reconfirmed in his position by Pope Benedict XVI.
He told the gathering the best way to prepare for a new Pentecost was to study the opening chapters of the Acts of the Apostles, in which the original Pentecost is described.
Traditional Western and Eastern depictions of that event at which the Holy Spirit descended on a rather sedate gathering of the Apostles do not seem to match the event as he understands it, Fr. Cantalamessa said.
Far preferable, he said, is a recent African depiction, which has some apostles hugging each other, while they all seem to be experiencing some kind of religious ecstasy.
"They were amazed; whenever God appears, there is amazement, surely. The apostles' lives had completely changed, radically changed. They had been given an experience of the presence of God, the majesty of God and the holiness of God," he said.
And he tied these thoughts in with the name of the conference and the hymn from which it took its title. "When Charismatic people sing this song, 'Amazing Grace,' I can feel something special," Fr. Cantalamessa said.
The next day, Fr. Cantalamessa spoke of resurrection and hope in his homily at the Sunday Mass.
Fr. Gus Cop, OFM Cap., formerly of Detroit, prays with a conference participant. | In our own lives, "there are two resurrections — there is a resurrection of the body that takes place on the last day, and there is the resurrection of the heart which must take place every day," he said.
People, he said, "can be dead in the heart, but be physically alive" when they are discouraged, sick, feel abandoned, have no hope, "and especially if somebody lives in sin — sin is death."
Resurrection of the heart is not just something for Christians to experience on their own, he continues. "We must also raise other people" and can do that by calling those who feel abandoned and if we know couples where love has left their marriage and they and their children suffer, encourage them to "start again in the name of God — and then you have raised the dead."
Besides Fr. Cantalamessa, the gathering heard from other leading figures in the Catholic Charismatic Renewal, including Bishop Sam Jacobs of Houma-Thibodaux (La.), James "Butch" Murphy, Redemptorist Fr. Tom Forrest and Angie Neck, who chairs the National Service Committee.
Local speakers included Fr. Francis Martin and Ralph Martin, both of Sacred Heart Major Seminary in Detroit.
Two people who were part of the 1967 retreat at Duquesne University in Pittsburgh that launched the Catholic Charismatic Renewal, Dave Mangan and Patti Gallagher Mansfield, were present and shared their recollections of that event.
Mangan was a 22-year-old recent Duquesne graduate who looked forward to going on for a doctorate in mathematics at the time he attended the retreat. But he said he had an experience before the Blessed Sacrament that was to redirect his plans.
Young adults pray during the Amazing Grace conference at Cobo Center. | "It was an experience of the presence of God like I had never had in my life," said Mangan, who described the feeling as being "like explosions going off in my head."
After that, he gave up plans of pursuing a doctorate and teaching at the university level. Instead, he has taught high school math and religion these past 40 years, and is on the faculty of Fr. Gabriel Richard High School in Ann Arbor.
Mangan said he remained on a "very high spiritual plateau" for nine months to a year thereafter, but then had to work his way back to that level.
Mansfield was a junior at Duquesne back in 1967. "I experienced a deep conversion, but the conversion is ongoing," she said.
She recalled kneeling in her dorm room the day before the retreat, and praying, "Lord, I believe as a Catholic I already have your Spirit in baptism and confirmation, but if it's possible for your Spirit to do more, I want it."
Then, during the retreat, as she lay prostrate before the tabernacle in the chapel, "I just felt myself inundated by the love of God."
She later married, and she and her husband now put on retreats and conferences for the Archdiocese of New Orleans.
Sr. Nancy Kellar, SC, who was a member of the first Charismatic house of prayer in the United States, told the assembly they must be evangelists. "The gift of the Holy Spirit was given to us, not to tie a high on with God — as much as we love to do that — but for holiness and for mission and ministry."
As to opportunities for evangelization, she said most will come about through listening to others tell their stories. "Evangelization starts first by listening, not by speaking," she said.
But Sr. Kellar also cautioned that Charismatics will likely be more effective in their evangelization if they avoid some of the terms that have become common in the Charismatic movement.
"We need to use normal language," she said, advising them to avoid starting out with terms such as "born again" or "slain in the Spirit."
Alfred Gjekaj, who attended the conference with his wife, Ilona, and their son, David, 4 months, said he appreciated the message that "God is calling us to a deeper relationship with him." The Gjekajs are members of Our Lady of Albanians Parish in Beverly Hills.
Nancy Savard, a member of St. Sabina Parish in Dearborn Heights, said she "liked what Butch Murphy said about how being filled with the Holy Spirit means being filled with the love of God."
For Terri Decoster, a member of St. Michael the Archangel in Livonia, a high point of the conference was hearing Sr. Kellar, whom she described as "down to earth."
Michigan Catholic managing editor Marylynn G. Hewitt, SFO, contributed to this story.
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