Charismatic Meetings

Q. Some of the people I know at church are getting into the Charismatic group. Some of what I’ve heard about it sounds kind of weird. Can you tell me what really goes on at Charismatic meetings? And if it’s OK, why aren’t more people involved?

A. It sounds kind of weird, does it? Well, maybe I can help a bit.

Truth be told, any time you have a gathering of people, for any purpose, you will find all kinds. Some will do or say things that others will think is strange but I think that’s just part of our human experience. Everyone is different and we all express ourselves in different ways. The same is true with our life of faith. There are many traditional ways of living and expressing our faith, but there are also many ways that can seem, to some, as “different” or “unusual” or, perhaps, even “weird.”

To answer the question, “What really goes on at charismatic meetings” is difficult because I suppose that every charismatic meeting is a little different than the next. But there are a couple of things that I think are present at most of these meetings that I can comment on. One common part of a charismatic meeting is expressive praise and worship. This means that those praying do so in a very free, open and honest way, expressing themselves to God with songs and affection.

But this shouldn’t seem too weird when we look at the many other ways people are expressive. For example, I’m sure you’ve been to a wedding reception where everyone is dancing. While dancing, people can act very “strange.” Jumping up and down, throwing their hands into the air, spinning in circles and shouting out loud. If it’s OK to do this to something like the Macarena, why not for God?

Another common focus at charismatic prayer meetings is the use of the charismatic gifts. These gifts are mentioned in Scripture and are definitely a part of Catholic Tradition. Gifts can include speaking in tongues, prophecy, healing, inspired singing and the like. When these gifts are authentic, and truly charisms from God, they are beautiful and will help to build up the community. The key is to make sure they are from God and not from our own emotions or impulses.

I suppose these gifts can seem strange in that they may not be all that common to the average Catholic. But we shouldn’t be afraid of using the charismatic gifts that truly come from God.

Hope that helps. Perhaps the best place for you to start is to go to one of these meetings. If you find it brings you closer to God, then go again. If not, feel free to stick with the more traditional ways of praying.

As long as you’re praying, God will be pleased with you and will help you to live the life He wants you to live.

(Taken from Catholic Q & A)

Click on the topic for answers to Previous Five Queries

Why do we have to go to Mass every week

Communion More Than Once A Day

Baptism and Salvation 

A Brief on the Holy Bible

Getting a Tattoo

Why do we have to Go to Mass every week?

Q. Why do we have to Go to Mass every week?

A. Is Mass every week really too much? I do appreciate your question so let me address it.

First, let me address the question of going to Mass every week wherever there are enough priest to have it every week (or perhaps even every day!). I think the best perspective is not so much why we have to go every week but rather how fortunate we are to be able to go every week. To some, the Mass can seem dull, dry and boring. It can seem like the same old thing over and over. Perhaps you don’t seem to get much out of the homily, perhaps you don’t like the music, perhaps it’s cold in church, perhaps we’ve simply had a long week and we feel like just sleeping in. Whatever the case may be there will always be things we could point to that make us feel like skipping. But what we must understand is that the Mass is the Mass regardless of anything else. And when we truly understand what the Mass is, in faith, we will never want to miss!

The Mass is the number one way God feeds us each and every week. In the Mass we are invited to encounter the True Presence of God in a way more profound and real than in any other way. It truly is the source and summit of our lives on Earth. When we approach the Mass with a deep faith and understanding of the great mystery we encounter, we will be left with a longing and desire for more. When we receive Holy Communion in faith and with an open heart we enter into communion with Jesus in the depths of our soul. He enters in, gives us Himself as our sustenance for life and transforms our hardships and struggles into joys. The Mass has an unlimited amount of power to change us and draw us closer to God. It has an unlimited amount of power to help us in life to become all that God intends us to be. In the Mass we are made one with Christ so that we can say with St. Paul, “It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me” (Galatians 2:20).

Perhaps that’s hard to understand but I encourage you to learn more about the Mass. I think it’s important to study it and to learn what so many of the great saints said about it. I’ve never met anyone who deeply understood the Mass who also didn’t want to attend it.

(Taken from Catholic Q & A)

Click on the topic for answers to Previous Five Queries

Communion More Than Once A Day

Baptism and Salvation 

A Brief on the Holy Bible

Getting a Tattoo

The Church on being gay and having a gay partner

Communion More than Once a Day?

Q. If one takes part twice or even thrice in the Sacrifice of the Holy Mass on the same day, can he receive Holy Communion at every Holy Mass?

A. This is an excellent question since receiving our Lord in the most Blessed Sacrament is the greatest act any human being can do either on Earth or in Heaven. St. Augustine states, “Live in such a manner as to be able to receive [the Blessed Sacrament] every day.[1]  We must remember that Our Lord in the Eucharist is our daily bread, as stated in the Our Father.  The Church strongly recommends that the faithful receive the Blessed Sacrament daily, ideally during Mass.  Since reception is the greatest act, some might logically conclude that one should receive as many times as possible during the day.  However, this view does not take into account the grace, that is gift, of the Sacrament. 

In order to better understand the gift we receive in the Blessed Sacrament we must remember that only those in communion with the Church and who have reached the age of reason, usually age seven, may come forward for reception. In order to be in communion with the Church one must not be aware of any mortal sins on their soul.  The Church also requires that the faithful prepare their souls and bodies for reception.  We prepare our souls first,by recognizing and reflecting that the difference between the Heavenly Bread of the Sacrament and the food we eat for our daily sustenance.  A difference between the Sacred and the profane.  In a food center society, like the Untied States of America, this is vital. In societies where food is abundant we can easily make food an idol, leading to a dependence on always trying to satisfy one’s appetite.  Second, we must ask ourselves are we sincerely at peace and love our neighbor? Third, as already stated, we must examine our conscience and if need be make a good and complete confession of our sins in the Sacrament of Penance. Fourth, we must reflect silently in our own hearts our unworthiness.  We must take the word’s of centurion, the words we right before Communion as our own, “Lord, I am not worthy that you should enter under my roof, but only say the word and my soul shall be healed.”  Finally, we must be able to say with St. Peter, “Lord, you know that I love thee.”[2]

Our bodies too must be prepared,this is done by abstaining from food and drink, except water and medicine, for at least one hour before reception of the Host. It is commendable to follow the ancient practice of abstaining from food and drink from midnight until reception of The Host.  Let Our Lord in the Blessed Sacrament truly be your breakfast.  We should also prepare our bodies by washing our bodies and dressing properly for the Holy Sacrifice, this includes daily Mass.  Remember the parable of he who sat down at the King’s banquet without a wedding garment and was cast out.[3]

Looking at how we must prepare both our soul and body to receive the greatest of all gifts one might think that we need to receive this gift several times a day. The Church, in Her wisdom,restricts reception to only twice a day for two reasons.  First, to avoid making the Sacrament in to some sort of superstition and second, remind the faithful of the importance of the words Ite, Missa Est.  These are words the priest says at the end of Mass, in fact we get the word “Mass” from it. It is hard to translate into English but a literal translation would be “Go,she is sent.”  Meaning that the congregation,i.e. the faithful, must go out and share the grace one receives at Mass.  We receive our Lord and we must share our Lord.  Our goal in evangelizing is bring people to Lord’s banquet. 

Even in allowing reception to twice a day it is only in cases where one might go to daily Mass in the morning than a funeral or wedding later in the day or Saturday morning Mass and then Saturday evening Mass, the latter fulfilling the obligation for Sunday.  Most importantly Communion may be received a second time in one day if it is viaticum, which is when someone receives Communion for what might be the last time before death. 

Let us remember that in receiving our daily bread we participate in that Heavenly banquet. we should be focused not in how many times a day we receive but rather focused on the gift that we receive and preparing our souls and bodies so that we may go out and lead others to Christ. 

(Taken from Catholic Q & A)

Click on the topic for answers to Previous Five Queries

Baptism and Salvation 

A Brief on the Holy Bible

Getting a Tattoo

The Church on being gay and having a gay partner

Why do we sign Head, Lips & Heart before reading the Gospel

What is a Synod

What is a Synod and its purpose?

A Synod is basically an ecclesiastic council, usually convened to decide an issue of doctrine, administration or application. The word synod comes from the Greek: σύνοδος [ˈsinoðos] meaning "assembly" or "meeting" and is analogous with the Latin word concilium meaning "council". 

When was the first council?

The Church has been having “councils” or meetings to figure things out since the time of the Apostles. The first church council was the meeting that Paul had with Peter, James, and the Apostles to deal with the issue of circumcision for Gentile converts. That was the Council of Jerusalem, and it happened around 48 AD (see Acts 15).

Since then, every time the Church encountered an issue that required clarification, a council was held.

Do we know of any well-known councils? 

The most well-known are Nicaea, Constantinople, Ephesus, Chalcedon, Lateran IV, Trent, and Vatican II. These were all called in order to respond to a crisis, heresy, or question, and as a result, doctrine was defined.

For example, the First Council of Nicaea in AD 325 gave us the Nicaean Creed. It also: defined the divine nature of God the Son and his relationship to God the Father; defined the universal observance of the date of Easter, and promulgated early canon law.

The Council of Rome in AD 382 defined the complete list of canonical books of both the Old and New Testaments.

The Council of Trent (1545–1563) was a response to the Reformation. It affirmed the role and canon of Scripture and defined the seven Sacraments.

In total, the Roman Catholic Church has held 21 councils. These were referred to as “ecumenical councils”. That means that the voting members come from the whole world (from the Greek oikoumene, referring to the “whole inhabited world”).

The last council was the 2nd Vatican Council (1962–1965) which was called by Pope John XXIII, not as a response to any specific issue that needed to be defined but as a desire for the Church to relate to the modern world.

According to some opinions, the 2nd Vatican Council was probably the last Church council because the Church now has synods. (After Vatican II, Pope Paul VI established the Synod of Bishops, an advisory board to the Holy Father. Since then, the bishops meet in assemblies (synods) and make recommendations to the pope. Since 1967, there have been 16 ordinary synods, 3 extraordinary synods, and 11 special synods).

Further brief on Ordinary, Extraordinary and Special Assemblies (Synods)

Ordinary Assemblies: These are synods that deal with universal topics that are pastoral in character and contemporary. Most synods that we can recall from recent years have been ordinary:

2001 "The Bishop: Servant of the Gospel of JESUS CHRIST for the hope of the world"

2005 "The Eucharist: Source and Summit of the Life and Mission of the Church"

2008 "The Word of God in the Life and Mission of the Church"

2012 "New Evangelisation for the Transmission of the Christian Faith"

2018 “Young People, the Faith and Vocational Discernment”

Extraordinary Assemblies: These deal with more urgent matters. For this reason these are shorter and with fewer participants. The most recent extraordinary synod was the 2014 one dealing with the "pastoral challenges of the family in the context of evangelization".

Special Assemblies: These deal with issues that are specific to a particular geographical area. There have been special synods for each continent of the world, Africa, America, Asia, Europe, Oceania, and the Middle East. The most recent one was on the Pan-Amazon Region in 2019.

Further:

The next Synod of Bishops is on the topic of synodality. This synodal process began in October 2021 and will conclude in October 2023 and will be hearing more on this topic in forthcoming days.

Pope Francis is a big fan of the synodal process. 

Synods work because that word, “synod”, doesn’t just mean meeting or assembly. It also means "walking together". A good image to keep in mind is Jesus walking together with the disciples on the road to Emmaus (Luke 24:13-35).

The most important thing that we have to remember about synods is that a synodal church is a listening church. A synod is a “walking with”, and that’s what we are called to do as Church.

At the end of the concluding address by Pope Francis from the 2015 Synod on the Family he said:

“To conclude the Synod means to return to our true 'journeying together' in bringing to every part of the world, to every diocese, to every community and every situation, the light of the Gospel, the embrace of the Church and the support of God’s mercy!”

Ultimately that is what we do as a Church: We meet people where they are in every place and in every situation. We walk with them, we listen to them, and then we try to do our best to bring to them the truth and the light of the Gospel, the good news! And then we continue to walk with them, through their joys and struggles, through their hopes and fears: We share with them Jesus himself, and then we let Jesus do the rest!

And so, a synod on synodality is really a synod about what it means to be Church.

(Synodality in the Catholic Church is a term "often used to describe the process of fraternal collaboration and discernment that bodies like the [Synod of Bishops] were created to express.")

• Sourced from various sites

'9 DAYS FOR LIFE' NOVENA - DAYS 9

DAY 9

INTENTION

May civic leaders work for the protection of all human life, in every stage and circumstance. 

PRAYERS

Our Father, 3 Hail Marys, Glory Be

REFLECTION

The Declaration of Independence boldly affirms that first among our inalienable rights is the right to life, given to us by the Creator. Yet despite being so solemnly proclaimed, the right to life is today threatened and often denied, particularly at the moments when life is most fragile. Our laws should—first and foremost—protect life. But “our highest Court does not recognize children in their mothers’ wombs as persons and claims that abortion is a constitutional right. Further, many political leaders work actively to increase access to abortion. Some falsely describe it as health care and even as a basic human right” (Priorities at the Polls). Laws and policies that legalize or promote an intrinsic evil like abortion violate the virtue of justice.

Those who work as public officials and civic leaders have a duty to serve the common good, and therefore have a profound obligation to safeguard this most fundamental right to life. Through our own prayer, witness, and civic participation, we can encourage our leaders to truly answer their call to protect the rights of all people. For “there can be no true democracy without a recognition of every person’s dignity and without respect for his or her rights” (Evangelium vitae 101).

ACTS OF REPARATION

(Choose one)

• Sacrifice some of your free time to do a small act of service, such as making breakfast for a family member, writing a note of encouragement to a coworker, or praying for the intentions of a friend.

• Sometimes restrictions on religious freedom constrain our efforts to live out the Gospel of life. We must be free to live out our Catholic faith in the public square. Offer this Prayer for Religious Liberty, that Christians may always be free to respect, protect, and defend human life.

• Offer some other sacrifice, prayer, or act of penance that you feel called to do for today’s intention.

One Step Further

When discussing faithful citizenship in 2019, the U.S. bishops reaffirmed, “the threat of abortion remains our preeminent priority because it directly attacks life itself, because it takes place within the sanctuary of the family, and because of the number of lives destroyed.” Archbishop Naumann of Kansas City, Kansas and former Chair of the Committee on Pro-Life Activities, explains more in Priorities at the Polls.

'9 DAYS FOR LIFE' NOVENA - DAY 8

DAY 8

INTENTION

May expectant mothers choosing adoption receive grace and support in embracing this loving option.

PRAYERS

Our Father, 3 Hail Marys, Glory Be

REFLECTION

Mothers placing their children for adoption often face many challenges along the way. One of the greatest obstacles can be inaccurately perceiving adoption as abandonment. But mothers who make an adoption plan for their children are not abandoning their children. Rather, they are exemplifying the sacrificial love of Christ on the Cross in choosing to do what is best for their children, even at great cost to themselves. Like Christ, they pour out their bodies and souls for the sake of another. The Letter to the Hebrews reminds us that, in the face of fears and trials, we can “hold fast to the hope that lies before us. This we have as an anchor of the soul, sure and firm” (Heb 6:18-19). We pray that each expectant mother choosing adoption will be filled with “the peace of God that surpasses all understanding” (Phil 4:7) as she makes a loving choice for her child. Let us all cling fast to the anchor of hope, for we have received “a spirit of adoption, through which we cry, ‘Abba, Father!’” (Rom 8:15).

ACTS OF REPARATION

(Choose one.)

• Do you have a sweet tooth? Or do you prefer salty snacks? Pick your favorite kind of treat, and give it up for the day.

• Look up one of the Scripture passages from today’s reflection, and spend some time with it in prayer. What is the Lord saying to you?

• Offer some other sacrifice, prayer, or act of penance that you feel called to do for today’s intention.

One Step Further

Accompanying Expectant Mothers Considering Adoption suggests nine ways to offer ongoing support to a woman who is considering making an adoption plan for her unborn child. Many of the tips given are also helpful for supporting a friend who is experiencing a challenging or unexpected pregnancy, even if adoption has not been brought up. Supplemental resources regarding adoption can be found at usccb.org/adoption-resources.

'9 DAYS FOR LIFE NOVENA' - DAY 7

DAY 7

INTENTION

May expectant fathers lovingly support the mothers of their children in welcoming new life.

PRAYERS

Our Father, 3 Hail Marys, Glory Be

REFLECTION

Fatherhood has its origins in God, who chose to reveal Himself to us as Our Father, sending his only Son for the sake of our salvation. Fathers therefore have a special role “in revealing and in reliving on earth the very fatherhood of God” (Familiaris consortio 25). Fathers are called to exhibit “generous responsibility for the life conceived under the heart of the mother” (FC 25). They are uniquely entrusted with the protection and defense of both mother and child and, in this way, in safeguarding the sanctity of human life.

​As evidenced in our world today, the role of the father “is of unique and irreplaceable importance” (FC 25). Often women choose abortion because they do not have the support of the child’s father, or—even worse—the father of the child pressures her to make the decision to abort. At the same time, it is important to acknowledge with compassion that men can also be overwhelmed by an unexpected pregnancy and that society increasingly tells them that they should have no say in their children’s lives. In the face of these false messages, we pray that expectant fathers will find courage in the example of Saint Joseph—who embraced the role of father amid difficult circumstances—and offer loving, life-affirming support to the mothers of their children.

ACTS OF REPARATION

(Choose one)

• Give up sleeping on your pillow—or even your bed—tonight. Offer this small sacrifice for the intention that expectant fathers will courageously answer their call to support both mother and child.

• Pray a decade of the Rosary for all expectant fathers, that through her intercession, Our Lady may inspire in them the virtues of Saint Joseph.

• Offer some other sacrifice, prayer, or act of penance that you feel called to do for today’s intention.

One Step Further

Research continues to show that one of the top reasons a woman chooses abortion is due to a lack of financial resources. Read Poverty and Abortion: A Vicious Cycle, which explores the connections between abortion and poverty, and how the absence of fathers contributes to this ongoing cycle.