Pentecost is ongoing reality, speaker says

By Tanya Connor
The Catholic Free Press
WORCESTER – Pentecost isn’t past.
That message was sounded at the Catholic charismatic renewal prayer meeting Sunday at St. John Church.
Participants prayed for organizer Father Diego A. Buritica, episcopal liaison to diocesan charismatic renewal communities, who returned unexpectedly to Colombia because of a sickness in the family.
In February he’d led a prayer meeting for Anglos, whose prayer groups hadn’t been active in recent years, to seek God’s will for the renewal locally. He said Hispanics, Brazilians, Africans and Haitians have been active in the renewal.
John and Therese Boucher, members of St. John Parish long involved in the renewal, led Sunday’s prayer meeting in Father Buritica’s place.
“God is still working among us … doing great things,” Mr. Boucher said. He read about the disciples’ experiences at Pentecost from Acts 2, and said, “Two thousand years later we are among those thousands and millions of people who are being saved.”
In her talk about “Opening to the Gifts (charisms) of the Spirit,” Mrs. Boucher told how she once thought she didn’t need “this charismatic stuff.” But after several people told her they’d experienced the Holy Spirit as a person and received the charism called speaking in tongues, which involves speaking or singing in a language one doesn’t know, she decided to pray until she received that charism. At 2 a.m., she said, she finally got the charism of prophecy instead. Through it God told her, “Go to bed.’”
“The Holy Spirit wants to be interwoven into our daily lives,” she said, explaining the point of the story. (She received the charism of tongues about three weeks later, she said.)
“The Holy Spirit is first of all a person just as much as Jesus is,” she said. It’s in relationship with him that we live and move and have our being. Pentecost is an ongoing reality we’re meant to enter into.
She said she thinks intercessory prayer is a charism God gives everyone. Lectors could pray for the charism of wisdom; if they understand the Scriptures they can proclaim them, she said. Eucharistic ministers could pray for the charism of healing; Jesus can heal people through the Eucharist. Ushers can employ the charism of hospitality.
Mrs. Boucher read titles of the Holy Spirit – including Advocate, Comforter and Breath of God – and asked listeners to pray with one or more of them and share about that experience with one another. Then they were invited to share with the whole group words and images that came to them and to speak in tongues.
Speaking about “Experiencing the Baptism in the Holy Spirit,” Mr. Boucher said it is not a new sacrament, a devotion or a sign of spiritual maturity, but a change in one’s relationship with God. Christians receive the Holy Spirit when they receive the sacraments of baptism, Eucharist and confirmation, but sometimes don’t experience God communicating to them through the person of the Holy Spirit.
Mr. Boucher told about attending a retreat that was not charismatic, being encouraged to pray to meet God as a person and pouring out his concerns before the Blessed Sacrament.
“That was the day I surrendered to the Holy Spirit,” he said, adding that he needs to continue to do that.
When experiencing the Holy Spirit “your problems don’t all go away but you see them in a different light … you come to look at these things with the eyes of the Holy Spirit,” he said.
He waved a kite in the air and encouraged listeners to switch figuratively from flying a kite to being the kite, flying with the Holy Spirit moving them. He said they can do that by giving the Holy Spirit permission to take control of their lives and asking Jesus to give them new life in the Spirit.
He told them they’re called to decide to follow Jesus, pray and read Scripture daily, to be part of a Christian community and to ask Jesus what mission he wants to send them on.
“Our mission is to … share Jesus with everyone we meet,” he said.
“I can feel the presence of the Lord; he’s here, and that’s where I want to be – wherever he is,” Fay MacDonald said after the prayer meeting. She said she attends International Central Gospel Church, goes into Catholic churches to pray and found a flier about the prayer meeting at Our Lady of the Angels Church.
“Sometimes you don’t hear the Lord that well; sometimes this is where we have to come to hear him,” said Cecile Sauro, of Mary Queen of the Rosary Parish in Spencer, who attended charismatic gatherings there years ago and learned about Sunday’s meeting on Facebook. “I think this is going to catch on. We need something like this in this diocese.”