Ecclesial communities, the springtime of the Church (1/2)

At the initiative of the Focolare Movement, the Maronite Archbishop of Antelias, Mgr Antoine Bou Najem, hosted, on May 29, at the Cathedral of the Resurrection (Mtayleb), an evening of prayer and presentations bringing together leaders and members of 35 ecclesial movements, most of which emerged within the Charismatic Renewal following the Second Vatican Council. In this two-part article, we present this event – an unprecedented gathering – and its significance for the Church in general, as well as the “theological status” of these ecclesial movements in relation to the Church hierarchy, as developed in the 1990s by Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, the future Benedict XVI, then Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith.

A springtime of the Church

In the late 1960s, coming out of what theologian Karl Rahner described as “a winter of the Church,” the first rays of an extraordinary awakening – the Charismatic Renewal – began to rise in Lebanon and across the Catholic world.

One of the theological keys to this phenomenon was – and remains – the experience of Jesus’ love for each person and the rediscovery of the action of the Holy Spirit, through charisms given for the building up of the Church and of each believer individually. The Second Vatican Council had restored to prominence the idea that the Spirit bestows gifts not only on the hierarchy, but on all the faithful, for the common good of the Church. This vision made it easier to understand the emergence of new forms of Christian life, suited to the circumstances of the time and made possible by the outpouring of the Spirit, a new dynamic, and the experience of God’s presence.

Meanwhile, as the first shoots of an ecumenical charismatic community emerging from English-speaking academic circles were taking shape, war broke out in Lebanon. For years, in the fervor of those early days, the prayer group and the community born of this renewal drew in young people who, unaware of the dangers of bombardments, kidnappings and other perils of the time, showed heroic fidelity to prayer meetings and to the human community that grew out of them. And all could testify that where they believed they were “giving everything,” they were in fact “receiving everything,” not without some “misunderstandings” from those close to them.

From these spontaneous and sometimes disorienting beginnings, this “springtime of the Church” has since spread across the world, including Lebanon, where its contribution to the “new evangelization” is now recognized and appreciated. The novelty of certain charisms and the outpouring of the Spirit were at times difficult to explain or accept. But these groups and communities have now entered a phase of relative ecclesial maturity, patient communion, shared responsibility and deeper rootedness in the Church. To oversee their development within the Catholic world, Pope Francis created “Charis”, a body under the Dicastery for the Laity, tasked with serving all currents of the “Charismatic Renewal.”

On May 29, at the initiative of the Focolare Movement and for the first time in Lebanon, 35 of these ecclesial movements and communities present in the country came together in their diversity at the Cathedral of the Resurrection (Mtayleb – Maronite Diocese of Antelias). The local bishop, Mgr Antoine Bou Najem, assisted by the Apostolic Nuncio, Mgr Paolo Borgia, offered them the hospitality of his cathedral and formally gave them the floor.

Fulfilment of a promise

The meeting was presented by Fadi Bouzamel (Focolare) as “the fulfilment of a promise made in 1998 to Pope John Paul II by Chiara Lubich.” That promise was to work tirelessly, “in keeping with the Focolare vocation to unity,” to bring the new ecclesial movements closer together, to help them get to know and appreciate one another, and to foster cooperation in their shared mission of evangelizing the world, in accordance with each one’s charisms and under the authority of their bishops.

Why 1998? To answer that question is to go back to the World Congress of Ecclesial Movements held in Rome on 31 May 1997. That day, John Paul II had an “unforgettable encounter” with more than two hundred thousand people belonging to some fifty ecclesial movements and new communities. They represented a growing “current of grace,” which his predecessor, Saint Paul VI, welcoming the Charismatic Renewal in 1975 at the heart of St Peter’s Basilica, had described as “a chance for the Church.”

In 1998, at Pentecost, John Paul II’s sense of wonder was renewed during a vast gathering held from 27 to 29 May in St Peter’s Square, bringing together 400,000 leaders and members of ecclesial movements and new communities from all over the world.

Stunned, the world discovered that day a Church in its youth, a Church capable of receiving and fostering every charism, a Church able to embrace diversity within unity, the missionary vitality of the laity, and the catholicity of the ecclesial movements and new communities that emerged in the wake of the Second Vatican Council.

Among the most influential movements, to name only the best known, were the Focolare Movement, born amid the Second World War (1942), the Catholic Charismatic Renewal, the movement Communion and Liberation, the Neocatechumenal Way, the Community of Sant’Egidio, the Emmanuel Community, and the Chemin Neuf Community.

Addressing the crowd, John Paul II said: “I have referred to them as new realities that still await recognition and proper appreciation. Today I see, and I rejoice in it, that they show greater personal maturity. They represent one of the most significant fruits of this springtime of the Church, already announced by the Second Vatican Council, but often hindered by the process of secularization that is unfolding (…) and that promotes models of life without God (…). We therefore feel the urgent need for a strong proclamation and for solid, in-depth Christian formation. Today we need mature Christians, aware of their baptismal identity, their vocation, and their mission in the Church and in the world! We need living Christian communities! And here are the ecclesial movements and new communities: they are the response inspired by the Holy Spirit to this dramatic challenge at the end of the millennium. You are that providential response.”