TOS068 Pentecost History -Past, Present & Future For audio TOS068: Pentecost – Truth of the Spirit (podcast) | Listen Notes
TOS068 Pentecost History -Past, Present & Future
TOS068 Patti Brunner found some news she wants to share, some history that started on the First Pentecost and through a prompting by the Holy Spirit, continues today. She discovered history written, and she listened to those who received the Holy Spirit and shared what was given. Today what she received, she shares with you
You’re listening to Truth of the Spirit. I’m Patti Brunner. This episode is Pentecost-Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow. We are going to explore why Pentecost is important to the Church. It started a long time ago.
I first want to quote the Catechism of the Catholic Church #398:
“…Constituted in a state of holiness, man was destined to be fully “divinized” by God in glory….”
That means that: Man was created in a state of holiness. Man’s destiny is to be fully one with God –by God dwelling within us. “God created us to be one with him for all eternity. Destiny is not fulfilled until freewill is applied. Mankind can choose to turn their backs on their supernatural nature and their destiny– to live apart from God.”
Man was supposed to be joined to God through a divine nature. When sin entered the world through Adam & Eve’s choice, God could no longer dwell within them. There came a separation between God and man. Their sin caused death of the soul. Yet, God so loved man that he sent his beloved son to overcome death and fulfill the destiny by restoring holiness and restoring life by placing his Spirit within man. “When man parted from God through sin, Jesus repaired the rift by forming the bridge to come to God no matter what separated us.” “It is still a choice but each man can choose because now the Holy Spirit resides in those who seek God’s face. The Spirit allows the final destiny by dwelling within us. Each Communion through the Holy Eucharist is a foretaste of eternity.”
A few days after I had a personal spiritual conversion experience, known as the Baptism of the Holy Spirit, the Lord gave me more. He allowed me to visit with Jesus in heaven and to experience the fullness of his divine presence. In those moments, I comprehended this destiny. I comprehended eternity. I stood within the light of Christ without any barrier and his divine light penetrated my being. It changed my life forever. Since that moment I have done everything I could to encourage people so that they might take hold of the opportunity to spend eternity with Jesus and know the bliss of heaven that I experienced. I believe that the modern Charismatic movement has that same goal.
You see, to help man regain the possibility of attaining his destiny, God has made promises by speaking to certain people throughout history. The promise given to the Old Testament prophet Isaiah [11:2-3] was that a new line would come from the heritage of David. The Lord had promised descendants before but this promise was different. “The spirit of the LORD shall rest upon him: a spirit of wisdom and of understanding, A spirit of counsel and of strength, a spirit of knowledge and of fear of the LORD, and his delight shall be the fear of the Lord” In Psalm 104 [v30] the Old Testament psalmist prays, “Lord Send forth your spirit, and we shall be created and you shall renew the face of the earth.
In Luke after the passion and resurrection, as Jesus ascended into heaven he told the disciples: I am sending the promise of my Father upon you; but stay in the city until you are clothed with power from on high.”[Luke 24:49] To prepare for what Jesus promised they waited together and prayed.
For the First Pentecost the outpouring of the Holy Spirit came to a small group of people. Acts 1:15 During those days Peter stood up in the midst of the brothers (there was a group of about one hundred and twenty persons in the one place).” The church, now in the billions, started with those 120 disciples including the 12 apostles –including the newest apostle Matthias. When the time for Pentecost was fulfilled, they were all in one place together.
The feast of Pentecost began as a Hebrew celebration of the Feast of Weeks, a prominent feast in the calendar of ancient Israel celebrating the giving of the Law to Moses at Sinai. It is celebrated 7 weeks or 50 days after Passover. Christians celebrate Pentecost 7 weeks after Easter. Acts 2: 2 And suddenly there came from the sky a noise like a strong driving wind, and it filled the entire house in which they were. 3Then there appeared to them tongues as of fire, which parted and came to rest on each one of them. 4And they were all filled with the holy Spirit and began to speak in different tongues, as the Spirit enabled them to proclaim.”
Can you imagine the impact of the Holy Spirit reuniting with man? The restoration of eternal life? The restoration of the presence of God with man after millennia of being apart? What if you are Lazarus, wrapped like a mummy in a tomb for three days and suddenly you hear Jesus call your name and you come out alive into the light of day? I think Jesus was trying to help us understand the coming impact of Pentecost. What if you and the entire world existed in a world where everything was black or grey? And then, in an instant, the world became vibrant with color? Or what if you feel the fire of God’s love and become able to share God’s healing with others? What if the Lord allows you to see Jesus and stand in his presence and comprehend time and eternity and the kingdom of God? Or what if a sound rises from the depth of your soul and crosses your lips in an unknown language? These are pretty awesome experiences! I can attest personally to similar experiences. It makes it easy for me to believe. But for those who have yet to experience Pentecost personally, it is a bit harder to accept them as part of our current destiny. How could we possibly comprehend the Holy Spirit before the Holy Spirit dwells within us? The Holy Spirit wants a personal relationship.
Some Christians go on record teaching that experiencing these gifts was only for the apostles to kick-start the new church–that there is not really a need for them now. Excuse me? No need? Do you keep up with current events?
Was this a one-time event in the Church? No! They do not know their history! Many fail to recognize a personal Pentecost and that the multiple Holy Spirit outpourings upon the Church. You can certainly find them in scripture. I already shared the outpouring of the Spirit in Chapter 2 of Acts. If you have your bibles handy, flip on over to Acts Chapter 4 and look at verse 31. Peter & John had been arrested for preaching after Pentecost and then released and returned to their community.
“31 As they [the community] prayed, the place where they were gathered shook, and they were all filled with the holy Spirit and continued to speak the word of God with boldness. “
Was this only for the 12 apostles? No! First of all, remember there were 120 gathered together for Pentecost including the blessed mother. They were ALL filled. And here , in chapter 4, the whole community was filled or re-filled; the community certainly had now grown because of the 3000 who were baptized after Peter preached after the first Pentecost outpouring. Keep reading and turn to Acts chapter 8 verses 15-17. The apostles sent Peter and John to Sumaria to pray for them because although they were baptized, but were not manifesting the Holy Spirit. They weren’t manifesting any of the charisms or gifts of the Spirit. “17Then they laid hands on them and they received the holy Spirit.” The Church calls this the Sacrament of Confirmation. The Spirit was confirmed by signs and wonders.” When we receive the sacrament of Confirmation do we manifest the signs and wonders? They’re available for us, if we have that ‘personal Pentecost’.
In Chapter 10 of Acts, through personal revelation from God, Peter was sent by the Lord to visit Cornelius, a Gentile. Peter witnessed about the things Jesus had called the disciples to do. [Acts 10:44-47] “While Peter was still speaking these things, the holy Spirit fell upon all who were listening to the word. … they could hear them speaking in tongues and glorifying God.” These Gentiles received the Holy Spirit. And they manifested the gifts of the Holy Spirit, by speaking in tongues and glorifying God. This was such an amazing thing that Peter tells about it over and over: In Acts Chapter 11: “15 As I began to speak, the holy Spirit fell upon them as it had upon us at the beginning, 16 and I remembered the word of the Lord, how he had said, ‘John baptized with water but you will be baptized with the holy Spirit.’ 17 If then God gave them the same gift he gave to us when we came to believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, who was I to be able to hinder God?”
And the multiple personal Pentecost’s continue to happen in Acts 15 and Acts 19. The Church began small, and because of the outpouring of the Holy Spirit, the Church grew. CCC 739 “Because the Holy Spirit is the anointing of Christ, it is Christ who, as the head of the Body, pours out the Spirit among his members.
Time passed with the church fully active in all the gifts of Holy Spirit. People expected the gifts at an early age. I have heard that the manifestation gifts seem to vanish at the end of the third century. I don’t know that, but we do have the history of these saints asking the church to seek the gifts of the Holy Spirit: Tertillianin in 198, Hilary of Gall in 350, Ceral in 354, John of the Cross and many others during this period. And then, after many centuries, the charisms or gifts were manifested in people like Saint Francis of Assisi, Saint Catherine of Sienna, St. Theresa of Avila, Saint Francis of Rome and many others. Actually, throughout history the Holy Spirit manifests in those who will surrender to him.
We see this most clearly as we study the lives of the saints. These Saints could preach the same way Peter did on the first Pentecost using a ministry of the gift of tongues: St Anthony of Padua, 1195; St. Dominic (1170-1221); Saint Francis Solano who was born in 1549; St. Paul of the Cross (1694-1775) Saint Louis Bertrand [Ordained in 1547 at age 21.. helped Saint Teresa of Avila reform her order. Missionary to Central and South America, and to the Caribbean; and is reported to have converted 15,000. Prophet, miracle worker, GIFT OF TONGUES. There are many, many saints who manifested the various gifts given at Pentecost and more. There are so many saints who ministered the gifts of the Spirit, I cannot even list them all! I invite you to look at the website http://catholicsaints.info, That’s available also through the Laudate app. The charisms included: Gifts of word of Knowledge, healing, stigmata, bilocation, levitation and so on. The gift of miracles even continues to manifest long after their departure from earth to heaven as we ask their intercession.
—What difference did this make in our Church? Each person helped bring renewal into the church; they encourage others to follow Christ; they brought comfort and truth. Each saint was just one person, but through Christ and the Holy Spirit they strengthen the Church, building and re-building it especially in times and places where it had started breaking down. The Church grew. And so did the number of people who have received the outpouring of the Holy Spirit in a personal Pentecost.
Have you heard the history of Pope Leo XIII and the St. Michael the Archangel prayer? How he had an encounter with the devil and wrote the prayer for the whole church to pray after each mass? Let me tell you something else I discovered about this Spirit-filled Pope. “…“First in 1895, he [Pope Leo XIII] asked all the faithful to celebrate a solemn novena (nine days of prayer) to the Holy Spirit between the feasts of Ascension and Pentecost for the intention of the reunion of Christianity. He didn’t stop there. In 1896 He wrote the powerful prayer to St. Michael the Archangel. Leo XIII then wrote an encyclical letter on the Holy Spirit in 1897, drawing the attention of the faithful to the novena. He stated that the novena was not to be limited to a only one year but was to be a perpetual novena, done every year between the feasts of Ascension and Pentecost, again for the same intention of the reunion of Christianity. I have read that the bishops of the time wouldn’t listen to the Pope to invoke the outpouring of the Holy Spirit for unity in the Church. Imagine that!
But when the Holy Spirit wants to get something done it gets done. On the New Year’s Day of the 20th century, Pope Leo XIII invoked the Holy Spirit by the singing of the hymn “Veni Creator Spiritus”, “Come Holy Spirit”, in the name of the entire Church. On that very day, halfway around the world here in America, in Topeka, Kansas, an outpouring of the Holy Spirit occurred in a protestant bible college, which is generally accepted as the beginning of Pentecostal movement. And unity through the Holy Spirit was begun. But it is not complete.” Then the Azusa Street revival of 1906 led by the Afro-American William J. Seymour took the Topeka seed and propelled Pentecostalism across all continents within two years. The Holy Spirit doesn’t mess around.
Although personal Pentecost was not wide-spread in the Catholic Church at these times, there have always been pockets of Spirit-filled Catholics. For example, in 1930, Pope John XXIII visited a small village in Czechoslovakia. The entire village was Spirit-filled with all the gifts manifested. Catholics got a fresh anointing when Catholic students from Duquesne university of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, had a group outpouring of the Holy Spirit in February 1967. That spread throughout the Catholic Church as Catholic Charismatic Renewal.
Pope Paul VI asked and answered, “What does charism mean? It means gift. It means grace. These are special graces given to one person for another, for the common good. One receives the charism of wisdom so that he might be a teacher, and another the charism of miracles to do things that, through marvel and admiration, call people to faith, and so on. “Now this charismatic form of gifts, which are gratuitous gifts and, in themselves, not necessary but given by the Lord from his superabundant storehouse because he wants to make the Church richer, more lively, more capable of defining and proving herself, is called precisely “the outpouring of the charisms.”
Now since that time, we’ve come to understand some of the richness of the charisms as they have burst forth from people who have had a personal Pentecost and relationship with Jesus. Pope John Paul II said, “Today, I would like to cry out to all of you gathered here in St Peter’s Square and to all Christians: Open yourselves docilely to the gifts of the Spirit! Accept gratefully and obediently the charisms which the Spirit never ceases to bestow on us! Do not forget that every charism is given for the common good, that is, for the benefit of the whole Church.” Pope Benedict XVI said: “Christian Revelation is both ever old and new. Thus, all things are and always have been given to us. At the same time, every generation, in the inexhaustible encounter with the Lord – an encounter mediated by the Holy Spirit – always learns something new.”
Are you ready to learn something new? The Holy Spirit and the gifts of the Spirit are still with us today.
“The Holy Spirit is in every prayer” –says Pope Francis – “You cannot pray without the Holy Spirit . It is He who prays in us, He makes us change our heart, it is He who teaches us to call God ‘Father’. Let us ask the Holy Spirit to teach us to pray, as Moses prayed, to negotiate with God, with freedom of spirit, with courage. And may the Holy Spirit, who is always present in our prayer, lead us on this path”.
I want to speak a little of the personal Pentecost that spread to my community. The beginning of the Catholic charismatic movement in Arkansas was in Pine Bluff. Fr. Jim Mancini and four others had made Cursillo and met regularly for their Ultreya grouping. They began manifesting the gifts of the Spirit: praying in tongues, prophecy, and words of knowledge. They asked two priests what was happening but they had no answer. Then they asked an Assembly of God minister to meet with them. He said they had received the Baptism of the Spirit. He and the Assemblies in general had been preaching that Catholics could not receive this gift because they were too rigid and structured. This spontaneous gift of the Spirit was in 1971 and the Assembly minister was as surprised as Father Jim and his group. After that, similar groups popped up in Conway, Ft. Smith, Little Rock then Fayetteville and Springdale. Probably due to lack of local Church instruction, guidance, and encouragement some people misunderstood what the Lord was doing and broke away from the Catholic Church and went to churches where the Gifts of the Spirit were more acceptable. What a shame that was! Some of those have returned. The Fayetteville group, that included college students, stopped meeting after their spirit-filled pastor, Father Bob Dienert, was transferred and the original leaders finished college. In Rogers Arkansas, a group, named Give Glory to God, was formed in 1991 as an offshoot of a group in Springdale with leaders that included Tom & Frances Ryan and SVdP School Principal Mike Rockers and his wife, Lori Rockers. The first local Life in the Spirit was held in 1991 with 100-120 people attended.
Rick & I attended their meetings starting in 1997 –a year after my personal Pentecost–and continued until it disbanded in 2004 when most of the active members started going to Tontitown to meet with Msgr. Mancini who was assigned there–Msgr. Mancini, who had been in that first group in Pine Bluff– full circle! And through their guidance and training I learned so much about our Catholic Church and the gifts of the Holy Spirit. They were mentors to me to help me understand what had happened to me! In 2000 there were 80,000,000 [80 million] charismatic Catholics in the world. In 2012 there were 120 million Catholics in 238 countries that have been baptized in the Holy Spirit.
1 Corinthians 14:1 “Pursue love, but strive eagerly for the spiritual gifts” We are a small group, called by God to change the world, one person at a time. And, now, you are here. The Holy Spirit has called your name, and you have responded, “Here I am!” Just like throughout church history, we begin small, and the Church grows.
Today Pentecost continues Jesus told us, “But you will receive the power (fire) of the Holy Spirit which will come upon you, and then you will be my witnesses” Acts 1:8 When you have the boldness to share a witness of what God has done for you—you have the Holy Spirit. You don’t have to see the flames of fire to experience the fire of the Holy Spirit. But you might!
This is the prayer of Jesus reported in John’s Gospel Chapter 17:20-26 “22 And I have given them the glory you gave me, so that they may be one, as we are one…” That glory is the Holy Spirit. Acts 2:17 “In the last days–the Lord declares– I shall pour out my Spirit on all humanity.” We are in these last days. The Lord has poured out his Spirit upon us.
It is not the Pentecost of tomorrow but Pentecost today!
What about “Pentecost Tomorrow”? “What is the Pentecost to come? The drawing of minds and hearts in this season shows. The drawing of minds and hearts in this season shows forth the past, present and future. Not just a day but forever. When you look at Pentecost tomorrow it does not refer to next year—that is Pentecost today. “Today has many unfulfilled moments. All that transpires in time is now.” Tomorrow we will be united in heaven. forever in our Pentecost. Tomorrow all the hearts who look upon the face of Jesus will be one in the Spirit of God.
You been listening to Truth of the Spirit. I’m Patti Brunner. And come back for more. With the Holy Spirit there is always more! Amen.
