A Catholic Jesus

Last week I met an old friend. He used to be my spiritual director, some years ago, and is now retired. He is (still) a Catholic Priest. You don’t actually retire from this, but remain a ‘priest for ever’. Nevertheless, he is now adapting to life without responsibilities, although still able to conduct Mass in several local churches, to keep his hand in.

We had a coffee and catchup chat in Costa, and reminisced. But what I really like about him is his cheerfulness and positivity, and above all, his infectious love for Jesus and the Gospel. I reminded him of an ecumenical conference he had been to, where, he had observed, none of the speakers once spoke about Jesus. And that is his abiding concern for the church, in general not just Catholics, that although we discuss many worthy subjects, we’ve stopped talking about Jesus – the Lover of Our Souls.

Among his fellow Catholic priests, he said, not a lot is talked of Jesus; and one priest’s homilys, for instance, apparently advocate just being a ‘good Catholic’ and ‘trying harder’. This was, he noted, hardly ‘good news’! The same could be said about many Protestant gatherings: theological colloquia on urgent topics, and careful strategies for mission, but little devotion to Jesus himself, simply all models and methodologies.

He was well-known, when I met him, earlier in his ministry, as an effective evangelist, concerned more to introduce people to Jesus, than induct them into the Church of Rome. It was he who introduced me to the Sion Catholic Community for Evangelisation – a fervent charismatic group, whose initial members had been trained by YWAM.

This centring on devotion to Jesus unites all disciples, from whatever ecclesial backgrounds. Its openness originates in the Pietist movement of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, especially Count Zinzendorff and the Moravian movement. Despite their adherence to Lutheran teachings, they had reacted against the stifling scholasticism it had fallen into, and sought the living experience of Christ through his Spirit.

This led to them searching out like-minded people from whatever theological position: Catholic writers, like Blaise Pascal, Madame de Guenon, and Jean Pierre de Caussade, who all likewise stressed the personal relationship with Christ in the heart of the believer, learning to flow with the Divine Spirit, and the directing of God’s providence.

This was one of spirituality’s historical streams, which eventually influenced the Twentieth Century charismatic movement, when renewal overflowed beyond Pentecostal denominations into the historical churches. My friend too was involved in the Catholic Renewal Movement.

He recommended a retreat in a US community, where I was introduced to corporate praying in tongues, for what seemed like ages – a practice I previously associated only with other cultures, like the Korean and Nigerian all-night prayer vigils – but something that I have encouraged since then in whatever church I’ve pastored. There too, I discovered the writings of the independent preacher T. Austin Sparks, highly prized in this Catholic setting. After all, doctrine matters, but Jesus matters more.