Come, Holy Spirit

In the midst of constantly thinking about the Pope, life has continued, and I would like to share about an experience I had yesterday that I was very moved by.

As a part of a team planning an upcoming retreat, I had a day of prayer and reflection yesterday. We traveled to a small retreat center, and began our time together with daytime prayer, praise & worship, and silence all in front of our Lord exposed in Eucharistic Adoration.

This was a beautiful experience, as it always is, but where we were yesterday added a wonderful element to this experience. The retreat center we were in was the place that the Catholic Charismatic Renewal began in 1967.

For those of you unfamiliar with how this began, students and faculty from Duquesne University in Pittsburgh had chosen to take a retreat one weekend (Feb 17-19), and came to this location to pray for a renewal of the Lord's work in their hearts and in their lives. While on this retreat, the Holy Spirit acted in a very powerful way-the people experienced His power in a very real way, including receiving gifts such as resting in the Spirit and receiving the gift of tongues, among other things.

This charismatic renewal, which began that weekend, has since allowed many people to experience the Holy Spirit in a way that hadn't been experienced in the Church since the early days. In praying for a special outpouring of the Holy Spirit, people across the globe have been able to renew their love for our Lord, their love for the Sacraments, and their commitment to following Christ in their lives.

As we prayed in this room, the power of the Holy Spirit was made known to me in a way that I have known Him before, but still it was very new. It wasn't anything major, anything over the top, any manifestation of the Holy Spirit that you could see, but I knew He was real; we all knew the Lord was present, and each of us heard our God's voice in a very special way.

No matter what your experience of the charismatic renewal, I hope that if you are reading this you know of the grace and continued love of our God manifest in today's world. Whether you experience it in personal prayer, as we did, or through the Sacraments, or through seeing our Lord's providence in choosing a new Pope, you can know that He is real and He is alive in our world.

May the Holy Spirit inspire and enlighten each of our hearts today.