{"id":7707,"date":"2012-02-18T16:24:13","date_gmt":"2012-02-18T22:24:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.markmallett.com\/blog\/?p=7707"},"modified":"2017-04-17T22:01:39","modified_gmt":"2017-04-18T02:01:39","slug":"charismatic-part-vi","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.markmallett.com\/blog\/charismatic-part-vi\/","title":{"rendered":"Charismatic? Part VI","gt_translate_keys":[{"key":"rendered","format":"text"}]},"content":{"rendered":"
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\"pentecost3_Fotor\"<\/a>Pentecost<\/span><\/em>, Artist Unknown<\/span><\/p>\n

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PENTECOST<\/strong> is not only a single event, but a grace that the Church can experience again and again. However, in this past century, the popes have been praying not only for a renewal in the Holy Spirit, but for a “new<\/em> Pentecost”. When one considers all the signs of the times that have accompanied this prayer\u2014key among them the continued presence of the Blessed Mother gathering with her children on earth through ongoing apparitions, as though she were once again in the “upper room” with the Apostles… the words of the Catechism take on a new sense of immediacy:<\/p>\n

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…at the \u201cend time\u201d the Lord\u2019s Spirit will renew the hearts of men, engraving a new law in them. He will gather and reconcile the scattered and divided peoples; he will transform the first creation, and God will dwell there with men in peace<\/span><\/strong>.<\/span> \u2014Catechism of the Catholic Church, <\/em>n. 715<\/span><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

This time when the Spirit comes to “renew the face of the earth” is the period, after the death of Antichrist, during what the Church Father’s pointed to in St. John’s Apocalypse as the “thousand year<\/em>” era when Satan is chained in the abyss.<\/p>\n

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He seized the dragon, the ancient serpent, which is the Devil or Satan, and tied it up for a thousand years… [the martyrs] came to life and they reigned with Christ for a thousand years. The rest of the dead did not come to life until the thousand years were over. This is the first resurrection. (Rev 20:2-5)<\/span>; cf. The Coming Resurrection<\/a><\/em><\/span><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

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So, the blessing foretold undoubtedly refers to the time of His Kingdom, when the just will rule on rising from the dead; when creation, reborn and freed from bondage, will yield an abundance of foods of all kinds from the heaven\u2019s dew and the fertility of the earth, just as the seniors recall. Those who saw John, the Lord\u2019s disciple, [tell us] that they heard from him how the Lord taught and spoke about these times\u2026<\/strong> \u2014St. Irenaeus of Lyons, Church Father (140\u2013202 A.D.); Adversus Haereses, Irenaeus of Lyons, V.33.3.4, The Fathers of the Church<\/em>, CIMA Publishing Co.; (St. Irenaeus was a student of St. Polycarp, who knew and learned from the Apostle John and was later consecrated bishop of Smyrna by John.)<\/span><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Unlike the heresy of millenarianism<\/em><\/a> which held that Christ would literally<\/em> come to reign on earth in His resurrected body amid lavish carnivals and feasts, the reign referred to here is spiritual <\/em>in nature. Wrote St. Augustine:<\/p>\n

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Those who on the strength of this passage<\/strong> [Rev 20:1-6], have suspected that the first resurrection is future and bodily, have been moved, among \"\"other things, specially by the number of a thousand years, as if it were a fit thing that the saints should thus enjoy a kind of Sabbath-rest during that period, a holy leisure after the labors of six thousand years since man was created\u2026 (and) there should follow on the completion of six thousand years, as of six days, a kind of seventh-day Sabbath in the succeeding thousand years\u2026 And this opinion would not be objectionable, if it were believed that the joys of the saints, in that Sabbath, shall be spiritual, and consequent on the presence of God\u2026<\/strong> \u2014St. Augustine of Hippo (354-430 A.D.; Church Doctor), De Civitate Dei, Bk. XX, Ch. 7, Catholic University of America Press<\/span><\/p>\n

At the end of the six thousandth year, all wickedness must be abolished from the earth, and righteousness reign for a thousand years<\/strong> [Rev 20:6]\u2026 \u2014Caecilius Firmianus Lactantius (250-317 A.D.; Ecclesiastical writer), The Divine Institutes<\/em>, Vol 7.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

This reign of Christ in an era of peace and justice comes by means of a new outpouring of the Holy Spirit\u2014a Second Advent or Pentecost (see also\u00a0The Coming Pentecost<\/a><\/em>):<\/p>\n

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The Church cannot prepare for the new millennium “in any other way than in the Holy Spirit. <\/em>What was accomplished by the power of the Holy Spirit ‘in the fullness of time’ can only through the Spirit’s power now emerge from the memory of the Church”.<\/strong> \u2014 POPE JOHN PAUL II, Tertio Millennio Adveniente<\/a><\/em>, 1994, n. 44<\/span><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

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THE RESTORATION OF ALL THINGS<\/p>\n

In a statement that is both insightful and prophetic, Pope Leo XIII in 1897 initiated the following\"\" century of popes who would earnestly pray for a “new Pentecost.” Their prayers would be not just for a spiritual revival of sorts, but for the “restoration of all things in Christ.” [1]<\/sup><\/a>cf. POPE PIUS X, Encyclical E Supremi “On the Restoration of All Things in Christ”<\/em><\/a><\/span><\/span>