You’ve told me rather painful things which affect many of us. Your words: “Why does the Church follow a Dead Christ? Why do people go to Mass to fulfil a commandment and not to meet Jesus? Why do I listen to priests who look like mere ‘prayer wheels’ [rezanderos] repeating magic formulas without any meaning and without any devotion? Sunday after Sunday I listen to cold and empty sermons, pure formalities without life, and I see people with long faces and bored looks. What can I do to find the spiritual growth I long for and I do not in any way find in the Church?”

Let me tell you, first of all, in my answer, that your complaint has touched me. The word you use in Spanish, rezanderos, [which I have translated by “prayer wheels” in English] was new to me, and I’ve looked it up in a dictionary. I see it means “priests whose job it is reciting prayers for the dead at a funeral” and it is used in Mexico. Something like “dirge singers”. It’s sad to define a priest by a funeral. We have to do all we can to bring life to prayers and sacraments. But then you add that this lack of feeling hurts you all the more because you have experienced the fervour of the Charismatic Renewal, and so you miss in your parish what you’ve lived with the Charismatics. About that I’m going to tell you my experience.

In younger days (about forty years ago) I joined in India what we then called the “Pentecostal Movement”, and I did so lead by Fr Tony de Mello, who was the one who introduced the Pentecostal Movement in India after he’d found it in David Wilkerson’s book “The Cross and the Switchblade” (which was compulsory reading for all those of us who made the Spiritual Exercises under him in those days, together with its sequel, “Run, Baby, Run” by Nicky Cruz), and in the first group of Catholic Charismatics in Ann Arbour, Michigan in 1967, though he never wanted this role of his to appear in his writings, and so no one knows about it now except for the few of us who took part in it. When Fr Arrupe, the Jesuit General, came to Goa in India for a meeting with Indian Jesuit Provincials, he told Tony, whom he knew and whose work he closely followed, that he wanted to attend a charismatic prayer meeting, as he couldn’t do that in Rome where everybody would know about it at once, and so he wanted to have a discreet experience in Goa. Tony quietly organised the meeting with a charismatic group he himself presided, and I attended it together with a few others. This event has not been recorded in any of Fr Arrupe’s multiple biographies. I take the opportunity to say here that Arrupe joined the group in all simplicity and took part in all the proceedings, sitting down on the floor Japanese style while we sat Indian style, lifting his hands when we lifted ours, joining in our petitions, and praying himself aloud spontaneously with obvious fervour. A Jesuit parish priest of a church in Goa asked us to join him in asking the Lord to help him build a new parish church for which he needed… so many thousands of rupees. That almost spoiled the charisma, and Tony felt very bad about it, but all ended well, and Arrupe went back to Rome with his new experience.

I’ll tell you more. The Pentecostal Movement did me a lot of good. For many years I prayed daily for hours on end, formed part of prayer groups, lifted my hands, shouted alleluias, spoke and sang in “tongues”, laid my hand on peoples’ heads, healed the sick, “cut” the Bible for answers, pronounced and received prophecies. In Bandra, Mumbai, we once had a charismatic Mass “sung in tongues” between the whole group (and you know what that is) and it was one of the most beautiful Masses of my life which I remember with gratitude and awe. More than a hundred people singing each one in their “tongue” as they were inspired, hundred melodies in uncanny harmony of voice and feeling. Pity it wasn’t recorded, but we were not doing it for the public. My own experiences got published in the American charismatic magazine “The New Covenant”, and in a book published by the same magazine as an anthology of charismatic experiences, which I think was called “The Road to Damascus” but I’m not quite sure. Those were glorious years.

After about six years I noticed the interest for charismatic things was fading in me, and I got alarmed. Tony reassured me with his typical advice: “Carlos, when this came to you, you let it come, didn’t you? Well, not that it’s going away, let it go.” I’ve always said that the Pentecostal Movement did me a lot of good by coming into my life, and did me even more good when he left it. My life would have been poorer without it, and even poorer if I had remained in it. In the way of the spirit holding on to ways is losing the way. When St Peter wanted to remain on Mount Tabor after the transfiguration of Christ, Jesus told him gently they had to come down from the mountain. We cannot live for ever on Mount Tabor. We cannot be uttering alleluias and hosannas all our lives. It becomes artificial. It tires down; it bores stiff. If I had remained in those ways I would be now as much of a “dirge singer” as those you mention. Imagine that, had I continued in that way, it would be now more than forty years singing alleluias. With repetition an alleluia becomes as funereal as a dirge. The prayer wheel.

Where to go on to proceed ahead depends on the person’s situation. God will guide you. He directs each one according to circumstances and characters. The important point is to allow oneself to be led without fear of what is coming and without nostalgia for what remained behind. The best is still to follow. We live out the present just as it comes, remaining always open to newness and to change. If I can help you in any way, don’t hesitate to tell me. And thank you for having stirred all these thoughts in me. Kisses, Carlos.