I posted this on DCF a while back and since the topic came up recentlly in a discussion there I wanted to post it here so that it wouldn't get lost to the sands of time ...

OK I told everyone that I would give my two cents so I will. First off I want to start off with what the Catechism says on the matter.

Charisms

799 Whether extraordinary or simple and humble, charisms are graces of the Holy Spirit which directly or indirectly benefit the Church, ordered as they are to her building up, to the good of men, and to the needs of the world.

800 Charisms are to be accepted with gratitude by the person who receives them and by all members of the Church as well. They are a wonderfully rich grace for the apostolic vitality and for the holiness of the entire Body of Christ, provided they really are genuine gifts of the Holy Spirit and are used in full conformity with authentic promptings of this same Spirit, that is, in keeping with charity, the true measure of all charisms.253

801 It is in this sense that discernment of charisms is always necessary. No charism is exempt from being referred and submitted to the Church's shepherds. "Their office [is] not indeed to extinguish the Spirit, but to test all things and hold fast to what is good,"254 so that all the diverse and complementary charisms work together "for the common good.

The church I used to attend was somewhat charismatic. It was Episcopalian so we had liturgy but it was very low-church. About 3 times a year we would have someone speak in tongues and there was ALWAYS an interpretation. We had fellowship weekends, usually related to something like Alpha (which has a Holy Spirit weekend as part of it) where there was usually a seperate "baptism of the Holy Spirit" apart from grace received via the sacraments. This usually resulted in "slain in the spirit" type behavior and "Holy laughter" along with uncontrolable and random speaking in tongues.

The first verse I will point out related to all of this is a quite simple one. 1 Corinthians 14:33. "For God is not a God of disorder but of peace."

I have been to a service that resembled nothing of either mass or your typical non-denominational Protestant service. You showed up and some guy talked about the Holy Spirit and everyone ended up rolling on the floor and laughing for long periods of time. By the standard of scripture I would say that this is a gross misapplication of either valid gifts OR the manifestations themselves were not of God.

The entire book for 1 Corinthians 14 should be a guide for us to discern and test charismatic phenomenon. The same holds true for tongues. As you can see from my description above tongues in the church I attended followed very closely the biblical model. It was infrequent and interpretation was expected. Now, despite the fact that I personally believed most of the interpretations to be bogus, I couldn't fault them entirely because I think that intent to keep to the Holy Scriptures was followed and who am I to say that God did not occasionally bless us with a message via these means. (There have been very long essays written about the purpose of tongues where I think a solid case can be presented that tongues was used in the case where nobody knew the native language ... worth keeping in mind .. just information to add to the discernment process). My general skepticism noted, there are times where I felt I had witnessed a legitimate manifestation of tongues but those instances were uncommon.

Charismatic Praise music ...

I have strong opinons about this because I think many Catholic Churches have allowed strong influence of this into the liturgy. I am FOR praise and worship in the typical charismatic Protestant fashion. Singing songs of praise to the Most Blessed Trinity is a good and positive thing. Getting emotional about it is not necessarily a bad thing and in fact I personally found it freeing to become involved in my Protestant worship to such an extent. If anyone has read my Easter Vigil essay, you would know that the SAME types of things happened to me in a Catholic Church in a far more intimate and real way than anything I had known as a Protestant (and this is not to diss my experience ... there really is much to the phrase "fullness of the faith") ... I really feel that my charismatic experience allowed me to look for the ways I was being touched at that first reception of the Body and Blood of Our Lord. That experience IS there at mass and we can respond to that grace with great anticipation that something is happening to us every time we receive. Something IS happening.

Still despite my approval of such things I think concerts such as this belong APART from mass or ordered in mass such as not to distract one from pious observance and reverent participation in the most awesome gift that we have in the mass. There comes a point where the focus can be on nothing other than Jesus and where worship reaches a level that I think campiness and emotionalism frankly are great distractions.

Slain in the spirit

I have been slain in the spirit twice. The first time I felt wretched afterwards and the second time I felt somewhat indifferent about it. The first time I was NOT in control of my person and the second time I resigned myself to the movement. There are perfectly logical and scientific explanations for both behaviors so I am not sold that what happened was anything other than mass hysteria. In both cases I was expecting something to happen and in both cases something did happen. Now to heighten my skepticism of these events, I must mention that neither of these events seems to have had any effect on my relationship with God. Still to this day I cannot figure out, if they were of God, why on earth He would have had something like that happen to me. Then again, the ways of God are not necessarily my ways.

I am here aren't I?

Charismatic prayer, laying on of hands, oils etc

This is the aspect of the charismatic movement that I felt was the best. When we got together in small groups we prayed for the needs of others in VERY INTENSE ways. I know for a fact that God answers prayer. I loved the spirit of openness to Him and the utter trust placed in Him by people who prayed with a certain understanding that God answered prayer. Obviously this was outside of church and I think it should remain there.

Now laying on of hands was something we typically did when someone was sick or had a great prayer need. The intent was not to do as bishops do when conferring apostolic succession or priestly orders. The intent was to PRAY for healing. Now, because I do not doubt the authority of the Church in such matters I know that what was happening was different from anointing of the sick. That said, miracles do occur because I firmly believe that God simply answers prayer. I will not go beyond that because I have seen much discussed on anointing with oils and such and I am ignorant on the matter from the Catholic perspective.

Typically conservative moral values

One definite positive is I find that charismatic Christians tend to be on the morally conservative side of things. You typically are not going to find a bishop Spong type raising their hands during worship service. I compare the beliefs of my charismatic Protestant friends and I see MUCH in common with that of the Catholic faith. Naturally there are huge chasms but they are far from mainline liberal Protestants. Mainline liberal charismatic Protestant is an oxymoron.

Conclusion

I think what is positive about the charismatic movement is an intense desire to get to know one of the persons of the Trinity in the Holy Spirit. The guiding force for this is the promise in scripture to lead us into all truth (yeah yeah no need to cover the obvious problems here) ... I think God responds to that deep seeking desire of most charismatics and rewards them with sufficient grace to find themselves in the presence of a great deal of truth. I would like to think that my charismatic background, being that it was my background, was certainly part of the path God had for me to return to His Church. I honestly yearn one day for all of the people I used to attend Church with to return to Rome. I think the Holy Spirit can lead them here and I pray that they are open to that grace.

The negative aspects I saw were a flippant and almost anti-intellectual attitude towards history. I also saw WAY too much emphasis placed on the experiential over practical aspects of spiritual life that could be discerned by just reading or being taught. That said I want to point out what I think is the single most important aspect, especially from an apologetics standpoint, of the charismatic movement. There are only a few synapses that need to fire in order to connect spiritual experiences to sacramental experiences. It is not difficult to take someone who clearly believes that God can touch us in very real ways and point them to the Eucharist and the other sacraments. I personally found all of that amazing once it fell into place. The path is short and the Real Presence of Christ in the Eucharist is a huge key in getting charismatics to bring their gifts to His Church.