In Zurich.263 Later that year, he viewed a film on the charismatic community in Ann

Arbor, and he started his own prayer meeting the next day at this university.²⁶⁴

Mühlen’s relationship with the CCM has been described by Vondey as a

“temporary solidarity,” because he saw a hope for a renewal of the Church in the unity he

witnessed in the movement. Mühlen never worked explicitly towards theological

defenses of what was occurring in the movement. Nevertheless, his own words show that

he had much in common with the movement:

Baptism in the Spirit has been a gradual process over a period of six to eight months. I am praying more now and reading Scripture…to personally respond to the Lord who speaks to us in Scripture. I also find myself drawn to the prayer meetings, and a growing joy in being with other Christians simply as a fellow Christian, and not as such an imposing things as a professor of dogmatic theology…I have no doubt that the Holy Spirit himself is acting with power in the

²⁶³ The dialogues were set out to be a series of meetings to cover various issues over the course of five years, and occurred in large part due to the efforts of noted Pentecostal leader David du Plessis and Kilian McDonnell, Catholic Pentecostal scholar. The first series was 1972-1976, one meeting being held each year in a different city. The first meeting in June 1972 focused on an exegetical approach “in order to study ‘baptism in the Holy Spirit’ in the New Testament, its relation to repentance and the process of sanctification and the relation of the charismata to it.” Final Report of the Dialogue Between the Secretariat for Promoting Christian Unity of the Roman Catholic Church and Leaders of some Pentecostal Churches and Participants in the Charismatic Movement within Protestant and Anglican Churches: 1972-1976, http://www.vatican.va/roman_curia/pontifical_councils/chrstuni/pentecostals/rc_pc_chrstuni_doc_1972-1976_final-report-pentecostals_en.html .

²⁶⁴ “Interview with Mühlen,” 4.

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charismatic renewal and that this will have profound implications for the lives of many individuals like myself, and for the church as a whole.²⁶⁵

Mühlen’s testimony about his Spirit experience is given at a transitional period of his life and career. His recollection of his own baptism in the Spirit mirrors that of so many other recorded testimonies, though he does not indicate whether the LH was used on him or not. He had been known as a theologian of the Spirit many years prior to this interview, and clearly, he was drawn to the movement in part because of his own pneumatology, as well as the movement’s emphasis on renewal. Later he would even pen a guide for spiritual renewal, which was meant to be accessible to Protestants and Catholics: A Charismatic Theology.²⁶⁶

This book was meant for small congregations focusing on renewal; it is split into two parts, which are each split into seven week periods, and each week is split into seven days, each focusing on a different aspect of the faith. It’s structure does remind one of the six-week “Living the Life in the Spirit” seminars developed in the Ann Arbor charismatic communities. But to be best understood, A Charismatic Theology should be seen in the context of his life up to that point.²⁶⁷ It is for this reason that a brief biographical sketch of his life will be given, with attention to specific experiences of his own renewal in order to frame his relationship with the Catholic Charismatic Renewal accurately—his relationship with the CCM was during a middle point of his life that is characterized as

265. Ibid., 4.

265. Heribert Mühlen, A Charismatic Theology: Initiation in the Spirit, trans. Edward Quinn and Thomas

Linton (New York: Paulist Press, 1978).

²⁶⁷ Mühlen was not attempting to mirror or improve on the “life in the Spirit” seminars, but any casual observer of the CCM and his work will note the resemblance. His book is a divided into two parts: the first geared toward a leader or pastor, and the second toward the seeker of renewal. Each part has a seven week structure in which the faithful are guided in reflection, prayer, and spiritual renewal. It is intended for use in a parish or church setting as a renewal program. His process is regarded as well-grounded systematically and exegetically.

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“transitional” by scholars of Mühlen such as Vondey and Gwan-Hee Kim²⁶⁸. Then, Mühlen’s understanding of renewal will be distinguished on a key point from the notion of renewal as typically found in the CCM at this time: his approach to renewal was based on the idea that ecumenical diversity could be a starting point for unity and the renewal of all Christian churches. Mühlen’s pneumatology will be explored with particular focus on how the one Spirit is one and the same in many churches. This ecumenical formulation of Mühlen’s pneumatology will provide a theological framework from which to understand the birth and rapid growth of the CCM and its reliance on the LH. A constructive and ecumenical appraisal of the use of the LH during the birth and growth of the early CCM will then be given where the LH as a dynamic act of the congregation can strengthen the Church through the renewal of its members.

A Time for Renewal

Mühlen had studied theology and philosophy at the University of Bonn beginning in 1946, and then earned his doctorate in philosophy at the University of Freiburg in 1951,²⁶⁹ en route to his ordination in 1955. He was a vicar for a brief period and then continued on an academic path. Notably, he studied under Karl Rahner for a year and completed his doctorate in theology in Münster in 1963. Wolfgang Vondey states that his dissertation Der Heilige Geist als Person, and his follow-up Una Mystica Persona, brought him quick notice in the theological community; his habilitation work at the University of Munich “was praised as an ‘ecclesiological event’” by Alois Winklhofer in a review of Mühlen’s second publication. Mühlen was, in a sense, at the forefront of a renewed interest in pneumatology and ecclesiology. He garnered praise from

268. Wolfgang Vondey, Heribert Mühlen: His Theology and Praxis: A New Profile of the Church (Lanham, MD: University Press of America, 2004), xxxiv-xxxvii.

268. Ibid., xiii. His dissertation: Sein und Person nach Johannes Duns Scotus.

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contemporary greats Karl Barth and Hans Urs von Balthasar, and was a peritus at Vatican II. He became Professor of Dogmatic Theology and History at the Theological Faculty Paderborn in April of 1964.²⁷⁰

The so-called transitional phase of Mühlen’s career from 1965-1990 is where his theology gets mislabeled as a charismatic theology. He took part in the newly created Roman Catholic-Pentecostal dialogues beginning in 1972, and it was from this encounter and his later contact with the CCM that one critic, Gwan-Hee Kim, states was the impetus for his turning more away from speculative theology towards pneumato-praxis.²⁷¹ Kim argues that Mühlen had a “pneumatological conversion,” in regards to the role of the Spirit in the Incarnation, when he changed to insisting that the sending of the Spirit could be prior to that of the Son: thus, a personal experience of the Spirit in the Church is an experience with Jesus. This notion of encountering the person of Jesus through the work of the Holy Spirit found strong parallel with the Catholic charismatic communities of the time because of their emphasis on a personal encounter with God through the baptism in the Spirit. But Mühlen had always maintained that there was no such thing as a “distinct charismatic spirituality or theology” and he did not write on behalf of or in promotion of the CCM. Further confusion on how deeply imbedded into the CCM he truly was may have been magnified by his 1976 work Einübung in die christliche Grunderfahrung, vol. 1, Lehre und Zuspruch, which had the unfortunate and misleading translation of A Charismatic Theology.²⁷² This book did exhibit Mühlen’s movement during this period of his life toward a praxis of Christian renewal based on a

270. Ibid., xiv.

271. Ibid., 162-63.

270. Ibid., xix, xlvin20. The German title of this work translates roughly as “initiation into the fundamental Christian experience.” Ibid., xix, xlvin20.

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“pneumatology from below” approach where the church is the experience of the Spirit of Christ.²⁷³ Mühlen was committed fully to pneumato-praxis, and this transitional time forms the basis of his later focus solely on church and spiritual reform.²⁷⁴ His understanding of the person of the Holy Spirit as a fundamental doctrine and reality of the church infused his work to the end of his career, but it is in this transitional phase where his association with the CCM takes place and ultimately ended.

Mühlen’s “temporary solidarity” with the CCM takes places during this transitional period of his life. ²⁷⁵ The temporary relationship was built on Mühlen’s fascination with the renewal aspect of the movement; both Mühlen and the movement had a similar focus on the communal context of renewal. As charismatic communities were firmly established in parts of the US like Michigan, Mühlen was telling the CCM that the “charismatic renewal” was the response of God to the call in Vatican II for a more collegial and communal authority in the church, and that the church was in the middle of “epochal change…God dwelt in Jesus, the new temple, and as we become joined to Jesus, God dwells in us…That’s why it’s so important that we know that God is not primarily present in church buildings, but in us, the people of God.”²⁷⁶ According to Vondey, Mühlen’s orientation towards spiritual renewal at this period of his career finds its beginning at the end of the Council, his last day in fact. Mühlen reflects in a journal entry he made in St. Peter’s Basilica from near the baldachino altar canopy and the window of the gold dove:

273. Ibid., xxxv-xxxviii. Vondey adds: “Mühlen himself describes it as the logical consequence and final result of his life-long endeavor in theology and praxis…This liturgy symbolizes the climax of his theological and practical work and represents in its far-reaching ecumenical significance a challenge to the theology and praxis of all Christian churches.”

273. Ibid., xiv-xv. His later books focus on pneumato-praxis culminating in the introduction of a reform liturgy in 1992, found in Kirch wachst von innen.

273. Ibid., 162.

274. “Interview with Mühlen,” 4.

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Somewhat melancholy, I listen into the hall…and then there is again this window, jumping at me as it was nine years ago when I came here for the first time; this window far away at the end of the auditorium behind the giant canopy of Bernini, small, but shining brightly in Pentecostal yellow. In the last weeks I had to look again and again at this tiny spot, and I absorbed it, the splendid framework hardly bothers me anymore. I remain standing at the entrance for a while and look once more at the auditorium…And then this window comes towards me, joining together with the confusion of voices. The thought strikes me: Holy Spirit among this assembly of bishops, in this confusion of languages from all over the world! This voice will remain! Increasingly, I believe to hear [sic] only one voice, as in a choir carried over from afar. This is the voice of the one Spirit, the one Church, the council! One Spirit in the many, one person in many persons: mystery of unity of the many languages, colors of skin, opinions. The divine we in the human we! Holy Spirit, present throughout the sinful history of the Church and into the last hours of this council, in spite of and contrary to all sin! I want to pray, give thanks. Veni Sancte Spiritus, veni lumen concordium…I listen to myself in surprise, as this hymn rises up from inside of me and know suddenly: gifts of the Spirit will arise, renewal will come, renewal out of this one Spirit in the many churches…²⁷⁷

His melancholy reflection, ending with a jolt of spiritual perception or hopeful renewal so

to speak, anticipates not only his own experience with the Catholic-Pentecostal dialogues

he would be commissioned to participate in throughout the 1970s and 1980s, but also his

own personal renewal.

Mühlen’s first encounter with Pentecostals in 1972 would have implications for

his life that would surprise even him. Soon after this first meeting with Pentecostals, he

met the Taiwanese missionary, and they shared an uncommon experience, prayer: “After

about twenty minutes of prayer of [sic] my Christian brother I was therefore completely

shocked about my inability to answer. I could not even say, Amen.”²⁷⁸ Then, eight

months after he had started his own prayer group in Paderborn when he had viewed the

film about the Ann Arbor community, he was participating in spiritual exercises with the

Archdiocese and a small group of priests. They were invited to renew their baptismal,

277. Vondey, Mühlen, 133-34; Cf. Ibid., 162.

278. Ibid., 163.

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confirmation, and ordination promises. Revelation 3.20 was read, which turned out to be

profound for Mühlen.²⁷⁹ He would say about this experience:

For the first time in my life, it became clear to me. Either this is a meaningless poetic phrase or this is really the glorified Christ speaking; and that is what is meant in Revelation…I struggled for three days and said, “Dear God, I am, after all, a professor of theology. You cannot expect me to do this!...I stepped forward after receiving communion, said what I wished to ask from God at that hour, and requested prayer and blessing from those present. I did not “feel” anything by doing this since it was for me a simple step in obedience to a call from God. But to my surprise, a few days later I noticed how prayer started within me and the psalms flowed out of me with an unknown intensity…I have analyzed this event in all the directions of a psychology of religion, but I cannot escape the thought that in it was given to me the original experience of baptism which the New Testament reports.²⁸⁰

Mühlen’s self-described Spirit experience led this turn into more practical theology that

had ecumenical implications. This experience was the focal point in his life from where

he could say there was a proverbial “before” and “after,” where the “after” is clearly

centered on a theology centered on renewal which invites others to experience the

same.²⁸¹ He established seminars, prayer meetings and other renewal services around

Europe in schools, universities, and churches. It was within this period of personal

renewal and church renewal that he penned A Charismatic Theology, a handbook for

pastoral renewal at the local level, and had a working relationship with the CCM. In

1977, Mühlen even set up an office for Catholic congregational reform in Paderborn, but

this office had nothing to do with the CCM. This office produced a journal where Mühlen

wrote out his “Guidelines for Congregational Renewal” in its first issue, which he held

were not in the interests of forming or supporting a movement or specific spirituality. He

279. “Behold, I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will enter his house and dine with him, and he with me” (NAB).

280. Vondey, Mühlen, 164.

279. Ibid, 165. E.g., Mühlen invited bishops to renew their promises of ordination at a prayer services with German bishops and cardinals in 1975. He was also took part in forming CREDO, Catholic Agency for the Renewal of Faith and Evangelization, which stressed renewal of sacramental promises, not just those of initiation, but also marriage and ordination.

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did advocate “spirit renewal,” which meant repentance, acceptance of baptismal graces, and acceptance of charisms.²⁸²

Mühlen’s personal renewal experience likely colored his perception of the CCM and intensified any hope he saw in it for the church. But the congruencies that can be made between his theological thought and the development of the movement are hard to find.

Consonance to the CCM

The CCM and Mühlen shared a belief in the importance of the small community context for encouraging and facilitating personal renewal experiences for its members. Mühlen had in mind, however, a larger universal and ecumenical notion of how a charismatic renewal included all Christian churches. The CCM, as the name implies, was focused from early on and saw as its Spirit-led goal to renew the entire Catholic Church. The movement could not reconcile what it saw as fundamental cultural differences of the Protestant Pentecostal churches with traditional Catholic spirituality. Any consonance found between Mühlen and the CCM boils down to the unity of the churches in the Spirit and the manifestation of charisms as gifts for building up the body of Christ. While both had a different sense of long-term or of large-scale renewal, they both began with the community or the congregation.

The idea of congregational renewal holds a specific meaning for Mühlen because of his sense of the word “congregation,” which for Mühlen meant something more personal than “parish.” While the latter term holds its traditional meaning for Mühlen, the former highlights his concern to “revitalize in small groups the traditions that are already present in the parish in order to make possible a renewal of the entire local Christian

²⁸² Ibid., 166.

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community and, ultimately, the immediate social world of the Christian.”²⁸³ In one sense, the charismatic communities embodied much of what Mühlen was looking for in real-life, concrete manifestations of congregational renewal while respecting the individual tradition of the church experiencing renewal.

The CCM held closely to the purpose of sharing the spirit experience of its members, and did not call for a separation from the Catholic Church, but in fact maintained the superiority of the sacraments and traditional devotions such as the rosary and Eucharistic adoration. In this, there are easily identifiable congruencies to the CCM and their establishment of “Spirit-led” communities, intent on renewing the Church one person at a time. The most obvious embodiment of local-level congregational renewal in the CCM were the prayer meetings, which were typically small, though the ones that spawned the larger charismatic communities, in places like South Bend and Ann Arbor, grew into the hundreds. The typical prayer meetings, bibles studies, and other apostolic outreaches of the charismatic communities were small and in support of or attached to local Catholic parishes. This type of local-level, small group, congregational renewal also shared some of the understanding Mühlen had about what spirit renewal meant in so far as it viewed baptism in the Spirit as a revitalization of baptismal graces. While this understanding of renewal may sound analogous to the CCM’s understanding of baptism in the Spirit, because of its emphasis on graces already present in the person receiving the LH, Mühlen’s relations with the movement were limited to the purposes of attempting to incorporate its “theological emphases” into his newly formulated focus on ecclesial

²⁸³ Vondey, Mühlen, xviii-xix. Vondey is explaining that, as a general rule when reading Mühlen, the word Mühlen used for local Christian community, Gemeinde, means more than just the geographic and administering parish.

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praxis and pneumato-praxis of the Catholic Church. Vondey notes that Mühlen’s attempt

to do this ultimately failed.

The Catholic-Pentecostal dialogues showed Mühlen that ecumenical hope was

justified and a real possibility. During the 1970s and 1980s, Mühlen’s ideas of

ecumenical praxis and charismatic renewal were essentially the same—both aimed at

church renewal. But Mühlen’s particular definition of charismatic renewal meant

“ecumenical congregational-renewal, in which the spiritual inheritance of the currently

separated churches and spiritual traditions is preserved and renewed with direction

toward the future.”²⁸⁴ This was the key to distinguishing his thought from the “goals and

structures” of the CCM. While the first Catholic Pentecostals participated in

interdenominational prayer meetings, mostly after the Duquesne Weekend, and some of

the first charismatic communities in Michigan were ecumenically diverse, the movement

in the Catholic Church drifted slowly towards homogeneity, i.e. inter-denominationalism.

Mühlen truly did believe in one Church and the one Spirit, and in that sense formulated

renewal from an ecumenical means and towards an ecumenical end based on this Spirit-

renewal:

It is impossible a priori to question the true and authentic experience of the Spirit granted in these and other awakenings or to deny that the major Churches must face the question as to whether they have culpably closed themselves up against these experiences: whether they are to blame for the fact that new Churches have been formed, thus leading to further division in Christendom…It may be regarded as a special gift that Catholics and Protestants can produce together an initiation into the renewal of their respective Churches…Particular emphasis must be laid on the fact that the inner dynamism of the charismatic renewal is directed, not to a new charismatic Church (Church of the Spirit), but to a charismatically renewed Church….The awakening of the gifts of the Spirit in all the major Christian Churches can lead to the restoration of our lost unity only under the further guidance of the Spirit of God.²⁸⁵

284. Ibid., 167, 171.

285. Muhlen, Charismatic Theology, 16-18. (Emphasis Mühlen’s).

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Mühlen had a truly universal end in mind as he believed that the charisms of the

respective churches could be used to the mutual benefit of all the Christian churches.

The CCM focused on a Catholic renewal, which may have stemmed from

ecumenical support at its birth, but did not appraise any advantage for growth in the

ecclesial differences.²⁸⁶ The CCM, interested in ecumenism, saw divisions and

differences to be approached from a position of respect. There was no plan for universal

renewal or for unity. The historical and theological differences between Protestants and

Catholics were proclaimed by the CCM as being overcome by the trans-cultural

experience in the Spirit, but the movement looked to Vatican II’s Decree on Ecumenism

to maintain a position of respect and understanding, and if anything, to maintain so-called

cultural distinctions.

Kevin Ranaghan wrote of the relationship between Protestant Pentecostals and

Catholic Pentecostals:

While we must be extremely careful that what takes place under the name of charismatic renewal is to the best of our knowledge the authentic work of the Holy Spirit among us…we must also be extremely careful not to import into the Catholic charismatic movement those purely human elements which properly and rightly belong among classical pentecostals as part of their religious and cultural traditions. These elements frequently have no place in the Catholic theological, spiritual, and cultural tradition, and they have little resonance with contemporary American Catholicism. ²⁸⁷

Ranaghan understands these differences between Cathololic Pentecostals and classical

Pentecostals as cultural. Much leadership in the CCM would reflect this growing good-

286. Cf. George Martin: “I believe that the charismatic renewal can be the vehicle whereby the life of the entire Catholic Church will be renewed….its potential is not merely to be a movement or a sect within the Church…but to infuse and renew the entire Church…But the larger goal is the significant one: a charismatically renewed Catholic Church.” “Charismatic Renewal and the Church of Tomorrow,” in As the Spirit Leads Us, eds. Kevin and Dorothy Ranaghan (New York: Paulist Press, 1971), 244.

286. “Catholics and Pentecostals Meet in the Spirit,” in Ibid., 135; Cf. Ibid., 125-29.

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willed isolationism toward Protestant churches. And while Ranaghan cited heavily the

Decree on Ecumenism, particularly numbers two through nine, he was interested in showing how the faithful Catholic should relate to his or her “separated brethren.” Ranaghan further argued that the “cultural envelope” in which the Protestants have received the gifts of the Spirit is “not the essence of the experience itself.” He would say in fact that the renewal in the “Church today” is the “essence of a renewal of life in the Holy Spirit.” He concludes that it is a grave error to think that since Catholics had received the baptism in the Spirit, they were obliged or required to take on aspects of “pentecostal culture.”²⁸⁸ On the other hand, Mühlen’s reading of the Decree on Ecumenism, paragraph four in particular,²⁸⁹ understood the “fullness of catholicity” to mean that a relationship of all churches, universally, was necessary to realize what he called the convergence of churches toward a common future. For Mühlen, the one Church is made up of the many churches by virtue of the Spirit’s presence in them.²⁹⁰

The CCM was not trying to express theologically or find ecclesial praxis based on a pneumatology where the one church was constituted by the same Spirit which inhabited all churches—this was Mühlen’s goal. But both the CCM and Mühlen thought that all Christian churches were united by the Spirit and the charisms.

The height of Mühlen’s associations with the CCM was undoubtedly during the 1970s. But even then, though he maintained that the charismatic renewal had great promise in being able to reunite Christians, he would say: “Each church has to build up

288. Ibid., 128-29.

288. “Nevertheless, the divisions among Christians prevent the Church from attaining the fullness of catholicity proper to her, in those of her sons who, though attached to her by Baptism, are yet separated from full communion with her. Furthermore, the Church herself finds it more difficult to express in actual life her full catholicity in all her bearings.” Paul VI, Decree on Ecumenism, 4.

289. Vondey, Mühlen, 167.

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the other churches with their [spiritual] gift and receive the gifts of the other churches. No church, including the Catholic Church, has experienced all the gifts fully.”²⁹¹ He added that churches need the gifts of the other churches to be complete. This, in stark contrast to what leaders in the CCM were writing, indicates simply that he envisioned a praxis that integrated divergent traditions. He held that Christians had a right to their own tradition and theology, granted they did not claim a right to force it on others.²⁹² Certainly, the CCM would agree with that statement; the CCM did not claim to desire integration of traditions in their renewal.²⁹³ The birth and rapid growth of Catholic Pentecostalism indicated that there were many Catholics who desired a more deeply personal encounter in their faith and in making decisions about how to publicly confess and profess that faith. One of the ultimate barriers Mühlen perceived in trying to integrate principles of the charismatic renewal into ecclesial praxis was that the churches were overly structured, to the point that such personal, public, and deep experiences of faith were not possible, especially in the interests of ecumenism, which Mühlen held even more highly than the CCM.²⁹⁴ In other words, the CCM encompassed this challenge by virtue of its own existence; its goal of renewing by forming communities without was incapable of applying pressure to the established church’s social framework. Thus, the type of renewal which Mühlen envisioned could not be arrived at through the vehicle of the CCM.

291. “Interview with Mühlen,” 6.

291. Heribert Mühlen, “Steps Toward a Universal Council of Christians,” Theology Digest 21, no. 3 (1973):

199.

293. Cf. Ibid. Mühlen argued from tradition. The theological traditions of the Jews and the Greeks were not eliminated by Christianity, but were integrated: “There is preserved within the New Testament a Christology of Aramaic-speaking coinage different from a Christology which developed among those who spoke Greek…Hence Eph 2:14-18 could see the unique primacy of Christ precisely in breaking down the iron curtain and making Jews and Greeks into one, without making them alike.” (Emphasis Mühlen’s).

293. Vondey, Mühlen, 178-79.

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Mühlen distanced himself from the movement from 1985.²⁹⁵ After that point, his concern for ecumenical unity remained, with the awareness of the Holy Spirit’s presence and operation in all churches. Still, much of his vision for ecumenical unity did align with the values of the early CCM: communal engagement between churches, identification and practice of charisms for the benefit of the community, and openness to the action and witness to the concrete manifestations of the Spirit. Mühlen’s notion of the Spirit as “one person in many persons” could be transposed ecumenically as “The Holy Spirit is one and the same in the many churches,”²⁹⁶ which could be argued for strongly as the thesis for the movement itself. The goal of this study, however, is not to take Mühlen’s ideas of renewal and lay them upon the movement itself. Rather, the LH can be evaluated in light of how Mühlen understands the Spirit’s relation to the Church. Mühlen’s pneumatology, in respect to its ecumenical formulation as the one Spirit being one and the same in many churches, provides a theological framework from which to understand the outbreak of the movement, leading to a constructive and ecumenical appraisal of the use of the LH during the birth and growth of the early CCM.

Before proceeding to a study of Mühlen’s pneumatology, it should be noted in some more detail what he meant by charismatic renewal, and what became of his work for renewal after dissociating himself from the CCM.

Charismatic Renewal and Spirit-Experience

295. Ibid., 172. From the late 1970s, one point Mühlen had become critical of the CCM on was the operation of the Spirit in the Church, in regards specifically to the gifts of the Spirit: “As the history of the Church shows, human beings start being deeply moved when they open up to the Spirit of God, and at the same time the fundamentally concupiscential state of human existence emerges, [i.e.] dubious motives, begging for recognition, up to the tendency to abuse the gifts of the Spirit in a sublime indulgence of the self. For this reason, the vital question of the contemporary renewal is the discernment of spirits.”

296. Vondey, Mühlen, 167.

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Simply stated, the separation of the churches was not necessarily a bad thing in Mühlen’s thinking. The historical separation of the churches was a starting point for renewal and Christian unity for Mühlen, because the converging of the plurality of churches imaged the plurality of the divine “we,” the Trinity. Mühlen envisioned an ecumenical praxis which reestablished Christian unity based on the Spirit’s presence in all Christian churches, which required the cooperation of the churches to reestablish a visible unity. Mühlen had a workable plan to make this praxis a reality by means of a universal council of Christians.²⁹⁷ He identified three steps: self-discovery, in which each church recognizes its particular charisms and those of other churches; openness, in which each church evaluates whether it has used its particular Spirit-gifts or charisms for the enriching of the other churches; assimilation, in which churches critically assimilate that which it can from other churches in respect to its own traditions.²⁹⁸ With these steps he argued for a call to a universal council of Christians that would allow the churches to live the visible unity to which they are called as bearers of Christ’s Spirit.

This goal of visible unity was based on 1 Corinthians 12.7,²⁹⁹ where he identifies that the “manifestation” or “evidencing” which the Spirit grants is like the Logos in the Incarnation; this phanerosis, evidencing or manifestation, is the Spirit’s self-showing in a visible reality—there is literally a phenomenon of the Spirit via the charisms. These “phenomenon” given for the benefit of others expresses the idea of sympheron, which he translates as “all-around best advantage,” where help and collaboration are both implied. Thus, he translates this verse as: “The Spirit is made concretely perceptible in each one in

297. Vondey, Mühlen, 168.

298. Mühlen, “Universal Council of Christians,” 197. He further identified three methods for these steps: dialogue, convergence, and consensus.

299. “To each individual the manifestation of the Spirit is given for some benefit” (NAB). (Emphasis mine.)

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proportion as there is a trend toward togetherness.”³⁰⁰ As there is a diversity of gifts in multiple individuals, or individualities, the movement toward using them together with and for the whole fulfills their purpose and justifies their concreteness. Unity, and a convergence toward working for the all-around best advantage of others and the group, presupposes a diversity of individualities: “The Church differs from every other society in that it is never really autonomous within itself, but finds its constantly self-renewing unity in that Spirit which is distinct from it.”³⁰¹ Mühlen recognized this self-renewing in the Spirit aspect as being established in a newly formulated understanding of the Church in Vatican II’s Lumen Gentium.³⁰² The Spirit, in Lumen Gentium, identified as unifying and moving through the “whole body” would ground what would come to be Mühlen’s notion of charismatic renewal.

During his “temporary solidarity” with the CCM, Mühlen proposed a simple question: what do we immediately think of when we hear the word “Holy Spirit”? Moreover, who says that they have the Holy Spirit in them? He contends that many would not state outright that he or she was “filled” with the Holy Spirit, and that those of the primitive Church would assert it “without exception.” Mühlen was not merely locating disconnect between the spiritual and ecclesial aspects of contemporary worship practices within the Catholic Church. He sought to call attention to the fact many have a narrow understanding of God, and that an experience of the Spirit of God, not just

300. Mühlen, “Universal Council,” 198.

300. Ibid.

301. Heribert Mühlen, “Charismatic and Sacramental Understanding of the Church: Dogmatic Aspects of Charismatic Renewal,” Sacramental Life 12, no. 4 (1974): 334. See Lumen Gentium 7.7: “In order that we

might be unceasingly renewed in Him, He has shared with us His Spirit who, existing as one and the same being in the Head and in the members, gives life to, unifies and moves through the whole body. This He does in such a way that His work could be compared by the holy Fathers with the function which the principle of life, that is, the soul, fulfills in the human body.” http://www.vatican.va/archive/hist_councils/ii_vatican_council/documents/vat-ii_const_19641121_lumen-gentium_en.html.

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understanding, would lead to renewal in the Church. He thought that a person’s experience of the Spirit had to do with the social experience of God.³⁰³ Is it proper to frame the CCM as a social experience of God? Mühlen would answer yes, if the Spirit experience was not an end in itself, and if the life of the church as a whole was being enriched.

Vondey asserts that Mühlen was far from being a leader or official voice of the CCM; he was inspired by what he witnessed and this fueled an attempt to integrate the renewal and Spirit experience of the movement into an ecclesial praxis for the Catholic Church.³⁰⁴ Therefore, his definition of charismatic renewal never lined up with any “textbook” definition produced by the CCM.³⁰⁵ He did believe that there was ecumenical hope in his understanding of charismatic renewal, which was inspired by his encounters with the movement, but which was also wholly his own formulation where an experience of the Spirit is a trinitarian experience in the community, an experience of the Spirit is an initiating experience that can be profound but cannot replace faith, and experiences of the Spirit can be integrated into church life.³⁰⁶ “A charismatic experience is defined as the happening whereby our hearts are perceptibly touched and seized by God’s Spirit and we thus personally encounter Christ. Emphasis is on ‘perceptible’: [sic] experience of the Spirit is perceived by the individual and others.”³⁰⁷ Mühlen’s emphasis on the community’s perception of one’s encounter with the Spirit is precisely the aspect of the charismatic renewal which he called the “ecumenical hope.”

303. “The Person of the Holy Spirit,” The Holy Spirit and Power: The Catholic Charismatic Renewal, ed. Kilian McDonnell (Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1975), 11-12.

304. Vondey, Mühlen, 166-67.

305. Mühlen, for his clarity of thinking and theologically enriched perspective, is ultimately the theologian the charismatic renewal needed.

306. Heribert Mühlen, “Charismatic Renewal: An Ecumenical Hope,” Theology Digest 30, no. 3 (1982): 245-

307. Ibid., 245. (Emphasis Mühlen’s).

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The Spirit experience is not enough to constitute a renewal; the charismatic renewal occurs in a congregational context with the hope of renewing the Christian’s immediate social community. Because diverse traditions were coming together for prayer, praise, personal conversion, and acceptance of spiritual gifts meant that a trinitarian community-experience of God was being revealed through the one and the same Spirit active in the spiritual gifts. Therefore, charismatic renewal is inclusive. The social experience of God supplements one’s denominational religious experience. The movement of so many people, as Mühlen saw it, in the twentieth century to personally encounter God was evidence of, not one movement, but a historically new essence of the church.³⁰⁸ A historically new essence of the church did not mean that there was something flawed or replaced in previous conceptions of the church or ecclesiologies. These charismatic experiences reveal a church united and constructed by the Spirit, a thesis Mühlen upheld prior to the movement’s spread.

The Spirit experience in a renewal context is an initiating event that is constituted of rational, volitional, and affective moments and should not be confused with faith.³⁰⁹

The idea of “event” must be qualified. Clearly, Mühlen would agree that there was generally a moment or event that leads to a longer period of gradual conversion and reception of spiritual gifts. But the singular notion of an event, one point in time, which he calls a psychic event, similar to what Paul or Augustine experienced, is not and should not be taken as a universal norm. The Spirit experience is merely a beginning and is better appraised as a spiritual renewal because it does not invalidate water baptism. Mühlen, though he does not accuse the CCM of this, points to this as one danger of the

308. Ibid., 245-46.

309. Ibid., 247.

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charismatic movement during this time, the early 1980s, to turn reception of the Spirit and spiritual gifts into a single and, frankly, manufactured moment. He also offers admonishments to the movement for, in some places, attempting to maintain this Spirit experience when it should be seen correctly as an initiating experience.³¹⁰ Mühlen’s “charismatic renewal” understands that Western spirituality does not encourage novices to cling to exalted states of enthusiasm or spiritual awakening:

The more we try to preserve specific perceptions, the less ready we are to enter the abyss of faith. A great hindrance to charismatic renewal is identifying “charismatic” with emotionality. Charismatic first means “gracious.” In this sense, all Christians are charismatics. “Charismatic” must not be used in an elitist sense to separate a group from other Christians.³¹¹

Mühlen’s warnings, coming towards the end of his affinity for the CCM, emphasize the congregational aspect of charismatic renewal even further. The CCM can be said to have been at the beginning, as this is the focus of this study, to be unavoidably congregational, and this can be seen with the focus on prayer meetings and building Christian communities. Mühlen would counter though, that congregational charismatic renewal does not, nor should it, lead to the forming of new communities. Christians, in the communities to which they already belong, can participate more fully in them because of a charismatic renewal.³¹² These competing ideas of charismatic renewal—one in which extra-ecclesial communities emerge as a result of the Spirit experience where the

310. Ibid, 247-48. I would offer that this danger existed from the beginning of the “Life in the Spirit” seminars, particular in Ann Arbor where invitation was required to attend specific prayer meetings, and in any other community that exhibited this same behavior. Voices of the movement, such as Kevin Ranaghan and Stephen Clark, would agree that there was a “life in the Spirit” to be lived in community after the LH had taken place. But this may make Mühlen’s point all the more poignant: the Spirit experience should not be sought for its own sake; Cf. Heribert Mühlen, “The Charismatic Renewal as Experience,” in Holy Spirit and Power, 109.

310. Ibid., 248; Cf. Edward D. O’Connor, The Pentecostal Movement in the Catholic Church (Notre Dame:

Ave Maria, 1971), 239-62; Cf. also Francis A. Sullivan, “The Ecclesiological Context of the Charismatic Renewal,” in Holy Spirit and Power, 133-36; Mühlen made similar admonishments in other writings. Cf. Henry Lederle, Treasures Old and New: Interpretations of “Spirit-Baptism” in the Charismatic Renewal Movement (Peabody, MA: Hendrickson, 1988), 183.

³¹² Mühlen, “Ecumenical Hope,” 248.

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Christian can live fully in the Spirit, and one where the Spirit experience has a charismatic renewal effect on the congregation to which the Christian belongs—are never reconciled in Mühlen’s time.

While charismatic renewal referred to a congregational development over time, Mühlen had also moved from the idea of Spirit-baptism to that of “renewal in the Spirit” in 1977. ³¹³ This refers to an act of initiating renewal, such as the LH for a prayer of renewal. This is an event, but can take time for the effects to be felt. According to Henry Lederle, who offers sharp clarification of the some of the shifts in Mühlen’s thought on precisely what this Spirit experience meant for Mühlen at different points in his career, renewal in the Spirit meant three things—conversion, renewal of baptismal promises and grace, and acceptance of charisms—which fit into his overall scheme of congregational renewal.³¹⁴ The idea of renewal in the Spirit as expressed on those three points is the “event” which this study will use to refer to the idea of Spirit-baptism, because it largely agrees with what the CCM said of its baptism in the Spirit. Lastly, this study would be remiss if it did not include the fact that Mühlen would eventually decide, by 1981, that the term Spirit-baptism should be totally avoided because of the confusion it caused in respect to water baptism, and that it creates misconceptions about what renewal in the Spirit really means and what is traditionally believed about baptism in water.³¹⁵

Nonetheless, the pastoral work in renewal with which he began to experiment in the 1970s, and his notion of charismatic renewal, ultimately comes to account for the formation of his reform liturgy. It was meant to create an opportunity for all Christians to be able to make a personal expression of faith, and similar to his “charismatic renewal,”

313. Lederle, Treasures Old and New, 180-85.

314. Ibid., 182.

315. Ibid., 184.

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potentially transform the social context of the individual beginning with a renewal of

baptism.³¹⁶ On Mühlen’s contrast to Pentecostals, including the CCM, Lederle says: “The

basic difference to the practice of neo-Pentecostals in America is the approach of

presenting a spirituality for every Christian rather than grouping together those who have

had similar experiences.”³¹⁷

Why Mühlen ³¹⁸

Mühlen’s pneumatology was developed prior to the CCM and it is being used

here to provide a description of the Holy Spirit which reflects the phenomena recorded by

the CCM, namely the LH. The theology of the movement was sorely lacking at the time,

but Mühlen did not intend for his pneumatology to be a pneumatology which justified the

charismatic movement. In his own words, though, he did see promise in the CCM, and

concrete examples of what he was writing about being lived in the movement. He ended

an interview with Ralph Martin—editor of New Covenant, the magazine of the Catholic

charismatic renewal—with somewhat of a personal testimony of the work of the Holy

Spirit in his life:

I would like simply to say that for 15 years I have known the Holy Spirit with my head, but now I also know him with my heart, and wish the same joy for you. For 15 years people have said to me: ‘What you are writing is speculation, not real.’ But now I am seeing it come to reality all over the world. The Holy Spirit is real, and being sent by the Father and the Son to bring the human race to knowledge of

316. Vondey, Mühlen, xiv-xv, 36-37,

316. Lederle, Treasures Old and New, 183.

317. Vondey, Mühlen, ix, xiii, 42. Mühlen’s trinitarian pneumatology came at a time referred to as “years of

famine” by Yves Congar, and “fear of the Spirit” by Karl Rahner. It was developed and written in his two essential works Der Heilege Geist als Person (1963) and Una Mystica Persona (1967). Neither book has been translated into the English language. Wolfgang Vondey’s study of the development of Mühlen’s thought is the only English language book that this study has discovered on the life and thought of Heribert Mühlen. Mühlen published largely in German, a handful of articles and chapters are translated into English, including one book, the misnamed A Charismatic Theology. Vondey himself indicates that while Mühlen is one of the most significant Roman Catholic theologians of the twentieth century, and while many scholars can comment on one or two aspects of his thought, Mühlen stands as one of the least comprehensively understood theologians. After the 1970s, little was heard of him outside of Germany.

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them. I longed for this, but it was in my head, and an unfulfilled ongoing. Now it is in my heart, changing my life. Praise the Lord.³¹⁹

Because Mühlen apparently had his own personal experience or encounter with the Spirit doesn’t automatically mean that his theology was made to be a perfect fit for the CCM. As Mühlen notes, he had been studying and writing long theological works about the Holy Spirit for decades before the outbreak of the CCM and his encounter with it. His pneumatological insights can be used to elucidate and explain the deep meaning behind the use of the LH and its theological import for the movement. Further, his pneumatology can be used to add theological backing to the structure and belief of the movement because they both held in common two fundamental values: the church beyond Catholicism was united by the Holy Spirit and the Spirit acts within the body of Christ. This meant that the churches and the faithful should act to bring to people a personal encounter with Jesus. On these two points, the theological implications of the LH in the CCM in the US at its beginnings are able to be investigated with the aid of Mühlen’s trinitarian pneumatology.

Mühlen’s trinitarian theology of the Holy Spirit can be expressed in many short forms, where the Spirit is: the “we-act” in the “we-thou,” the one divine self-giving, one person in many persons, the personified “we” of the Father and Son, the ecclesial “we,” the divine “we,” the dynamic of grace-filled fascination. These briefs formulations, it goes without saying, disclose a dense process of reasoning that took Mühlen from Augustine and Boethius to Richard of St. Victor and Thomas Aquinas. With biblical warrants and, later, backing of Vatican II documents, he arrived at an explanation of the unique function of the Spirit in the Church and in the Trinity. Simply put the Spirit

³¹⁹ “Interview with Mühlen,” 6.

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functions to relate persons. To formulate this as an ecclesiological statement, Mühlen says, the Church is the mystery of the union of the Spirit in Christ and in Christians. To state this with a trinitarian emphasis, the Spirit is “one person in many persons.”³²⁰ These three formulations of Mühlen’s on the Holy Spirit will be reviewed in turn to give an accurate account of who the Spirit is for Mühlen, how the Spirit relates to and functions in the Church and in the Trinity. Particular analysis of each aspect will likely overlap with the others, but will flow in that order given: Spirit, Trinity, Church.

Spirit (And Trinity)

Mühlen had come to accept that theology had to reflect on real experience; purely intellectual theology is out of touch with reality, and can only be life-giving if it begins with an experience of God.³²¹ In fact, long before his own Spirit experience, he sought to describe the Spirit in more personal terms—how to speak of the Holy Spirit as a person.³²² Vondey states that Mühlen conceived of the Trinity in a more personal way because he could name the persons of the Trinity in a way that distinguished them from the other two, and implied their relationship without relying on a description of the relation that fell on negation.³²³ This naming of the relations within the Trinity was heretofore unfulfilled: the Father is the I-relation, and the Son is the Thou-relation, and both are the “we” of the Holy Spirit.³²⁴ He relied on Scripture for the discovery of the

320. Vondey, Mühlen, 99.

320. Martin, “Interview with Mühlen,” 4.

321. Vondey, Mühlen, 62.

322. E.g. The Father is divine and also is not the Son; Cf. Mühlen, Der Heilige Geist als Person: “Their personhood is a pure oppositio relationis, an absolute opposition of relation. One can express their

respective personhood only with the help of a double negation: Each divine person is for itself an inconceivably intensive unity, and it is also not one of any of the other persons.” Ibid., 66.

³²⁴ David Coffey, Grace: The Gift of the Holy Spirit (Milwaukee: Marquette University Press, 2011), 55-56. Coffey further notes that this assignation of names to the relations of the Trinity was never done by Augustine or Thomas Aquinas.

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personal pronouns “I,” “thou,” “we.”³²⁵ John 14.23 was the key passage from which he derived the personal pronouns.³²⁶ This verse, in the context of the promise of the Paraclete in verses 15-17, showed Mühlen that the “we” includes the Father, Son, and Spirit.³²⁷

The derivation of “thou” is based on, but not limited to, these key points. The Father knows himself as the “I” and brings the Son forth; the Son is the image that stands over and against the Father as a person, thus thou.³²⁸ Also, Mühlen noted that thou statements from the bible always include the Son’s relationship to the Father. Mühlen did intend that the Son is the person spoken to in dialogue with the I of the Trinity, therefore, the relationship of the Father to the Son, a knowing and loving personal relationship, is properly expressed as I to thou.³²⁹

Divine self-love was the basis of this inner-trinitarian union. The love of the Father and Son is reciprocal and can be expressed as divine love of self. The Spirit, the co-beloved, is the person to whom the divine love of self is directed. The Father and Son breathe forth the Spirit and express love to it, active spiration; the we is expressed in that

325. Vondey, Mühlen, xvii. Vondey clarifies that the German analogy Ich-Du-Wir is “I-thou-we” not “I-Thou-We.” These are called person-words because they refer to proper persons of the Trinity. Further, “thou” in English is perceived as formal, antiquated and polite. “Du” is informal and more personal in German. “You” is not chosen as the English person-word because all scholars who write in English on Mühlen have chosen “thou,” and “you” can cause grammatical and semantic confusion depending on the text in which it appears. Thus, “thou” should be understood as second person singular familiar. Lastly, these person-words will be set off with quotation marks in their first occurrence. Subsequent appearances of the same person-word will appear without quotation marks unless it causes confusion, depending on the surrounding text.

325. “Whoever loves me will keep my word, and my Father will love him, and we will come to him and make our dwelling with him.” (NAB)

326. Vondey, Mühlen, 67-68. Some key verses for the derivation of “I-thou” from the New Testament: John

8.24, 28; 13.19; 17.21; Mark 13.6.

328. “‘I’ therefore designates the incommunicable mode of existence of the divine self in the Father; ‘thou’ expresses the incommunicable existence of the divine self in the Son.” Ibid., 95n162.

328. Ibid., 73-74, 95n166. By contrast, the relationship of the Son to the Father is expressed as “thou-thou.” This has been the source of criticism for Mühlen, but the naming of the relation was secondary for him. Mühlen most desired to identify the difference between the Father and the Son with the person-words “I” and “thou.”

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the Holy Spirit returns the love expressed to it to both the Father and the Son: passive spiration. Thus, the Spirit is the we-act between the Father and the Son, the we in person between the Father and the Son, the inner-trinitarian we-relation. The Father and Son are united in the Spirit and the Spirit is the bond between them. The pneumatological conclusion, that the Spirit is the we in person between the Father and the Son, was always being formulated by Mühlen with an ecclesial eye.³³⁰

The One Holy Spirit in Christ and Christians

One of Mühlen’s ecclesiological aims was to improve upon the formulation of J.A. Mӧhler’s of the church as “the Son of God appearing constantly among men in human form as his permanent incarnation.”³³¹ If the Spirit is the “we” in person, and the Spirit of Christ was sent to the church, then “permanent incarnation” doesn’t adequately explain the Spirit’s relation to the church. Mühlen rejected the permanent incarnation view and offered a better understanding of the church, that it was a continuation of Jesus’ anointing with the Spirit. Mühlen located this principle of union between the Spirit and the Church of Christ from Augustine and Aquinas.³³² Mystici Corporis, which upheld the concept of “una mystica persona,” indicated that scriptural imagery of the head and body could help explain this concept.³³³ Mühlen thought his inner-trinitarian analogies could describe such an ecclesiology where Christ is in Christians.³³⁴ He would argue that the church could not be the continuation of the Incarnation, in part, because the church does not participate in the hypostatic union. Essentially, Mühlen is distinguishing between the

330. Ibid., 74-78.

330. Heribert Mühlen, “Sacrament and Charism: the Spirit and the Church,” Theology Digest 25, no. 1

(1977): 45-49.

332. Vondey, Mühlen, 102.

333. In particular, Colossians 1.18-24, and 1 Corinthians 11.3.

334. Vondey, Mühlen, 104.

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relationship of Christ to the Church and the relationship of the Spirit to Christians individually.³³⁵ Furthermore, the Spirit continues the historical manifestation of Jesus by leading the Church: the experience of Christ is the experience of the Holy Spirit. Mühlen says, “The Holy Spirit as the ‘we’ in person…is himself the continuity between the historical and glorified Christ and the Church.”³³⁶ The Spirit is the principle of union of Christians, the spiritual gifts, and the body of Christ: the Church is the mystery of the presence of the Spirit in Christ and in Christians—one person in many persons.³³⁷ The Spirit uniting Christians is an aspect of Christ’s self-giving, Christ sending his Spirit. But also, the inner-trinitarian “we-act” is a dynamic of self-giving: the Father gave his Son, and the Son gave himself to the Father, which is why Mühlen also understands the Holy Spirit, the Pneuma, as the “one divine self-giving.”³³⁸

There are important implications of this conclusion for how the body of Christ relates to individual believers, particularly in small communities or congregations. For one, the human is not Spirit, but embodied Spirit. Mühlen claimed that all being is relational being: since the body receives the Spirit and the Spirit is the active principle of the body, and humans receive both corporeality and spirituality from God, a person is engaged in a continual process of giving and receiving by the creative will of God in the person. A person is invited by Christ into a personal relationship with God by virtue of the self-giving of Christ to participate in his anointing through the Spirit—for Mühlen, on this, the entire mystery of the Church is built.

335. “The Church, therefore, cannot be understood as a continuation of the Incarnation. Instead, the relationship between the inner-trinitarian processions and the mission of the divine persons in salvation history [suggest] that the inner-trinitarian distinction between sonship and spiration corresponds in salvation history to the difference of the Incarnation of the Son and the sending of the Holy Spirit into the human nature of Jesus.” Ibid., 120-21.

335. Ibid., 125.

336. Ibid., 114-115.

337. Ibid., 124.

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Being in communion with the Father and Son only makes sense if the Spirit is in the community. The Holy Spirit relates Christians as one person in many persons.³³⁹

Mühlen states: “The Church is the visible and tangible form of the invisible Holy Spirit and therefore the grace of God and Christ. This, however, is possible only because the Holy Spirit is numerically one and same in the Father, in the Son, and in the whole Church.”³⁴⁰ Thus, baptism is one principle of unity for the church, even in many churches. Because of these divisions, the unity in the Spirit is mystical and profound in the fullest sense of these words.

Mühlen’s emphasis that church divisions are transcended and unified by the Spirit is an aspect of his ecclesiology which shows that the birth of the CCM was indeed an expression of Christian unity. Also, by virtue of the one Spirit being in many persons, it can be known then that the LH is in and of itself a Spirit-experience, because the community itself experiences renewal when it prays together and lays hands on one of its members for the renewal of a member, a fortiori, in that they are all united in Christ’s Spirit. The LH does signify communal formation, common identity, intention and direction of prayer, but its frequency of use and elevated status as access to community life in some charismatic communities prove that there was a social dynamic that was taken for granted by the early CCM in that they severely downplayed the prominence of the LH in the inner workings of the small communities sharing their Spirit-experience. At the bare minimum, the position of the LH in these communities was such that a sufficient theological accounting of it should have been undertaken by the movement that could justify its substantial status. Does the practice of the LH in these instances say anything

339. Ibid., 116-131.

340. Ibid., 131.

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about the theological values of these groups who used it? If it is presumed that the unity of the small communities employing the LH, as at Chapel Hill and the Ark and the Dove, was based on the self-giving of the Holy Spirit, then Mühlen’s notion of the Church as the mystery of the presence of the Spirit in Christ and in Christians can tell us something much greater about the LH. The objective of this study then is to show that the LH is a renewal experience within the congregational context of charismatic or interdenominational pentecostal prayer meetings, a social experience of God, where the Spirit works within the social structure and physical bodies of the congregation to unite or reconcile members of the body of Christ.

In order to make this connection between Mühlen’s Trinitarian pneumatology, which has ecclesial implications by design, and the CCM’s use of the imposition of hands during its early period, attention should first be given to Mühlen’s thought in respect to the nature and role of charisms.

Marked by the Gift of God

Mühlen’s emphasis on the renewal that could happen in local congregations is a “charismatic” renewal in large part because of the presence of charismata. This renewal is an encounter with the person of Jesus, but renewal also meant that there was, what Mühlen called, a corporealization and personalization in this encounter. Corporealization refers to the fact that in one’s physical human body, not just the mind or soul, one takes steps in faith. This means there are, in acts of renewal or initiation like baptism, concrete manifestations of one’s faith journey. The charisms, which themselves are concrete manifestations of the Spirit, play a role in that encounter because they are meant to benefit others, and they are meant to be experienced in the community. Renewal in the

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congregational context is a social God-experience. For Mühlen, experiences involving the

charisms or pneumatic experience, always has a social dimension. The reality then in the

pneumatic experience is that the signs of God’s saving and missionary love are made

present through the Spirit in persons of the community.³⁴¹

Experiencing signs of God’s love in persons of the community is something that

Mühlen believed was common in the apostolic church, and which was the key to a

contemporary interior renewal of the church. This “ancient fundamental experience

which was the foundation of the early Church” was a self-surrendering act of individuals

and communities to the Spirit of Christ. To be clear, the basic charismatic experience³⁴²

consisted of a public act of renewal of one’s baptismal and confirmation based on a

personal decision to surrender to God, almost as if a “second conversion.” This was the

goal of what he also called the socially transmitted faith experience—social in the sense

of being a publicly witnessed act of renewal, and socially transmitted in that the

congregation played a physical and spiritual role. The method of this socially transmitted

faith experience is important for discerning an authentic charismatic experience, i.e. not

seeking the charismatic experience for its own sake.

It is rather a direct, personal, public witness of faith…The acquisition of a level of praising God which can embrace the entire person including the feelings is never an end in itself, but is the way by which God and Christ can involve themselves in the world in the power of their Holy Spirit…it is only the person who surrenders himself in service to his fellow man who will discover himself in ways new and unconceived. This will come to him as it were a bonus, for discovery of self is an unmerited gift of God to us.³⁴³

341. Mühlen, “Sacrament and Charism,” 46.

341. “Pneumatic experience” is interchangeable with “charismatic experience.” At different points of his career, “charismatic experience” had slightly different meanings for Mühlen, but those slight differences do not affect this study’s use of his thought. Both terms have to do with a personal choice to surrender to God and a public act of renewal of baptismal and confirmation promises. These lead a person to individual renewal and a desire to praise God for his own sake.

341. Mühlen, “Charismatic Renewal as Experience,” 109-110. (Emphasis Mühlen’s).

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If the Church is the continuation of the anointing of Christ with the Holy Spirit, then the Spirit also anoints again or stirs the anointing of the individual surrendering in a socially transmitted faith experience. The “we” of the Trinity in these charismatic experiences makes use of signs for the purposes of the renewal, exploiting the social dimension of the experience. Signs of the Spirit’s presence are called by Mühlen, charisms.

Charisms are signs and gifts. As the Holy Spirit is the “gift” or the divine self-giving, the Holy Spirit making-present the Father and the Son giving themselves to each other in love, so too the charisms are gifts of the Spirit making present the Spirit for the church. Mühlen states the day of Pentecost is the origin of the church as God’s original sacrament, where the apostles were gifted with the ability to proclaim the Word, and signs were seen as well, such as tongues—this was the action of the Holy Spirit in the historical Church. For Mühlen, the seven sacraments today which convey God’s grace are also signs of the Spirit working in an historical manifestation. Charisms are signs that do not convey grace, but simply work in the church in individuals as an inward capacity for the building up and edification of Christ’s body, the Church.³⁴⁴ Mühlen is consistent with the idea that God’s revelation is more a vertical phenomenon than it is a horizontal one. In other words, God’s Spirit interacts with the Church historically, horizontally from the day of Pentecost in the church to modern times, more so than in direct ecstatic or emotional experiences occurring external to the community boundary.³⁴⁵ Pentecost is the origin of the Church as the original sacrament: “the Church is the historical manifestation of the transhistorical Spirit of Christ. Whoever has seen and heard the Church, has seen

344. Mühlen, “Sacrament and Charism,” 47.

345. Mühlen cites Paul and Augustine as such “vertical” experiences.

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and heard something of the Spirit of Christ himself (Acts 2.33).”³⁴⁶ Direct vertical experiences of God’s Spirit are not meant to circumvent or supersede the corporealization of the faith steps a person makes. Signs or charisms perceived in the community are meant for the believer.

The believer’s spiritual renewal is a perceptible experience within the community of believers. Mühlen points to “sign” in the New Testament, “semeion,” identified by Paul as tongues and prophecy for example. Such signs indicated the presence, appearance, or manifestation of the Spirit of Christ.³⁴⁷ These signs are not purely functional or simply pointing to a reality that is not there. These “semeia,” charisms, are “signs of the presence of the Spirit of Christ.”³⁴⁸ He acknowledges that Paul only refers to the gift of tongues and the gift of prophecy as these “semeia,” but Mühlen declares that all the charisms are expression signs, signs that contain what they indicate; the charisms express or contain the love of God for humanity and point to his Spirit. Tongues, for example, Mühlen calls an incomprehensible sign because the outsider will not understand it, and so will not be moved. For the believer even, praying in tongues is a sign only if it is interpreted. Prophesy then is an expression sign because it is a gift given for the building up of the community.³⁴⁹

Mühlen stresses that the charisms are a “natural aptitude or gift” that comes from inside the believer.³⁵⁰ The Spirit in the believer precedes the perceivable sign, indicating further that these signs are meant for use for others. A looking out for the salvation of

346. Mühlen, “Charismatic and Sacramental Understanding of the Church,” 339.

346. Ibid., 336.

347. Ibid., 340. This is Mühlen’s use of 1 Corinthians 12.7, the phanerosis of the Spirit are signs. (Emphasis

Mühlen’s). See note 299.

349. Ibid., 340-41. On this commentary on signs, Mühlen is referring primarily to 1 Corinthians 14.22-25, though the entire chapter concerns these two charisms.

350. Cf. Mühlen, “Jesus, the original charismatic,” in Charismatic Theology, 105-109.

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others, not primarily for one’s own self, is part of the social God-experience. Charisms are perceptible “in order that the Spirit of Christ may become socially effective and manifest within the community or that we may be able to see and hear something of this spirit of Christ.”³⁵¹ This is why Mühlen’s differentiation between the sacramental signs, the seven sacraments, is important. While they are experienced in the community, the sacramental signs are manifest in material things like water, oil, or bread; they come from without the person, and intend to confer grace or are done anteriorly to the presence of the Spirit.³⁵² Charisms are gifts which result from the self-giving of God through his Spirit.

Mühlen actually refers to the baptism in the Spirit as a charism: “the charisma of praising God for his own sake.”³⁵³ The baptism in the Spirit bears testimony to Jesus’ resurrection, as well as “our own” resurrection.³⁵⁴ The Spirit baptism, which Mühlen would later prefer to call the renewal of the Spirit, can also be referred to as declaring God’s wonderful deeds,³⁵⁵ which needs constant renewal in the individual. For Mühlen, ultimately, the sacramental conferring of grace in the heart of the believer, as in confirmation, should become charismatic, meaning that signs of the grace of God are visible for the community through the perceptible gift welling up from the individual.³⁵⁶

The conclusion to be drawn from examination of charisms in Mühlen’s thought— the charisms as the Spirit making use of the corporeal nature of humanity in the

351. Ibid., 341.

351. Mühlen, “Sacrament and Charism,” 47; Cf. Mühlen, “Charismatic and Sacramental Understanding of the Church,” 342. Mühlen does allow that sacraments of confirmation and ordination, and possibly marriage, can be called “charismatic sacraments” because the ones receiving the sacrament are each given some kind of charismatic capacity for serving others with respect to the salvation of others.

351. Mühlen, “Charismatic and Sacramental Understanding of the Church,” 341.

352. Mühlen refers to Acts 1.8, 2.32 on this point.

353. Mühlen refers to Acts 2.11, and 1 Peter 2.9 on this point.

354. Mühlen, “Charismatic and Sacramental Understanding of the Church,” 342-43.

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community context to inspire desire for God and build up the Church— is that the laying on of hands is actually a charism of the Spirit, in the same way as tongues or prophecy. The justification of the presence of the LH in the CCM by the movement itself is that it is merely a sacramental, however, its assessment as a charism, in the sense that Mühlen describes them, is significantly more accurate.³⁵⁷ The presence, status, and role of the LH in the early CCM are justified when the LH is accounted for as a corporealization of the Holy Spirit in the congregation as a gift to others that both contains and indicates what it signifies.

As a charism of the Spirit, the LH is a true expression sign because it contains what it indicates; it indicates the self-surrender of the aspirant and the supplicant, but it also contains the reaching out of the Holy Spirit though the bodies of the community in the LH and the collective surrender. The LH signifies surrender, on both the part of the aspirant and the supplicant, but it also witnesses to the presence of Christ’s Spirit in both parties. The aspirant desires renewal. The supplicant(s) desire also, in part because of their love for Christ’s church and a desire to see the church grow, that the renewal be given. The love motivating the supplicant and the surrender of the aspirant, allowing persons to physically impose hands on one’s person, echoes Mühlen’s trinitarian pneumatology where the Father and the Son give of themselves to each other or surrender to each other. In this way, the LH in the context of charismatic renewal³⁵⁸ is a trinitarian approach to God within a community. While the LH can be done with non-believers, as a

357. Catholic Pentecostalism, 57. It was Ralph Keifer, one of the first two Catholics to receive the LH and baptism in the Spirit at the Chapel Hill prayer meeting, and later the Ranaghans and Edward O’Connor who would invoke the term “sacramental” in the Catholic sense of the “little sacraments.” René Laurentin would simply state that it was “deeply meaningful” and “not sacramental but relates to any need of Christian life.”

357. Here “charismatic renewal” refers to the movement itself, and also the renewal of the Spirit in the congregation as understood by Mühlen outside of any movement.

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charism it is a trinitarian approach to God when it is done within the context of the congregation. The LH as a surrendering act expresses the missionary love of God: as the Spirit is present in the person imposing hands, the supplicant reaching out is the Spirit reaching out to the aspirant; this is a physical and spiritual reaching out. The supplicant has willfully and prayerfully surrendered with the physical sign of reaching out to the aspirant. The missionary love expressed in Mühlen’s trinitarian pneumatology where the Father and the Son send themselves to each other, makes this “we” act of the Trinity present in the community when the congregation reaches out with the LH and the aspirant surrenders to the Spirit of Christ present in the community.

The salvific love of God, also key in Mühlen’s pneumatology, is expressed in that the LH also indicates that the congregation is concerned for the salvation of the aspirant. In the CCM particularly, as it held to the assertion that the baptism in the Spirit does not confer grace, the LH is a sign to the community that someone is open to the Spirit of God which is corporealized in the LH of the community and the surrender of the aspirant. The LH then opens up the aspirant to allow the Spirit to be stirred; the LH is a sign to the aspirant that Christ’s Spirit is accessible to them. But the LH does not just indicate that Christ’s Spirit is accessible to the aspirant, it contains this reality because of the Spirit of Christ present in the supplicant. The LH is a sign of the communal giving of self in body and spirit of both parties, thus it is a sign of God’s salvific love; the LH doesn’t just tell the aspirant, but it shows the aspirant “I” care for your well-being and ultimately am concerned for your salvation. The “I” is the individual person of the congregation, but it is also the Spirit of Christ. The congregation witnessing this personal and caring act witnesses the Spirit in action in the physical body of the community.

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The LH edifies and builds up the church because it can only be done for the service of others. One cannot lay hands on one’s self; it also requires a congregation or small community of two people, thus the LH is fundamentally meant for the benefit of the community. The dynamic is constant that one wills the renewal of another, and the other desires renewal. It further builds up and edifies the congregation by virtue of others witnessing the LH. If this dynamic is removed or altered, then the act of the LH ceases to be a charism. Those not participating in the imposition of hands nonetheless benefit from the witness of faith on the part of those involved. This is similar to what Mühlen says of tongues and prophecy. The congregation sees the LH and hears the prayers of the ones imposing hands. The aspirant feels the touch of the congregation and the congregation reaches out to touch, almost in a sense of lifting up or carrying, the person to God.³⁵⁹ The LH can be said to be a more suitable public witness of Christ’s Spirit because it does not require interpretation for the non-believer. In the Western Christian context, the LH will instantly indicate that the Church is caring for its own.

The notion of the Church caring for its own can be one way of understanding the LH as a natural gift or aptitude. Surely in the charismatic context, what Christian carrying the Spirit of Christ would not want to reach out to another in prayer to draw them nearer to God? The LH is an aptitude which wells up from the person because it has to be understood always in the context of prayer. Christians are suited to pray for each other, therefore the LH and praying for a member of the community is a gift given by the Spirit. The LH, it goes without saying, is not a charism outside of the context of a charismatic renewal, in the same way that tongues and prophecy is meaningless when not understood

³⁵⁹ It is common in prayers heard in charismatic prayer meetings that the one who is being prayed for or having hands imposed on is “lifted up” in prayer by the congregation.

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as perceptible signs of God’s love. In other words, the LH must mean charism in the congregation, gift given by the Spirit for the benefit of the community, or it is useless.

Lastly in the clarification of the LH as a natural gift or aptitude, it is known in the prayer meetings discussed in the early movement that, from those who have received the baptism in the Spirit or had hands imposed on them, not everyone participates in the LH for others. In one sense it is a practical matter: it is not physically possible for all members of the congregation to impose hands on one person, but this alone does not make the LH an aptitude. But also, as seen in the earliest prayer meetings at and around the campus of Notre Dame, a select few would go forward to impose hands on others for the baptism in the Spirit. It is not always stated directly in the accounts of witnesses to these early meetings why those people were the ones to go impose hands. But it is likely, as in the later more developed and structured larger meetings, that experienced or “tenured” members of the community who had received the LH were chosen or volunteered for this role. In this sense then, aptitude is an appropriate description for those who felt the inclination to participate or contribute to the community through the LH. Aptitude can also simply mean “general suitability.” Certainly, those who have had LH can be seen as suited to do this for others and build up the community. It is the understanding of aptitude as a natural ability where one could object that any person with hands plainly has a natural ability to lay their hands on anybody. To invoke the priority of context again, that is precisely not the sense in which the CCM or Mühlen mean for the charismatic LH to be understood. The movement and Mühlen would agree that the Spirit could gift a person with the desire and ability to impose hands in the charismatic context.

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The LH as a charism then, like all the charisms, is a gift from the Spirit which all can

benefit from, but not from which all have the benefit of possessing.

The LH appears rather non-sensational next to tongues or prophecy though it is a

physical act. The list of rather remarkable charisms, which Mühlen and the CCM point to

(1 Cor 12.8-11), appear to be of a completely different nature than the LH. But Mühlen

and the CCM have spoken on the presence and importance of what are inappropriately

referred to as less remarkable charisms. Mühlen warns:

A special danger of the charismatic renewal is that the more spectacular charisms are given undue prominence while the less striking ones meet with scant consideration. The person for example who sees that there is somewhere for the prayer meeting to be held, the person who takes on all the burden of organization or acts as treasurer is performing an indispensable ministry…if all respect everyone else, then one charism can evoke another. But if everyone is concerned only with himself or herself, then the [prayer] service will remain without fruit.³⁶⁰

Though Mühlen refers to the “ministry” of organization or treasurer, the context of the

previous statement indicates that he considers those who take part in organizing or in the

role of treasurer to be practicing a charism.

René Laurentin in his study of the CCM and of the Ann Arbor community in

particular observed that the movement understood charisms in the same sense of gifts for

service to others. The Ann Arbor community, for example, had coordinators, elders, and

servants—these were titles the community used to identify members who had certain

gifts and thus served in particular roles. Witnessing, when a person testifies to the

community about the work of the Spirit in his or her life, is also given as an example of a

charism. Laurentin goes on to say that there is no exhaustive list of charisms to be made

because it will always vary depending on the community in which one is attempting to

identify charisms and the many ways that community serves itself, and the outside

³⁶⁰ Mühlen, A Charismatic Theology, 292.

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community for the building up of the church: “All these services reflect the gifts and aptitudes, natural and supernatural, of the various individuals involved. They can, therefore, be legitimately called ‘charisms.’”³⁶¹ Even though he had already essentially defined charisms, he then asks the question of how to define them and, looking to Vatican II, states that the Council employed different understandings of the term.³⁶² He is consistent with Mühlen in distinguishing that, even though charis means “grace,” there is a difference between charis and charismata, the first being sanctifying grace, and the second referring to the diverse gifts given to different people for the building up of the Church.³⁶³ Laurentin closes with a list of eight characteristics of charisms, to which attention is called to just one: “The charisms relate to the whole of human reality— individual and collective, body and psyche—according to needs and commitments.”³⁶⁴

Interestingly, it is immediately after his discussion of charisms that Laurentin spends one page on the LH. He does not relate the “gesture” to the “whole of human reality,” as he describes charisms, because he does not regard it as a charism. As per usual, he attests to the many uses of the LH in scripture, and the closest he comes to a “charismatic” definition of the LH is “a concrete sensible expression of solidarity.” Unfortunately, this also applies to handshakes and fist pumps in the air. This is not meant to mock Laurentin, for he also does note the prayer that accompanies the LH, but simply to show that he falls

361. Catholic Pentecostalism, 50. Laurentin supports his claims on eight lists of charisms from the New Testament. He notes that the first four lists actually use the word “charism” and the other four do not: 1 Cor 12.4-10, 28-31; Rom 12.6-8; 1 Pet 4.10; 1 Cor 14.6, 13; 14.26; Eph 4.11; Mark 16.17-18.

361. Laurentin specifically calls attention to Lumen Gentium nos. 4, 7, 12, 21, 32; Apostolicam Actuositatem no. 3; and Ad Gentes nos. 4, 23.

361. Laurentin, Catholic Pentecostalism, 51. He cites Lumen Gentium as speaking of hierarchic and

charismatic gifts, in no. 7; and in no. 12 it calls them “special graces.” It is to 1 Corinthians 12.7 that the Council, Laurentin, and Mühlen continually refer.

³⁶⁴ Ibid., 52. (Emphasis Laurentin’s).

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in line with many of the voices in the CCM at its infancy; the LH is relegated to a merely concrete, perceptible or sensible, meaningful, multivalent gesture.

Mühlen’s declaration that the baptism in the Spirit is a charism, and thus a charismatic experience in that it is a sign for the community of the Spirit’s presence, in itself does not contradict or refute the LH as charism. Mühlen and the writers in the movement agree that the baptism in the Spirit is a profound event from which the effects are sometimes immediately perceptible or sometimes gradually perceptible, from days to months. The Catholic pentecostal movement did not require the immediate outward manifestation of a charism to authenticate a baptism in the Spirit, as did some classical Pentecostal churches. The Catholic pentecostal movement tended toward defining the baptism in the Spirit as a personal, internal, and sometimes gradual process. The notion of a singular event was only one possibility; the Spirit-experience over time was just as likely, and arguably more realistic. The second possibility, over time, is not really an event, but a realization or revelation that comes bit-by-bit from person to person. This notion of baptism in the Spirit is highly personal, implies internal revelations, continued individual prayer, and discoveries on the part of that one person. While such a turnaround in a person’s life can be a means for building up the community, it cannot be said that these personal and internal revelations and discoveries are in themselves signs meant for the building up of the community. It is rather that in this type of process, there are many signs or one sign that builds up the one person. This notion of a baptism in the Spirit that is gradual seems less and less like the charisms that Mühen and Laurentin describe. The goal is not to split hairs over when the work of the Spirit is a charism, for the good of the community, and when it is a personal working internally for individuals, which may

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result in the good of the community. The point is to say that it is actually more accurate to regard the LH as a charism because the act is always a public witness, even in small groups, which doesn’t require interpretation, which does not require immediate outward manifestations because in itself it is a sign, which directly calls the community to their belief in the presence of the Spirit, and which reflects a trinitarian pneumatology.

To summarize, the laying on of hands is an expression sign of the reaching out of the Holy Spirit; a charism, because it is an aptitude in a person which is given and inspired by the Holy Spirit out of love; a dynamic act that is preceded by a surrender on the part of an aspirant, and is done with the accompaniment of prayer and good will on the part of the aspirant and the supplicant. All of these comprise the act of the laying on of hands in the pentecostal context. This is the full and proper context—if one aspect is missing, then there is no charism. The LH as a publicly visible charism works to building up and edifying the congregation by virtue of being publicly witnessed; it is seen and heard in the same way as tongues or prophecy. Even without the theological understanding of the working of the Spirit in the LH expressed through Mühlen’s trinitarian pneumatology, the LH does not require interpretation, making its significance as a charism virtually universally accessible for the congregation. The LH edifies the congregation because it is on one hand simply a human act: the simplicity and affection of the human touch tell the witness of the LH that the church reaches out to care for others. On the other hand, the LH edifies the congregation more deeply as it opens the congregation to the missionary and salvific love of God reaching out to members of the congregation on whom hands are laid.

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To make it even clearer, the phrase “the laying on of hands” in the charismatic context should raise in one’s mind an image of no less than two people: one submissive in body, mind and spirit, and the other laying their hands on the other’s body, with the desire for the spiritual renewal of the other, engaged in prayer, also in submission in body, mind, and spirit to the Holy Spirit where the power of the Holy Spirit is taken on faith by at least the supplicant, for sometimes the aspirant is desiring renewal for struggles in faith; this full dynamic is the charism of the laying on of hands. The charism of the laying on of hands is not just the gesture. Also, its power to edify varies slightly for the aspirant, the supplicant, or the community of witnesses. The deeper level of understanding the LH as an “expression” sign can only make sense with this full dynamic of the charism in mind.³⁶⁵ The LH as an expression sign indicates the inner-trinitarian “we” act or divine self-giving, and the LH contains it. This is not to say that the LH is the Trinity. As Mühlen describes in his pneumatology, the Holy Spirit is the divine self-giving. Hence the LH acknowledges that the Spirit of Christ in “me” the supplicant is reaching out to the Spirit in “you” the aspirant, and in this dynamic charism “we” are making ourselves accessible to the Holy Spirit; thus, the charism of the LH contains what it indicates, a visibly unified act of Trinitarian love.

One possible objection would be to ask how this does not differ from the baptism in the Spirit. The quick response would be to reiterate the discussion above. The dynamic of the LH in the charismatic context does not require that there is any renewal experience for the aspirant as a result, though the belief is that almost always there surely will be.

³⁶⁵ Mühlen, “Charismatic and Sacramental Understanding of the Church,” 336-37. Mühlen defines expression signs as signs that indicate and contain what they signify, as opposed to indicator signs, which only point to that which they indicate, such as the rainbow which was a sign of the covenant between God and Noah.

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The LH, the full dynamic in the community context, is the charism itself—it is for the congregation. Mühlen would say that Spirit-renewal was the internal renewal that could take place over time. Mühlen would also say that the baptism in the Spirit is praising God for his own sake.³⁶⁶ Both of these are not the charism of the LH. The description of the baptism in the Spirit generally given by the CCM, that it is an actualization of graces already given or a reviviscence of grace, also points to an internal spiritual renewal. Again, the spiritual renewal or baptism in the Spirit of a person may lead to the gift of certain charisms which could be used for the community, building it up. But this is after the internal renewal and after the LH. An expression sign of the missionary and salvific love of God is the best characterization of the charism of the LH.

This study should attend to briefly Mühlen’s mention of and appraisal of the LH. He speaks of it mostly in the context of the ecclesial sacraments. The closest he comes to calling it a charism is when he refers to it as a “physical sign.” He does not carry this phrase out to the meaning of the dynamic of the LH in the congregational charismatic context as given above.

The Laying on of Hands for Mühlen

When Mühlen speaks of charismatic renewal, he is referring to congregational renewal based around the acts of renewing baptismal vows, prayer, and the LH. Even during his temporary solidarity with the CCM, he would say that the “charismatic renewal,” not the movement per se, would be able to initiate corrective measures in

³⁶⁶ Mühlen’s is actually one of the best definitions of this biblically based idea. Mühlen saw that the apostles were able to proclaim the Word with urgency, love, and fervor because of Pentecost. When Mühlen says Spirit-baptism is to proclaim God for his own sake, this means proclaiming the Word the way the apostles did for bringing others into the church, which does not preclude praising God in the sense of worship. To proclaim God in a type of praise-worship is a way of proclaiming God for his own sake and way to proclaim the Word the way the apostles were in Acts.

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regards to the expression of emotions during worship or really in any religious context for men. Because men in Western culture, according to Mühlen, have been conditioned to repress receptivity and surrender, inevitably their religious orientation is affected in respect to worship and expression of religious sentiment. When he encountered the CCM, he saw that the willingness and openness to public displays of prayer in a group allowed for emotion, not in the ecstatic or extreme blissful sense, to be acceptable for men in a religious context.

The charismatic renewal will be able to institute radical corrective measures in this regard. This movement, therefore, not only represents the beginning of a truly trinitarian approach to our understanding of God, but also and precisely because of this it will help heal our human culture from the wounds of historically conditioned distortions and exaggerations.³⁶⁷

This was one of the biggest attractions he had to the movement: the surrender and receptivity he witnessed and experienced. The corrective measures he envisioned obviously came to be a dead end for his work in renewal, but the trinitarian approach to understanding God is evident in the charism of the LH, though he did not see the LH as a charism. He did see this receptivity that the movement seemed to bring out in people in some part in the act of the LH, and surely some of this view must come from personal experience.

Mühlen recounts an episode he had with a prayer group in his book A Charismatic Theology. In a period of his life after the Council, he experienced a slump, restlessness, and unhappiness in his professional and spiritual lives. He went to a prayer group he knew of and was touched by the personal testimony that a “grey-haired” man gave: “When he then began to talk quite spontaneously about Jesus, I immediately noticed that he really knew the person about whom he was talking. I had never before heard anyone

³⁶⁷ Mühlen, “Person of the Holy Spirit,” 19. (Emphasis Mühlen’s).

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speak of Jesus Christ in such a way, neither during my studies nor later.”³⁶⁸ He was so

touched, that he continued to go back to the prayer meetings, and after a climactic

moment alone in prayer and tears, he went back to the meeting to ask for the LH.

One evening it got so far that I began to pray again after a long interval: ‘Come, Holy Spirit.’ I knelt down and felt the tears running down my face. I have no idea now how long I prayed, but I recognized the immense pride which was at the root of my wrong attitudes. I knew only God could liberate me from this pride. At one of the next prayer meetings I asked the others to lay their hands on me. I remembered the words from the second letter to Timothy: ‘Rekindle the gift of God that is within you through the laying on of my hands: for God did not give us a spirit of timidity but a spirit of power and love and self -control. Do not be ashamed then of testifying to our Lord (2 Tim 1.4ff)’. In deep gratitude I said a personal prayer of surrender. The others laid hands on me, prayed for me and thanked God. Never in my life have I embraced people so heartily as I did after this service: with their help I had found my way back to God and so to my vocation.³⁶⁹

Mühlen’s experience almost perfectly exhibits the LH as charism, though he is using it to

make the point of personal experience and renewal through personal encounter. He

recounts a story that tells of the building up of the church insofar as he was a priest of the

church, and insofar as the people of the community who witnessed the LH and the

embraces afterwards would have felt renewed by the experience. His experience of the

LH here can also be seen as a historical continuation of the Spirit of Christ, for this is

how he describes the LH in the bible and the sacraments.

Mühlen upholds Lumen Gentium, 21.2, by saying that the historical continuation

of “Jesus’ fullness of the Holy Spirit is seen above all in the laying-on of hands.”³⁷⁰ The

Constitution and Mühlen speak of gifts being handed on, namely authority of office, and

this being passed down to “us” in “episcopal consecration.” Neither is a view of the LH

368. Mühlen, Charismatic Theology, 52. (Emphasis Mühlen’s).

369. Ibid.

370. Mühlen, “Charismatic and Sacramental Understanding of the Church,” 334.

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by laymen and laywomen in a congregational context. Mühlen, in the same breath, goes

on to compare the LH to a sacramental:

The breakthrough to the basic charismatic dimension of love can in any case be accompanied also by other ‘physical’ signs. The Roman Missal, for example, has a prayer for the gifts of tears…Another ‘physical’ and bodily sign is the imposition of hands performed on the occasion of the renewal of confirmation by the members of a prayer group, an occasion when they (as representatives of the whole Church) bring a supplication for this man before God, thanking God and singing his praise. Seen from a dogmatic point of view, indeed, this action has the structure of a sacramental.³⁷¹

Mühlen speaks accurately from a dogmatic point of view. The description of the LH as a

charism is not intended to be dogmatic; the point of view is the personal testimonies of

the use of the LH in the events that led to the birth of the CCM, and the descriptions of its

use as the movement began to spread at Notre Dame and in Michigan. Mühlen speaks for

the ecclesial legacy of the LH in the succession of bishops and popes. This does infer a

pneumatology where the Spirit is the “principle of unity in the social structure of the

Church,” but so does the notion of the LH as charism.