ARTICLES

A Covenant with Christ

BAY AREA CHARISMATIC GROUP

By Lesley Payne

Craig Anderson, a founding member of the Mission San Jose Charismatic Covenant Community and editor of the community's magazine, The California Mission, admits that some charismatics have a reputation for being "flaky." The Mission San Jose Community has taken steps to avoid that pitfall, says Anderson, balancing the unbridled praise of God, the hallmark of the Charismatic movement, with solid Catholic teaching and evangelization.

Patterned after the Christian community described in the Acts of the Apostles, the group is defined by its covenant as "a private association of Catholic faithful," conducting friendships in accordance with Gospel principles, praying together and for each other, and working to spread the Catholic faith, promote family life, foster vocations, apply Scripture and Church teachings to their lives, and "work for reconciliation of all in the broken Body of Christ." Sixteen members, many with ties to the Franciscan University of Steubenville, adopted the covenant on October 4, the Feast of St. Francis. As part of its apostolate, the group publishes The California Mission, a bimonthly magazine which focuses on the Holy Father's call to prepare for the Jubilee Year and emphasizes the vision of California Missions founder Blessed Junipero Serra.

The community's schedule includes: Charismatic prayer meetings, complete with singing, speaking in tongues and prophesizing, every Sunday from 5:00 to 6:30 p.m. at Santa Paula parish in Fremont (a separate children's program is offered); men's and women's groups, usually meeting twice a month in members' homes; a community Mass celebrated once a month; Growing in Faith teaching sessions, usually led by Father Gerard Beigel, the community's spiritual director.

The public is invited to attend the community's prayer meetings and lectures. Before being prayed over for the baptism in the Spirit, however, a participant must complete the community's basic catechetical program. This grounding in Catholic teaching prevents people attracted by the "experiential" aspects of the Charismatic movement from falling into "New Age" traps, says Craig Anderson.

Anderson, who is a lector at St. Francis Cabrini Parish in the South Bay, points out that members' activity in the group augments, rather than replaces, parish life. Membership in Mission San Jose Community requires regular parish attendance, Anderson says, since members must be "Catholics in good standing." He also notes, "The covenant we make here is nothing compared to the covenant that unites us in baptism and the Eucharist."

Father Beigel, associate pastor at St. Leonard's parish in Fremont, says his work with the covenant community flows from his ministry as a parish priest. "The essays I write for [The California Mission] magazine are developed in a catechism course I have in the parish," says Beigel, who has a doctorate in moral theology from Catholic University. "I do understand that parish boundaries seem to have become rather fluid. People go where they find life. There is a desire in people for stronger expressions of the faith than often they experience in the parish. So, I think all kinds of small renewal movements in the Church--not just covenant communities--are signs of hope for the future. I wouldn't say they are intended to replace parishes, but to revitalize them in some way. And I think one of the problems of all these renewal movements is: How do you form a community life that is going to be able to strengthen and give witness to the parish life too?"

"Covenant communities are nothing new; it's what God expects of everybody," says Fran Wise, another community member. "In our covenant, I am married to my husband. We pray for each other. I have a covenant with my children. If I don't fulfill those covenants first, then my going to a covenant community is a sham. The community is a good thing to help you live the state to which you are called; it is not a replacement."

A few years ago, Wise says, she and her husband, Steve, realized, "we were a two-income family [she taught at a Catholic school] and we were leaving our kids behind in the dust." They moved to Utah for a couple years. Wise stopped working and started homeschooling her children. In 1996, after returning to the Fremont area, the Wises met the Anderson family at a wedding. The two couples, both homeschooling, became friends and the Andersons invited the Wises to the community's prayer meetings. Fran Wise, who had participated in Charismatic groups off and on, immediately felt at home at the prayer meeting. "While praying, I got this image that I was in the desert, with all the cracks in the ground, and it just started pouring rain, and I was playing in the mud. It's so wonderful to be able to pray and praise, uninhibited, but with a group of people that believe the same....

"[This] is a good place to take responsibility for your spiritual life. You will be challenged--I don't mean people who are spiritually perfected, looking down on you, saying, 'I'm gonna challenge you'--but you really get to see your shortcomings. 'Out of the mud grows the lotus,' as the old saying goes."

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