Local group participates in Golden Jubilee celebrations for Catholic Charismatic Renewal

Saturday, Jun. 10, 2017

SALT LAKE CITY— The national Catholic Charismatic Renewal is celebrating its Golden Jubilee, and as part of the celebration, the Renewal group in the Diocese of Salt Lake City has scheduled several events.

At the first event, held May 27-28, dozens of members of prayer groups across parishes within the diocese gathered at the Madeleine Choir School in Salt Lake City for a Charismatic Initiation retreat titled “Life in the Holy Spirit.”

“All the Charismatic Renewal is celebrating this Golden Jubilee where we are celebrating the moment 50 years ago when a group of university students welcomed the Holy Spirit, experiencing a Pentecost,” said Deacon Santiago Guerrero from the Diocese of Las Vegas, one of the two presenters at the retreat. “This retreat has the purpose of returning to the first love, to be able to experience once again the presence of the Holy Spirit in their lives, in their families, in their parishes, in the diocese.”

Deacon Guerrero referred to the jubilee as an opportunity for Catholics interested in the Charismatic Renewal to start a new path of working toward building the Kingdom of God on earth.

“This jubilee is like a new start in which we need to focus on what’s next,” he said. “One of the challenges is to evangelize all the people who need to be evangelized. To be able to do it, we need first to be evangelized ourselves.”

 For Miguel Lopez, the other presenter at the retreat, the weekend was an opportunity to open to all people the door to the Charismatic Renewal.

“This retreat is the beginning in the Catholic Renovation, all the servers started this way. ... Here you learn about Jesus’ love and you learn about the Holy Spirit, who gives us the strength to keep serving. We also learn about our Church,” said Lopez, a Charismatic evangelizer from Los Angeles.

 He emphasized that the retreat was important for everyone who wishes to serve in the Church.

 “It marks peoples’ lives because you don’t only know about God’s love, you learn about the role that the Charismatic has in our Church,” he said.

With worship, reflections, prayer and music, and concluding with the celebration of the Eucharist at the Cathedral of the Madeleine, those attending the retreat listened to talks such as “Church and Community,” “Faith and Conversion,” and “Staying and Persevering.”  

Among those who attended were Reynaldo and Norma Flores, members of Rosa Mistica, the prayer group of Our Lady of Lourdes Catholic Church in Magna,

“We wanted to renew what we lived some years ago in the initiation retreat. ... This is to return to the first love,” said Reynaldo Flores.

His wife, Norma, added that for her the retreat meant returning to the beginnings of their Charismatic journey.

“It was a renewal of the call to encounter Christ to find his love,” she said.

The next Charismatic Catholic Renewal Jubilee event in the diocese will be Sept. 29, when Bishop Oscar A. Solis will preside at a special Mass, said Fr. Jose Barrera, spiritual advisor of the diocesan Charismatic Renewal.