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Visibly, through the ministry of priests, the font gives symbolic
birth to our visible bodies. Invisibly, through the ministry of

angels, the Spirit of God, whom even the mind’s eye cannot
see, baptizes into himself both our souls and bodies, giving
them a new birth.

Speaking quite literally, and also in harmony with the words of
water and the Spirit, John the Baptist says of Christ: He will

baptize you with the Holy Spirit and with fire. Since we are only
vessels of clay, we must first be cleansed in water and then
hardened by spiritual fire – for God is a consuming fire. We
need the Holy Spirit to perfect and renew us, for spiritual fire

can cleanse us, and spiritual water can recast us as in a
furnace and make us into new men.

The Catholic Charismatic Renewal:

A Current of Grace for the whole Church

Fr. Raniero Cantalamessa, ofmcap Pentecost 2020

The thing to make clear right away is that this new life is the life

brought by Christ. He is the one, in rising from the dead, who
has given us the possibility, thanks to our baptism, of “walking

in newness of life” (see Rom 6:4). It is thus a gift before being a
duty, “something done” before being “something to do.” On this

point we need a Copernican revolution in the common mindset
of believing Catholics (not a revolution in the official doctrine of

the Church!), and this is one of the most important contributions
the Charismatic Renewal can make—and has made in part—to

the life of the Church. For centuries the emphasis was so much
on morality, on duty, on what to do to gain eternal life, that it

inverted the relationship and put duty before gift, making grace
the effect instead of the cause of our good works.

The Charismatic Renewal, concretely the baptism in the Spirit,
brought about in me this Copernican revolution that I was
speaking about, and because of that I am deeply convinced

that it can bring about that revolution in the whole Church. And

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