Baptism in the Holy Spirit

Chapter Four

What is “baptism in the Holy Spirit”?

According to its champions, this private experience is the very heart of the movement: a watershed moment of the spiritual life, a “personal Pentecost,” a new and deeper experience of the presence of God.

Does this practice belong to Catholic Tradition?

No. This practice is unknown in the constant doctrine and discipline of the Catholic Church. As an essentially Protestant concept, it poses a serious threat to the Catholic identity of the faithful, as it undermines or attacks the nature and importance of the sacraments, especially baptism and confirmation. (Credo Catechism, 297-298)

There has been much mention of the so-called Baptism in the Holy Spirit in the preceding chapters but without any significant explanation. Therefore, in this chapter, we will assess the claims of Charismatics about this supposed “baptism”.

According to Charismatics, the point of being “baptized in the Spirit” is to “unleash” the graces of the Holy Ghost that lay dormant in the soul. One analogy that is consistent amongst Charismatic literature is that while Baptism and Confirmation unite us with the Holy Ghost, it is possible that the graces remain “inactive”; they say that it is like how chocolate syrup may be put into a glass of milk, but unless it is “stirred up” it will sit at the bottom and the milk will not be infused with the flavour of the syrup. Well, aside from the fact that this analogy is infantile and specious, it is also inconsistent with true spiritual wisdom. 

Yes, we do need to call on our baptismal graces, and it is completely acceptable to seek a deeper union with the Holy Ghost; in fact, we should all strive for that. However, the Baptism in the Spirit aims at a sensible experience where the graces can be “felt,” but this is contrary to the wisdom of the great spiritual masters:

Piety as well as devotion can be very much alive in the soul, although in the sensible part it feels cold and dry; and this to the extent that all its exercises of prayer and virtue are performed without the feeling of any sweetness or consolation, but rather with great repugnance. This should not alarm us: St. Thomas teaches that devotion is an act of the will, that this act can very well exist in spite of aridity, coldness, repugnance, and even rebellion in the inferior part of the soul. St. Paul himself, although raised to the third heaven, was still not entirely free from these miseries, and confessed: “I am delighted with the law of God, according to the inward man: but I see another law in my members, fighting against the law of my mind" (Rom 7,22.23). Now as St. Paul, in spite of this resistance in the sensible part of his soul, was not deprived of true piety and true devotion, so neither is the soul deprived of them if it remains firm in the decision of its will to give itself promptly to God's service, in spite of everything. Devotion, which is derived from the Latin word devoveo, means precisely consecration to the divinity; and the soul gives itself entirely to God, not by bursts of enthusiasm in its feelings, but by an act of the will. Furthermore, when devotion is deprived of relish for the things of God, "it has a double worth, because the soul both fulfills its duty and governs its sensitive appetite by a strong act of the will" (Divine Intimacy, 820-821)

The origin of the Catholic Charismatic Renewal is filled with adherents seeking an experience to enliven their spiritual dryness¹, and therefore they went seeking a “feeling” of grace so their faith could be “real” to them. This intuition is wrong and against the wisdom of the saints. While God may grant consolation at times, He may also seem very absent, but this is for our benefit. As we read above, a time of dryness is an opportunity to grow in the virtue of piety and become more pleasing to God. We understand this from our own lives in other arenas.

For example, an athlete will truly prove himself to be a consummate professional if he pushes through injuries or long stretches of poor performance. Quite frankly, the greatest stories are those of the “underdogs” who experience little to no success or consolation, but they keep grinding until they finally make it. The spiritual life is a battle: “The life of man upon earth is a warfare, and his days are like the days of a hireling” (Job 7:1). There will be many battles and many casualties, and we may seem to be on the brink of defeat for long periods of time, but it is in these moments of difficulty that true piety and devotion are forged. Charismatic theology rejects this and acts as if outpourings of consolation should be normal for the average person.

Our Lord Himself cries out from the Cross as if He was forsaken! Yet Charismatics want to skip the Cross and go straight to the beatific vision. It is an unholy spirituality.

Christ was Baptized in the Holy Spirit?

According to Ralph Martin, not only should all Christians receive the Baptism in the Holy Spirit, but Christ Himself was baptized in the Spirit when he was baptized by John the Baptist in the Jordan River. “In all four Gospels John the Baptist introduces Jesus, not only as the Lamb of God… but as the one who will baptize in the Holy Spirit, so, being baptized in the Holy Spirit is one of the central things that Jesus does.”² It should be noted that Martin speaks of the Baptism of the Holy Spirit happening to Jesus, and not something that happens to Jesus.

Martin’s remarks echo what is held as standard doctrine for Charismatic theologians. One of the earliest priests to adopt the Pentecostal heresy was Father George Montague, and he co-authored a seminal work in the realm of Renewal theology with Father Kilian McDonnell called Christian Initiation and Baptism in the Holy Spirit: Evidence from the First Eight Centuries. It is worth noting that the book was dedicated to Cardinal Suenens. In this book, both priests are adamant that Christ received the Baptism in the Holy Spirit:

Therefore the baptism in the Holy Spirit is first of all something Jesus receives… The rending of the heavens and the heavenly voice highlight the giving of the Spirit to Jesus as a sovereign intervention of God… Thus Mark sees Jesus’ own baptism in the Holy Spirit not only as a proclamation of divine sonship but also as an anointing with divine power, which Jesus exercises through healings and exorcisms, whether performed by himself personally or through the disciples.³

Are Montague and McDonnel, and by extension Charismatics who follow this theology, suggesting that Jesus received the Holy Ghost and divine power when He was baptized? It certainly seems so.

To say, even if implicitly, that Jesus received the Holy Ghost or divine power from the Holy Ghost is inconsistent with the dogmatic fact that the fullness of divinity dwells in Christ substantially, which is to say Christ already had the fullness of divine power as part of his nature. Charismatics speak of Christ’s baptism as if his power was somehow augmented, or He received a power that He did not already have, which strikes at the heart of his fullness of divinity. In addition, to say that Christ received the “Spirit” from God the Father as if He did not already have a perfect union with the Third Person of the Holy Trinity is alarming. Quite frankly, this manner of thinking seems more consistent with Arianism or Semi-Arianism — condemned heresies — than sound Catholic theology.

Christ did not receive the Holy Spirit from John the Baptist's baptism in the sense of being cleansed or made holy, which is what happens to regular human beings when they are baptized, as He was sinless. What’s more, we cannot say that Christ received the Holy Ghost as if the Second and Third Persons of the Holy Trinity were not already perfectly united. Instead, His baptism served several purposes:

1. Affirmation of His Mission: Christ's baptism was a public declaration of His humility and His mission. It was to fulfill all justice and to show solidarity with sinners, even though He Himself had no sin (Matthew 3:15).

2. Institution of the Sacrament: The baptism of Christ in the Jordan is considered the moment when He instituted the sacrament of baptism. By being baptized, He conferred upon water the power to sanctify and regenerate, thus establishing the sacrament for future believers (Jean-Joseph Gaume, The Catechism of Perseverance, vol II, Lesson 4: Public Life of the Messias).

3. Manifestation of the Holy Trinity: At His baptism, the Holy Spirit descended upon Him in the form of a dove, and the voice of the Father was heard proclaiming Him as His beloved Son (Matthew 3:17). This event marked a significant revelation of the Holy Trinity (Credo Catechism, 348-350).

4. Preparation for His Ministry: The descent of the Holy Spirit upon Jesus at His baptism signified the beginning of His public ministry and proof of its Divine Origin for the faithful, (Credo Catechism, 348-350, 485).

His baptism was a pivotal moment that established the sacrament of baptism and revealed the divine nature of the Holy Trinity.