The title of this article comes from John Paul II. He views the movements in the context of the Second Vatican Council. The teaching of that Council contains “that which the Spirit is saying to the Churches” (Rev 2:29) at this time in history. Piero Coda, professor of theology at the Lateran University, reflects on the new ecclesial movements that are emerging in the phase of the history of salvation in which we are now living. Ecclesial movements within the horizon of the history of salvation    In his encyclical on the Holy Spirit, Dominum et Vivificantem, John Paul II comments that while it is an historical fact that the Church came forth from the Upper Room on the day of Pentecost, in a certain sense it can also be said that “the Church is always in the Upper Room that she bears in her heart” (n. 66). Pentecost continues in the life of the Church. One of the texts in Vatican Council’s documents that speaks of how the Church is guided by the Holy Spirit is Lumen Gentium n.4. It says that the Holy Spirit guides “the Church in the way of all truth (cf. Jn 16:13) and unifying her in communion and in the works of ministry, he bestows upon her varied hierarchic and charismatic gifts, and in this way directs her; and he adorns her with his fruits (cf. Eph 4:11-12; 1 Cor 12:4; Gal 5;22). By the power of the Gospel he permits the Church to keep the freshness of youth. Constantly he renews her and leads her to perfect union with her Spouse…Hence the universal Church is seen to be ‘a people brought into unity from the unity of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit’” (LG, 4). This is a very full text that would require much commentary. It highlights the pneumatological origins of the Church’s nature and activity in the Risen Christ. Referring to Scriptural themes, it recalls the plurality and diversity of the hierarchical and charismatic gifts in the Church. All of this is presented in the historical and dynamic context of a continuous rejuvenation and renewal by which the Church constantly grows and matures, yearning for perfect union with her Spouse. The final citation in the section just quoted refers to our being gathered into unity from the unity of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit. This citation comes from St. Cyprian. It isn’t just a summary statement of the plan of salvation. What it tells us is that through the gift and action of the Spirit, trinitarian love is rendered objective and concrete in the relationships of complementarity and reciprocity between the various gifts that build up the Church. In line with the teaching of the Council, one contemporary writer has commented that the Holy Spirit is given and gives himself as “a powerful force of renewal and unity. Where He is present, communion arises, humanity is gathered into the unity of the Father, of the Son and of the Spirit, the Church is present: ubi Spiritus Dei, illic Ecclesia. On the other hand, the Spirit is also present in the Church as fruit. Where the ecclesial praxis is lived in charity (en agápe), there he becomes (in a certain sense) something he was not before: the in-the-midst-person of the ecclesial communion, the realm of action shared and so unifying. Where believers live in communion, there ecclesial life gets transmitted: ubi Ecclesia, ibi est Spiritus Dei”. By focusing our attention on the “charismatic gifts”, the well-known text of Lumen Gentium 12 brings us a step further. On more than one occasion John Paul II links LG 4 and LG 12 to the ecclesial movements. Von Balthasar comments that since the ordained ministry too is born and nurtured from a gift of the Spirit, it can be said that through the work of the Holy Spirit the whole Church is founded “on objective and subjective charism”. On the one hand, the ministerial and sacramental gifts communicate the objectivity of Christ’s ministry to the People of God. But in a more specific and restricted sense, the charismatic gifts too are directed towards bringing to maturity in ever new ways reception of the mystery of Christ in the subjectivity of individual believers and of the Church herself. This reception is expressed in three attitudes that define the relationship of the Church to her Lord: virginal openness to the gift that comes to her from God in Christ; spousal communion with Him and, in him, among her members; maternal fruitfulness in generating new disciples and bringing believers to the full maturity of Christ (cf. Eph 4:13). The novelty of the “charismatic gifts” In reading John Paul II’s writings, there is frequent mention of “novelty” in reference to the charismatic gifts. “They can take a great variety of forms, both as a manifestation of the absolute freedom of the Spirit who abundantly supplies them, and a response to the varied needs of the Church in history” (Christifideles Laici, 24). Even though absolutely unforeseeable and free, the action of the Spirit in history points in fact to the progressive realisation of the mystery of salvation: “Christ in you, hope of glory” (cf. Col 1:27). There is a history of charisms that is interwoven inseparably with the very history of the Church. Each of these charism – writes von Balthasar – is like a strike of lightning destined to light up a unique and original point of the will of God for the Church in a given time, manifesting “a new type of conformity to Christ inspired by the Holy Spirit, and therefore a new illustration of how the Gospel is to be lived… a new interpretation of revelation”. And this is where we see the characteristic novelty of charismatic gifts. It is not a question of absolute novelty. God the Father, in giving us his Son made flesh, has said and given us everything in him. The novelty lies rather in the fact that the Holy Spirit from time to time highlights, enlightens and puts into operation a particular aspect of the inexhaustible mystery of Christ. Within the providential plan of God who guides history, the aspect that gets highlighted is a powerful response to the issues of a particular era. It actuates, as it were, a new kairós of the coming of God among us.       And all of this is line with the promise Jesus himself made: “When the Spirit of truth comes, he will guide you into all the truth…he will take what is mine and declare it to you. All that the Father has is mine; therefore I said that he will take what is mine and declare it to you” (Jn 16:13-15). The fullness of truth and grace has been given in Christ Jesus (cf. 1:17). All charismatic gifts are relative to that. Charisms are dispensed by the Spirit throughout the history of the Church. The novelty of these gifts and of the proclamation of Christ that comes to the Church from them cannot but represent a new increase in the Church’s self-understanding and self-configuration. All of this, of course, takes place within the substantial continuity of the “deposit of faith”. The Ecclesial movements and the mission of the Church today   In view of the previous consideration, we can ask ourselves: what word, what gift does the Holy Spirit want to say and share with the Church today through the Movements? In order to offer a response, I think we would have to look briefly at something of the novelty of our times and then also how the Second Vatican Council responds so much to that novelty. With regard to the discernment of our times, I will limit myself to just two points worth noting. The first – and this applies particularly to the Western world, but it has a universal dimension – has to do with the end of modernity. In other words, for better or for worse, we are living at a time considered to be the conclusion of an era in which a model of humanism (both individually and collectively) centred on the affirmation of the subject-man. This affirmation of subjectivity was set against positions of otherness, be this otherness God or other people. The great “ideological narratives” of modernity have dissolved tragically and we are now in a large new realm, waiting for something new. The second element has to do with humanity’s irreversible journey towards acquiring a planetary consciousness of the human family. This requires understanding and working out differences (of culture, traditions, religions etc.) in a context of openness to the other and mutual relationship at all levels (political, economic, cultural and spiritual). In this case too, humanity is being prompted to cross the threshold of a difficult and risky novelty. Against this background the self-understanding of the Church expressed in Vatican II becomes surprisingly relevant right from the first number of Lumen Gentium “the Church, in Christ, is the sacrament of union with God and unity of the whole humankind”. This means that God and human beings, or me and others, are not to be considered in terms of some dialectic competition as you find in the dualistic logic of the servant/master relationship. In Christ, the relationship between God and humankind, and intersubjective relationships among people, have been taken into, revealed and redeemed in the realm of trinitarian reciprocity. In other words, they participate in the divine life which subsists between the Father, Son and Holy Spirit. As Vatican II’s document on the Church in the modern world, Gaudium et Spes 24, teaches, this reciprocity is realised “through the sincere gift of self” (cf. Lk 17:33) that Christ Jesus revealed and realised in fullness in the kenosis of abandonment and death on the cross. This is the context in which the identity and mission of the charismatic gifts of the Spirit are to be considered. We shall do so under headings that John Paul II offers us as the way to read the Second Vatican Council – in terms of mystery, communion and mission. Before doing so, it is worth recalling how charisms and Magisterial teaching have worked together in history. The Magisterium of the Church manifests the apostolic continuity and catholic unity of the Church’s mystery and institution. It discerns if a charism is in accordance with the Gospel, and it also discerns a charism’s timeliness in terms of the needs of the church and the world. And charisms give life to teachings of the Church. The Second Vatican Council is the Magisterial teaching for our era. The charisms have to do with its reception in the life of the Church. Historical parallels come to mind.    Take, for instance, the Council of Trent. It would never have become part of the lived reality of the Catholic Church were it not that, alongside exceptional pastors like Charles Borromeo, there were also charisms – like Ignatius of Loyola, to take but one example – capable of taking up in an exemplary and energetic manner the reforming drive of the Council. In a similar fashion today, the people of God is called to both a faithful and creative reception of the teaching of Vatican II. And today too, alongside marvellous pastors, there are all kinds of initiatives in particular churches that have facilitated an encounter for many with the letter and spirit of the Council. But it is also quite possible that today too the Spirit wants to give his contribution not only through more widespread charisms, but also through special charisms. At this point, we want now to pursue some elements of how the Movements play their part in helping us hear what the Holy Spirit is saying and sharing with the Church today in this period following Vatican II. The Movements and Mystery of the Church   Frstly, the discovery of the Church-mystery. To rediscover (and live) the Church as mystery means highlighting the Church as the sacrament of Christ. The Church is the presence of Christ, indeed “the Christ present” (as Bonhoeffer put it). And this not only in the sense that the Church is generated, nourished and guided by the Word, by the sacraments and by the ordained ministry, but – as a consequence – in the sense that as a community of disciples, she is the sign and instrument of encounter with the risen Christ. And this is precisely – it seems to me – a specific feature of the ecclesial movements. As communities living as a communion of disciples, they make the presence of Christ, the Emmanuel, become an event. A second aspect of the rediscovery of the Church as mystery has to do with her spousal nature. She is not only (in the already/but not yet of the Christian eschatology) one with Christ, but she is also in front of him as the Spouse who is called to be clothed in the Spirit with the nuptial garment of holiness. The ecclesial movements trace a way of holiness that’s not elite but rather open to all. As von Balthasar commented, it is precisely to them that Providence has entrusted concretely, although obviously not exclusively, the animation and putting into practice of the conciliar programme of the universal call to holiness (LG, 5) and the decisive presence of the laity in the Church and in the Church’s apostolate in the world (LG 4 and AA). The Movements and the Church as Communion   A second point that can be noted is the emergence of the movements at a time when ecclesiology is focusing on the Church as people of God and a communion. Charisms have always been recognised throughout the history of the Church. But today they are beginning to be recognised as important in a structural manner for the shaping of the Church-communion. More than in the past, what has been highlighted today is the fact that a group of Christians can share in a charism and that this helps share the building up of the Church body and its evangelising mission (cf. Christifideles Laici, 24,29). A constitutive characteristic of the movements is their ecclesial nature. They are open to all the vocations and to all the states of life present in the people of God. J. Beyer has pointed out that “the very notion of communion is not understandable unless it is made visible in the living Church. It seems that it is precisely to make this communion understood and experienced that the new forms” of Christian life were born.    The Ecclesial movements as well as other forms and experiences can satisfy the need today for “schools of the ecclesiology of communion” that are so necessary to translate the teachings of the Council into action. The emphasis on Church communion today demands a conversion to a communional spirituality. The relationship of complementary reciprocity among the various ecclesial vocations must also be operative in relations between the movements and the (universal and particular) Church and in relations between the movements within the Church. In speaking of his order and of the relationship with other orders, St. Bernard of Clareville said: “I admire them all. I belong to one of them through observance, but to all of them in charity. We all need each other. The spiritual good that I lack I receive from others. In this exile, the Church is still on a journey and, if I can put it like this, the Church is plural. It is one plurality and a plural unity. And all our differences that manifest the wealth of God’s gifts will subsist in the one home of the Father that has many mansions. Now there is division of grace, then there will be distinction of glories. Unity, be it here or there, consists in charity”. The Church and the Church as Mission   A similar point can be made with regard to the aspect of mission. It is immediately evident that the movements are in tune with the call to a “new evangelisation”. They have shown a new capacity to become instruments of openness and transmission of faith in Jesus Christ. Not least because they provide a possibility for giving Gospel witness – “Come and see” (cf. Jn 1:39). Faced with the challenge of postmodernity and global planning, it has become urgent today to return to an original experience of the Gospel. Such an experience has to be one that is able to render present the leaven of the Kingdom of God in those areas of life so crucial for the future. This is possible where the form of evangelisation is “new” in that it is capable of showing the novelty of Jesus Christ today in the life of believers and in their mutual relationships. In this light, the cultural aspect of evangelisation and commitment in the world take on their importance. Perhaps it will only be in the future that it will be fully realised that implications flow from these charisms to do with the understanding and very realisation of revelation as viewed from a particular angle. Such understandings of revelation from particular perspectives is in line with that “concentration of faith” that is spoken of today, namely that concentration on the essential for a more incisive proclamation, existential assimilation and socio-cultural fruitfulness. It would be worth reflecting further upon the meaning of the ecclesial movements also in the areas of ecumenical and inter-religious dialogue. Members of other Church, and indeed, believers of other religions and people of good will, share in the spirit and life of some of these movements. And that has an ecclesiological significance as Christifideles Laici points out (n.33). From an ecumenical point of view, this points us in the direction of a spiritual and practical realisation of that real, albeit imperfect, communion that all the baptised in Christ share (cf. UR, 3). If this is true then – as S. Bulgakow wrote back in 1933 – “it is the duty of ecclesial love, to perceive and render manifest the spiritual basis of Christian ecumenism, not only as an idea, but also as something that exists, a gift of grace. We have been given the experience of it as the breath of the grace of the Holy Spirit, as a manifestation of Pentecost, when people begin to understand one another in the diversity of languages”. With regard to inter-religious dialogue, it does seem that we are dealing with providential signs of the possibility opening up today for the Church to enter “a new stage of history in her missionary dynamism” (n. 35). Some initiatives have shown ways through which the great cultural and religious traditions, without renouncing their own richness, can be transfigured in the meeting with the Crucified and Risen Christ. The Ecclesial Movements and the Marian Principle   I would like by way of conclusion to refer to the Marian principle of the Church about which Hans Urs von Balthasar has written so much. The primary and ultimate meaning of the Church is to generate Christ as “all in everyone” (Col 3:11). If this is so, we need to reflect further on De Montfort’s comment to the effect that there are two who work together in synergy both in generating the Son of God in the flesh and, in him, all of us as children of the Father. These two are the Holy Spirit and Mary. Since the movements are a gift of the Spirit, they cannot but have something to do with Mary. In a memorable address given by John Paul II to the Roman Curia, he spoke of the Marian principle as being as fundamental (if not more so) as the apostolic-Petrine profile of the Church. Von Balthasar has emphasised the need to revive in the whole people of God – hierarchy, laity, consecrated – the Marian form of being Church. And he recognises in the movements a stimulus and providential opportunity for this. The Marian character of the movements’ identity and mission can be seen in a number of ways – their charismatic origin and the primacy of spirituality that characterises them; their predominantly lay and ecclesial profile, their communal and ecumenical dimension; the authentically dialogical openness towards other Churches and followers of other religions. The life of Mary, shaped and guided by the Spirit is a “letting it happen” of the event of the God’s coming among us in the history of humanity. And this is echoed in the relationships between members of the Church and the social forms in which they are organised. Von Balthasar invites us to look at Mary as “the archetypal Church, upon whose form we should form ourselves. We: that means every single Christian and it means perhaps even more, our image of what the Church is. We are for ever concerned with reshaping and improving the Church in accordance with the demands of the time, following the criticisms of opponents and our own models. But do we not thereby lose sight of the one fulfilled standard, indeed the Model? Should we not constantly keep our eyes fixed on Mary … simply to know what Church, what ecclesial Spirit, and what ecclesial behaviour really is?”. Piero Coda