My association with the Catholic Charismatic Movement in Sri Lanka, better known as the Kithu-dana-pubuduva (hence forward KDP), started with a rather bitter experience of antagonism, and its metamorphosis into one of close collaboration with its Founder is inexplicable without referring to the Power invoked by this movement: the Holy Spirit. 

Here below is the story in brief.  

Sometime in the second half of the decade of 1970s, the Christian Workers’ Fellowship (CWF), a radical but non-violent movement of the Christian Left, celebrated the “Mass of Christ the Worker” at the Ceramic Factory in Negombo in thanksgiving for the life and work of Dr. Hector Fernando (RIP), who was a Catholic politician that belonged to a leftist Party and therefore regarded as anti-Christian by many among the clergy and the laity of this region known as Little Rome. Actually the late Hector Fernando was a champion of the poor and an advocate of the workers’ rights and, most remarkably, had won the election in Catholic Negombo.

Therefore, as a supporter of the CWF, I accepted their invitation to preside over that Eucharistic service known as the “Mass of Christ the  Worker”. The Ceramic Factory in which the mass was celebrated was filled to capacity with mostly Catholic workers. Unfortunately, some members of the Charismatic Movement (KDB) had not only canvassed against the celebration of a fake (‘communist’) mass but also sent a complaint to Bishop Edmund Fernando OMI who happened to be the interim administrator of the Colombo diocese after Thomas Cardinal Cooray’s retirement. The petition accused me of celebrating a scandalous mass where the sacred species were not consecrated but given to people (who were presumed to be ex-Catholics or non-Christians).

 Bishop Edmund forwarded this petition to my Provincial, Fr. Thomas Kuriakose who consulted me about it and got me to present a written account of the Eucharist we celebrated. Fr Kurie read my actual account of the liturgy wherein the Eucharistic Prayer of the Mass followed the format of a canon used in the third century and it contained all that is essential for sacramental validity as required by Canon Law. The Provincial said he would have adored the Blessed Sacrament as did the clergy (I and the concelebrants) who prostrated on the ground in veneration immediately after the doxology. He sent my report to Bishop Edmund declaring his support for my presiding over this mass.  

On hearing of the petition sent by the Charismatics, a much larger number of Catholics (all of them workers who had participated in that liturgy) sent the Bishop a counter-petition declaring their appreciation of that Mass in contrast with spiritually sterile rituals in the parish churches on Sundays.  

The Bishop began to see the truth and was so edified that he became one of my good friends and even stayed overnight at Tulana as my  guest when he was Bishop of Badulla. He and I prayed over each other at Durdans Hospital where he was treated for his last illness. I owe that lasting acquaintance with him to the Negombo charismatics!

Moved by the Spirit
 Some time after this incident Fr. Oscar Abayaratne, the Founder of the KDP started visiting me periodically for a friendly exchange of ideas accompanied by a scripture based prayer service or even the Eucharist Celebration. This was also the time when I was working on an Asian  theology and found the Christian Workers Fellowship (CWF) an ally and a space to share my thoughts at their seminars. Many Sinhala terms I coined there entered the vocabulary of the KDP, a lay-movement mushrooming in various parts of the island across provincial and diocesan boundaries. A Scripture based theology and a spirituality which the Second Vatican Council had envisaged for all Catholics trickled down to the base thanks to this Spirit-led movement, which also generated a number of lay-leaders in consonance with the ecclesiology of Vatican II which re-defined the church as communitas sacerdotalis, a priestly community of (God’s People) whose faith experience (sensus fidei) was so valued as to be declared “infallible” : in credendo fallinequit.

What the local clergy did not care to do nor were able to do was achieved by the laity thanks to the Divine Energy that was operative in them. Nor did the clergy of the time (episcopal or presbyterial) ever try to stifle the Spirit by interfering with this island wide movement….. as it seems to be happening now. It was not the hierarchy but the KDP, by their collective obedience to the Spirit, that helped hundreds of lay people to transform their lives radically as demanded by the Gospels. The hierarchy owes them a huge debt for multiplying domestic churches in which God’s Word was listened to, meditated upon and put into action. Therefore the Episcopate is called by Providence to fan the flames of renewal that the Spirit has kindled among the faithful through the Charismatic Movement rather than grieve the Spirit by quenching that fire through clerical domination.

My contribution to the KDP’s Golden Jubilee Commemoration  
 I have been invited to supply an article for a jubilee publication. I felt that I should do more. Hence I decided to publish an entire booklet on the “Spirit-led renewal of the church” and dedicate it to the members and the founder of KDP as a token of my personal appreciation of what transpired during the last fifty years in the Lankan Church thanks to their zealous cooperation with the Spirit of Christ. 

This booklet contains a sermon I preached at a Pentecostal Rally that gathered almost all churches, both ‘traditional’ and ‘evangelical’ at the Anglican Cathedral in Colombo as well as two public lectures which I delivered on pneumatology (teachings about the Holy Spirit) to a  pan-Asian audience representing a variety of Christian denominations. This pamphlet is a token of my heartfelt appreciation of KDP and its charismatic founder, Fr Oscar Abayaratne.  

Five things the Spirit says to the KDP today
 (i) The Pentecost was, among other things, the Lord’s loud and visible protest against linguistic domination. Instead of one human language becoming the dominant means of communication eclipsing the others, the first Pentecost was an experience of each one speaking one’s own language and being understood by others in their own mother tongues thanks to the Universal Language of LOVE which was revealed that day as a Divine Person. The temptation for one language to sideline the other has to be overcome in a movement which claims the Holy Spirit to be the driving force. The two languages of this country must enjoy equal status in prayer and work.  

(ii) Splintering is another tendency which the Spirit helps us to overcome with Her precious gift of diversity without division. KDP is summoned by the Spirit to witness to a variety of charisms within one united body which is the Church. Unity in diversity is a sign of the Spirit’s presence and activity. Here the members of the KDP would do well to confess their failure to maintain greater unity than is observed now. It is what the Spirit requests at this moment and what the Spirit is ready to grant; and which is already dawning on them in response to their collective effort to resist every form of clericalization of their Charism.

(iii) The lay character of the KDP, therefore, demands that any form of “clerical domination” be shunned as an allurement coming from the Evil Spirit. In prayer sessions of this Spirit-led lay movement many presbyters and even bishops (Bishop Frank Marcus Fernando deserves to be specially mentioned) took part but never interfered with the sacerdotal character of the laity; for these holy Pastors respected the KDP as a trans-diocesan community of priests. The clerical class, as Pope Francis has lamented, has lost the pristine art of discerning the spirits. The clerical class too must engage in self-criticism and in a profound examination of conscience about any plans to appropriate movable and immovable property commonly owned by the KDP under a Trust Deed. The dialectics between the Institution and the Charisma must be maintained at any cost.

(iv) Further more the restoration of the Church as the Body of Christ unpolluted by any form of class division must remain one of the services which the KDP must render to the wider church by word and example. It must treat the Poor as the sacred residence of the Son breathing out the Spirit of the Father. Fr Oscar Abayaratne, the founder of the KDP, has gone on record in the annals of ecclesiastical history as the first to start a Charismatic Movement that was equally sensitive to the Church’s teachings on social justice. May his charism be maintained as a precious inheritance in the KDP.

(v) Finally the Spirit is asking the members of KDP to humble themselves by acknowledging their sinfulness. The Sprit descended upon Jesus as he humbled himself among sinners. The Dove never alights on the proud. If there has been any form of “abuse” among even a few members of the KDP, all members are summoned to confess these lapses and be re-anointed. One is glad to hear that this process has already begun.  
So be it. Alleluia!