Eucharist Adoration in the Spirit - A Providential Response

Following the gathering in St Peter’s Square with the Holy Father, which became a great Upper Room on Pentecost eve, we have asked Kim Catherine-Marie Kollins, to share more on the Burning Bush Initiative. 

What is it?
 
The Burning Bush Initiative - is a call to help the People of God to return to the Upper Room in adoration and intercession - to experience a Pentecost not only of a moment or a day, but a permanent Pentecost, according to the intuition of Blessed Elena Guerra who, at the end of the nineteenth century, urged Pope Leo XIII to lead the Church back to the Cenacle/Upper Room of Jerusalem, for the Church to be enlightened again and again and burn like a Burning Bush. It is a response to Pope John Paul II’s Apostolic Letter, Novo Millennio Ineunte, “As this millennium begins, allow the successor of Peter to invite the whole Church to make this act of faith, which expresses itself in a renewed commitment to prayer.” This return is not a return in nostalgia, looking for the beginning experiences of the CCR but with a servant’s heart, a maturity, a heart  knowing what it is to experience the power of the Spirit and His gifts in prayer, in united contemplation of the Eucharistic mystery.  

How it began? 

In the heart of the Church in Rome - Easter week 1997 - at a European Catholic Charismatic leaders meeting - in a time of intercession for “new evangelization” of Europe - held in the Chapel of the Renewal in the Holy Spirit, my heart was impregnated with the Burning Bush vision of a “return to the Cenacle in adoration and intercession”. In the shelter of this chapel, in a protected abode, I would spend nine months as the vision deepened and expanded, grasping that this call was for all, beyond the boundaries of the Catholic Charismatic Renewal, a call to the whole Church, to all Christianity. 

How do you think the CCR should respond to this call?

This world-wide call challenges the CCR to go beyond what is so often our normal scope of prayer – family, friends, our group or community to incessant adoration and where we may intercede by means of the Spirit with great fervor for the renewal of the Church, full Christian unity and the conversion of sinners, a renewal of society and thereby “a renewal of the face of the earth.” As one example: the European CCR National Service Committees have linked together in a united effort for the Pentecost Novena (promoted night and day, where possible) for these intentions for Europe, according to how the Holy Spirit would lead each NSC in their respective countries. May the Lord multiply many more promoters like Renewal in the Spirit so this initiative may spread worldwide; this is what is hoped for all those who read these words. Thereby responding to the Holy Father’s prayer for us, “that your communities and the entire Charismatic Renewal will “put out into the deep” of prayer in order to “put out into the deep of mission”. 

What is implied in the Holy Father’s pronouncement during the Pentecost vespers?

This initiative as an invitation to the faithful is not bound to any one ecclesial movement or area, thereby he expresses his hope that this initiative will lead many to rediscover the gifts of the Spirit, whose original source is Pentecost.” This will be certainly an instrument to put all the CCR in serving the whole Church through his specific mandate from the Lord: Those who worship in spirit and truth.

Kim Catherine-Marie Kollins 6.18. 04 
(Published in ICCRS newsletter, special issue/July – August 2004)