The Burning Bush: an Initiative
in Charismatic Renewal for the Church
by Kim Kollins

The spirituality of Pentecost belongs to the whole Church. The Catholic Charismatic Renewal exemplifies this spirituality in its life and expressions. Pope John Paul II further confirmed this at the Solemn Vespers of Pentecost 2004 in his homily to all the Church, "Thanks to the Charismatic Movement, many Christians have rediscovered Pentecost as a living and present reality in their daily life. I desire that the spirituality of Pentecost be spread in the Church, as a renewed thrust of prayer, holiness, communion and proclamation. In this regard, I encourage the initiative known as "Burning Bush." This involves incessant adoration, day and night, before the Blessed Sacrament; it is an invitation to the faithful to "return to the Upper Room," so that, united in contemplation of the Eucharistic Mystery, they may intercede for full Christian unity and for the conversion of sinners. I warmly hope that this initiative will lead many to rediscover the gifts of the Spirit, whose original source is Pentecost."

The Burning Bush Initiative began in the heart of the Church, in Rome, during Easter week 1997, at a European Catholic Charismatic leaders meeting. During a time of intercession for the "new evangelization" of Europe, in the Chapel of the Renewal in the Holy Spirit, my heart was impregnated with the Burning Bush vision of a "return to the Upper Room 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.

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 of Jerusalem.

The Burning Bush Initiative desires to help the people of God experience this permanent Pentecost, for the Church to be enlightened again and again and burn like a Burning Bush. In the first of Elena’s twelve confidential letters to Pope Leo XIII she wrote :

"Holy Father, the world is evil, the spirit of Satan triumphs in our perverted society and tears away from the Heart of Jesus a multitude of souls; and in this dreadful state of things Christians lend no thought to addressing unanimous supplications to He Who can ‘renew the face of the earth.’ People recommend all sorts of devotions, but they are silent about that one devotion which, according to the Holy Spirit of the Church, should be first and foremost. People recite so many novenas; but that one novena, which by order of Our Savior in person, was recited even by the most Holy Mary and by all the apostles, is now almost forgotten. Preachers praise all the Saints, but when do we ever hear a sermon in honor of the Holy Spirit, He who shapes the Saints? …Therefore, oh Holy Father, you alone can make Christians return to the Holy Spirit, so that the Holy Spirit may return to us; defeat the evil reign of the devil, and grant us the long sought renewal of the face of the earth." (April 17th, 1895, Elena Guerra (1835-1914) was beatified by John XXIII under the title of "apostle of the devotion to the Holy Spirit")

On the prompting of Blessed Elena, Pope Leo XIII asked all the faithful to celebrate a solemn novena (nine days of prayer) perpetually between the feasts of Ascension and Pentecost for the unity of Christianity.

The invitation of Pope Benedict XVI to the new ecclesial movements to come to Rome for the Pentecost Vigil with him at St. Peter’s Square, June 3, 2006, underlines in a new way the importance of the Pentecost Novena instituted by Pope Leo XIII. We can pray the novena in the nine days before Pentecost 2006, perhaps joining together with members of other movements, in parishes or houses of prayer.

For example, the European Catholic Charismatic Renewal National Service Committees have linked together in a united effort for the Pentecost Novena (promoted night and day, where possible), according to how the Holy Spirit would lead each of their respective countries. May the Lord multiply many more such efforts, so this initiative may spread worldwide, thereby responding to Pope John Paul II’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.’"

The Burning Bush Initiative is also a response to Pope John Paul II’s Apostolic Letter, Novo Millennio Ineunte, "Our Christian communities must become genuine ‘schools’ of prayer, where the meeting with Christ is expressed not just in imploring help but also in thanksgiving, praise, adoration, contemplation, listening and ardent devotion, until the hearer truly ‘falls in love..!"

In the last century, hundreds of millions in every part of Christianity have encountered God in an Upper Room experience of a personal Pentecost, "baptism in the Spirit;" a concrete experience of the "grace of Pentecost" in which the working of the Holy Spirit has become an experienced reality in our lives and in the faith community. The Burning Bush Initiative helps to continue to fan the flame of the Holy Spirit and the gifts of the Holy Spirit for the service of the Church.

We are in a time where God is calling his people to return anew to the Upper Room not in nostalgia, not looking for the beginning experiences of the renewal, but with a servant’s heart, a heart of knowing what it is to experience the power of God and His gifts in prayer. Now is the time for the Renewal to forcefully respond to the call of prayer and give strong witness of its rich experience of prayer in the power of the Holy Spirit.

This worldwide call challenges the Catholic Charismatic Renewal 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."

"Oh, if only…unanimous and fervent prayers could be raised to Heaven in every part of Christendom, as they were one in the Cenacle [upper room] of Jerusalem, for a rekindling of the Divine Spirit." Blessed Elena Guerra.

Let each of us be ambassadors of the Holy Spirit and of the spirituality of Pentecost. Let us live out of the wellspring of prayer in adoration and intercession for the whole Church according to the grace we have received in our personal Pentecost experience.

Kim Kollins has been given the task of promoting the Burning Bush Initiative on the International level. We encourage you to plan now to invite your prayer group and parish to participate in praying this Novena as a community. Ideas on how to do that can be found at the Burning Bush website, www.burningbush.beatitudes.org.]