By Pauline Nuss
Several weeks ago I turned on the television on EWTN to pray the Rosary with Mother Angelica and the Rosary was preempted. Instead it was a video from last June’s address in Rome. Pope Francis was meeting with the National Convocation of the Renewal in the Spirit. There were thousands of people there, all ages. Some Orthodox Priests were there, including non-denominational groups, all asking the Holy Spirit for help in overcoming divisions. I was encouraged about the Charismatic Renewal because even though we here seem small in attendance I want to encourage all of you because the Catholic Charismatic Renewal is alive and well.
Ray and I were there in Rome the 1990s when there was a similar meeting of huge crowds, all Charismatic people, but the times have changed a lot since then. But we can’t give up and we won’t give up this pearl of great price, the Charismatic Renewal. We also know that St. John Paul II was in favor of it. Also Pope Benedict was in favor of it and, of course, Pope Francis is, and that’s a good thing. We know we’re on the right track.
I want to tell you a personal story about Ray and I way back in the early 1970s. We were living in Wichita, Kansas, and Ray had started working for an insurance company. The founders were a Christian couple older than we were and they were good. They employed about forty people and some of those people were not very moral. I knew it. Ray knew it and I felt like we were to discontinue being there. We were skating on thin ice. We needed to do something. Very suddenly, Ray got a call from Dallas asking him to come back to Saladmaster Cooperation, the stainless steel cookware company. He had worked there before and had been one of the top sales people, so they asked him to come into the home office. We didn’t even question it; we just said “yes.”
When we moved here, Ray was traveling out twenty days and in twenty days and was just focusing on his new job. The first month I was here someone knocked on my door. I didn’t know anybody here except Jack and Pat Wagner. This person knocks on the doo. She was from Plano and she came in and said, “I came to welcome you. My sister-in-law in Wichita told me to come and welcome you to Dallas.” She came in and we spent an hour together and she started talking to me about a prayer meeting. And I said, “Prayer meeting? What’s a prayer meeting?”
Prayer meetings at Bishop Lynch
I don’t want to go into all the details of that hour but I had always known that there had to be something more. I love my Catholic faith. I’ve been a Catholic from the cradle but I knew there was something more but I didn’t know what it was. So she asked me if I would like to go with her and her husband to Bishop Lynch High School and attend the Prayer Meeting. I was just curious enough that I did go and it was very weird to me because everybody was in the Commons, which was the cafeteria at that time. We were sitting in a circle and it seemed like everybody was crying. They were singing lots of songs that were pretty, and we liked that. I took my youngest daughter, who was about seven, and one of my sons, who was in the seventh grade. They were both going to St. Paul the Apostle in Richardson, and they liked the music a lot.
Father Paul Hinnebusch came up and introduced himself and he said, “Where are you from?” I told him and he said, “Where is your husband?” And I said, “My husband is working.” He said, “Your husband should be here,” and he sat down with us. Anyway, it was real confusing to me. I had never heard of any such thing and when we drove home they were talking to me all the time on the way and tried to tell me they wanted me to come back again. This came off the top of my head and I just said, “Well if the Holy Spirit wants me, let him come and get me.”
About a week or two later my Southern Baptist neighbor from across the street wanted to welcome me to Dallas. She had local women in my neighborhood come and to a coffee she had for me. I attended that and it was all very nice. There was one woman sitting beside me. she was big and pregnant and she had two little ones on each side. Later the women got up and got in little clusters, talking about soccer and drapes and other things, But she never left me and she kept talking to me about Jesus. I thought that was kind of unusual. She talked about Jesus all the time. But I felt good about the fact that she never left me. She said to me, “I would like to invite you to come to a prayer meeting.” And I said, “Oh, I’ve heard that before.” This was Glen and Helen Arceneaux, and some of you will know who they are and some won’t – but they are a wonderful couple. So anyway, I went with them.
This time it was the same thing again except that I felt a little more comfortable with it, Again, two of our children came. Our other son was rebellious at the time, going to high school there at BLHS but he didn’t want to come. Because it was so new, most of people didn’t know what gifts they had. When the elders laid hands all over you and pray over you and imparted the Holy Spirit, they didn’t know what gifts they had. So the only one that was really talking was Bobbie Cavnar. He was standing in the middle, talking on the microphone and doing the prophesying. We were sitting on the north side in metal chairs and he stood there and he started prophesying and said: “I know you’re here because I brought you here.” He was talking for Jesus, prophesying. He said, “I brought you here; I brought you from the East, I brought you from the West, I brought you from the north…” When he said the North I started crying. I was convicted and knew that was the Holy Spirit talking to me.
Gift of evangelization
From that time on I just thought, “I know that’s the Holy Spirit inviting me here. I want this. This is what I’ve been thinking was missing. I’m going to do this whether anybody else goes with me or not.” That was the start. When they lay hands on you and impart you with gifts I received the gift of evangelization. (I’m not talking about Ray’s gifts, only about mine.) To this day I want to evangelize everybody and I try to the best I can. I also received the gift of hospitality and our home has been used over these last forty-three years with so many people from around the world – I wouldn’t even know how to count them. They’ve spent meals, overnight stays, weeks, months -- and that’s good because that’s what the gift of hospitality is all about. I also received the gift of tongues.
Shortly after that our dentist in Wichita, Dr. William Pelzer, was coming to town for a dental convention with his wife. At that time we were members of St. Rita’s and we invited them to come to Mass on Saturday night. Well, there was already a group playing. I think some of the Cavnars boys were singing in the little music ministry so the Holy Spirit was there.
After the Mass was over, I had invited Jack and Pat Wagner over because they knew the Pelzer’s who were our dentist. We had all been skiing in Colorado and we had been dancing. We had been to dinner at each others homes and all that sot of thing, so they came. I didn’t know much at the time, I was so new in it. They came over for dinner and we were sitting around the table eating and the whole conversation was about that Mass at St. Rita’s. It was different and they couldn’t figure out why it was so different. So I didn’t know much, but you know what? You don’t have to know much because if you don’t know much, the Holy Spirit will help you to know what to say.
I was trying to evangelize and talk to the Wagner; trying to talk to Ray and to the Pelzer’s. The whole evening it was all about that. What little I knew I was sharing and Jack Wagner was agreeing with every single thing I said. I don’t care what I said, he agreed. He said he had had some experiences and he was excited about it. Ray was totally silent. Pat never said a word and the Pelzer’s were just looking at us, puzzled! They were very strong Catholics and have a son that’s a priest and they were strictly Catholic. He was the president of the Men’s Club; she was the organist – those kind of people.
At the end of evening, at midnight, it was over. Ray walked them out to the car and the last thing Jack said leaving, “Pauline, I’m going to be here with my family tomorrow at 5:30 and follow you guys to Bishop Lynch.” And he was! So I went into the kitchen and was gathering up some dishes and feeling disappointed in myself because I thought I didn’t do very well. Dr. Pelzer came back into the house, put his arm around my shoulder and said, “Pauline, I want to tell you something. If you found something new, something precious, I envy you. I’ve grown so cynical I don’t know what I believe anymore.” Well, that made me feel a whole lot better. The next day, Sunday at 5:30, Jack pulls up with the children and Pat and they’ve been here ever since.
I’m saying all this to encourage you. I don’t know what gifts you have, but use your gifts even if it’s only a few. I never had the gift of prophecy, I only had about three or four gifts, but I just want to encourage you to not give up on the Community or on the Charismatic Renewal because it’s here to stay, and just because we don’t have many people coming right now doesn’t mean a thing. It can revitalize, but it’s up to us to do it. We have to bring people in here just one at a time, because it works. Thank you.
Shared at Community Gathering, 1-24-16