Pope Benedict XVI once said: “The entire Church, as beloved Pope John Paul II used to say, is one great movement animated by the Holy Spirit, a river that travels through history to irrigate it with God’s grace and make it full of life, goodness, beauty, justice and peace.”
That quote found in the preface to a new book by Beatitudes Father Nilson Leal de Sa captures the spirit of the book God’s Ongoing Gifts to the Church: Issues Confronting Ecclesial Movements and New Communities (Sophia Press, 2023). An engaging, easy read, the book explores the blessings of the new ecclesial realities as well as the challenges that can arise from living out their charisms in union with the local and universal Church.
“The idea for the book came from the reality of the Community of the Beatitudes because we are a new institution in the Church,” Father Nilson told the Denver Catholic. “We celebrated 50 years of foundation last year.”
Born and reared in Brazil, Father Nilson, 49, has a doctorate in canon law and a master’s in theology. Ordained a Community of the Beatitudes priest in 2001, he has ministered in academia and ecclesiastical and parish life in Europe, Africa, Asia, and the Americas. He has served in Denver since 2018. He is a canon law lecturer at St. John Vianney Theological Seminary, parochial vicar at St. Catherine of Siena Parish, and local coordinator of the Community of the Beatitudes, which has run St. Catherine’s since 1998.
Denver’s Beatitudes Community is the sole “house” of the contemplative and missionary community in the United States. The Beatitudes Community has 50 houses in 28 countries. It is comprised of consecrated sisters and brothers, some of whom are priests; lay members, both single and married; and permanent deacons, both married and celibate.
Founded in 1973 in France and now recognized as an Ecclesial Family of Consecrated Life, the Beatitudes Community is one of many communities and movements born of the Second Vatican Council.
Father Nilson’s priestly call started with the example of faithful diocesan priests. He discovered the beauty of consecrated community life at age 10 when he read St. Therese of Lisieux’s Story of a Soul. He met the Beatitudes Community at age 17 while attending college in Rome. Drawn to their Carmelite spirituality and fraternal life, he entered the Beatitudes two years later.
“I wanted to live this charism of communion between members of the (Beatitudes) Community that reflects the reality of the Church,” Father Nilson said.
Father Nilson’s ministry across the globe brought him into contact with other ecclesial movements and associations, and he saw the need for a work that addressed what a charism is, what is common to the mission of all the Christian faithful, formation for ecclesial communities, dangers to avoid and criteria for a mature ecclesial community.
“I wrote it for everyone in the Church,” Father Nilson said. “Largely, the Catholic community in general that wants to learn a little more about the Holy Spirit bringing new realities into the Church.”
Those in a new community or those looking to formally organize themselves and bishops trying to help them should find it particularly useful.
What will people learn from the book?
“That the Holy Spirit is alive and working in the Church,” Father Nilson said. “In the life of the Church we see this movement of the Holy Spirit. In the beginning, we have the disciples of Jesus following him, then virgins following Jesus. Then, when the Church had the approval of the state, there’s a movement of hermits going far from cities for a radical Christian life. Afterward, monastic life, then mendicants – Carmelites, Franciscans, Dominicans – then missionaries like the Jesuits. The Holy Spirit is always there to give an answer for the needs of the Church in the present moment.”
A vibrancy of the new realities today is the communion between the different states of life: ordained, consecrated, and lay members. Configured to Christ by Baptism, the Church teaches that the faithful all share equal dignity and are to answer the universal call to holiness and to participate in the Church’s mission to evangelize.
“There is a welcoming of the different vocations working together to serve the Church,” Father Nilson said. “Also, especially with international communities, we see that a person not of my citizenship is not a danger, but is my brother, my sister.”
Traditional religious orders and the new communities have a charism that leads to their apostolate. It is the “face of Jesus,” Father Nilson said, that the ecclesial community shares with the Church and the world.
“A charism is a gift of the Holy Spirit for the edification of the Church, we read in Saint Paul’s letters and in the Catechism,” Father Nilson said. “Often when you ask a religious order, What is your charism? You are asking, What do you do? Charism, first of all, is the identity, what you are, what you receive from God.
“For the Beatitudes, our charism is the communion between the states of life. From this charism, this source, comes different apostolates to serve the needs of the Church.”
The new movements and communities help the Church to challenge the secularized and individualistic world we live in, Cardinal Manuel Monteiro de Castro, emeritus major penitentiary of the Apostolic Penitentiary, said in the book’s preface.
“Collaboration between new associative realities and older structures proves to be very fruitful for the evangelization of social and cultural life,” he said, adding that the new realities also offer opportunities for faith formation and “valid support that reinforces the grace of Catholic marriage.”
Unfortunately, abuses and false prophets have also occurred in ecclesial communities throughout Church history, Father Nilson said, particularly in the 12th century, but also recently.
“Sometimes the new movements or communities lack ecclesial maturity,” Father Nilson said. “A founder is not God on earth, he is an instrument of God who must be obedient to God and the laws of the Church.”
Parishes and the new communities have encountered resistance to something new, commonly expressed as “But we’ve always done it this way; why do we need to do this?”
“And sometimes the new movements come with the presumption that they are the best, they want to save the Church. There is this pride that does not come from the Holy Spirit,” Father Nilson said. “A new entity must be humble to integrate the local parish: we are new, but we are not meant to be by ourselves. We are called to live in communion with the reality of the Church.”
“The parish has an irreplaceable role in the structure of the Church,” Father Nilson said. “For example: We cannot celebrate a wedding only between us in the (Beatitudes) Community. Weddings and baptisms need to pass through the parish. There are things we cannot do outside the parish because we are connected to a local place with the reality of the Church there. When a community or movement tries to replace or do a parallel Church, that is going in a bad way.”
In The Joy of the Gospel, Pope Francis describes the parish as “a community of communities,” Father Nilson noted.
“It means we have what is essential for everyone, but we also have, say Charismatic Renewal in the parish,” Father Nilson said. “It is a challenge to have different spiritualities, but this is the reality of the Church. It’s important to find a good balance. You don’t want to say, apart from the parish nothing can exist. No, you cannot limit the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit is bringing communion in diversity.”
Noting that new ecclesial communities have contributed to “renewal in the Church,” Dan Burke, president of the Avila Institute for Spiritual Formation, said Father Nilson’s book “provides invaluable wisdom to minimize the weaknesses and maximize the gifts each community offers the Church in our time.”
“In an age of fresh new charisms, Fr. (Nilson) offers a word of hope flowing with theological depth, common sense, enriched communion, and deeper collaboration in the Church,” asserted Anthony Lilles, professor at St. Patrick’s Seminary and University in Menlo Park, Calif., and previously a founding faculty member of Denver’s St. John Vianney Theological Seminary.
While some people are drawn to a special spirituality offered through an ecclesial community, temporarily or permanently, Father Nilson said such membership is unnecessary to realize one’s call to holiness.
“To be a faithful Christian is enough in itself,” he said. “As a baptized member of the Church, if you live deeply your vocation as a Christian, you will go to heaven.”
To purchase a copy of God’s Ongoing Gifts to the Church: Issues Confronting Ecclesial Movements and New Communities by Father Nilson Leal de Sa, CB. visit https://sophiainstitute.com/product/gods-ongoing-gifts-to-the-church/.