July 16, 2025 // Diocese

Life in the Spirit Seminar Helps Participants Know God’s Love

Paula Lent

Ahead of the convening of the Second Vatican Council in 1962, Pope St. John XXIII prayed that the Holy Spirit would “renew your wonders in this our day, as by a new Pentecost.” Years later, Pope St. John Paul II said, “The Catholic charismatic movement is one of the many fruits of the Second Vatican Council, which, like a new Pentecost, led to an extraordinary flourishing in the Church’s life of groups and movements particularly sensitive to the action of the Holy Spirit.”

And, the Spirit has not stopped since.

At St. Pius X Parish in Granger, the staff recently discerned to bring a Life in the Spirit seminar to parishioners. Lisa Marino, the parish’s assistant director of evangelization, told Today’s Catholic, “[Pius’ pastor] Monsignor [Michael Heintz] and I had a conversation about the movement of the Holy Spirit in the Church today, and how powerfully the Holy Spirit is working, and how we can be open to whatever the Holy Spirit wants to do at our parish. And I said, ‘Let’s have a full conversation about what should happen next; what should it be?’ He said, ‘Well, I have just the guy for us, and we should have him come and do a Life in the Spirit seminar.”

That guy was Mount St. Mary’s Seminary professor John Love, who worked with Monsignor Heintz for eight years at the seminary and who has put on Life in the Spirit seminars for seminarians and undergraduates.

“He is the same person who has run [Life in the Spirit seminars] over and over again at Mount St. Mary’s, where our seminarians have been. So, many of our priests, our younger priests, who have been going to the Mount … if they chose to do this Life in the Spirit, he was the one who was organizing that there. So, it’s a natural fit,” Marino said.

To best serve the needs of parishioners, Love, who presented with his wife Alexis (Kresta) Love, modified the typical seven-session format of a Life in the Spirit Seminar in order to bring a three-session series to St. Pius X at the end of the Easter season. Beginning on Pentecost Sunday, this unique series was held on three consecutive days and was offered through two tracks – a morning track and an evening track – to allow participants to choose the option that worked best for them (including going to a morning track some days and evening track others).

The series was balanced with both intellectual formation and activities to facilitate a personal encounter with God.

“In our first session, Dr. Love gave some brief introductions on charismatic spirituality, especially highlighting the similarities between charismatic spirituality and other types of spirituality in the Catholic Church and just what it means to be Catholic in general,” Marino told Today’s Catholic. “Sometimes people think [charismatic spirituality] is an outlier, and it’s really much more in the heart of the Church.”

Afterwards, prayer teams were on hand to pray with anyone who wanted prayers for anything.

As part of the second session, Love gave a brief historical overview of the current charismatic renewal before talking about some of the basics of charismatic spirituality. Love pointed to Pope Leo XIII’s prayer for a new outpouring of the Spirit for a new century in 1901 as the start of the current charismatic renewal, and he highlighted statements about the Holy Spirit and the charismatic renewal made by subsequent popes, including Pope John XXIII, Pope John Paul II, and Pope Francis.

“He talked a little bit about our Holy Fathers and their encouragement of closeness to the Holy Spirit,” Marino said. Love also cited Pew research data, which showed that in 2020 644 million (30 percent) of the world’s 2.2 billion Christians self-reported as “Pentecostals” or “charismatics.” According to Love, “The growth of this [charismatic] movement in the last 100 years makes it the fastest growing religious movement in recorded history.”

In the same session, Love also gave short talks on healing, praying in tongues, praise and worship, and charisms before talking about baptism in the Holy Spirit. When speaking about the characteristics of charismatic prayer and spirituality, Love noted that such spirituality is one in which God’s presence is felt as real, active, and present; it’s a spirituality that brings about a sensitivity to God’s presence. He also noted that charismatic prayer is often communal and is “focused on conversion – [a] deeper relationship with God.” The session ended with a time for encounter through praise and worship.

The third session was focused on baptism in the Holy Spirit and featured an extended time for participants to receive prayer from prayer ministry teams. In preparation, Marino said, Love elaborated on what “baptism in the Holy Spirit is, and that it’s never competitive with sacramental baptism, but it’s a recommitment to that.”

“Specifically, to what sometimes people call baptism in the Holy Spirit, he really talks about this as a recommitment to our baptism and confirmation with a specific intentional inviting and openness to whatever gifts the Holy Spirit would like to give us,” Marino said. “And when put that way, it’s not special or unique to a charismatic spirituality. … Basically, we’re asking for just the graces – intentionally, to stir up the graces – that we’ve already received. We’re Christians, we have these things; but to help us know them, to help us use them, to help us want them, because of course God doesn’t ever force these on us,” Marino added.

In preparation to receive prayers for baptism in the Holy Spirit, participants were given the opportunity to pray a prayer of recommitment.

According to participants and prayer team members, all the opportunities for prayer were impactful – both personally and in building up the body of Christ in their parish.

During the first session’s prayer ministry time, participants had the opportunity to receive prayers for whatever was on their heart. Marino noted the love of the prayer team members, who, she said, displayed a “generosity of time and prayer, saying, ‘I am here for you to pray for you, for whatever you want, for however long it takes.’”

Carol Miller was both a participant and a prayer ministry team member. She reflected on the impact this intentional prayer time had on first-time participants.

“So many people, like the first time we prayed with them, had a lot of concerns,” she told Today’s Catholic. “And it’s almost like the Lord needed to lighten their burdens. … It just shows you the fact that all of us have things that hold us back from what the Lord wants to do with us. And we just have to hand it over to the Lord. And as we hand over all of our burdens, our concerns, it’s freeing. It’s like the Lord frees us so that we are able to be in the right place to ask even for more grace of our baptism and our confirmation.”

Marino also noted this impact of prayer, saying, “I saw people who just came in that first night who, literally, physically … were burdened by life and coming from prayer [they were] laughing and joyous and in a much better place to receive more from the Lord.”

Additionally, Marino shared: “Beautifully, both nights, typically I would see people stand up, hug their prayer teams, come back [with] smiles, laughter, sometimes tears, joy, and oftentimes who they came with [they would exchange] hugs with each other [and say] thank you. … So, there was this sharing of joy and [of] their experience with the Lord. Some people [came] back saying to me, ‘I always knew in my head that I was supposed to know that God loves me, but now I know that I know that Jesus really loves me. I mean, I know it here [pointing to their heart].”

Tony Staley, who attended the seminar with his wife, Carol, told Today’s Catholic that on both occasions the two prayer ministry experiences he had were a “very beautiful thing for me.” Staley shared that the Holy Spirit “was speaking about His desire of placing upon me the joy that He has in me, the opportunity that He has for me to share joy with others, and as I sense[d] this joy overwhelming me almost to a certain extent, [it] created a giddiness, laughter, and at the same time tears, because it was this great love that was coming to me through the Holy Spirit. It was very powerful for me.”

Carol Staley then noted: “The second night, we spent time in praise and worship in front of the tabernacle. And that was just so beautiful and peaceful to just praise, just be in God’s presence, and just give Him a little bit of the love He sends to us; to be able to just open my heart to that.”

Miller added: “Just to piggyback on that, I would say that I think that’s what I felt – that overwhelming love of God. When I was prayed with, but also when I was praying on a prayer team, just to see how God was working in each individual and to hear some of their witnesses. … My heart was so full – so full of joy for how God was working. It just was incredible.”

The group experienced the Lord working through the event to deepen a sense of community within such a large parish. Receiving and discussing the talks together and having the opportunity to pray together all contributed, participants told Today’s Catholic.

“The first evening after I had gone forward to be prayed with, I came back and just kind of sat down,” Carol Staley said. “I like to write what I receive to help solidify it. So, I spent a little time doing that, and there was a lady sitting next to me who I didn’t know. … I said, ‘If you’re not sure, I encourage you to go forward.’ And she said, ‘OK, thank you.’ And a little bit later, she said, ‘Can you tell me what happened?’ So, I just shared a little bit about the peace and the love that I felt the Holy Spirit pouring out on me. … I think she was a little unsure and didn’t know what to expect. So, I was like, sure, I’ll tell you. It’s not a secret. It was just being in God’s presence and having Him fill you with His love,” she continued.

“I could see that this was an experience of the Church working really well and an experience of why the Lord gave us the Church so we could help each other, intercede for one another, encourage one another – not just encourage one another about life, but encourage one another in the Lord, in our approaching the Lord together,” Marino said.

“[It was] that communal approach of the Lord together and helping one another to do that in gentleness and love, receiving, helping people learn to receive from the Lord, and giving permission for that. It was beautiful to witness,” Marino added. “People who did not necessarily know each other at all before … it didn’t matter that we didn’t know one another, because we all knew the Lord. And so that hunger was satiated in not each other so much but in each other coming together in Him. It’s the satiation from Christ, which, ironically, and not ironically, is our faith. But when we come to the Lord and love Him, then we satiate His thirst, you know: ‘I thirst.’ And that’s what He’s hungering for – our desire for Him. And so, we’re able to help one another do that. And so that was a beautiful example of Church being Church. It doesn’t have to be a label of this kind of spirituality or that. It’s just Church being Church. It’s just us praying together.”

“Right,” Miller affirmed. “It’s just like us being on a journey together where we’re just helping each other. And I just really sense that more and more with people – just that desire in the Church to grow together.”