Sober Intoxication of the Spirit: Filled with the Fullness of God

The Lord is always communicating with us in one form or another. We pick up “dribs and drabs.” Periodically, since we are hammered by the demands of our lives and the things around us, we need to take the time to let the Lord speak to us. A retreat is designed to do just that—give God the opportunity. It is like imitating Samuel, and we too are telling the Lord, “Speak, for your servant is listening!” He can speak to us in many ways: sometimes in patterns, sometimes in themes from Sacred Scripture, occasionally just in our hearts. It could be reflecting on a quote like in Saint Paul’s letter, “you are not your own, for you have been purchased at a price” (1 Cor 6:19-20). There is plenty to reflect on here, for days, a week. For me, I had a phrase that I had been coming across repeatedly as I prepared for a retreat this year, and decided to take with me, as if the Lord was trying to tell me something. It was “sober intoxication.” I had first come across it in the Confessions of Saint Augustine some time ago. But now I was seeing it often in varied places. To put it in its proper context it is speaking of “Sober Intoxication of the Spirit.” According to Father Raniero Cantalamesa, OFM, cap., who has this book also by this name, this was a “spiritual enthusiasm” which made the fourth century the golden age of Christian history. One way of looking at that was that the people back then, because of their great faith in Jesus, needed to be living out and supporting the church’s mission by teaching, serving, and sanctifying the people in their city and beyond Let’s say that by imitating Samuel and “listening” for the Lord to speak, it is like we are actively searching more clearly for the Lord in our lives. We see the disciples in the gospel doing quite the same.

I never read anything like this. Fr. Cantalamessa helped me, an engineer, to gain confidence for ministry in Catholic renewal by his "top-down" vs. "bottom-up" depiction of how the Holy Spirit really works. The grace of the Sacraments comes reliably down from above...down through the heirarchy, where it's all tightly scripted and written into ritual books, The grace of charisms and their manifestations of the Spirit all come from below...up through individual believers and moving unpredictably and utterly unscripted. If fact the bottom-up stuff can seem even reckless--we can hardly anticipate a bit of it. Cantalamessa reveals and discusses why the contemporary Church is so impoverished by the astonishing sparsity of bottom-up grace. He writes it so clearly, I feel like I can actually SEE it. This man has a truly unique gift. No wonder he's been the non-stop preacher to the Pope and his household since the earliest days of John Paul II.

Fray Raniero recoge lo mejor del pensamiento de renovación carismática. Y lo une sabiamente con la corriente franciscana dándole frescura y continuidad. Es una obra que lleva a sincerarse con los demás sobre sus pensamientos con humildad, aunque el lector no esté de acuerdo con ellos.

Read this book is you want a deeper relationship with The Holy Spirit. Powerful, simple, and profound book on how God wants to pour out his Holy Spirit on us not only in the Sacraments but also in The Baptism in The Holy Spirit.

What a great book! I loved that it is written in an ecumenical way, relying all the time on scripture and church tradition. Many of the books about this subject merely focus on charisms, but this book gives a great insight about what a complete renewal in the Spirit is and it does it in a very sober and complete way; just look at the table of content. This is the best I have read on the subject so far.

Ok book with insights on a Catholic Pentecostal experience. I personally did not gain any information that I found useful for my own prayer life but does not make it a book that others might relate to.

I recommend this book for all Christians, but it is extraordinarily good for non-Catholics. Charismatic Christians (Pentecostals, Vineyard, Assemblies of God) tend to accept the "official creed" about the Person and works of the Holy Spirit. It is refreshing to read from a new perspective, and an unexpected one for that matter, about the infilling of the Spirit. It opens up new approaches to experience the vitality of the Spirit's Renewal in the Church.

Fr. Cantalamesa has written a book about the Holy Spirit while in the Spirit. It is a wonderful book that instructs, inspires, illuminates, while always bringing the reader ever closer to the Holy Spirit.

I think this book will particularly appeal to Catholics preparing to receive one or more of the Sacraments or who have received a personal experience of the Holy Spirit in their ordinary lives perhaps through prayer or a dream.

A very good summary of the CCR and a reminder of the power of the Holy Spirit. A bit dated though

This is a book to be read slowly and thoughtfully. The author is a devout man who shares deep and inspiring insights with the reader. It is a timely book for the advent of Pentecost . What I have read so far, is provocative and meaningful so I know it will be a treasure, like the other books written by the great son of St. Francis. Thank you, amazon, for your speedy delivery.

Tackles a controversial and complicated subject using plain straight forward language, by a deeply Christian author.

There are few, if any, writers and preachers in today's Church who are as moved by the Holy Spirit as Father Raniero Cantalamessa. Father Cantalamessa, a Capuchin Franciscan priest who has been the personal preacher to both Popes John Paul II and Benedict XVI, has blended deep spirituality with wide-ranging theological knowledge.In this book, Sober Intoxication of the Spirit, Cantalamessa reflects on St. Peter's words at Pentecost, "They are not drunk as you suppose," referring to the disciples who had just been filled with the Holy Spirit and begun to speak in tongues. He finds several references to this "sober intoxication" in Christian writers of the fourth century - "the golden age of the Church." In the state of sober intoxication, the Christian "passes beyond reason into the light of God."Father Cantalamessa names the spiritual depravity of our own age, but he does not dwell on it. He is an inspired preacher, not a prophet of doom. He encourages the reader to seek the outpouring (or baptism) in the Spirit and to seek a path of spiritual renewal. "The Church has always demonstrated its greatest strength and vitality when it has acted on (the) charismatic and pneumatic level," he writes.This book is less academic and more inspirational than some of Cantalamessa's other books. It also contains practical advice for growth in the life of the Spirit. I recommend it highly, not only because it is so inspiring, but also because Father Cantalamessa is calling us to the path of renewal in the Holy Spirit that I believe is so desperately needed in these times.