Not a “New Fire,” but the Fire of Pentecost

 

Modernist “new fire” is not the theological virtue of charity, but a psychological stimulant dressed in religious vocabulary.
 
It is the fire of guitar-strumming, hand-clapping, dancing, and shallow enthusiasm—excitement today, ashes tomorrow. That is not God’s fire. That is a spark from below... 

Preamble: 

A Faithful from one of our missions recently shared with me a short video clip. It showed a layman, vested to look like a Catholic priest, performing under the direction of his Modernist masters -heralds of the so-called “new pentecost”; the Vatican robber council. 

I had in fact seen the same clip not long ago. At the time I dismissed it as little more than an emotionally charged declamation—sincere perhaps, but ultimately shallow and tiresome.

 My correspondent shared the link with me hoping for an instructive and edifying commentary. It is hoped that this commentary is both instructive and edifying. 

The Call for “New Fire”

Below is the transcription of the video: 

Many parishes today are places of politics, policies and programmes.

The Church characterized by religion, no conversion, no encounter.

Liturgies without the Holy Spirit. Beautiful structures without power. That is the situation of many parishes today.

A place where you do not encounter the Holy Spirit, no matter how beautiful, is as good as an empty tomb.

Many parishes are not just old but cold — we need new fire. And many Christians today are lukewarm, dry. We make confessions without contrition. Pretense in place of holiness. Ignorant, no passion for evangelization: we need new fire…

At first, these words may sound fiery and true. Who would deny that there is lukewarmness in the world? Indeed, Christ Himself warns:

Because thou art lukewarm, I will begin to vomit thee out of My mouth.” (Apoc. 3:16).

But we would do well to look closer. Yes. Look closer! 

The False Diagnosis

The Modernist preacher laments “liturgies without the Holy Spirit.” Yet the “liturgy” he defends is no liturgy at all—it is the Modernist ecumenical service falsely called the Novus Ordo Missae, the “new order of Mass”:

• Invented in the 1960s by a committee, not handed down organically by the Church.
• Modeled after Protestant prayer services, so as to be acceptable to heretics who reject the Sacrifice of the Mass.
• Emptied of its sacrificial heart, reducing the august renewal of Calvary to a communal meal and dialogue.

This man claims to diagnose a sickness, but he is blind to its source.

He says: “beautiful structures without power.”

But what emptied churches of their sanctity, stripped their altars, toppled their statues, whitewashed their walls, and gutted their tabernacles?

It was not Catholic Tradition, but the Modernist revolution of Vatican II. The same movement that exalted man’s dignity above God’s worship, that replaced the language of heaven with banality, and that mocked the devotions of the saints as outdated superstition.

The “beautiful structures” lost their power only when their sacrificial worship was abandoned and their Catholic soul evacuated.

He says: “we make confessions without contrition.”

• But who silenced the preaching of the Four Last Things—death, judgment, heaven, and hell?
• Who banished the language of sin, guilt, penance, and reparation from the pulpits?
• Who recast confession as a “reconciliation room” encounter, more therapeutic than sacramental?

It was the very Modernist current he serves, the current that reduced the Sacrament of Penance to a routine formality, and even discouraged frequent confession as “scrupulosity.”

The Trick of “New Fire”

Then comes the great slogan: “we need new fire.” What exactly is this “new fire”? 

While I was yet thinking on how to synthesize the data drawn from my experience back in the days as a putative Religious Seminarian in the Modernist impostor institution I mistook for the Catholic Church, and those available to-day to describe what this “new fire” is all about, I saw a post from another sensational lay-robed man that spared me the trouble. His post reads thus: 

Charismatic prayer is shaping the Church in ways both amazing and interesting. It has given Catholics a new fire, a deeper hunger for prayer, and an energy level that rivals a Pentecostal all-night revival. At the same time, traditional Catholics sometimes watch and whisper, “Is this the Church… or a holy Zumba class?”

Charismatic prayer has given millions of Catholics a renewed sense of God’s presence. It has inspired vocations, healed families, and injected vitality into parishes that were slowly fading. It has also forced the Church to wrestle with a crucial question: Do we truly believe in the power of the Holy Spirit, or do we merely recite His name in the Creed?

An attentive reader would not fail to catch a glimpse of what the Modernist “new fire” is all about. Or am I mistaken? 

What the Modernist “New Fire” Really Is

The post reveals the following traits:

• Emotionalism: The “energy level” is compared to a “Pentecostal all-night revival” or even a “holy Zumba class.” This is not the peace of the Holy Ghost but the agitation of human enthusiasm.
• Novelty and Sensationalism: The “new fire” is marketed as something never before seen in the Church, as if the centuries of saints, martyrs, mystics, and liturgy were insufficient.
• Subjectivism: The measure of this “fire” is not fidelity to doctrine or sacramental grace, but how one feels—energized, excited, uplifted.
• Replacement of Tradition: By claiming to give “new vitality to parishes that were fading,” it implicitly judges the ancient rites and practices of the Church as dead or inadequate.

In short: the “new fire” is not the theological virtue of charity, but a psychological stimulant dressed in religious vocabulary.

Thus, the "many Churches" lacking the "new fire" would be those sluggish to join the charismatic prayer bandwagon. 

A Trivia

I remember vividly a one-on-one discussion I once had with a putative diocesan seminarian back in the days. With an almost embarrassed honesty, he admitted that he had begun learning the ways of charismatic prayer, not because he was convinced of its truth, but because it had become the new measure of being “spiritual.” 

If a seminarian did not wave his hands, join in the clapping, speak in tongues, or lose himself in the frenzy of it all, he was looked upon as “out of place,” cold, or even resistant to the “Holy Spirit.” In such an environment, the timeless gestures of reverence—silence, genuflection, the rosary, the quiet adoration of the what was supposed to be the Blessed Sacrament—were subtly pushed aside, dismissed as relics of an “old spirituality.”

This was not an isolated case, but a window into the deeper crisis of formation. When what is novel becomes the norm, and when mere emotional display is mistaken for spiritual depth, seminarians are pressured to conform to fashions instead of being anchored in the eternal. 

The danger is clear: to form men for their sham priesthood who are skilled in stirring feelings, at home with guitars, and zealous for frenzy movements. 

A Scriptural Parallel

In Leviticus 10:1–2, Nadab and Abiu, priests of the Old Law, dared to bring before the Lord a “strange fire”—an invention of their own will, not commanded by God. The altar was already burning with heavenly fire sent down from heaven (Lev. 9:24). But they preferred novelty, their own spark. At once, divine justice struck them dead: “And fire coming out from the Lord destroyed them.” Strange fire leads to death, because it defies God’s order and substitutes man’s invention for divine worship.

In Acts 2:3, by contrast, the Apostles in the Cenacle received tongues of fire from heaven—the true fire of Pentecost. It was not their own doing, not human enthusiasm, not self-invented ritual, but a pure gift of the Holy Ghost. That fire did not destroy, but illuminated; it did not kill, but enkindled zeal for Christ crucified. It transformed weak men into bold preachers, martyrs, and saints.

Thus, the two scenes mirror each other:

• Strange fire—man’s novelty, born of presumption, ends in judgment.
• True fire—God’s gift, descending upon humble hearts, bears life, truth, and sanctity.

What a lesson! 

When man manufactures “new fire,” whether in Nadab’s censer or in Modernist liturgies, it brings only ruin. But when we guard and receive the fire already given—the fire of Pentecost, living in the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass—it makes us living torches for the glory of God. 

 

The Deeper Trick

Notice the rhetorical question: “Do we truly believe in the power of the Holy Spirit, or do we merely recite His name in the Creed?”

This implies that Catholics who worship according to the Church’s received rites and who are not swept up in charismatic displays are practical unbelievers.

It sets up a false divide: either join the emotional frenzy, or admit you do not “believe in the Spirit.” 

Yes. Modernism always accuses Tradition of being dead to justify its novelties. You might compare it to a quack doctor: he weakens the patient, then sells him stimulants that worsen the disease.

But the Fathers of the Church taught that the Creed itself is a profession of faith in the Holy Ghost, and its liturgical recitation is an act of worship. To belittle that is to despise Catholic Tradition.

But beware!

• The Apostles did not receive a “new fire” in every age.
• They received one fire on Pentecost—the fire of the Holy Ghost—which has never gone out.
• The saints never invented “new fire.” They clung to the old fire, the eternal fire of Christ’s Sacrifice, burning upon the altar in the Holy Mass of all ages.

This so-called “new fire” is a trick. It means:

• novelty,
• emotion,
• noise,
• constant change.

It is the fire of guitar-strumming, hand-clapping, drum banging, dancing, and shallow enthusiasm—excitement today, ashes tomorrow. That is not God’s fire. That is a spark from below.

The Real Diagnosis

The tragedy is this: the preacher denounces symptoms, but conceals the cause, perhaps because he knows no better?

• The barrenness, the coldness, the loss of fervor—all these came not from the Traditional Roman Rite, but from its destruction.
• The silence about contrition and sin did not come from the saints and confessors of old, but from the new theology that replaced them.

Thus the “new fire” he offers is a false remedy for a false diagnosis. The true fire is not found in Modernist spectacle, but in the Eternal Sacrifice of the Mass as handed down by the Church, with all its power to sanctify, convert, and save.

The True Fire

Now, on Pentecost, the Apostles received tongues of fire not for dancing or shouting or being “slain in the spirit” but for preaching Christ crucified with clarity and authority.

The visible fire disappeared, but the permanent fruit remained: doctrine handed on, the Sacraments administered, the Cross embraced.

The “charismatic new fire,” however, burns bright for a moment like a spark but often leaves confusion, doctrinal compromise, and dependency on emotional highs.

The fire is in the Traditional Catholic Mass, where Christ the Victim offers Himself to the Father.

The true fire is not novelty—it is Tradition:

• The fire in the uncorrupted sacraments, as handed down from the Apostles.
• The fire in the faith of the Fathers, which cannot be extinguished.

Blasphemy and Accidental Truth

Important to note is that, when an agent of Modernist revolution in permanence says, “liturgy without the Spirit,” he blasphemes, if he is referring to the true liturgy of the Catholic Church, for the Sacred Liturgy is inseparable from the Holy Ghost. 

From the first Pentecost, the Spirit has been the divine breath animating the Mystical Body in her public worship. The Holy Sacrifice of the Mass, handed down and perfected through centuries under the guardianship of the Church, is ipso facto the work of the Holy Ghost: He Who overshadowed the Virgin Mary at the Incarnation continues to overshadow the altar at every valid Mass, bringing Christ really present upon the altar.

To suggest otherwise is to insult the Spirit of Truth, Who spoke through the Prophets, Who descended upon the Apostles, and Who guided the Church’s liturgical growth organically and infallibly. It is to deny that the Bride of Christ, “the pillar and ground of the truth” (1 Tim. 3:15), could have for centuries celebrated a worship void of the Spirit. That is indeed blasphemy. But of course this blasphemy is at the bottom of the modernist frenzy to “revise” the Mass with the help of Protestants outside the walls based on ecumenical principles to make it pleasing and inoffensive to Protestants outside the walls. Or isn't it?

Now here lies the irony: when the same Modernist applies the slogan “liturgy without the Spirit” to the so-called Novus Ordo Missae, he accidentally stumbles into truth. For the Novus Ordo, a fabrication of committees in the 1960s under Bugnini and Protestant advisers, is not the organic liturgy of the Church, but a man-made service. It was not the fruit of centuries of sanctity, martyrdom, and tradition; rather, it was the product of rupture, novelty, and ecumenical compromise.

Its stripped prayers, horizontal gestures, and desacralized language obscure the sacrificial nature of the Mass.

Its didactic tone exalts man as much as God, shifting focus from propitiation to “community celebration.”

Its omissions and changes systematically suppress Catholic doctrines on the priesthood, the Real Presence, and the sacrificial character of the Mass.

Thus, in its very construction, it is “without the Spirit,” not in the sense that the Holy Ghost abandons the Church (which is impossible), but in that the form itself does not breathe with the Spirit of Catholic Tradition. It is a liturgical cadaver.

What We Truly Need

The Church does not need a “new fire.” She needs Catholics to guard the fire already given and say no to modernist synthesis of heretical novelty

We must:

• fall on our knees before the tabernacle,
• seek priests at the altar of sacrifice, not entertainers on a stage,
• rekindle the fire of Pentecost through prayer, fasting, devotion, and penance.

A counterfeit doctor identifies poison and prescribes more poison. A true physician identifies poison and prescribes medicine. The medicine is:

• Christ,
• Tradition unchanged and unchanging,
• the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass,
• penance and holiness of life.

Summing Up

Make no mistake about it: the “new fire” slogan is the Modernist inversion of Pentecost.

• Instead of objective grace, it offers subjective sensation.
• Instead of the Faith of all ages, it thrives on novelty and spectacle.
• Instead of producing saints molded by mortification, it breeds restless consumers who chase the next “experience.”

Yes:

• False Fire = noise, novelty, spectacle, emotional intoxication, short-lived sparks.
• True Fire = sacrifice, doctrine, sanctity, endurance, peace. 

Thus, the trick is clear: Modernism rebrands emotionalism as the Holy Ghost, and then pressures Catholics to conform—or else be accused of having no “fire.”

Catholics true to the name must then be faithful to the fire already received. Let us live our faith fervently, confess sincerely, believe firmly, and adore devoutly.

If Catholics chase “new fire,” they will end up exhausted, disillusioned, and faithless. But if they guard the true fire, they will persevere even in persecution. False fire prepares souls for Antichrist, true fire prepares them for Christ’s return.

The Church does not need a “new fire.” She needs Catholics to guard and spread the same fire that descended upon the Apostles and burns forever in the Heart of Christ. 

Oh that those deceived by the heralds of the modernist "new fire" be disabused! 

+ Come, Holy Ghost, fill the hearts of Thy faithful, and enkindle in them the fire of Thy love. Amen!