Spiritual Gifts – the Priestly Charisms
Through our baptism, every Christian is called to participate in Jesus’ priestly mission – to sanctify the world through prayer and sacrifice. But some of us are especially equipped and empowered through specific charismatic graces to make this part of our Lord’s mission central to their lives.
The priestly charisms are spiritual gifts and empowerments from the Holy Spirit that lead others to praise God.
The Charismatic Grace of Tongues
The charism known as “Tongues” is actually a deep prayer in which the Holy Spirit prays for us to our Heavenly Father. People who experience this special form of prayer don’t usually even realize they are speaking out loud, but what they say out loud sounds like a foreign language. Their experience is that of a deep spiritual connection with God.
In fact, the private form of this prayer would be contemplation. In contemplation, God takes over the prayer and unites Himself to the person praying. The same thing happens when praying in tongues. But there is one important difference. Remember that charismatic graces are always given for the sake of others.
The public expression of Tongues serves as a witness of the Holy Spirit’s presence in our prayer. It is also a witness to how God wants to be united to each and every one of us in prayer.
The prayer of Tongues is actually the Holy Spirit communicating to the Father for us. There is another charismatic grace that is closely related to Tongues – that of the interpretation of Tongues. Some people are able to understand and interpret the utterances of the Holy Spirit. This helps others to know what is being said to the Father so they can join their own hearts and minds to the prayer of the Holy Spirit. This is so important that Saint Paul tells us that these two gifts should be used together whenever possible.
Unfortunately, the charismatic grace of praying in Tongues has gotten a bit of a bad reputation for being “out there.” Tongues was seen by the Charismatic movement as proof of “baptism in the Holy Spirit,” leading some people to “fake it” in order to be able to join in the Spirit-centered community. This in turn led to a lot of sensationalism. I believe that this is exactly what Saint Paul warned against in 1 Corinthians 14.
But the true gift of praying in Tongues is given as a sign of God’s presence and His desire to be intimately united to us in prayer.
The Charismatic Grace of Healing
I often hear people say, “Why doesn’t God perform miracles anymore, like He did in the Bible?” Do you remember the story of Saint Peter healing the lame beggar in front of the synagogue? He has the great line, “Silver or gold I do not have, but what I do have I freely give. In the name of Jesus, arise and walk.” Does God still work that way?
The good news is – He does! The bad news is that human nature doesn’t change. Just as some people remain unmoved by Saint Peter’s miracle (and by Jesus’ miracles), so people today remain unmoved by the continued evidence of God’s love and power. But some people are moved, and that’s why God continues to give Christians the charismatic grace of healing.
The charism of healing is the ability to call upon Jesus to affect actual physical healing.
You may notice as I teach about the charismatic graces that I tend to make certain distinctions over and over again. It’s important that we distinguish between natural gifts and charismatic gifts, for example. Why? Well, while they often work together (we do get our natural gifts from God too), the charismatic gifts show us how God is at work through us. So with healing, we need to distinguish between the charism and the general ministry of healing that all Christians are called to participate in as part of our office. For example, you may have had the experience of a doctor or a nurse or a visitor in a hospital who had a calming presence. You may have even said something like, “She has such a healing presence.” This is not the charism of healing. It may be a different charism. It may be a natural gift. But the charism of healing is much more direct and much more efficacious.
This gift is not about spiritual or psychological healing. It’s about actual physical healing. Sometimes the healing happens instantaneously with the laying on of hands – as it did for Saint Peter.
It’s also important to note that the healing doesn’t happen every time a person with this charism requests it. This isn’t because the charism is defective. It’s because physical healing isn’t always God’s will for us. We always need to remember that God’s primary concern for us is our eternal souls, while our primary concern tends to be our physical bodies.
In fact, the purpose of this charism – notice that it is in the Priestly Charisms category – is to witness to God’s love, power and presence in order to lead people into a relationship with God. The goal of this charismatic grace is to get people to Heaven!
Other times the healing may happen after a period of time. It may also happen through distant prayer rather than direct contact.
That’s probably why this is one of the rarer charisms. God doesn’t want us to lose focus on what is truly important. However, despite it being rare, it is still present in the world. God does still heal people – and He uses us to do it!
The Charismatic Grace of Miracles
The gift of “miracles” is very closely tied to the charismatic grace of healing. In fact, people with this charism may sometimes heal people. But they are also the conduits of other signs of God’s providence. Think about the prophet Elisha. He was able to heal, and even to raise people from the dead. But he also multiplied food, granted fertility, and caused disease as a warning sign. This is a great example of the scope of this charism. Like healing, the effect of the charism of miracles is often instantaneous. But also like healing, the miracle is not always granted upon request. It is always granted according to God’s will. It would be easy to see how this gift could otherwise be abused and turned into a prideful sense of “magical power.”
Also like healing, the main purpose of the gift of miracles is to witness to God’s goodness and His supernatural care for His people.
The charismatic gift of miracles is meant to lead others to a strong sense of our Heavenly Father’s loving care for us, and to witness to the fact that Jesus is still active through His Church.
The Charismatic Grace of Intercessory Prayer
While we all have a duty to lift each other up in prayer, those with this charism enjoy praying for others. They can pray for hours at a time without tiring.
People with this charism may get unexplained urges to pray for specific people at specific times. I was once in Eucharistic adoration at 1:00 in the morning and I had the rare experience of having an unscheduled visitor. This woman came in at about 1:30, prayed for half an hour, and left the chapel with me at the end of my adoration time. On our way out the door, she said, “I woke up with this sudden urge to pray for my niece. I have no idea why.”
While this kind of thing can happen to any of us once in a while (I have no idea if this woman had the charism), it happens to people with the charismatic gift of intercessory prayer much more frequently.
Furthermore, the prayers of people with this charism are often miraculously answered. One difference between this charisms and those of healing and miracles is that the prayers are often answered over time, and the person praying is usually removed from the person being prayed for. He or she may never know if the prayer is answered. But often the connection is made when the person with the charism says, “I’ve been praying for you,” and the person being prayed for says, “You know what? The funniest thing happened yesterday,” and then goes on to describe a need being suddenly met surrounding the topic of prayer.
While intercessors may not always be aware of how their prayers are specifically answered, in general they do tend to have a greater sense of God interacting in the world. They can often see how God has influenced a particular event or how He has been working in a person’s life.
The Charismatic Grace of Faith
In the tradition of sloppy use of the terms for the theological virtues that started with Saint Paul 😉 the charismatic grace of Faith is really more about Hope. Hope is trusting in God, whereas Faith is intimacy and commitment. Oh well.
The charism of faith is extraordinary confidence that God will provide. Furthermore, this confident expectation is usually met in extraordinary ways.
This charism strengthens the theological virtue of Hope. But like all charisms, this gift is not given for the sake of private devotion. It is given to encourage others to trust God and to stay the course.
Saint Dominic is a wonderful example of someone with this charism (and is one of my favorite saints). He was famous among his order for his confident statement, “God will provide.” And the wonderful thing is that God usually did! Most people think of Saint Dominic as an ascetic who preferred to go without physical goods. This is in part true. But more accurately, Saint Dominic inspired his monks to live the line of the Lord’s Prayer, “Give us this day our daily bread.”
Spiritual Gifts to Sanctify the World
These are just some of the priestly charisms. My point here is not to offer a complete catalog of the charisms that fall into this category. My point is that the Holy Spirit equips each of us to participate in Jesus’ 3-fold mission as priest, prophet and king in a unique way. If you have received any of these charisms – or similar charisms – you may be specially called to the priestly mission. As you discover and exercise your unique mission, the Holy Spirit will work through you in the form of these charisms. You will then become not only a witness to the power of God in the world, but a participant. Now that is an adventure! So what are your spiritual gifts?
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