Charisms

Just a quick observation. While watching Journey Home on EWTN a caller asked the guest Carl Olsen (Ignatius Press) about why the Catholic Church seems to not express what Christians call charisms, which are spiritual gifts (common examples are speaking in tongues, forms of celebration, forms of service and so forth). The caller was under the impression these charisms were more common in the early Church immediately after the resurrection of Jesus and I think the caller was implying a reserve or even a repression today. Carl gave a great example in the quick time that he had for that answer. But there is a large point I need to make, which is that the Church itself is totally infused with charisms and the most obvious example are the various multitude of religious orders.

People think religious orders are groups of cloistered monks or nuns. What they don't realize is that every religious order and association has been created based on one or more charisms by the founders. Some charisms are mystical, devotional and cloistered, while on the opposite end are charisms that were very specific, such as the ransom of captives. Often the founders, many of whom were declared saints, received the charisms in even more dramatic way than the admired "speaking in tongues" for example; they received these charisms in visions and divine inspiration! There are a number of well known examples of charisms that were received as a gift by the Virgin Mary in an apparition, for example. These charisms became, to use a handy secular word, the "specialty" of the religious order or movement. So the entire Catholic Church is an infusion and organization of charisms that is far beyond what an individual projects in a "praise and worship service" by non-Catholic Christians, for example. Instead of individuals speaking in tongues, the Catholic Church has religious orders and missions that are "chartered charisms by the Holy Spirit," again to use secular terms. The entire order or mission is founded and maintained in order to focus a collective and communal effort on a charism. The Catholic Church has traditionally not been about an individual being seized with a charism and then demonstrating it to others. The Catholic Church tends to have an individual who receives a charism or gift then share, with Church approval, the gifting of the charism so that a community may be formed to fully bring this charism into service and being.

For example, one well known charism is that of the "little way" by St. Therese of Lisieux. Gifted to her as one individual, even as a child, it became one of the most active and moving charisms in the Catholic Church today through her diary writings "The Story of a Soul." Many thousands of people share in and practice this charism as fruit of her being the first to do so and to unselfishly share her experience and gifts, including how she had a visitation by Mary who cured her of her dire illness. (Her story: http://www.catholic.org/saints/saint.php?saint_id=105 ). So Therese developed a charism which can be described as finding ways to offer to Jesus even one has literally nothing to give, by living her "little way" for Jesus.

I hope this helps to shed light on the fullness, rather than the incorrectly assumed neglect, of charisms in the Catholic Church body as a whole. Charisms are such a huge part of the Catholic Church that like the framework within a house behind the walls they are everywhere but almost invisible because they are within and throughout rather than the acts of a few.