Such a pleasant surprise yesterday! I am without both visual art talent and training. Still, the elementary teacher in me likes to use images to keep me focused. So, I have a small bulletin board in my kitchen where I keep an image that represents goals and tasks. With the end of the Easter season, I am changing it this weekend. I want use a water color “wash”—just a delicate general color—for a large flower. In the past, when I’ve tried that, I have gotten the paper too wet. I asked a high school student client who has had art classes to show me how to do that yesterday as we began our session.
The result was absolutely amazing. While I have not always been able to connect with this young man, yesterday he was different. He showed me how to do the wash, then continued to paint while we talked. His conversation with honest, trusting, self-revealing, and deep. We did more work yesterday than we have in months.
What happened? For one thing I pray for my clients, and I think the Holy Spirit answered my prayers for him by giving me the idea to ask him to help me. For another, I unknowingly tapped into a gift he has for art—perhaps a charism gift of the Holy Spirit.
On this Solemnity of the Coming of the Holy Spirit to all the disciples and the birth of the Church, today’s reflection will be about charisms, gifts, and fruits of the Holy Spirit.
John 7:37-39 Charisms
This is the Gospel for the extended Pentecost vigil from Saturday night. I quote it in full here:
Jesus stood up and exclaimed,
“Let anyone who thirsts come to me and drink.
As Scripture says:
Rivers of living water will flow from within him who believes in me.”
He said this in reference to the Spirit
that those who came to believe in him were to receive.
There was, of course, no Spirit yet,
because Jesus had not yet been glorified.
Charisms are resources of the Holy Spirit that each of us has for the purpose of flowing from us out into the world to spread the good news of God’s love. They might be extraordinary (healing, prophecy, miracles) or ordinary (administration, teaching, hospitality). If we are baptized, we have them. The Catherine of Siena Institute is especially well known for helping people identify their charisms—their streams of living water. There is an excellent description of them here.
Signs of charisms include: a level of joy in doing something, an ability to do it effectively for the good of others, others noticing our abilities, the inability to do this for anything but good. For me, writing, teaching, and listening with understanding are my charisms. Actually, all three of those activities are expressions of the charism of knowledge. There is also a presence of hospitality in me that mixes well with knowledge to keep me working as a servant leader.
You, too, have at least one (maybe more) charism. Do you recognize it?
1 Corinthians 12:3b-7, 12-13 Gifts
We learned about the Gifts of the Spirit when we prepared for Confirmation. The list originally comes from Isaiah 11:2-3. The Gifts of the Spirit are God within us guiding us as we live our lives. We might consider the gifts of Knowledge, Wisdom, Counsel, and Understanding as guidance for mind and will as we consider what to do in all the situations we face each day.
The gifts of Fortitude, Piety, and Fear of the Lord are gifts to strengthen us, so that when Knowledge, Wisdom, Counsel, or Understanding tell us what to do, we then have the strength of character to do it.
Each time we worthily receive a sacrament, these gifts of God’s active presence within us are strengthened through sanctifying grace to help us grow in virtue.
In this selection from 1 Corinthians, St. Paul describes that there is a unity in diversity with the gifts of the Spirit. We ALL say “Jesus is Lord” via the Holy Spirit. But then, there are the different gifts, including the charisms, but also including perspectives on truths.
I heard a podcast last night about the rosary that fascinated me. It talked about the role of the rosary in the conversion of indigenous peoples. The repetitions, the patterns—all work within indigenous cultures to literally inculcate faith through simple, repeated rituals. The podcast included other information about the rosary that I knew—as a way for ordinary people to pray in harmony with monks in the Middle Ages, as a way to fight heresies at the time of St. Dominic, as a way Mary has given us to pray for the world. But that added perspective of seeing how it matches the learning styles of peoples who do not depend on the written word was a diversity that fostered appreciation of the rosary in me.
Acts 2:1-11 and John 20:19-23
Both this first reading and the Sunday Gospel tell of how God gave the Holy Spirit to the Apostles on Easter Sunday night and to all the disciples (and the Blessed Virgin) on Pentecost. It was a gift that was given to be given to others. The Easter Sunday night gift was the beginning of Holy Orders. The Pentecost gift 50 days later was to spread the Gospel to all the world.
The purpose was to give the means for Apostles and Disciples to change the world by bearing fruit. Fruits of the Holy Spirit are: love, joy, peace, goodness, kindness, faithfulness, gentleness, patience, and self-control. These 9 Fruits of the Holy Spirit are listed in Galatians 5:22.
NOTE: St. Jerome, when he translated Greek and Hebrew sources to create the Latin Bible (the Vulgate) included three more fruits: modesty, chastity, and long-suffering. So, some sources list 9 Fruits of the Holy Spirit, others 12. Both are within Church teaching.
And So….
On Pentecost we celebrate the birthday of the Church. How I love to pray the excitement of that day! How I would have LOVED to be propelled out of the Upper Room where I had been hiding in fear and speak so anyone who heard me would be touched and changed by the Great Story of God’s Love in Jesus Christ!
I missed the original Pentecost, but the power of the Holy Spirit in prayer and morality (Gifts), in my talents and activities (Charisms) and in the way I interact with people every day (Fruits) is the same today as on Pentecost.
Perhaps you might pause some time today to thank the Holy Spirit within you and consider what the Spirit says and does through you in your corner of the world.
Prayer
This contemporary hymn with traditional verses prays the joy of Pentecost:
One Spirit, One Church
We are a pilgrim people, We are the Church of God. A family of believers, disciples of the Lord. United in one spirit, ignited by the fire. Still burning through the ages, Still present in our lives.
Come Holy Ghost, creator blest/And in our hearts take up thy rest;/Come with thy grace and heavenly aid/To fill the hearts which Thou hast made.
O Comforter, to Thee we cry,/Thou heavenly gift of God most high/Thou fount of life and fire of love/And sweet anointing from above,
Text: Refrain, Maryanne Quinlivan, OSU, © 1990, Ursuline Academy of Cleveland. Published by OCP. All rights reserved. Verses fr. Veni, Creator Spiritus; attr. to Rabanus Maurus, 776-856; tr. by Edward Caswall, 1814-1878, alt. Music: Refrain, Kevin Keil, ASCAP, © 1990, Kevin Keil. Published by OCP. All rights reserved. Verses based on LAMBILLOTTE
