The Holy Spirit, Charisms and Spiritual Gifts

Consubstantial with the Father and the Son

The Council of Constantinople I (381) — convened to settle the divinity of the Spirit against the Pneumatomachians, the "fighters of the Spirit" — made explicit what the Church had always believed^[10]. The Creed says, in the wording stemming from that council: "I believe in the Holy Spirit, who is Lord and giver of life; he proceeds from the Father; with the Father and the Son he receives the same worship and the same glory; he has spoken through the prophets."^[11] That is the 381 council's wording: the Latin Church adds the Filioque — "he proceeds from the Father and the Son" — as professed in the Roman Missal. The Catechism sums it up: "He whom the Father has sent into our hearts, the Spirit of his Son, is truly God. Consubstantial with the Father and the Son, he is inseparable from them, both in the intimate life of the Trinity and in his gift of love for the world."^[12]

"When the Father sends his Word, he always sends his Breath: a joint mission in which the Son and the Holy Spirit are distinct but inseparable. To be sure, it is Christ who appears, he, the visible Image of the invisible God, but it is the Holy Spirit who reveals him." — Catechism of the Catholic Church, §689^[13]

The Spirit is therefore neither an impersonal energy, nor a metaphor for divine dynamism, nor a diffuse attribute of God: he is a Person in the Trinitarian sense — distinct from the Father and the Son, in relationship with them, to whom one can speak, whom one can love, whom one can grieve by sin (cf. Eph 4:30) and whom one can resist (cf. Acts 7:51).

The "Forgotten Person" and his return

At the end of the nineteenth century, popular piety was massively organized around Christ the King, the Virgin and the Sacred Heart, while the third Person held little place in ordinary spiritual life: this was the observation made her own by an Italian religious of Lucca, Saint Elena Guerra (1835-1914), canonized by Pope Francis on October 20, 2024, who received inwardly the sense of an urgent mission — to bring the Church back to the Holy Spirit^[14].

She wrote thirteen confidential letters to Pope Leo XIII. Extraordinarily, the pope listened to her. He successively published the brief Provida Matris Charitate (May 5, 1895), then the encyclical Divinum Illud Munus on the Holy Spirit (May 9, 1897), in which he asked the whole Catholic Church to celebrate each year, between Ascension and Pentecost, a solemn novena to the Holy Spirit for the unity of Christians^[15]. On January 1, 1901, at the threshold of the century — according to Elena Guerra's biographers and Renewal sources, with no formal pontifical act recovered —, Leo XIII is said to have intoned the Veni Creator Spiritus at Saint Peter's, in the name of the whole Church, to consecrate to the Holy Spirit the century that was opening^[16]. That same day, thousands of miles away, in Topeka, Kansas, Pentecostalism was being born in a Bible school^[17].

The names and symbols of the Spirit

Scripture multiplies images to express the action of the Spirit, as if none could exhaust it. Saint Paul gives him five different names in a few verses (1 Cor 12:1-7)^[18]: pneumatika (12:1), charismata (12:4), diakoniai (12:5), energemata (12:6) and phanerosis (12:7). The Catechism lists eight principal symbols^[19]:

To these symbols are added the personal names Jesus gives him: Paraclete (Jn 14:16; literally "the one called alongside" — defender, advocate, comforter), Spirit of truth (Jn 14:17), Spirit of promise (Eph 1:13), Spirit of adoption (Rom 8:15), Spirit of Christ (Rom 8:9). Saint Paul also calls him Gift of God (Acts 8:20) — and that is the name which best illuminates the nature of charisms: what is given by the supreme Gift.

The Greek word charisma: a "gracelet"

The word charisma is very rare in ancient Greek: it is found hardly anywhere except in the Septuagint and in two authors before Paul^[20]. It is Paul who gives it its full Christian meaning to describe the experience of the gifts of the Spirit. He builds it from charis, "grace" — God's free favor — and adds the suffix -ma which designates the concrete result of an action. A charisma is therefore, literally, a fragment of grace taking shape in someone's life: a "gracelet," a droplet of the ocean of divine grace^[21], made visible in a precise act (a word spoken, a prayer that heals, a sermon that convinces).

Mary Healy, doctor in biblical theology and member of the Pontifical Biblical Commission, writes:

"A charism is what could be called a 'gracelet,' that is, a droplet of the vast ocean of God's grace. It is an expression of God's grace in a person's life, enabling them to act in a way that goes beyond human power." — Mary Healy and Randy Clark, The Spiritual Gifts Handbook (French ed. Les dons spirituels — Foi, guérison, prophétie, discernement…, Éditions des Béatitudes, 2018, p. 22)^[22]

Five names for one reality (1 Cor 12:1-7)

In the great passage of the first letter to the Corinthians, Paul uses five terms to designate the same reality, as if he wanted to prevent it from being reduced to a single aspect^[23]:

• pneumatika (1 Cor 12:1; the "spirituals"): they are gifts that depend on the Holy Spirit (pneuma);
• charismata (1 Cor 12:4; the free gifts): they are gifts freely offered;
• diakoniai (1 Cor 12:5; the "services"): they are ordered to the service of neighbor and Church;
• energemata (1 Cor 12:6; the "operations," "energies"): it is God himself who acts in the one exercising the gift;
• phanerosis tou Pneumatos (1 Cor 12:7; the "manifestations of the Spirit"): they make the presence of the Spirit visible to all.

The Letter to the Hebrews (2:4) adds the expression "distributions of the Holy Spirit" (literally merismoi pneumatos hagiou): the Spirit distributes his gifts in different shares according to God's wisdom. Paul sums up in the decisive formula: "To each is given the manifestation of the Spirit for the common good" (1 Cor 12:7).

Three distinct realities: sanctifying gifts, fruits, charisms

Catholic tradition, especially since Saint Thomas Aquinas, distinguishes three realities which popular pneumatology often confuses. All come from the Spirit, but they do not play the same role in Christian life^[24]:

The seven sanctifying gifts — wisdom, understanding, counsel, fortitude, knowledge, piety, fear of the Lord — are listed in Isaiah's messianic prophecy and applied by the whole tradition to the baptized, who receive by grace what belongs to Christ in fullness^[25]. They make the soul docile to the motions of the Spirit, like a well-stretched sail catching the slightest breath. They are not spectacular; they are the inner fabric of all authentic holiness.

The twelve fruits — charity, joy, peace, patience, longanimity, goodness, kindness, meekness, faithfulness, modesty, continence, chastity — are the visible signature of the Spirit in a life^[26]. Saint Paul lists them in opposition to the "works of the flesh" (Gal 5:19-21): they do not depend on an extraordinary gift, but on sustained cooperation with grace. "You will know them by their fruits," says Jesus (Mt 7:16) — a golden rule that applies first to oneself.

Charisms, for their part, are the "special graces" added to enable the baptized to collaborate actively in the mission of the Church. The Catechism is crystal clear:

"Whatever their character — sometimes it is extraordinary, such as the gift of miracles or tongues — charisms are oriented toward sanctifying grace, and have as their purpose the common good of the Church. They are at the service of charity which builds up the Church." — Catechism of the Catholic Church, §2003^[27]

The classic mistake is to believe these three realities exclude one another. On the contrary, they govern one another: charisms without fruits become empty theater; fruits without charisms impoverish the mission; the seven gifts sustain both. Cardinal Raniero Cantalamessa, Preacher of the Papal Household from 1980 to 2024, warns against any rigid hierarchization between gratiae gratum facientes (graces that make one pleasing to God, sanctifying) and gratiae gratis datae (graces freely given, charisms): "a spiritual gift used rightly makes us pleasing to God" ^[28].

Jesus, first of the charismatics

Before being given to the disciples, the Holy Spirit is first the fullness resting upon the Messiah. The great prophecy of Isaiah 61, which Jesus applies to himself in the synagogue of Nazareth (Lk 4:16-21), is a messianic and charismatic declaration:

"The Spirit of the Lord God is upon me, because the Lord has anointed me. He has sent me to bring good news to the humble, to heal those with broken hearts, to proclaim liberty to captives, release to prisoners, to proclaim a year of favor granted by the Lord." — Isaiah 61:1-3^[29]

It is at the baptism in the Jordan that Jesus visibly receives this anointing (Mk 1:9-11). "It was from his baptism — not before — that Jesus performed mighty works," observes Mary Healy^[30]. Saint Peter sums up before Cornelius: "God anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Spirit and with power, who went about doing good and healing all who were under the power of the devil" (Acts 10:38).

In his public ministry, we see Jesus concretely exercising each of the charisms Paul would later list for the Corinthians: word of knowledge (Jn 4:17-18; Mk 2:8), prophecy (Lk 22:34; Jn 21:18-19), faith that withers the fig tree (Mt 21:21-22), gifts of healing (Lk 7:22), working of miracles (multiplication, walking on water, resurrections), discernment of spirits (Mk 9:25; Lk 10:18)^[31]. The only charism the Gospels do not explicitly speak of is the gift of tongues — unless "he exulted with joy under the action of the Holy Spirit" (Lk 10:21) is heard in the constant Lucan sense in which exulting in the Spirit means praising in tongues^[32].

The Pauline lists

Saint Paul never gives an exhaustive list of charisms. He gives several, partial ones, whose elements overlap imperfectly. It is a sign that the breath of the Spirit overflows every classification:

The implicit teaching is clear: every capacity the Spirit employs for the good of the Church is a charism, whether spectacular (resurrection, angelic tongues) or modest (gift of teaching, organizing, welcoming, assisting the poor). Saint Peter generalizes without reservation: "As good stewards of God's varied grace, put each at the service of others the gift each has received" (1 Pet 4:10).

Pentecost, Acts, signs and wonders

The book of the Acts of the Apostles is the New Testament's other great treatise on charisms. But with a different emphasis: where Paul stresses the inner work of sanctification, Luke stresses power for mission^[33].

The founding event is Pentecost (Acts 2:1-13). Fifty days after Easter, the Spirit promised by the Risen One falls upon the Apostles and the Virgin Mary gathered in the Upper Room, in the form of a mighty wind and "tongues as of fire." Peter, who a few weeks earlier had not dared acknowledge Jesus before a servant girl, preaches standing before thousands of Jews come from the whole diaspora; that day "about three thousand persons" are baptized (Acts 2:41). Three charisms appear together: bold preaching, xenolalia (each hears the Apostles in his own dialect) and mass conversion as visible fruit.

Peter interprets the event through Joel's prophecy: "In the last days, says God, I will pour out my Spirit upon all flesh. Your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, your young men shall see visions, your old men shall dream dreams" (Acts 2:17; Joel 3:1-2). Pentecost is therefore not an isolated event: it is the beginning of an era, "the last days," in which the Spirit is poured out democratically upon all God's people — "your sons, your daughters, your young, your old, your servants, your maidservants." The Holy Spirit no longer makes distinctions of class, sex, age or condition.

In the rest of Acts, charisms appear on every page: healing of the lame man at the Beautiful Gate (Acts 3), trembling and fresh outpouring after the Apostles' prayer (Acts 4:31), healings by Peter's shadow (Acts 5:15), signs and wonders of Stephen (Acts 6:8), word of knowledge of Ananias concerning Saul (Acts 9:10-19), vision and word of wisdom of Peter at Cornelius's house (Acts 10), "extraordinary" miracles of Paul at Ephesus — where cloths that had touched his skin were taken and applied to the sick (Acts 19:11-12). Reading Acts without prejudice, one is struck that nothing there is presented as exceptional: it is the ordinary life of a Church that knows to whom she belongs.

The sober intoxication of the Spirit

When the Spirit descends, those who receive him are not only renewed; they are transported, sometimes to the point of seeming drunk. At Pentecost, the Apostles praise God in such exultation that onlookers jeer: "They are full of new wine" (Acts 2:13). Peter replies that it is only the third hour of the day. But behind the mockery, the suspicion contained a truth: the messianic "new wine" announced by the prophets (Amos 9:13) was indeed being poured out.

The Fathers of the Church loved this image. Saint Ambrose of Milan sums it up in a hymn: "Let us drink with joy the sober intoxication of the Spirit!"^[34] Saint Cyril of Jerusalem explains it to his catechumens:

"If they are drunk, it is not in the sense you take it. They are drunk with a sober intoxication that kills sin and gives life to the heart, an intoxication opposite to that of the body. Drunkenness makes a person forget those whom he knows; in this kind of drunkenness, he understands things he did not formally know. They are drunk from having drunk the wine of the mystical vine." — Saint Cyril of Jerusalem, Catecheses XVII, 19 (c. 350)^[35]

Saint Thomas Aquinas, supreme intellect of the thirteenth century, speaks in the same register:

"Those who are drunk are not within, but outside themselves. So too those who are filled with spiritual gifts have all their attention turned toward God. It is the love of the Holy Spirit that draws a force into the soul like a torrent. And it is a torrent of delight because it draws pleasure and sweetness into the soul." — Saint Thomas Aquinas, commentary on Psalm 35:9^[36]

This "sober intoxication" is not an emotion to manufacture nor an excitement to provoke: it is the natural effect of an encounter with the living God. When it comes, it is best to let it be what it is.

Paul presents, in the great doctrinal passage of the first letter to the Corinthians, a list of nine manifestations of the Spirit which exegetical tradition has grouped into three families^[37]:

• Gifts of revelation: word of wisdom, word of knowledge, discernment of spirits;
• Gifts of power: faith, gifts of healing, working of miracles;
• Gifts of speech: prophecy, tongues, interpretation of tongues.

This classification is convenient but imperfect. Several gifts play on two registers: prophecy is both a gift of revelation and a gift of speech, the gift of faith includes a share of revelation, healings often rest on prior words of knowledge. "Gifts frequently work in connection with one another," observes Mary Healy^[38]. It is therefore better to present them one by one, without too many partitions.

The word of wisdom

The word of wisdom (1 Cor 12:8) is not philosophical wisdom, nor pastoral prudence acquired through experience, but a punctual inspiration of the Spirit which gives, on the spot, the right answer to a complex situation — the wise decision no human analysis could have produced. That is what Peter receives when he understands that the vision of the sheet descending from heaven means the pagans can receive baptism without prior circumcision (Acts 10:9-29) — a decision that changes the course of the Church. That is also what the Council of Jerusalem receives when it decrees "it seemed good to the Holy Spirit and to us" (Acts 15:28).

In practice, this gift frequently manifests in pastors, parents, spiritual advisors confronted with a case where the human solution is nowhere to be found. It dispenses neither from reflection nor from recourse to doctrine; it crowns them. Its classic deviation consists in believing oneself holder of a permanent wisdom and using it as prophetic spiritual authority over others — whereas it is a punctual inspiration that must be asked for anew each time.

The word of knowledge

The word of knowledge (1 Cor 12:8) is supernatural information about a present reality — a fact, a person, a situation — which the speaker could not have known by human means. Peter receives it to confound Ananias and Sapphira (Acts 5:1-11); Ananias of Damascus receives it to go and lay hands on Saul (Acts 9:10-12); Paul receives it to heal the lame man at Lystra "who had faith to be saved" (Acts 14:9-10).

Today, this gift plays a considerable role in evangelization and healing prayer. A well-given word of knowledge — "I believe the Lord wants to heal right now a pain in the left knee" — instantly produces the faith that allows healing, both in the speaker and in the receiver. It is also a sign that opens the heart to the Gospel: Father Mathias Thelen reports having brought to faith a young woman to whom he had simply described, by word of knowledge, that she was looking at herself in a mirror with new earrings^[39].

Deviation: confusing it with psychological intuition, or inventing to fill the silence. Rule of prudence: if one is not sure, present the information in interrogative form — "does this speak to you?" — and let the other confirm or deny. A false word of knowledge is not a sin; persisting in imposing it after refutation is.

Discernment of spirits

Discernment of spirits (1 Cor 12:10) is the supernatural capacity to distinguish the origin of a movement, a word, a phenomenon: does it come from God, from man, or from the demon? It is one of the charisms most necessary to the Church in times of confusion. At Philippi, Paul exercises this gift when he discerns that a young slave girl "who cried out: these men are servants of the Most High God" — doctrinally exact though it was — was driven by a divining spirit; he ends by ordering it to be silent in Jesus' name, and the demon departs (Acts 16:16-18).

Saint John gives the fundamental test: "Every spirit that confesses Jesus Christ come in the flesh is from God; every spirit that does not confess Jesus is not from God" (1 Jn 4:2-3). Saint Paul applies it to the liturgy: "No one can say: Jesus is anathema; and no one can say: Jesus is Lord, except in the Holy Spirit" (1 Cor 12:3).

In Catholic mystical tradition — Saint Ignatius of Loyola in the Rules for the discernment of spirits, Saint John of the Cross in the Ascent of Mount Carmel, Saint Teresa of Avila in the Interior Castle — discernment is never opposed to charisms, but is their safety condition. Saint John of the Cross, sometimes quoted against charisms, never actually wanted to suppress them; he wanted to guarantee they be exercised safely, without feeding pride. The theologian Ralph Martin observes:

"John is concerned not to 'stifle' the charismatic gifts of the Spirit, but to ensure that they may be exercised in an authentic way. Does John of the Cross condemn the exercise of charismatic gifts? No, not at all. On the contrary, he gives very wise counsel on how they should be exercised so that they may effectively produce the purpose for which the Lord gave them." — Ralph Martin, Charismatic and Contemplative: What Would John of the Cross Say? ^[40]

The gift of faith

The gift of faith (1 Cor 12:9) — which Paul elsewhere calls "faith to move mountains" (1 Cor 13:2) — is not the theological faith every baptized person receives to adhere to God and revelation. It is a supernatural and momentary conviction, given by the Spirit in a precise situation, that God is going to act in such a determined way — heal this man, free this soul, open this door. It is usually linked to a word of knowledge or an inner vision that nourishes it. Jesus speaks of it:

"Have faith in God. Amen, I say to you: whoever says to this mountain: Be lifted up and thrown into the sea, if he does not doubt in his heart, but believes that what he says will happen, it will be granted to him." — Mark 11:22-23 (literal Greek wording: "have the faith of God")^[41]

Peter exercises it at the Beautiful Gate of the Temple when he commands the lame man: "In the name of Jesus Christ the Nazarene, walk" (Acts 3:6), without hesitation. He could have passed by that man a hundred times saying nothing: that day, the gift of faith fell. Saint James evokes it in another form: "the prayer of faith will save the sick" (Jas 5:15). Its deviation consists in confusing it with autosuggestion or with the pseudo-theology of "name it, claim it" — confess the healing aloud and it will be yours — which tends to manipulate God rather than let oneself be led by him^[42].

The gifts of healing

Paul speaks in the plural: "gifts of healing" (1 Cor 12:9 — charismata iamaton)^[43]. The plural is no accident: there are different kinds of healings (physical, inner, psychological, deliverances) and several regimes of their exercise (habitual gift in an evangelist, punctual grace in an ordinary believer, communal fruit of an assembly's prayer). No wonder-worker has a "power" he could pull from his pocket at will; the Catholic healer is an instrument the Spirit plays in his own hour.

This gift is central to evangelical preaching according to the synoptic Gospels. When Jesus sends the Twelve, then the seventy-two, he orders at the same time to "proclaim the Kingdom" and to "heal the sick" (Lk 9:1-2; 10:9). Mark's great commission makes it the normal sign accompanying preaching: "These signs will accompany those who believe: they will cast out demons, they will speak in new tongues, they will lay hands on the sick, and they will recover" (Mk 16:17-18).

Vatican II, in the decree Ad Gentes on missionary activity, recalls that the Church sends her missionaries "with the strength of the Holy Spirit" and that charisms — including healings — belong to ordinary mission, not to a parallel program^[44]. Lourdes has borne witness to it since 1858: 72 miracles officially recognized by the Church — the 71st, that of British soldier John Traynor, healed in 1923 and recognized on December 8, 2024 by the Archbishop of Liverpool, then the 72nd, that of Italian Antonietta Raco, healed in 2009 and recognized on April 16, 2025 —, plus over 7,000 files examined by the Bureau of Medical Observations^[45]. But alongside these canonically investigated cases, many healings are reported each year in ordinary Catholic prayer groups all over the world, without any canonical process being made of them — simply because the gift keeps acting.

Deviation: concluding that an absence of healing is the sick person's lack of faith — a cruel accusation, theologically false, contradicted by Saint Paul himself who asked in vain three times to be delivered from his "thorn" (2 Cor 12:7-9). Symmetrical deviation: refusing to pray for healing on the pretext of "offering up one's suffering," as if spiritual offering forbade asking. "What would you think of a doctor who said: I'm not going to treat you, accept your illness, offer it up?" ironizes Mary Healy^[46].

The working of miracles

The working of miracles (1 Cor 12:10 — energemata dynameon, literally "operations of powers") covers every supernatural action going beyond mere physical healing: multiplication of food, calming storms, freeing prisoners, resurrections, bilocations, cosmic signs. The Acts of the Apostles multiplies examples: Peter drawn from prison by an angel (Acts 12), Paul bitten by a venomous serpent and unharmed (Acts 28:3-6), resurrection of Tabitha by Peter (Acts 9:36-42) and of Eutychus by Paul (Acts 20:7-12).

Saint Augustine, who as a young bishop thought these great works had ceased with the Apostles, was compelled to change his mind when he saw, in his own cathedral of Hippo, seventy verified miracles in under two years after the arrival of Saint Stephen's relics; he had them recorded in writing in the City of God, and acknowledged his former error^[47]. The same holds, on a large scale, in contemporary ministries such as that of Heidi Baker in Mozambique — with her husband Rolland, she founded the work Iris Global and settled in 1995 among the abandoned children of Mozambique —, or more discreetly in Catholic prayer communities of the Emmanuel Community or Communion Béatitudes where the "prayer line" regularly produces reported healings^[48].

Prophecy

Prophecy (1 Cor 12:10; 14:1) is the charism most desired by Paul: "Pursue charity, aspire to spiritual gifts, especially prophecy" (1 Cor 14:1). It is not, as modern culture imagines, mere prediction of the future: it is essentially a word of God for today, destined to "build up, exhort, console" (1 Cor 14:3). It may include a predictive dimension (Agabus announces the famine under Claudius, Acts 11:28; and Paul's arrest at Jerusalem, Acts 21:10-11), but that is rarer than its primary function — which is to convey God's mind on a present situation.

Every Christian can, occasionally, receive and transmit a prophetic word: "All of you can prophesy, one after another, so that all may be instructed and all exhorted" (1 Cor 14:31). But Paul distinguishes the occasional gift from the prophetic ministry: some are "prophets" in the stable sense (Eph 4:11) — they have a recognized authority in the community to give inspired words regularly, like the prophets of Antioch who pray for the mission of Paul and Barnabas (Acts 13:1-3).

During the great ecumenical convention of Kansas City (July 1977), Ralph Martin conveyed a private prophecy — a word reported as received in prayer, with no magisterial authority — which durably marked the charismatic movement:

"Weep and mourn for the body of my Son is broken. Come to me clothed in sackcloth and ashes, come with tears and lamentation, for the body of my Son is broken. I wanted to make of you a new man, but the body of my Son is broken. I wanted to make of you a light on top of a mountain, a glorious and resplendent city that everyone would see, but the body of my Son is broken." — Private prophecy reported at Kansas City, July 22, 1977 (words attributed by Ralph Martin to an inspiration received in prayer)^[49]

Fifty thousand faithful, Catholic and Protestant, wept over it; nearly fifty years later, it continues to nourish worldwide ecumenical prayer. It has, however, no doctrinal authority: unlike Lumen Gentium or the Catechism, a private revelation not recognized by the Church binds no faithful and can be quoted only as testimony.

Deviations: self-promoting prophecy (announcing one's own grandiose ministry), judgment prophecy (hurling personal sentences in God's name), political prophecy (instrumentalizing the gift to push a partisan agenda), false precision in dates or figures (which calls for swift disavowal when the event does not occur). The absolute rule is that every prophecy must be discerned — "let two or three prophets speak, and let the others judge" (1 Cor 14:29).

Tongues

The gift of tongues (1 Cor 12:10 — gene glosson) is doubtless the most discussed and most misunderstood of all charisms. It actually takes several distinct forms:

1. Xenolalia — speaking a human language one has never learned. That is what happens at Pentecost (Acts 2:4-11) where the Apostles are heard in Parthian, Median, Elamite, etc.

2. The gift of praying in tongues — the one Paul speaks of in 1 Cor 14. The believer prays or praises God in a language unintelligible to himself, in which the Spirit expresses himself beyond reason: "He who speaks in tongues speaks, not to men, but to God, for no one understands him, and it is in spirit that he utters mysteries" (1 Cor 14:2). It is, Paul says, "self-edification" (1 Cor 14:4) — a form of contemplative prayer beyond words.

3. The gift of tongues as public message — used in assembly, which must then be accompanied by an interpretation (1 Cor 14:27-28).

4. Patristic jubilation — spontaneous praise in inarticulate melodic sounds. Saint Augustine:

"To jubilate is not to speak, it is to exhale without words a cry of joy: it is the voice of a soul whose joy is at its peak, exhaling as much as possible what it feels, but not understanding what it says in the transports of its gladness; after unspeakable and unintelligible words, man exhales his joy in inarticulate cries." — Saint Augustine, Commentary on Psalm 99, 4^[50]

Saint Bernard of Clairvaux, Saint Thomas Aquinas, Saint Teresa of Avila and the holy Curé of Ars John Mary Vianney each bore witness to an analogous experience^[51]. This gift, long considered extinct after the Apostles, had in reality never left the Church — it had simply moved from the missionary register to the mystical register.

Interpretation of tongues

The gift of interpretation of tongues (1 Cor 12:10) always plays as a pair with a message in tongues. It is not a word-for-word translation — it is a transmission of the spiritual meaning in the assembly's language. Paul is strict: "If anyone speaks in tongues, let there be two or three at most speaking, each in turn, and let there be someone to interpret. If there is no interpreter, let him keep silent in the assembly" (1 Cor 14:27-28). The rule protects the assembly from incomprehension and obliges the bearer of the gift to ask in addition for that of interpretation.

During the early centuries, as the Church grew under persecution, charisms were lived as the normal breathing of the baptized. The patristic sources, whose convergence is impressive, attest that prophecy, healings, deliverances, tongues, visions were the common experience of Christians — not of mystical elites. The rigorous historical study of Kilian McDonnell and George Montague, Christian Initiation and Baptism in the Holy Spirit: Evidence from the First Eight Centuries (Liturgical Press, 1994), gathered more than three hundred converging patristic testimonies: during the first eight centuries, every baptized person was expected to manifest, upon emerging from the fonts, visible charisms^[52].

Novatian, Irenaeus and the evidence of the gift

"It is the Holy Spirit who has strengthened the soul and spirit of the disciples, who have in them the gifts which this same Spirit distributes and destines for the Church as jewels. For it is he who, in the Church, establishes prophets, instructs teachers, guides speech, works wonders and healings, accomplishes marvels, grants discernment of spirits, assigns offices of government, inspires decisions, puts in place and governs all other charisms." — Novatian (c. 250), De Trinitate XXIX, 9-10^[53]

This quotation, retained by Saint John Paul II in the encyclical Veritatis Splendor (1993, §108)^[54], perfectly sums up the patristic spirit: charisms are not rare mystical phenomena, but the ordinary fabric by which the Spirit builds the Church.

Saint Irenaeus of Lyon (c. 130-202), martyr bishop and third-generation disciple of the apostle John, attests that in his time charisms were "countless":

"In his name, his authentic disciples, having received grace from him, work for the profit of other men, according to the gift each has received from him. Some cast out demons with full certainty and truth, so that often those very ones thus cleansed of evil spirits embrace the faith and enter the Church; others have foreknowledge of the future, visions, prophetic words; others still lay hands on the sick and thus restore them to health; and even, as we have said, the dead have been raised and remained with us a good number of years." — Saint Irenaeus of Lyon, Adversus Haereses II, 32, 4 (c. 180)^[55]

"Raised dead" is mentioned as an ordinary fact, almost incidental, in an argument directed against the Gnostics.

Justin Martyr and Origen: apologetic proof

Saint Justin Martyr (c. 100-165), the Church's first great philosopher-apologist, writes to the Roman Senate — thus to hostile pagans — that Christians publicly cast out demons:

"There are in all the world and in your city many demoniacs whom neither adjurations, nor enchantments, nor potions could heal. Our Christians, adjuring them in the name of Jesus Christ crucified under Pontius Pilate, have healed and still heal many today, mastering and casting out of men the demons that possess them." — Saint Justin Martyr, Second Apology VI, 5-6 (c. 156)^[56]

Origen (c. 185-253) confirms a century later and specifies a detail one might have thought incompatible with human nature: "the Christians who exercised this ministry were among the simplest, which clearly shows the merit belonged to Christ and to him alone" ^[57]. It was not learned bishops who performed the most deliverances: it was ordinary faithful. The devil, he finely observed, "bears it worse to be cast out by a simple Christian than by a great exorcist" — humiliated at the heart of his pride.

Tertullian, Cyprian, Cyril: stoking expectation

At a time when the catechumenate lasted two to three years, bishops worked to explicitly stoke expectation of charismatic gifts at the threshold of baptism. Tertullian (c. 160-225):

"Happy neophytes whom God's grace has called and heard with such goodness, as soon as you begin to emerge from this sacred bath where you receive new regeneration, and to be united with your brothers in the bosom of the Church your mother, ask the heavenly Father, ask the Lord for sacred goods, supernatural graces, gifts of the Holy Spirit. 'Ask,' says Jesus Christ, 'and you shall receive.'" — Tertullian, De Baptismo XX (c. 200)^[58]

Saint Cyprian of Carthage (c. 200-258), martyr bishop, recounts his own baptism as an immediate outpouring of charisms:

"When the waters of regeneration had cleansed the impurities of my past life, light streamed from above into my heart and the Spirit transformed me into a new man by a second birth. I discovered I could do things that until then had been impossible to me… Through this grace, we receive the power in all purity to heal the sick, whether in body or in spirit, to reconcile enemies, to dispel violence, to calm passions, to punish demons and force them to reveal their identity." — Saint Cyprian, Treatise to Donatus on God's Grace, IV-V (c. 246)^[59]

Saint Cyril of Jerusalem (c. 313-386) thus speaks to his catechumens of the outpouring awaiting them on Easter night:

"Let each prepare to receive the heavenly gift of prophecy. If you believe, not only will you receive forgiveness of your sins, but you will also accomplish things far greater than any human power. My last words, my beloved, are words of exhortation, urging you to prepare your souls to receive the heavenly charisms." — Saint Cyril of Jerusalem, Catecheses XVII, 37 (c. 350)^[60]

Saint Hilary of Poitiers (c. 315-367) explains to the baptized how gifts then gradually awaken:

"We who have received new birth through the sacrament of baptism feel great joy when we sense within us the first advances of the Holy Spirit, when there awaken in us understanding of mysteries, knowledge of prophecies, word of wisdom, charisms of healing and dominion over demons. All this penetrates us like showers and, little by little, what we have sown develops into an abundant harvest." — Saint Hilary of Poitiers, Treatise on the Psalms, Ps 64:14-15^[61]

Saint Augustine convinced by the facts

The case of Saint Augustine of Hippo (354-430) is particularly instructive. As a young bishop, he taught that miracles had ceased with the Apostles — a position anticipating the Protestant cessationism of twelve hundred years later. But Augustine was too honest to lock himself in a theory in the face of facts. When the relics of Saint Stephen arrived at Hippo in 416, seventy miracles occurred in his cathedral in under two years:

"It is by my orders that these accounts have been drawn up, when I saw occurring, in our time, several miracles similar to those of old, whose memory must not be allowed to perish. Now, it is not yet two years since this martyr's relics have been at Hippo; and although no account has been given of all the miracles that have occurred there, there are already nearly seventy of them at the time I write this." — Saint Augustine, The City of God XXII, 8 (c. 425)^[62]

Augustine devoted chapter VIII of book XXII of the City of God to recounting in detail, like a scrupulous journalist, more than twenty miracles he had personally verified: healings, resurrection of stillborn infants baptized in extremis, a surgical fistula suddenly healed — each named, dated, located. He concludes by explicitly retracting his former opinion^[63]. It is the great Catholic model of intellectual humility before signs: one does not bend facts to theory; one bends theory to facts.

A Church growing 40% per decade

American sociologist Rodney Stark estimated that the early Church experienced, from the 40s to the 350s, steady growth of about 40% per decade^[64]. This growth is explained not only by the moral quality of Christians (which was real) or by their charity (which was spectacular): it is also explained by the visible manifestations of God's power — healings, deliverances, resurrections, prophecies — which made the Gospel credible in a polytheistic culture where the gods healed no one. The massive conversion of the Roman Empire was not the fruit of abstract apologetics: it was the fruit of a charismatic people on the march.

If charisms were so widespread in the early Church, why did they decline? The question is difficult, and historians' honest explanations converge on a cluster of four causes. None supposes the Spirit withdrew his gifts: all describe how the Church, over the centuries, closed certain doors the Spirit had left open.

The legalization of Christianity and the decline of baptismal preparation

With the Edict of Milan (313) then the Edict of Thessalonica (380) which made Christianity the state religion, conversion ceased to be a costly choice and became, in large measure, a social advantage. The catechumenate, which lasted two to three years and specifically prepared for awaiting charisms, shortened considerably. Baptism became generalized for newborns, which was an immense grace but deprived the baptismal experience of the context of fervent adult conversion in which charisms burst forth. The faithful no longer expected to receive spectacular gifts at their baptism; they no longer asked for them; they no longer received them^[65].

The reaction to Montanism

In the second century, Montanism — named after Montanus, prophet of Asia Minor — exploited charismatic enthusiasm to found a rigorist sect: ecstatic prophecies overturning episcopal hierarchy, excessive fasts, refusal of remarriage, imminent expectation of a new Jerusalem descending upon Pepuza^[66]. The movement was condemned by the bishops of Asia, then throughout the Empire. But the condemnation produced a backlash effect: ecclesial prudence gradually extended to every prophetic manifestation, including legitimate ones. Saint Irenaeus himself already warned against this overreaction:

"They refuse prophecy altogether, and thus fall into another error: they reject the Holy Spirit." — Saint Irenaeus, Adversus Haereses III, 11, 9^[67]

The warning held for his time, and it proved alas prophetic for the centuries that followed.

Body-soul dualism and suspicion of the body

Under the influence of late philosophical currents (Neoplatonism, Manichaeism, Encratism), part of medieval Christian spirituality came to devalue the body, even to see in physical suffering a spiritual opportunity it would be less meritorious to heal. Miraculous healings persisted, but they moved from parishes to places of pilgrimage (Saint-Martin of Tours, Compostela later, Lourdes later still) or to the lives of a few thaumaturgic saints (Saint Vincent Ferrer, Saint Anthony of Padua, Saint John Baptist Mary Vianney). One no longer expected an ordinary baptized person to lay hands on the sick person in his street.

The confinement of charisms to exceptional saints

The fourth cause is mystical professionalization: little by little, charisms were filed under "mystical theology" (in the sense of an exceptional spiritual life) rather than "ecclesiology" (ordinary life of the Church). Healings became something expected of a Padre Pio, not of a parish priest; prophecies, something sought from a Catherine Emmerich, not from a committed layman. Vatican II explicitly broke with this mentality, as we shall see. Cardinal Cantalamessa:

"For a long time, charisms were neglected, both by theology and in practice. When theologians mentioned them, they regarded them as private endowments, offered by God for personal benefit, but having no importance or value for the Church." — Raniero Cantalamessa, The Sober Intoxication of the Spirit, 1995, p. 76^[68]

The silent persistence of gifts

Despite this decline in popular practice, charisms never entirely left the Catholic Church: hagiographic tradition reports many cases among the saints — an indicative list, each case falling under its own sources and processes:

• Saint Francis of Assisi (1182-1226) — stigmatist, healer, prophet;
• Saint Anthony of Padua (1195-1231) — hammer of heretics, multitude of healings;
• Saint Catherine of Siena (1347-1380) — visions, prophecies, locutions, conversions;
• Saint Bridget of Sweden (1303-1373) — revelations;
• Saint Vincent Ferrer (1350-1419) — "angel of the Apocalypse," thaumaturgic preacher to whom tradition attributes thousands of healings;
• Saint Teresa of Avila (1515-1582) and Saint John of the Cross (1542-1591) — summit of Catholic mystical theology;
• Saint Francis Xavier (1506-1552) — "apostle of the Indies," to whom missionary tradition attributes the gift of tongues;
• Saint John Mary Vianney (1786-1859) — discernment, word of knowledge in confession;
• Saint John Bosco (1815-1888) — detailed prophetic dreams;
• Saint Bernadette Soubirous (1844-1879) — visionary of Lourdes;
• Saint Padre Pio (1887-1968) — stigmatist, bilocation, reading of hearts, healings;
• Saint Thérèse of Lisieux (1873-1897) — way of childhood, the "little way";
• Saint Faustina Kowalska (1905-1938) — revelations on Divine Mercy.

And among Protestants, from the seventeenth century on, healing ministries also emerge: George Fox and the Quakers (1624-1691), the Moravian Brethren in the eighteenth century, Johann Blumhardt in Germany, Andrew Murray in South Africa, Charles Spurgeon in England, A.B. Simpson, Carrie Judd Montgomery in the United States^[69]. The boundary between "charisms" and "miracles of the saints" has been more porous than scholastic theology suggests.

The Protestant cessationist argument

Cessationism is the thesis that the "extraordinary" charisms (healing, miracles, prophecy, tongues, interpretation) allegedly ceased with the end of the apostolic age, either at the death of the last of the Twelve, or at the closing of the biblical canon^[70]. This position was formulated in the Reformed tradition, on the basis of the following texts:

• John Calvin (1509-1564), in the Institutes of the Christian Religion, IV, 19, 18: the miraculous powers distributed by the laying on of hands "have ceased" — they were only for a time, to illustrate the new preaching of the Gospel; and "the gift of healing, like the rest of the miracles, which the Lord willed to be brought forth for a time, has vanished away" ^[71].
• Benjamin B. Warfield (1851-1921), Reformed theologian of Princeton, gave the thesis its classic formulation in Counterfeit Miracles (1918): New Testament miracles were the signs attesting apostolic revelation, and they ceased with the closing of the apostolic age^[72].

These positions rest on a reading of 1 Cor 13:8-10 (the "perfection" understood as the completed canon) and on the idea that the signs had the function of authenticating apostolic revelation — a reading examined point by point below.

Why cessationism is untenable

The cessationist argument runs into four decisive objections.

1. Scriptural argument. Saint Paul writes: "Tongues will cease, knowledge too will pass away. When the perfect comes, the partial will pass away" (1 Cor 13:8-10). Cessationists interpret "the perfect" as designating the completed biblical canon. But this interpretation is rejected by most exegetes — including Protestants, such as Gordon D. Fee^[73] or Anthony C. Thiselton^[74]: "the perfect" designates the Parousia — Christ's return and face-to-face vision (1 Cor 13:12). The early Church had already understood it so in refuting the Montanists^[75]. Until Christ returns, charisms continue.

2. Historical argument. The Fathers of the Church — Justin, Irenaeus, Tertullian, Origen, Cyril, Augustine — unanimously attest the persistence of charisms for at least eight centuries. No patristic document mentions a dated "cessation" to which one could refer.

3. Contemporary empirical argument. According to the third edition of the World Christian Encyclopedia (Edinburgh, 2020, Center for the Study of Global Christianity), some 644 million Christians worldwide are Pentecostal or charismatic, that is, about 26% of world Christianity as a whole^[76]. This figure notably includes the so-called "third wave" movement, which abandoned cessationism at the sight of the facts. According to historian Vinson Synan, quoted by Healy and Clark, about 80% of Protestant Christians worldwide would today be continuationists^[77]. If charisms had ceased, one would have to explain why millions of people personally testify to them today in every nation, and why the medically documented healings of Lourdes continue.

4. Doctrinal argument. Saint Paul expressly commands: "Earnestly desire spiritual gifts, especially prophecy" (1 Cor 14:1). If charisms had ceased, this commandment would be abrogated without any canonical text abrogating it — which is exegetically impossible.

The Catholic diagnosis: not an official cessationism, but a lack of living faith

The Catholic Church has never taught cessationism^[78]. But for centuries she functioned as if she had never entirely rejected it. The realistic diagnosis, formulated by Fr. Cantalamessa and Cardinal Léon-Joseph Suenens (1904-1996), is more uncomfortable: it is not that God withdrew his gifts; it is that the Church ceased to believe in them and to ask for them. And the Gospel is crystal clear: "You do not have, because you do not ask" (Jas 4:2).

Against this reading, Healy and Clark argue in substance (paraphrase of their point) that gifts are not first a proof of sound doctrine to exhibit: they are an integral part of the Gospel itself, and signs and wonders are meant to accompany its proclamation^[79].

Lack of faith is not a fatality. It is healed by returning to Jesus' promises, by asking simply, by exposing oneself to communal prayer, by taking "steps of faith." And that is what happened, on a large scale, in the twentieth century.

The last century saw, simultaneously in every Christian confession, the most massive charismatic outpouring since Pentecost. Father Peter Hocken (1932-2017), English priest and historian of the Renewal, saw in it an eschatological turning point: God is preparing his Church for the coming of his Kingdom^[80]. What follows recounts its essential stages.

Elena Guerra, Leo XIII and the Veni Creator of January 1, 1901

It all begins in the cell of an Italian religious. Saint Elena Guerra (1835-1914), canonized by Pope Francis on October 20, 2024, foundress at Lucca of the institute of the Oblates of the Holy Spirit, received inwardly the sense of an urgent mission: to bring the Church back to the third Person of the Trinity, forgotten. She wrote thirteen confidential letters to Pope Leo XIII, spread from 1895 to 1903^[81]. The pope listened to her. He published:

• the apostolic brief Provida Matris Charitate (May 5, 1895), asking the whole Catholic Church for an annual novena to the Holy Spirit between Ascension and Pentecost, for the unity of Christians^[82];
• the encyclical Divinum Illud Munus on the Holy Spirit (May 9, 1897), a complete doctrinal exposition of the third Person^[83];
• the consecration of the twentieth century to the Holy Spirit, which Elena Guerra's biographers and Renewal sources place on January 1, 1901 with the singing of the Veni Creator Spiritus (with no formal pontifical act recovered)^[84];

That same January 1, 1901, in Topeka (Kansas), on the other side of the world, a young woman named Agnes Ozman, a student at the Bethel Bible school led by Pastor Charles Parham, asked to receive baptism in the Holy Spirit. Parham laid hands on her: she began to speak at length in an unknown language which Parham presented as Chinese — an account reported by Parham himself, with no independent verification by native speakers. This event is regarded as the birth certificate of modern Pentecostalism^[85]. Five years later, the Azusa Street revival in Los Angeles (1906-1909), led by black pastor William Seymour, set the west coast of the United States ablaze and sent missionaries throughout the world. At the dawn of that century which would be the century of secularization, God was visibly pouring out his Spirit.

Vatican II: the charismatic dimension reaffirmed

Sixty years later, the Second Vatican Council (1962-1965), at the heart of the Catholic aggiornamento, effected the decisive magisterial turn. Pope John XXIII convened the council giving the whole Church this prayer for its success: "Renew your wonders in our time, as by a new Pentecost" ^[86]. The image of a "new Pentecost" remained attached to the council from then on, down to John XXIII's official prayer for its happy outcome.

The Dogmatic Constitution on the Church Lumen Gentium (November 21, 1964) devoted its §12 to charisms in vigorous terms:

"But the same Holy Spirit does not only sanctify the People of God through the sacraments and ministries, lead them and give them the ornament of virtues; he also distributes among the faithful of every rank, 'distributing his gifts to each as he wills' (1 Cor 12:11), the special graces which make fit and ready to assume the various tasks and offices useful for the renewal and development of the Church, according to what is said: 'It is always for the common good that the gift of the Spirit manifests itself in a man' (1 Cor 12:7). These graces, from the most brilliant to the simplest and most widely diffused, must be received with thanksgiving and bring consolation, being above all fitted to the necessities of the Church and destined to answer them." — Second Vatican Council, Lumen Gentium §12 (official English translation, vatican.va)^[87]

This is the solemn magisterial rehabilitation of charisms in the Pauline sense. No Catholic theologian can henceforth reduce charisms to rare mystical phenomena. The same paragraph adds the rule of discernment: "it belongs to those who preside over the Church to judge the authenticity of these gifts and their well-ordered use. It is especially for them, not to extinguish the Spirit, but to test everything and hold fast to what is good" (cf. 1 Thess 5:12,19-21).

The Duquesne Weekend (February 17-19, 1967)

Two years after the council's close, on February 17, 1967, a weekend retreat for students was held at Pittsburgh in a Catholic retreat house near Duquesne University, run by the Fathers of the Holy Spirit. The two lay organizers, Ralph Keifer and Patrick Bourgeois, had read two books before the retreat: The Cross and the Switchblade by David Wilkerson, and They Speak with Other Tongues by John Sherrill. A few weeks earlier, they had sought out a Protestant charismatic prayer group near Pittsburgh; there, people had prayed over them and they had received baptism in the Spirit. For the retreat, they had asked the students to read the Acts of the Apostles and to pray the Veni Creator Spiritus — the same hymn intoned, according to these sources, by Leo XIII on January 1, 1901.

On Saturday evening, David Mangan, a participating student, entered the house chapel to thank God. "I was immediately overwhelmed by God's presence, I found myself face down, prostrate before the Lord, completely immersed in God's love, praising him in an unknown tongue," he would later recount. One after another, the students entered the chapel; one after another, they fell in adoration and praised God in tongues, without even knowing what that gift was. This has since been called the Duquesne Weekend — the birth certificate of the Catholic Charismatic Renewal^[88].

Patti Gallagher Mansfield, then a student present, gives in her book As by a New Pentecost a first-hand testimony:

"Our faith became alive, our belief became a kind of knowledge. Suddenly, the world of the supernatural became more real than the natural. Jesus Christ is a real person for us, a real person who is our Lord and who is at work in our lives. We read the New Testament as if it were true for us today, every word, every line. A love of Scripture, a love of the Church I would never have thought possible, a transformation of our relationships with others, a need and a strength to witness beyond all expectation, all this is now an integral part of our lives. We have been showered with charisms." — Patti Gallagher Mansfield, As by a New Pentecost, 2016, p. 60^[89]

In nearly sixty years, the Catholic Charismatic Renewal has spread from Duquesne to every parish in the world. The Renewal itself estimates at over 120 million the number of Catholics having experienced baptism in the Spirit (an estimate taken up by the Dicastery for the Laity, the Family and Life in 2019)^[90].

The popes and the Renewal

The Renewal has been officially welcomed by every pope since Paul VI:

• Paul VI received at Saint Peter's Basilica, on May 19, 1975, the participants of the IIIrd International Congress of the Catholic Charismatic Renewal, and called the Renewal a "chance for the Church, a chance for the world" ^[91].
• John Paul II wrote in his message to ecclesial movements (Pentecost 1998):

"During the Second Vatican Council, what an unforgettable experience in which the Church rediscovered the charismatic dimension as one of her constitutive elements. The institutional and charismatic aspects are quasi co-essential to the constitution of the Church." — Saint John Paul II, Message to ecclesial movements, May 27, 1998^[92]

• Benedict XVI confirmed and deepened John Paul II's teaching on the co-essentiality of the institutional and charismatic dimensions — a contribution taken up by Iuvenescit Ecclesia §10. On May 4, 2008, by a letter conveyed by Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone to the members of the Rinnovamento nello Spirito gathered near Rimini for their 31st national meeting, he praised and encouraged their commitment to communion, exhorting them to unite to prayer effective attention to the world's needs^[93].

• Pope Francis has a particularly intimate relationship with the Renewal. At Rome's Stadio Olimpico, on June 1, 2014, before more than fifty thousand Catholic charismatics, he declared:

"You, the people of the Renewal in the Spirit, have received a great gift from the Lord. You were born of the will of the Spirit, as a current of grace in the Church and for the Church. That is your definition: a current of grace. I expect from you that you share with all, in the Church, the grace of Baptism in the Holy Spirit." — Pope Francis, Address to the Renewal in the Holy Spirit, June 1, 2014^[94]

Iuvenescit Ecclesia (2016): co-essentiality doctrinally confirmed

The most recent and most complete doctrinal document on the charismatic dimension of the Church is the Letter Iuvenescit Ecclesia ("The Church grows young"), published by the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith on May 15, 2016 under the signature of Cardinal Gerhard Müller, with Pope Francis's explicit approval^[95].

The text recalls in §10 that "hierarchical and charismatic gifts are co-essential to the life of the Church," relying directly on Lumen Gentium §4 and on John Paul II's teaching. In §§17-18, it lists eight criteria of discernment of authentic charisms:

1. primacy of each Christian's vocation to holiness;
2. missionary commitment in service of evangelization;
3. confession of the Catholic faith in its integrity;
4. real communion with the whole Church (pope and bishops);
5. esteem and recognition of other charisms;
6. acceptance of moments of trial and of the cross;
7. presence of spiritual fruits (charity, joy, peace, human maturity);
8. social dimension of evangelization (solidarity, works, social doctrine).

With Iuvenescit Ecclesia, a reference doctrinal letter, the Catholic Church has decided at the doctrinal level — without infallible closure of theological debate: charisms are necessary to the ordinary life of the Church, they are not optional, and they must be discerned without being stifled. It is, in another form, the exact content of the two Pauline orders: "Do not quench the Spirit, do not despise prophecies" (1 Thess 5:19-20) and "Test everything; hold fast to what is good" (1 Thess 5:21).

The expression "baptism in the Holy Spirit" comes directly from Jesus: "John baptized with water; but you will be baptized in the Holy Spirit" (Acts 1:5). In Renewal language, it designates the living outpouring of the Spirit in a baptized person's life, which makes perceptible and operative the grace received in sacramental baptism and confirmation.

An experience biblically attested

In Acts, baptized people are seen several times receiving a second outpouring of the Spirit, distinct from water baptism. The Samaritans had been baptized by Philip (Acts 8:12); but Peter and John had to come lay hands on them for them to "receive the Holy Spirit" (Acts 8:14-17). Saul had been baptized by Ananias (Acts 9:18); but the Holy Spirit had filled him during the encounter with Ananias laying hands on him, before his water baptism (Acts 9:17). At Ephesus, twelve disciples are first baptized in Jesus' name, then Paul lays hands on them: "the Holy Spirit came down upon them, and they began to speak in tongues and prophesy" (Acts 19:5-6).

This diversity shows the Spirit bends to no rigid sacramental chronology. Sacramental baptism ontologically gives the Holy Spirit; but its experiential manifestation depends on the disposition of the heart, living faith, communal intercession.

Four complementary theological perspectives

Contemporary theology, notably in the document The Baptism in the Holy Spirit published by the ICCRS International Doctrinal Commission (International Service of the Catholic Charismatic Renewal) in 2012^[96], distinguishes four complementary ways of understanding the event:

These four readings are not contradictory: the same Spirit accomplishes in different souls different dimensions of the same mystery.

How to receive it?

There is no guaranteed formula nor mechanical method for receiving baptism in the Spirit. But the experience of millions of faithful allows favorable conditions to be identified^[97]:

1. A living faith in the risen Christ as personal Lord and Savior.
2. Repentance of grave sins, ideally through sacramental confession.
3. An explicit desire for the Spirit's gift — "you do not have, because you do not ask" (Jas 4:2).
4. Persevering prayer — Jesus himself teaches: "How much more will the Father in heaven give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him!" (Lk 11:13).
5. A community's intercession — parish, prayer group, "Life in the Spirit seminar" retreat, Alpha course, Encounter Schools of Ministry, etc.
6. An act of abandonment — accepting that the Spirit act as he wills, without prefiguring the form of the manifestation.

For John Mary Vianney, who did not know the expression "baptism in the Spirit" but substantially lived its content, the way lay in three dispositions — humility, prayer, asking — and the prayer he taught his parishioners began with invoking the Holy Spirit.

Knowing doctrine is not enough. The Holy Spirit is a Person with whom one enters, or not, into relationship. The saints, almost all, have described this relationship with astonishing similarity: it is an intimate, daily, transforming friendship, cultivated with the same attentions as any real friendship. Saint Seraphim of Sarov (1759-1833), great Russian mystic glorified by the Russian Orthodox Church in 1903, gave its most radical formula, collected by his disciple Nicholas Motovilov in the Conversation on the Goal of the Christian Life:

"The true goal of our Christian life is the acquisition of the Holy Spirit of God. As for fasting, vigil, prayer, almsgiving, and all other good works done in Christ's name, they are only means of acquiring the Holy Spirit of God. Note well that only good done in Christ's name gives us the fruits of the Spirit." — Saint Seraphim of Sarov, Conversation with Motovilov on the goal of the Christian life, November 1831^[98]

This sentence, famous throughout the Christian East, says in substance what all Catholic spirituality repeats in other forms: without the Spirit, nothing; with him, everything. Christian piety is not an assemblage of good practices; it is a way of receiving a Guest.

The Veni Creator and Veni Sancte Spiritus reflex

The Catholic Church has inherited two great medieval hymns for invoking the Spirit. The Veni Creator Spiritus, attributed to Rabanus Maurus (c. 800), is sung at ordinations, openings of jubilee years, solemn consecrations. The Veni Sancte Spiritus, the Pentecost sequence traditionally attributed to Pope Innocent III († 1216) — a disputed attribution, another tradition attributing it to Archbishop Stephen Langton († 1228) —, is one of the finest liturgical poems in the whole Latin tradition.

"Come, Holy Spirit, into our hearts, and send down from heaven a ray of your light. Come to us, father of the poor, come, dispenser of gifts, come, light of our hearts. Sovereign comforter, most sweet guest of our souls, sweetening freshness. In labor, rest; in fever, coolness; in tears, comfort." — Pentecost Sequence, Veni Sancte Spiritus (traditional attribution to Innocent III, disputed)^[99]

The simplest spiritual reflex, to acquire as a habit: invoke the Spirit ten to twenty times a day, in daily transitions — before a difficult conversation, before a decision, before prayer, before intellectual work, waking up, going to bed. "Come, Holy Spirit" — three words that open the soul.

Praying in the Spirit, praying in tongues

Saint Paul distinguishes two complementary ways of praying: "I will pray with the spirit, but I will also pray with the mind" (1 Cor 14:15). Praying "with the mind" is formulated prayer — vocal or meditative — passing through the concepts and words of one's mother tongue. Praying "in the spirit" is letting the Spirit pray in us beyond words — what Western tradition calls silent prayer or contemplative prayer, and what the Renewal rediscovers in the form of the gift of tongues.

Saint Paul himself attests practicing the gift much: "I thank God that I speak in tongues more than you all" (1 Cor 14:18). He recommends its private practice and subordinates it to prophecy when the assembly is concerned. The gift of tongues is generally the first the Spirit grants to those who ask for baptism in the Spirit, and it is often through it that the believer crosses the threshold into a new life of prayer.

Recognizing inner motions

The Holy Spirit continually speaks to the baptized — through the Scriptures read at Mass, through conscience, through sudden inspirations, through providential encounters, through a priest's words in confession, through a book fallen to hand. Learning to recognize his motions is the object of a great tradition: Saint Ignatius's Spiritual Exercises, Fr. Timothy Gallagher's Discernment of Spirits, Daniel Considine's Decision-making and the Will of God. The fundamental Ignatian rule: the Holy Spirit habitually produces peace, joy, gentleness, courage, desire for God; the evil spirit produces trouble, sadness, agitation, fear, withdrawal into self.

Saint Francis de Sales made this docility to motions the very heart of the devout life:

"All thoughts that give us worry and agitation are in no way from God, who is prince of peace; they always proceed either from the devil, or from self-love, or from the good opinion we have of ourselves. These then are the three sources from which all our useless worries proceed." — Saint Francis de Sales, letter to Saint Jane de Chantal, 1607^[100]

The criterion is so simple it becomes a daily examen: what comes from the Spirit dilates, what comes from elsewhere constricts. A good decision made in worry is almost never the right decision; better to wait for peace to return before confirming it.

Mary, model of the Spouse of the Spirit

More than any other, the Virgin Mary lives in full conformity to the Spirit. It is through the Spirit that she conceives the Word at the Annunciation ("the Holy Spirit will come upon you," Lk 1:35). It is in the Spirit that she sings the Magnificat. It is with her in the Upper Room that the Apostles receive the Spirit at Pentecost (Acts 1:14). At the wedding of Cana, she gives in five words the grammar of all spiritual life: "Do whatever he tells you" (Jn 2:5). Saint Louis-Marie Grignion de Montfort saw in it Mary's secret: the Holy Spirit, who espoused Mary, produced with her, in her and from her his masterpiece — a God made man — and never "repudiated" her, his "indissoluble spouse" (condensed from the Treatise, nn. 20 and 36)^[101].

The twelve keys to activating charisms

Mary Healy and Randy Clark propose, in the last chapter of The Spiritual Gifts Handbook, twelve practical keys for activating and growing charisms in an ordinary Christian life^[102]. The list is worth its weight in gold:

1. Let yourselves be filled with the Holy Spirit — ask at regular intervals to be filled anew. "Be filled with the Spirit" is Saint Paul's sole imperative in the continuous present (Eph 5:18): be filled, and keep being filled.
2. Stay close to Jesus — through the Eucharist, adoration, Scripture, the rosary. "Without me, you can do nothing" (Jn 15:5).
3. Have God's heart for the lost and broken — without real compassion, gifts remain dead letter. Jesus "was moved with compassion" before each of his healings.
4. Ask, seek, knock — "how much more will the heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him" (Lk 11:13).
5. Take steps in faith — the word faith is spelled r-i-s-k. It is by exercising it that one grows in the gift. As long as one waits for the guarantee before acting, one never acts.
6. Do whatever he tells you — immediate obedience to the slightest motion opens heaven, as with the servants at Cana.
7. Be aware of your authority in Christ — the baptized share Jesus' royal authority over evil, sickness, death, insofar as they live in obedience to the Father.
8. Learn from others — accompanying those who exercise gifts is irreplaceable. Charismatic pedagogy is a pedagogy of companionship, not of manuals.
9. Use testimonies to strengthen your faith — hearing account after account of what God does today produces faith. "Our brother overcame Satan by the blood of the Lamb and by the word of his testimony" (Rev 12:11).
10. Sweep away obstacles and misunderstandings — false theology (refusing to ask for healing), false merit ("I am not worthy"), false forgiveness (resentments blocking grace).
11. Give the Holy Spirit room to act — do not stifle what he does with rigid organization; accept the "apparent disorder" of a true outpouring.
12. Take him along — charisms "accompany the proclamation of the Gospel" (Mk 16:17-20). As long as one stays in the comfort of one's circle, one deprives the Spirit of his field of action.

"I prefer a Church which is bruised, hurting and dirty because it has been out on the streets, rather than a Church which is unhealthy from being confined and from clinging to its own security." — Pope Francis, Evangelii Gaudium §49^[103]

Saint Paul, in the same letter where he encourages to "aspire to spiritual gifts" (1 Cor 14:1), lays down the golden rule: "Test everything, hold fast to what is good" (1 Thess 5:21). No charism authenticates its bearer; every charism calls for explicit discernment. The Catechism sums up:

"No charism dispenses from reference and submission to the Church's Pastors. It is for them especially, not to extinguish the Spirit, but to test everything and hold fast to what is good, so that all charisms cooperate, in their diversity and complementarity, for the common good." — Catechism of the Catholic Church, §801^[104]

The five biblical criteria

Scripture gives five converging tests for discerning spiritual gifts^[105]:

1. The test of truth. Every prophecy or inspired word must be consistent with Scripture and the Catholic magisterium. Saint Paul: "No one can say: Jesus is anathema; and no one can say: Jesus is Lord, except in the Holy Spirit" (1 Cor 12:3). Saint John: "Every spirit that confesses Jesus Christ come in the flesh is from God" (1 Jn 4:2). If a charism leads to denying Christ's divinity, the Incarnation, the magisterium's authority, the sacred nature of marriage, the dignity of the priesthood or any other defined point of faith, it is not the Holy Spirit.

2. The test of love. "Though I speak the tongues of men and angels, though I be a prophet, have all knowledge of mysteries and all knowledge of God — if I lack charity, I am but a resounding gong, a clanging cymbal" (1 Cor 13:1-2). Every prophecy that condemns, divides, humiliates, wounds — without building up — is not of the Spirit.

3. Giving glory to Christ. "Why do you fix your eyes on us as if by our own power we made him walk?" (Acts 3:12). Peter and Paul always refused to be put on a pedestal after a spectacular healing. An authentic charism always leads to Jesus, never to its bearer.

4. Order. "Let everything be done decently and in order" (1 Cor 14:40). An authentic gift does not introduce chaos into the community. It may introduce apparent disorder — when the Holy Spirit interrupts a planned program — but that disorder bears visible fruit and has nothing to do with sterile agitation.

5. Fruit. "By their fruits you will know them" (Mt 7:16). The ultimate criterion, over time. The expected fruits are Saint Paul's twelve fruits (Gal 5:22-23) plus the visible transformation of lives: conversions, reconciliations, vocations, stable healings, active charity toward the poor.

Historical deviations

Church history knows three great families of charismatic deviation.

Montanism (2nd-3rd century): named after Montanus, prophet of Asia Minor (c. 156) who, with two prophetesses (Priscilla and Maximilla), announced the imminence of a heavenly Jerusalem descending upon the town of Pepuza in Phrygia. The movement instituted excessive rigorism (intransigent fasts, refusal of remarriage, exaltation of voluntary martyrdom) and placed prophetic authority above the bishop. It ended condemned. Its structural deviation is instructive: taking a private revelation as a reading grid superior to public revelation closed with the Apostles' death^[106].

Quietism (17th century): a mystical current condemned in 1687 by Innocent XI's brief Coelestis Pastor. Miguel de Molinos advocated a prayer of "pure passivity" dispensing from spiritual combat and leading to moral indifference; the doctrine passed through Madame Guyon and touched even Fénelon, who retracted. Its deviation: confusing abandonment to the Spirit with abdication of free will — whereas the Spirit never acts without the believer's free "yes."

Contemporary charismatic deviations: four are mainly retained — (1) "prosperity theology" (faith produces material wealth, a distorted doctrine of "name it, claim it"), (2) delirious prophetism multiplying false dated predictions (then retracting after failure), (3) spiritual elitism regarding non-charismatics as second-class Christians, (4) independence from parish priest or bishop, turning a prayer group into a mini-sect. Iuvenescit Ecclesia §17 and Catechism §801 protect against all these deviations by explicitly requiring submission to pastors.

The role of hierarchy

Vatican II and the Catechism are balanced: pastors are neither above charisms (with power to suppress them arbitrarily) nor outside them (in prudent abstention). They are in service of discernment. The Pauline rule holds in two movements:

"Do not quench the Spirit, do not despise prophecies, but test the value of all things: what is good, keep; abstain from every kind of evil." — 1 Thessalonians 5:19-22^[107]

The pastoral requirement thus remains Paul's and the council's: "Do not quench the Spirit, do not despise prophecies, but test the value of all things" (1 Thess 5:19-21)^[108] — to pastors falls the task of passing competent judgment on these gifts, without stifling them (Lumen Gentium §12; CCC §801)^[109].

Above charisms, deeper than they, stand the fruits of the Spirit. Saint Paul lists them in opposition to the "works of the flesh": "Here is the fruit of the Spirit: charity, joy, peace, patience, longanimity, goodness, kindness, meekness, faithfulness, modesty, continence, chastity" (Gal 5:22-23 according to the Vulgate). The Catechism retains them as twelve perfections the Spirit forms in us "as the first fruits of eternal glory" ^[110].

Why fruits are superior to charisms

Charisms are given for mission; fruits are given for heaven. Charisms may disappear from a life (prophecy ceases, the gift of healing withdraws, tongues fall silent); fruits are the very substance of holiness that lasts eternally. Saint Paul is explicit:

"Though I speak the tongues of men and angels, if I have not charity, I am a resounding gong. Though I have the gift of prophecy and knowledge of all mysteries, and all faith to move mountains, if I have not charity, I am nothing. Charity will never pass away. Prophecies will be abolished, tongues will cease, knowledge will pass away. Knowledge is imperfect; prophecy too. But when the perfect comes, the partial will pass away." — Saint Paul, First to the Corinthians 13:1-2,8-10^[111]

Saint Thérèse of Lisieux (1873-1897), Doctor of the Church, never had a spectacular charism in her lifetime — no public prophecy, no sensational healing, no bilocation. And yet, at 24, she left behind an Autobiographical Manuscript that converted millions of Christians, and Pope John Paul II declared her Doctor of the Church in 1997. Why? Because the fruits were there to a rare degree: love, joy, peace, faithfulness, gentleness, abandonment, hope against all hope.

Holiness as the ultimate goal of charisms

Charisms are not holiness; they are at the service of holiness — others' first (through mission) and one's own as returning grace. Anyone exercising a charism without simultaneously growing in fruits is in spiritual danger. "Many will say to me on that day: Lord, did we not prophesy in your name? And cast out demons in your name? And do many miracles in your name? Then I will declare to them: I never knew you. Depart from me, you evildoers" (Mt 7:22-23). This passage is a direct warning against charismatic self-confidence without sanctification.

Saint John of the Cross recalls what must be held together:

"John is concerned not with stifling the charismatic gifts of the Spirit, but with ensuring they are exercised authentically. His concern is that Christians seek God above all, and not God's gifts; that the knowledge and love of God produced by these works be the principal goal, for those who perform them as for those who receive them." — Saint John of the Cross, paraphrased by Ralph Martin, after The Ascent of Mount Carmel III, 30, 2-3^[112]

If you are baptized, charisms are for you. Not for the saints of old, not for ordained ministers exclusively, not for elite souls. For you. This affirmation, which would have seemed bold a century ago, is today the explicit teaching of the Catechism, Vatican II, the last four popes and the Letter Iuvenescit Ecclesia.

Saint Paul gives the commandment bluntly: "Aspire to spiritual gifts, especially prophecy" (1 Cor 14:1). Jesus backs it: "How much more will the heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him" (Lk 11:13). Saint Teresa of Avila adds:

"It is a great compliment you pay God when you ask him for great things." — Saint Teresa of Avila^[113]

The twenty-first century — secularized, fragmented, hungry for signs — urgently needs a charismatic Church in the strong sense: a Church where ordinary baptized people pray for their parish's sick and see healings, where laypeople receive in confession or accompaniment words of knowledge touching wounded hearts, where prayer groups humbly prophesy God's consolation for despairing souls, where the Holy Spirit ceases to be "the Forgotten Person" to become again what he has always been: the soul of the Church, the breath that gives her life, the fire that makes her burn.

"Spirit-filled evangelizers means evangelizers who are not afraid to be open to the action of the Holy Spirit. At Pentecost, the Spirit makes the Apostles go out of themselves and transforms them into proclaimers of God's wonders." — Pope Francis, Evangelii Gaudium §259^[114]

The simplest prayer suffices, and it holds for this article as for all Christian life:

"Come, Holy Spirit. Fill the hearts of your faithful, and enkindle in them the fire of your love. Send forth your Spirit, and all shall be created; and you shall renew the face of the earth." — Pentecost Antiphon^[115]

Go deeper with Via Divina — This article expands on course 31 of module 4 of the Via Divina formation ("The heart of spiritual life: prayer"). To go further and practically enter a life of friendship with the Holy Spirit, discover the course.

• The Council of Constantinople I (381) — dogma of the divinity of the Holy Spirit, Creed and definitive Trinitarian formula.
• The Father: being his child — previous course in the Via Divina journey.
• The Virgin Mary and Saint Joseph — next course.
• Saint Padre Pio and his stigmata — modern model of a complete charismatic life.
• The Council of Trent (1545-1563) — Catholic response to nascent Protestant cessationism.
• The Second Vatican Council (1962-1965) — magisterial rehabilitation of charisms (Lumen Gentium §12).
• Saint Teresa of Avila (1515-1582) — summit of Catholic mystical theology.

Sources and readings

• Mary Healy and Randy Clark, The Spiritual Gifts Handbook, Chosen Books, 2018 (French ed. Les dons spirituels — Foi, guérison, prophétie, discernement, Éditions des Béatitudes, 2018, 240 p. ISBN 979-10-306-0182-4). The most complete joint Catholic-evangelical reference on the subject.
• Kilian McDonnell and George T. Montague, Christian Initiation and Baptism in the Holy Spirit: Evidence from the First Eight Centuries, Liturgical Press, Collegeville, 1991 (2nd revised ed. 1994), 408 p.
• Cardinal Raniero Cantalamessa, The Sober Intoxication of the Spirit (French ed. La sobre ivresse de l'Esprit, Desclée de Brouwer, 1995). And Come, Creator Spirit — Meditations on the Veni Creator, 2003 (French ed. Viens, Esprit Créateur — Méditations sur le Veni Creator, EdB 2008).
• Cardinal Léon-Joseph Suenens, A New Pentecost?, Seabury Press, 1975 (French ed. Une nouvelle Pentecôte ?, Desclée de Brouwer, 1975).
• Patti Gallagher Mansfield, As by a New Pentecost, Franciscan University Press, 1992 (French ed. Comme une nouvelle Pentecôte, EdB 2016). First-hand testimony on Duquesne 1967.
• Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, Letter Iuvenescit Ecclesia to the bishops of the Catholic Church on the relationship between hierarchical and charismatic gifts for the life and mission of the Church, May 15, 2016. Full text on vatican.va.
• Catechism of the Catholic Church, §688-741 (the Holy Spirit), §799-801 (charisms), §1830-1832 (gifts and fruits), §2003 (charisms and sanctifying graces).
• Second Vatican Council, Lumen Gentium §4 and §12; Apostolicam Actuositatem §3; Ad Gentes §4.