Are Charismatic Gifts a Help or a Hindrance in the Spiritual Life?

This Pentecost Pope Francis hosted the Fiftieth anniversary of the founding of the Charismatic movement in the Catholic Church, which started when a group of Catholics claimed they had rediscovered the gifts of the Holy Spirit, promised by Christ to his followers but presumed dormant since that time (you can read about it here).

Since the Charismatic Movement has now reached a milestone, I think it the time is right to assess what it has contributed to the spiritual life of the faithful. I propose to scrutinise the gifts the Charismatics claim to offer to the individual and whether they are a hindrance or a help to the individual’s spiritual life. In short I intend to follow the example of Pope Francis and help the reader assess the worth of these gifts in the spirit of “accompaniment”.

The first question that comes to mind concerns the authenticity of the ministry the Charismatics claim to exercise. If we turn to scripture it becomes apparent that we can’t dismiss their claims out of hand. There are numerous passages that attest that the faithful were promised to the ability to perform the miraculous by Christ before His departure and that they only had ask in order to receive; therefore there is no reason why God wouldn’t grant them now if the faithful asked for them. 

However, the fact of the matter is that wherever two or three people are gathered more than one spirit is at work, therefore we cannot exclude the possibility of emotional hysteria, or even a diabolical manifestation.  Fortunately the Church has developed a science of discerning spirits, applying her knowledge of the way the Holy Spirit operates and presents the following for our consideration:  the Holy Spirit never causes violent emotion when it operates in the soul; nor does it cause loss of self-awareness or self-control; nor does He cause any action that goes against reason (e.g. speaking nonsense); nor does it inspire a desire for autonomy from external authority. Using this knowledge a member of the faithful can easily discern which gifts are from the Holy Spirit and which are counterfeit.

We have now established, by considering the above, that we can give serious attention to what the Charismatics are offering, but we have yet to consider where  these gifts will help or hinder us in our spiritual life. It may come as a surprise to many that the Church, far from forgetting these gifts existed before Vatican II, treated them as a normal part of its life: “… Not only the gifts which justify and endear us to God are common. Graces gratuitously granted, such as knowledge, prophecy, the gifts of tongues and of miracles, and others of the same sort, are common also, and are granted even to the wicked, not, however, for their own but for the general good, for the edification of the Church. Thus, the gift of healing is given not for the sake of him who heals, but for the sake of him who is healed.” This quote comes from the Catechism of the Council of Trent (commenting on “the Communion of Saints”), written over five hundred years ago. From this passage we can draw both an affirmation and a qualification: on the one hand this passage affirms that these gifts clearly have a place in the life of the Church; on the other hand this passage states that these are exercised for the general good not the benefit of the user, therefore they neither help nor hinder the spiritual life: but if that is the case, what is the Charismatic Movement offering?

The founders of the movement correctly saw “baptism of the Holy Spirit” as the activation of the gifts of the Holy Spirit, received at Baptism and Confirmation. It will be our next task to explore what these gifts are, if they are not the above (and we’ve clearly shown that they are not); we will then explore what role they play in our spiritual life. - We’ll save that for another post.