Welcome back to the Charisms for Catholics blog! In our latest podcast episode, host Jill Simons and guest Theresa Zoe Williams explored the charism of mercy through the lives of saints who exemplified this profound spiritual gift. We’ve distilled the highlights of their conversation here to provide you with an inspirational look at how mercy has been lived out by some remarkable individuals.
Understanding the Charism of Mercy
Jill Simons: When talking about the charism of mercy, it’s essential to differentiate it from the general Christian call to be merciful. While all Christians are called to show mercy as a virtue, some are specially gifted by the Holy Spirit to exhibit this trait effortlessly. These individuals often serve as a model for others, inspiring the Christian community to greater acts of mercy.
Blessed Pier Giorgio Frassati: A Young Saint Full of Mercy
Theresa Zoe Williams: One of the saints who beautifully lived out the charism of mercy is soon-to-be-Saint Pier Giorgio Frassati. Known for his dedication to social activism, charity, and community, Pier Giorgio went beyond mere acts of charity. He engaged in systemic change, advocating for social reform to create merciful and fair systems. His mercy manifested in very human ways: giving his bus fare to those in need and even giving away his shoes. Despite coming from a wealthy family, he lived out the Gospel call to serve the poor and marginalized.
Saint Maria Goretti: Mercy in Forgiveness and Sacrifice
Another compelling example is Saint Maria Goretti, who was just 11 years old when she defended her purity and ultimately forgave her attacker. As she lay dying from the multiple stab wounds inflicted upon her, she expressed a profound concern for the soul of her attacker, Alessandro. Saint Maria’s mercy didn’t stop at forgiveness; she appeared to Alessandro after her death to extend her mercy and forgiveness, leading to his lifelong conversion. This story powerfully illustrates mercy as a conduit for miraculous change, both for the victim and the perpetrator.
Saint Faustina: The Divine Mercy Visionary
Theresa Zoe Williams: Saint Faustina, known for her visions of the Divine Mercy, brought the world’s attention to Christ’s infinite mercy. She received prophetic insights and wrote extensively about the divine mercy flowing from Christ’s heart. Faustina’s life and revelations were so impactful that Pope Saint John Paul II established Divine Mercy Sunday to honor this particular charism.
The Missionaries of Charity: Living Mercy Every Day
Returning to a familiar context, the Missionaries of Charity, founded by Mother Teresa, embody the dual charisms of missionary work and mercy. Their ministry to the dying and the destitute showcases profound acts of mercy—bathing, feeding, and caring for those society often overlooks. This order invites all to witness and participate in mercy that doesn’t shy away from suffering but meets it with compassion and love.
Practical Applications for Today
In concluding, Jill Simons highlights that seeing Christ in everyone we encounter, especially in the most marginalized, is the heart of mercy. Whether it’s caring for an elderly parent or helping a homeless person, these acts of love and mercy call us to live out our faith in tangible ways.
Final Thoughts
Whether you have the charism of mercy or aspire to grow in this virtue, these saints provide time-tested models of living out God’s love. The charism of mercy is a powerful testament to how the Holy Spirit calls and equips individuals to serve others in extraordinary ways. Be encouraged to pray for and cultivate this gift, praising God for those who manifest His mercy in our world.
Tune in next time for our discussion on saints with the charism of leadership. Until then, may you be inspired by the examples of mercy we’ve discussed today.
Thank you for reading! For more insights and journey guides, visit Many Parts Ministries.
Jill Simons [00:00:00]:
Hello, and welcome to Charisms for Catholics. My name is Jill Simons, and I’m the executive director at Many Parts Ministries, where we equip the body of Christ by helping people learn about and discern their charisms, which is really another word for spiritual gifts. When you discern your charisms, you’re able to see how the holy spirit is already active in your life and where he is inviting you to further build the church. Let’s dive in.
Jill Simons [00:00:30]:
Hello, and welcome to today’s episode of Charisms for Catholics. I am so excited to be back with you today talking about the Charism of Mercy. This is the charism that so many people get, I’m gonna say, like, false high numbers for if they get false high numbers on a charism assessment because they feel guilty for answering those questions maybe more truthfully, because they look at the questions about mercy, and it’s very much seems like, well, if I’m a good Christian, then I would say this. And there is an element of us all needing to grow in our ability to express mercy. Absolutely. If this isn’t something we’ve been given as a charism, then this is something that we aspire to as a virtue and can be given to us in the future as a charism. And so we look so often to the people with a mercy charism for inspiration about how to aspire to greater mercy in our own natural Christian life. This is a situation I’m in.
Jill Simons [00:01:28]:
This is not one of my charisms, but I love to learn from people with mercy charisms about how to better encounter the person of Christ in the most marginalized in our society. And so today’s episode, we’re gonna be going through different saints that lived out this charism of mercy that are great examples for us, like I just said, of what it is that we can strive to aspire to in terms of living out mercy in our daily lives. So whether this is your charism or not, this is a great episode for you to listen to, to get some inspiration about whose story you can read, who you can learn more about, to learn how to live out of this Christian mercy that we’re all called to, whether it’s at the supernatural level of a charism or the natural level of pursuing virtue in the Christian life. So to talk about this, I once again have our staff member, Theresa Zoe Williams, with me to share more about these saints that she loves. So thanks for being here with me, Theresa.
Theresa Zoe Williams [00:02:26]:
Hey, Jill. Always a pleasure. Love being here.
Jill Simons [00:02:29]:
So let’s go ahead and kick it off. We just got the word that this guy is gonna be a saint now.
Theresa Zoe Williams [00:02:35]:
Yes. So exciting. So blessed soon to be saint, Pierre Giorgio Frasati, is the first one that I thought of when we were coming up with saints for the charism of Mercy. He was so devoted to works of social activism, to charity, to prayer, and to community. So he really embodied this, like, being one with your community and giving of yourself to them. He once said, charity is not enough. We need social reform. So it’s not just giving of ourselves, but it’s also making systems that are merciful and, fair.
Theresa Zoe Williams [00:03:15]:
And Suvi always had mercy kind of at the the center of his relationship with God and with other people. He came from a wealthy family, and one of the stories about him is he would always give his bus fare away to people who didn’t have any money. And then he’d have to run home to beat the bus, so that his family wouldn’t know because they weren’t they didn’t like that he would give away his money. They thought it was unbecoming of their status. And or or the one time he ran home barefoot because he gave his shoes away to someone who needed shoes. But just I love he he wasn’t just praying or only praying. He really put that into action or 2. He really went out into his community and the people that he saw there.
Theresa Zoe Williams [00:04:03]:
What do they need? How can we fix the systems for them so that they can continue to get what they need beyond when I’m available to them? And, really, in his prayer life and in his relationship with God focused on that mercy that it is that God has for us. I just love him a lot. I’m so excited for his promotion to saint. It’s it’s a long time coming, I I think. And I think we’re this is gonna air in August. Mhmm. So we would have just celebrated his feast day too, which is July 4th. Easy for Americans to remember, but he was Italian.
Theresa Zoe Williams [00:04:44]:
So there you go.
Jill Simons [00:04:45]:
So he didn’t have fireworks on his birthday when he was No.
Theresa Zoe Williams [00:04:47]:
He did not. But we have first first.
Jill Simons [00:04:50]:
There we go. That’s awesome. Yeah. And he is one that I think is so attractive to young people, especially because there was that very active principle in his life. I think it’s so important when we are looking at people with mercy as a charism to remember that they are really operating in these things in a way that is effortless in a lot of ways. And so that is something that it’s really easy to look at people with this charism, and to feel like they’re kind of performing or showing off, or there’s there’s kind of that, whether it’s a fear or a tendency that there’s kind of like a parasitical, like, oh, they’re doing these things so people can see them, but this is really such an authentic outpouring of who these people are with this gift Yeah. That it’s really important for us to take away the cynicism from viewing it, I think, in a lot of ways, and to really be, surrender to the fact that this is a powerful way that God wants to move, that God does move in moving people to truly see him in those people that are most marginalized in our society. I would hope that majority of us have some kind of experience of encountering Christ in the people that we love the most.
Jill Simons [00:06:11]:
I don’t know how many times, like, holding a newborn at night I’ve thought about, like, the blessed mother holding Jesus, and it’s just very, like, super sweet, and there’s nothing that it it’s not really asking a lot of me to see that as opposed to someone that, is, you know, kind of classically is going to be the the homeless person you encounter on the street who might not look very nice, might not smell very nice, might be a little bit of a fearful encounter to still see Christ in them and to be able to give in this way. So I think that the two responses to that that it invites us into is really praise that that God does give people this gift and that this is something that we can see lived out in the church, and also then, hopefully, that this is something that we desire to receive. And if we don’t desire it, to just look at kind of what’s keeping that away from being something that we desire. Not in a judgmental, like, you’re a bad Christian, Beth Catholic kind of way, but just in, like, what was it what is it that I’m hanging on to? Well, maybe what’s the fear? What’s the lie that’s keeping me cynical about this, basically, as we maybe even are hearing about people who walk in this. Looking at the rest of our list, I know I’ve had several people come to me and say, like, oh, well, that was just kind of their thing. They were kind of, I don’t know, almost showing off, you know, in doing those things, when in actuality, this is an expression of the gift that God really has given them.
Theresa Zoe Williams [00:07:44]:
Yeah. And I I think Mercy now we have a think tank for this going on right now, but I think Mercy is one of my daughters, my oldest daughter’s charisms. And it started when she was young. We would drive home from Catholic school because their school is in a different town than we lived in, so we had to drive about 20 minutes each way. And on our way home, we always had to use a turn lane off of the highway, and always, always, always, there was a homeless person or a person in need of money, standing there with a little sign. And after, you know, passing by these people a few times, she once said to me, mom, why don’t you ever give them money, what they’re asking for? I said, oh, well, I don’t normally have cash on me or anything like that. And she goes, well, we should get some. And so from that point on, I kept keeping my extra or I would keep money in, the glove box so that I could we could give that to him as we passed by.
Theresa Zoe Williams [00:08:51]:
And one time she noticed that it was the same person every time, and it wasn’t like she didn’t look at that person like, man, they still need money. Like, man, what’s wrong? You know? She looked at them, and she goes, man, maybe this will be the dollar that changes life for him. Mhmm. And that’s always really struck me because Mercy is something that I have to I have a lot of empathy, but not a lot of putting that into action. So Mercy is something that I really have to work at Mhmm. More in my life. And not that it’s just giving charitably like Pierre Georgiou said, but it is something that I have to more consciously act upon in my life rather than it coming naturally, for me. But for my daughter, it’s extremely natural to her to see the lack that someone else has and show them the mercy that they need, for life.
Theresa Zoe Williams [00:09:50]:
And I see a lot of, Pierre Georgio in her.
Jill Simons [00:09:53]:
Yeah.
Theresa Zoe Williams [00:09:53]:
She’s like, well, why is that person homeless? Then, you know, she would keep building upon her questions. Why is this person homeless anyway? Why can’t they find a job? What are we doing as a society? She’s, like, 6, 7, 8 years old. Yeah. See these questions. Yeah. Like, what are we doing that this person can’t find what he needs or doesn’t have what he needs? How can we make sure that he gets it? Mhmm. And I was like, well, we, us, right near here now can give him the money to get him through the day. Mhmm.
Theresa Zoe Williams [00:10:22]:
I have no problem with that. And she goes, well, you get to vote. Can you vote for people that make changes? And I, Absolutely, I can. So she pushes me on a lot in this charisma. That’s awesome. My own growth in it.
Jill Simons [00:10:38]:
Yeah. Yeah. Which our next one is another young girl just wise beyond her years in this area.
Theresa Zoe Williams [00:10:45]:
Yes. Saint Maria Goretti. She was only 11, not quite 12, which is the age my that same daughter is now. And, famously, she was attacked. It was an attempted rape, but she fended off her attacker by saying, it is a sin, and it wasn’t just like, hey. Knock it off. This is you’re gonna defile me or something like that. It was a plea for his soul.
Theresa Zoe Williams [00:11:11]:
Mhmm. She didn’t want him to do anything that put his soul in danger. And that’s a huge mercy. Like, not just wanting goodness for yourself, but wanting goodness for someone else. And I think that’s the heart of mercy, and that’s not where it ended for her. She was stabbed, I believe, at 17 times when she fended off her attacker, and she’s lying in the hospital dying. And she still stated the facts of her attack so that her attacker could be given the proper punishment because so often, punishment is an invitation or an accelerator to growth in an area. I mean, that’s why we give our children consequences for things so that they see, the natural progression and so that they can grow from these things.
Theresa Zoe Williams [00:12:09]:
And she wanted that for him so much that she didn’t lay off any of the facts. She told it exactly like it was because she knew the judge would be just. Mhmm. Right? And he was imprisoned. His name was Alessandro. And after she died, she appeared to him to tell him that she forgave him, and she appeared with Lily’s. And he credits her with the turnaround in his life. Yeah.
Theresa Zoe Williams [00:12:39]:
Like, he was obvi he he was obviously extremely sorrowful for his actions and for killing her and for attacking her. But it was also because of that failing in his part that he had the openness to growth and because of the mercy he received from her, that he had that ability to grow. And he lived out the rest of his life once he got in out of jail, believe is, like, the porter, which is the doorman for a religious community, and it would, like, sweep their porch and things like that, just doing the menial tasks, as reparation Mhmm. For his sins and just to live that humble, simple life that Maria called him onto. Mhmm. He spent the rest of his life trying not to sin because of the example and the mercy from a tiny 11 year old girl. Like, if you’ve seen the her body and all that, she’s just a tiny little thing. She’s not you know, she’s I don’t even know if she had hit puberty yet.
Theresa Zoe Williams [00:13:47]:
Like, it’s just a a little girl. But because of her big mercy, he changed his entire life. Yeah. He he that’s that’s supernatural. Mhmm. That’s something you can’t just get from a natural gift. Like, there’s something so profound in this story of not just his turning, but of her giving him that mercy to to be that conduit even though she’s being attacked, she’s in pain, she’s dying, she dies, even though those things happened to her, that she let mercy flow through her. I think there’s a great parallel to the next saint, here in her vision, and to Christ on the cross, letting the mercy flow through his wounds to us, and Maria did that for Alessandro and then for all of us.
Theresa Zoe Williams [00:14:55]:
Yeah. Absolutely.
Jill Simons [00:14:56]:
Yeah. Let’s go ahead and segue into our next one. K.
Theresa Zoe Williams [00:14:59]:
The next scene is Saint Faustina, who had the vision of the divine mercy and wrote about the divine mercy. And in the image, which she painstakingly had an artist recreate for her, went through so many revisions, and I believe there’s a story about the artist getting really frustrated because they couldn’t get it quite right. But the the image is Christ almost like walking through a door and blood and water, the rays of the red and white rays are flowing from his heart to, symbolize his mercy and love for us. So I couldn’t I couldn’t include Mercy not include Faustina in Mercy, because, of this vision. And, I mean, she lived it too. She just lived that once you I mean, how could you not when you’re given a vision like this? Like, it’s like, your whole life is just put before your eyes when you get a vision like this. And what a beautiful thing. Some of us really need visual.
Theresa Zoe Williams [00:16:00]:
Yeah. You know?
Jill Simons [00:16:01]:
I do.
Theresa Zoe Williams [00:16:02]:
And she was another Polish saint, pope saint John Paul the second, had a great devotion to her and instituted Divine Mercy Sunday because of her, which is the Sunday after Easter. My family has a huge devotion to the divine mercy. My mom died on divine mercy Sunday. I mean, she was Polish. So we have a lot of connections to it and just a lot of God is God has really spoken to my family through the image of the divine mercy and just the image, but the whole being of divine mercy.
Jill Simons [00:16:41]:
She’s such a great example of, like, a bunch coming together. So we’ve got, like, mercy, but also writing and also the prophetic, like, we’ve talked about, empathy, where we have all of those things coming together. And some people, especially if they’re in their own discernment journey, can get hung up on, like, where’s the line, and what is which, and stuff like that, and that is something that is not necessarily even important for us to determine once we’ve determined that the Holy Spirit is the operating factor. We don’t need to, like, well, was this the Holy Spirit as mercy, or was this the Holy Spirit as prophecy or writing? He’s Right. He’s fully present in all of his gifts, and so when we have multiple gifts given in one place, they come together, packaged together in a lot of ways, and so we’ve had that question before about, you know, which one was it that led to a certain thing, and I think her ability to experience mercy and see Christ in other people is part of what really prepared her heart to receive this message of mercy prophetically to write and share with the whole church.
Theresa Zoe Williams [00:17:49]:
Yes. I agree wholeheartedly with that. I think that’s a great testament to, like, the mercy that she lived within herself. Like, putting herself at the feet of mercy and then being able to receive that in different ways and then transmit that in different ways out to the world.
Jill Simons [00:18:12]:
Yeah. And we’re gonna circle back to a religious order that we’ve already talked about that I think this we talked about the missionary of charities when we talked about missionary, but this is definitely like the one two punch of their charism
Theresa Zoe Williams [00:18:27]:
or their,
Jill Simons [00:18:29]:
charism as an order, both missionary and mercy that we’re talking about today.
Theresa Zoe Williams [00:18:34]:
Yeah. So I definitely wanted to highlight them here as well because I knew we’d be talking about them in missionary, and that’s I mean, it’s very natural fit, for them. But what’s behind that missionary spirit is this gift of mercy. So they showed mercy. They show mercy to everyone they encounter, and they specifically go out to show mercy, to make God’s mercy manifest in the world. And a lot of the ways they do this is, helping people to die with dignity. They bathe them. They take care of people, giving them places to rest, food to eat if they can eat, and I think that that’s such we get mercy confused a lot with shielding people from suffering, and that’s not what mercy is.
Theresa Zoe Williams [00:19:34]:
It’s not the whole of mercy, anyway. It’s the tiny sliver of it. Mercy is encountering a person and who they are and forgiving them for their weaknesses and calling them onto more, but also just loving them exactly where they’re at. They don’t like, the missionaries of charity don’t set out to evangelize anybody, but they end up evangelizing people because they’ve shown this mercy to them. And, I mean, we you can look at Christ on the cross and the 2 thieves, crucified on either side of him, and he showed mercy to both, but only one received it. And that’s the one that ended up in heaven with him. Mercy isn’t god didn’t say, you know, okay. Well, now that you you believe in me, I’m gonna get you off this cross.
Theresa Zoe Williams [00:20:32]:
Yeah. Said, no. Now you’ll be with me in paradise. He didn’t shield him from the consequences from for his actions. He didn’t shield him from the suffering of the world. He invited him into it deeper Yeah. Into something more. And that’s what the missionaries of charity really go out and do in the world.
Theresa Zoe Williams [00:20:49]:
So I think they’re such a countercultural example, and we hear a lot about death with dignity now, but that means ending a life for its natural conclusion, so that they can die with an assumed dignity when we could give that to them anyway. Mhmm. My father just died from Parkinson’s, when this airs almost a a year ago. But what we did for him, we didn’t, you know he didn’t wanna die before it was time. We didn’t let him die before god called him home, but we made him comfortable the entire time. We made sure he had people to bathe him and to help feed him and, to give him clean clothes and clean bed linens and to help move him when he could no longer move on his own and, people just to be with him so that he was never alone. You know, that’s what death with dignity is. Right.
Theresa Zoe Williams [00:21:50]:
Being surrounded by love and care. Yeah. Not we don’t have to be afraid of the suffering that we might encounter even in death. Yeah. We don’t have to be afraid of that. We should strive to be one with that and to invite people into that. Like, my aunts and uncles who, he lived with, you know, were right there, and they experienced everything alongside of him and took care of his every need. Anything that and and, you know, my dad wasn’t always the easiest to live with either.
Theresa Zoe Williams [00:22:31]:
He was a very stubborn man, and he could be a little belligerent. But they never let that scare them away from taking care of their brother. And my sister and I, were also there. You know? He just happened to live with his siblings. And, you know, in the aftermath of his loss, they’re not afraid of the pain that comes from losing him too, losing his companion, their big brother. They enter into it still, and they they show the mercy of god and they accept the mercy of god in this. And that’s what this charism really is all about, and I think these three saints in this one order, really are countercultural in their approach to mercy, and which is the true approach. So if we if you’re looking for someone to understand what that’s like, look to these people, look to this order, because it’s about the good of the other.
Theresa Zoe Williams [00:23:35]:
And the good doesn’t mean shielding from suffering. It means shielding from harm, but that harm can be physical. It can be spiritual. It can be psychological. There’s a lot of different ways that we need to, different ways that we need to shield people, and we should shield people from fear. Mhmm. We should That’s the only thing we should be shielding people from is fear and encompassing them in love.
Jill Simons [00:24:00]:
I think it all goes back to, like, what if this person was Christ? Like, what if, you know, the person dying in front of you is Christ? We gotta live in reality. You can’t you are not Christ, so you can’t, you know, take away the the suffering necessarily. You can’t magically make the person carerism if you can. But Right. But, ultimately, what if this person is Christ and you also are living in reality? What is it that the action that you take in that situation? What if the person dying from a long bout with Parkinson’s is our Lord? Like, what are the things the the contextualization of that is very quick for most people that have any kind of relationship with our Lord and think about that being them. I have had more than one night of just having to get up for the, you know, 7th time in 6 hours with the baby, then I’m just like, it’s baby Jesus. We’re just we’re taking care of baby Jesus right now. Like, because if it’s not, I don’t wanna get up again.
Jill Simons [00:25:09]:
And and and just focusing then on that service really flowing from and this is what comes organically to people with this charism is organically seeing Christ in these people so that that is a very easy jump for them, and that’s where the rest of us have the opportunity to look to them for inspiration and to grow in Christian virtue ourselves is, okay, we need to make the larger jump to do this consciously, whereas we see these people with mercy really walking in this very, comfortably and organically. So wherever you are in the spectrum, whether this is one of your current gifts, something that you aspire to, something that kind of freaks you out, look to all of these people as just inspiration for a Christian life of mercy, and if nothing else, I really encourage you to thank God, praise God, for these people both in the past and living currently that do this important work of calling us to notice Christ in the least among us. We’ll be back in 2 weeks with another episode for saints with the Charism of Leadership. We’re gonna be talking about several different saints that have embodied this charism throughout the history of the church, and we’ll be out next week with a regular episode of the podcast. So we hope to see you then. God bless you.
Jill Simons [00:26:31]:
Thanks so much for joining us on today’s episode of Charisms for Catholics.
Jill Simons [00:26:35]:
If you would like to
Jill Simons [00:26:36]:
learn more about your charisms or begin your own discernment journey, head to our website at manypartsministries.com where you can download our free pdf guide to all 24 charisms and also begin your own journey by taking our charism assessment.
