There are three types of people taking the charisms assessment. Interestingly, their results may vary based on their spiritual journey.
New Seeker
This type of person has just recently embarked on their journey of faith, hence new seeker. Excitement and curiosity fill them. They are eager to understand the supernatural gifts bestowed upon them through baptism. Or maybe they haven’t even been baptized yet. The assessment results for the new seeker may reveal a potential for embracing and developing their charisms. This will lay the groundwork for a vibrant life of faith.
Lifelong Pilgrim
These people have been on their faith journey for years, but may have yet to fully explore charisms. They may have received grace but have not yet tapped into their full potential. The assessment results for the lifelong pilgrim serve as a wake-up call. It urges them to dig deeper, test their charisms, and unlock the supernatural fruit that awaits them.
Seasoned Discerner
Furthermore, these people have been actively discerning their charisms for some time. They possess a deep understanding of their gifts. Now they are eager to refine and utilize them for the glory of God and the building of His Church. The assessment results for the seasoned discerner may uncover hidden charisms. It may also provide confirmation or offer a fresh perspective on their spiritual journey
Though there are three types of people, each person’s spiritual journey is unique. It is influenced by factors such as their nature, lifestyle, and level of commitment. We can embark on an unprecedented adventure of utilizing our charisms with freedom, courage, and humility. So, let’s embrace the unknown, cooperate with the challenges presented to us, and unleash our hidden potential!
Together, let’s break through the barriers and discover what’s truly possible in our lives and in the Church.
Learn more at 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. Today we’re going to start a really awesome project on the Charisms for Catholics podcast, which is going to be going through in detail each of the 24 charisms. Obviously, since there’s 24 of them, it’s going to take a little while. We’re going to do one episode per charism. We’re going to try and do this double time, so two per week so that it only takes three months for us to get all of them out instead of six.
Jill Simons [00:00:57]:
Because I know if you’re waiting to find about your charism of wisdom or writing, that’s going to be a long wait. So we’re going to do our best to get them out in a timely manner because if you’re like me, waiting is like not your jam. And there’s definitely places where we’re being invited to grow in patience, but there’s also things like but it would be really good to know this now. So we’re going to do our absolute best to get these out in a super timely manner. I am recording these episodes while writing a book that is called, currently, and I reserve the right to reduce the number if I don’t receive adequate inspiration. But right now, working title is “1001 Ways to Use Your Charisms”, which is going to go in depth through all 24 charisms and talk about beginner, intermediate, hard, and advanced ways to use all 24 of them and really get everybody’s wheels turning about how we can use our charisms in everyday life and what it looks like to use different ones. So my workflow right now is recording an episode about each charism, then writing the list after I have prayed extensively about each individual charism. And we’re trying to just get all of this content created simultaneously so we’ll see how successful I am.
Jill Simons [00:02:17]:
This is early days, so I am optimistic and perhaps naively so, but I remain ever convinced at the incredible things that can be accomplished in the power of the Holy Spirit. And it’s been very clear from the first few months of this ministry that the Holy Spirit wants this for the Church and who am I to stand in the way? So I’m going to stay just hopefully endearingly enthusiastic about the fact that all of this is going to happen in less than three months. So we’re going to see and I am excited to have you along for the ride. So this is our little bit of preface episode to those individual charisms. We’re not going to jump into an individual one until later this week. But today I wanted to give you a little bit of foundation because as I started recording the episode about administration, I realized that there was a lot of foundational information that I wanted you to have. And then I realized that probably not everyone was going to listen to every charism episode. So I wanted to put this in its own episode so that nobody missed it.
Jill Simons [00:03:24]:
And what I want to do basically more than anything else, as we really break open detailed discernment as a community, I want to give you some tools for really looking at what the assessment is telling you, because basically there are going to be a different flavor. There is going to be a different flavor to your assessment results based on where you are at in your spiritual journey. And I think this is a really important thing to talk about because I have had people say, I want to use this in my organization. We are 80% Christian, and I don’t know what to do with the 20% of other people that are going to take it if we do it as a whole. But they’re not baptized, so like what happens? And at the same time, you have people who are baptized, who are at wildly different stages in their spiritual journey. You have people that have been walking very intimately with the Lord for very long time. You have people that are maybe a lot of people would describe as lukewarm, where it’s kind of just sort of going through the motions of their faith. And what results you receive on the assessment are going to be colored by where you’re at.
Jill Simons [00:04:43]:
So here’s how I want you to kind of look at that and assess that, because there’s a huge temptation to undervalue literally no matter where you are at in the spectrum. The temptation here is undervaluing, and a lot of people want to undervalue in an effort at humility, right? I’m not going to really think highly of what I might have been given because that is going to be inherently prideful no matter what. So that’s what I want to address. Let’s look at somebody who is not baptized yet. What happens when they take the assessment? An unbaptized person who takes the assessment is going to get a result based solely on their nature. Where is their nature kind of oriented towards within the charismatic gifts? Said another way, what does it look like they are most likely to be given should they be given supernatural grace? Because we know from St. Thomas Aquinas, as we’ve said so many times, grace builds on nature. So you are most likely, it’s not impossible, but it is highly likely that you’re going to receive charisms that build on your nature.
Jill Simons [00:06:04]:
So on a very natural level, I am extremely extroverted. I am extremely comfortable in front of groups of people. I love theater. I love to speak in front of people. All of these things are just natural talents and abilities that I have. And so for me to have then been given a charism of leadership makes a lot of sense on even just a natural level. But the way that I have received it, it is a grace because of the sacraments that I have received. So if I had taken this assessment prior to receiving any form of grace through the sacraments, it is highly likely that I still would have ranked very highly for leadership because that is where my nature is most oriented towards.
Jill Simons [00:06:53]:
Now again, like always, we don’t want to limit God. So we don’t want to say you can only be given charisms that are in just perfect alignment with your nature. You might be given a charism that really stretches you because the Lord is inviting you into this large period of growth with Him or there’s a huge shift in your life after you receive sacramental grace that might have you moving in a totally new direction. Totally possible. God can do whatever He wants. He does amazing things and we’re not going to limit it. But we do want to identify trends to help us in the discernment process. So a big trend is that the grace you receive will build on your nature.
Jill Simons [00:07:35]:
So that’s the results that your results that you’re baptized person, where is your nature geared towards within the gifts that you could be given. Similar, when you are baptized but you are not necessarily walking in a rich, fulfilling, intimate life of faith. Those charisms that rank highly for you are going to be largely based on what your nature is oriented towards because there’s a decent chance that you have seen a limited amount of supernatural effects in your life. Because, if for no other reason, your lifestyle is not reflecting the fact that you believe that is possible. So for instance, if I know that supernatural goings on are available to me, then it’s likely I would have lived in such a way that embraces that reality, unless I’m dealing with fear or other kind of strongholds of the enemy. But if I know that that’s possible, it’s likely that I would have pressed into that. And so a lot of times people who have not pressed into that don’t really know that it’s possible. And so that I’m going to say is our largest population segment taking the assessment: people that have received grace but have never really tested it in any profound way and so there’s a high likelihood that they’ve experienced some of that supernatural fruit.
Jill Simons [00:09:16]:
But it’s kind of been by accident. It’s been times where they were acting in a way that felt natural to them and the Holy Spirit was like, oh, I got to use this, and slipped in and really brought about a supernatural result. And so a lot of people will have some examples of something potentially supernatural as they’re discerning their charisms, but some people don’t really feel like they do. That is okay. We are not necessarily looking to your past as the only place for us to see this supernatural workings. Instead, when this has been kind of the mindset that you’re bringing into the process, we want to look to the future and to the things that the Lord wants to do and creating spaces where the supernatural can come to be. Where we can cooperate with grace in that way to really test these charisms. And then finally you have people who really believe that the supernatural charism operation is possible. And so they’ve been walking in it even if they didn’t have language for it, even if they could not articulate,
Jill Simons [00:10:31]:
these are what my charisms are. This is how I use them. They have more or less fallen into it through intimacy with God. Perfectly valid. I don’t want to invalidate that in any way, but those are going to be your people that have like, okay, yeah, I have supernatural stories that go along with this. And discernment is usually extremely quick and easy for these people because there is this breadth of supernatural, historic evidence that leads into one charism or another very specifically. So wherever you’re at in this spectrum, that is a perfectly valid place to be. We don’t want to say that only people in camp three who are very spiritually advanced are the only people that actually have charisms.
Jill Simons [00:11:25]:
I’ve come across people who teach this, that you have to have this kind of storied supernatural history with something for it to be valid. I don’t believe that that’s true. I believe that that is something that comes about as a result of reaching this kind of intimacy with God. And that’s what we want to invite everyone into. So rather than, okay, you’re less than if you’re in camp one or two. And only these people in camp three are really worthy, quote unquote, of charisms. We want to look at group three and say, this is what all of us are being called to. This is what every single one of us is being invited into.
Jill Simons [00:12:07]:
And all you have to do is opt in. All you have to do is receive the grace of the sacraments. All you have to do is cooperate with that grace in your life. All you have to do is to trust that God will show up the way that He says He will when you use this gift that He has given you. And that is how you move from camp one and two to camp three. So that’s what I want to preface these individual charism episodes with because as I talk about each of the individual charisms, I’m going to be going into, what does it really look like for this to be supernatural? And as I was praying about this, I just knew right away there’s going to be thousands of you that are going to listen and be like, well, I’ve never experienced anything like that. So no, this isn’t me. I could never do that.
Jill Simons [00:12:59]:
I’ve never done that before. That is too big, too impressive, too amazing for somebody like me. And reaching for that would be prideful. So I wanted to just put the kibosh on that from the very beginning. This is about renewing our minds about what is possible. People don’t reach for things that they don’t believe are possible. And there’s this story that one of my mentors told me, and I tell it a lot when I am in person giving events and things like that, about the four minute mile and that no one thought it was possible to run a four minute mile. And so there was one person and their trainer that decided to go after running the four minute mile.
Jill Simons [00:13:50]:
And so they trained really hard, went after it and lo and behold, he did it. The first person to do this was named Roger Bannister and he was 25 years old and it was 1954. And it was always believed that this was impossible. But now, in the, whatever, 70 odd years since, 80 odd years since, almost 2000 athletes have broken that four minute mile barrier. There’s actually been someone who has lowered his record by 17 seconds and the current mile record is at three minutes and 43 seconds. And all of those people, those almost 2000 people did that because they realized that it was possible. After Roger broke that barrier for them, they came to realize that it could be broken and so then they went after it. And so here’s what I want us to think about when I talk about each of these charisms over the next three months, I’m hopefully going to be touching on a bit of what is possible in each of the charisms.
Jill Simons [00:15:12]:
And then hopefully, in the spring, we’ll be having another series on each of the individual charisms where we go through a story of a saint with each of these charisms and what was possible in their life when they walked in it fully. But I want us to be the 2000 athletes listening to the story of Roger Bannister and not approach it the way that most of us approach spiritual matters. Where we hear a story of a saint and we think that it’s the height of humility to be like, well, I could never ever do that and I have no intention of trying. There’s no benefit to that. That doesn’t help anyone. When we limit what we allow God to do in our story, no one benefits. When we actually have humility, which is a correct understanding of ourself, the ability to be self-forgetful because we understand ourselves fully and most importantly in relationship with God. And we have that clarity about the fact that when we do these supernatural things, it is only in submission to God and that He’s the one doing it. Then the top blows off the whole thing and anything is possible.
Jill Simons [00:16:41]:
And I think a lot of us stay away from that space because that’s where things can get really scary. That’s where it can feel out of control. It can feel like we don’t know what’s going to happen. And we’ve been very conditioned to want things to be very controlled and acceptable and normal and whatever else baggage terms you want to add. But it’s actually freedom to be able to cooperate with whatever God throws our way, to be able to go on the adventure with Him in the moment. And I think that the Holy Spirit is calling up a generation to go on an adventure like none of us have ever imagined before in our lives. But a lot of us are way too comfortable with how things are, with saying our rosary by ourselves in our living room, which, respect, that’s an important part of the puzzle, but it’s not the whole puzzle. The whole puzzle is spending that intimate time with the Lord so that we are also enlivened and encouraged to do the going out part, to do the using part, to do our charisms with the kind of freedom and courage that he’s inviting us into. And the biggest mistake we can make, aside from using our charisms to prove something about ourselves and perform, is to not accept a charism that God has given us in the name of quote, unquote humility.
Jill Simons [00:18:37]:
When you see what is possible, when you hear these upcoming episodes about things that can be possible in each of the 24 charisms, I want that to be the thing that lights a fire instead of putting it out. Instead of saying, wow, “I could never do that”, I want that to light your flame, to say, that could be me. That could be something that the Holy Spirit has for me. And as long as you are doing the road with Him, you’re going to be in good shape. You’re not going to end up in some crazy prideful place if that intimacy with God is maintained. That is how and why I do what I do. I am so far from perfect. I’ve made so many mistakes in my life.
Jill Simons [00:19:34]:
I identify so deeply with Paul where I’m able to really freely live from a place of you guys, if this is for me, well, holy cow, you shouldn’t be worried at all, this is of course for you. Because He definitely would not have called me if there was this list of requirements. I believe that I will be a part of incredible supernatural fruit in the American Church, and, I pray, in the world, because I have no limits to what I believe is possible for the Holy Spirit to do in me. I don’t limit that at all. I’m along for the ride. I’m here to make the mistakes and learn the lessons and do the things knowing that all successes are God’s because He is the one living in me. And I’m here to challenge you that that can be your story, too.
Jill Simons [00:20:44]:
And your story is going to be 100% different than mine, because there is endless, amazing diversity of saints. All evil people, dictators, whatever, are so boringly similar. There’s such a limited brush of creativity that they can work with because they are always just mocking the creativity of God. And of course, the creativity of God is endless. And so I have ranted way longer than I intended to in this episode. Moral of the story: listen to the individual charism episodes with hope. That if you think something is your charism, if you’re discerning it, and you have not seen the kind of things I’m talking about yet, that does not disqualify you. That is your source of hope for what is coming. God is going to do amazing things in us if we don’t cut Him off at the knees first.
Jill Simons [00:21:49]:
We need to use our free will to let Him move, and then we will be amazed. God bless you. Thanks so much for joining us on today’s episode of Charisms for Catholics. If you would like to learn more about your charisms or begin your own discernment journey me, 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.
