As Catholics, we are blessed with a rich tapestry of saints who have lived diverse lives, each contributing uniquely to the body of Christ. In Episode 89 of Charisms for Catholics, host Jill Simons and guest Theresa Zoe Williams delve into the Charism of Knowledge and highlight three saints who exemplify this spiritual gift. Let’s explore their contributions and learn how they synthesized information for the greater glory of God.
Blessed Carlo Acutis: The Modern Tech-Apostle
Blessed Carlo Acutis is a recent example of someone with the Charism of Knowledge. Born in the 1990s, Carlo was a millennial who had an extraordinary grasp of both spiritual and technological knowledge. His most notable contribution was cataloging Eucharistic miracles on a website, making this profound aspect of faith accessible to modern believers.
Carlo’s dedication to cataloging over 100 Eucharistic miracles from across the globe showcases his unique ability to synthesize information from diverse sources. By leveraging technology, he made important spiritual knowledge accessible to anyone with an internet connection. His work continues to inspire Eucharistic devotion and offers a compelling model for utilizing knowledge in today’s digital age.
Saint Alphonsus Liguori: The Scholarly Shepherd
Venturing back a few centuries, Saint Alphonsus Liguori provides another sterling example of someone blessed with the Charism of Knowledge. Initially a successful lawyer, Alphonsus grew disillusioned with the secular world’s instability. He renounced his legal career to become a priest and focused on theological, moral, and ascetic writings.
Alphonsus’ ability to synthesize vast amounts of information and make it understandable is evident through his theological and moral teachings. His significant contributions to Catholic theology earned him the title of Doctor of the Church. As Jill Simons and Theresa Zoe Williams noted, the Charism of Knowledge often accompanies other charisms, such as writing. Saint Alphonsus exemplifies how deep intellectual understanding can be transmitted to broader audiences effectively.
Saint Jerome: The Biblically Brilliant
Finally, we travel back to the 4th and 5th centuries to meet Saint Jerome, a giant of ecclesiastical history. Known for his somewhat crotchety temperament, Jerome’s lifetime of studying Latin, Greek, and Hebrew culminated in his immense work: translating the Bible into Latin, known as the Vulgate.
Jerome’s grasp of various languages and his intellectual rigor allowed him to make the scriptures accessible to the average Christian in a way that had never been done before. Despite his challenging personality, his scholarly contributions have had a lasting impact on Christianity. His life shows that the Charism of Knowledge is not just about gathering information but making it available in a way that people can use and understand.
Grace Builds on Nature
An essential takeaway from these saints is how grace builds upon our natural abilities. God uniquely designs each of us, and through baptism, grace can elevate our natural talents. Jerome, for instance, had extensive intellectual capabilities even before his conversion; these were exponentially magnified once he aligned himself fully with God’s will.
Conclusion
Each of these saints—Blessed Carlo Acutis, Saint Alphonsus Liguori, and Saint Jerome—demonstrates the Charism of Knowledge in different ways, but all serve the same purpose: to build up the Church and make God’s wisdom accessible to others. By studying their lives, we can gain insight into how to harness our own charisms and contribute uniquely to our community.
If you’re interested in discerning your charisms or understanding them better, visit manypartsministries.com for more resources and tools to guide you on your spiritual journey.
Jill Simons:
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. Hello, and welcome to today’s episode of the Charisms for Catholics podcast. Today we are back talking about more saints for a specific Charism. Today we’re talking about the Charism of Knowledge and several saints that give us some insight into what it looks like to really live with this charism so that if this is one of your charisms, these can be people that you look to amongst the huge communion of saints as an example of what it looks like to have and to use this charism. And, of course, this isn’t exhaustive.
Jill Simons:
There’s tons of other saints for each of these charisms, but we’ve pulled out a few that seem to really exemplify the core of these individual charisms. So once again, to talk about our saints for knowledge, we have my wonderful friend and employee, Theresa Zoe Williams, with me, and she’s gonna be sharing with us about 3 saints today for the Charism of Knowledge. So thanks so much for being with me, Theresa.
Theresa Zoe Williams:
Hey, Jill. It’s always so good to be here. I love doing this with you.
Jill Simons:
So let’s go ahead and kick it off talking about our first saint for the charism of knowledge.
Theresa Zoe Williams:
Yes. So this one’s exciting because his final miracle for needed for canonization was just approved. So this is blessed Carlo Acutis. What a fun guy this one is. I wanted to start so I’m starting most recent and going back in time with these 3 for knowledge, and I thought that would be good because we need modern examples to understand how we use it today. And, blessed Carlo, is a perfect example because he was born in the nineties the 19 nineties that is and lived he’s a millennial. He would have been, in his thirties right now. So but what he’s famous for is for cataloging all of the Eucharistic miracles on a website and with info on each one so that you could learn more about the Eucharist and have a greater Eucharistic devotion.
Theresa Zoe Williams:
And so just his knowledge of all of the different miracles that have happened is incredible. That’s a huge feat to catalog as many as he could, but there were I think there are 100 on his list that just from all over the world, and he did all of this work himself. He did the grunt work for it. He and then he made it accessible. And so going into that, he also had a lot of tech knowledge, which is very important in today’s day and time. So there’s a lot of different kinds of knowledge, and Carlo shows us 2 different kinds like that technology, that modern, what’s happening right now, technological information knowledge, and then there’s also, like, spiritual knowledge. And he shows us both of those kinds, and I just love that because it mixes something that’s timeless with something that’s very in a moment. So you are made for your moment.
Theresa Zoe Williams:
Wasn’t it Catherine of Sienna that said that aren’t you made for a moment like this or that was in Ruth? Maybe I was made for
Jill Simons:
Yes. Ruth. Maybe perhaps and the Catholic translations are much less fun in how they say it. If you go to the what is it? The KJV, I think, version. Perhaps this is the moment for which you are created. I wanna say the the Catholic versions are, like, just a lot less pithy and direct to a powerful quote, but yes that’s the sense we have with Esther specifically.
Theresa Zoe Williams:
Esther, That’s the one. Yes. I get sometimes I get my old testament ladies confused. Sorry, everyone. That’s really true, and that’s why it’s part of the Bible because it’s true for all ages and all times that we will go through. You were made for this moment, and Carlo shows us how we meld those things together in in ourselves uniquely. And so I love and he’s just a fun guy, period, because he is so close to us, and he would only be a few years younger than me and you, and I just went he would have gone through and had did go through so many of the same things that we
Jill Simons:
have seen. And He was Spider Man for Halloween. He
Theresa Zoe Williams:
He had a bunny pet bunny. He loved gaming games, but he also loved being outdoors. And didn’t he play a sport too? I feel like he played some soccer.
Jill Simons:
He is definitely one that we have taken as a patron at many parts because of the connection of technology and creating a space for people to greater encounter what the Lord is doing, which is, of course, what he was doing with miracles. And just as a reminder for everybody listening, the crux of knowledge as a charism is about being able to synthesize information and pull it together from diverse sources. So like Therese is talking about with the Eucharistic miracles, this wasn’t something that there was a fully complete synthesized kind of glossary or index of these things that had existed before. So he was pulling this information from very diverse sources to be able to make that something that the church could then access in a clear way, which is so often the way that knowledge works is to be able to bring all this stuff together to transmit it to people in a way where people are like, okay, I can deal with that, I can interact with that kind of synthesized boiled down version of things. I probably don’t have the ability to go out and read all these different sources and pull it all together, but this I can use. This I can take what I need for my personal faith.
Theresa Zoe Williams:
Knowledge is very I love that you don’t like, you think of knowledge as just knowing things, But, really, like you said, it’s about bringing it together in a way that’s accessible. And, yes, Carlo did that so beautifully for his time, which is our time. Just he I just love that he used what was there in front of him and what was out there and brought it all together so that we could have that. I think that’s very special. Not that anybody else’s contributions aren’t special, but it’s special for us because we’re living it right now. We’re living the direct benefits of what he did. We just had the National Eucharistic Congress that happened, and a lot of stuff that happened there, they used Carlo’s resources for just very beautiful work that has direct impact on us. So I couldn’t not include him in this list.
Jill Simons:
I love it. So who is our so you said we’re going back in time. So what time period are we going back to for our second person?
Theresa Zoe Williams:
Oh, I knew you would ask me this, and I knew I wouldn’t have it.
Jill Simons:
Oh, shoot. Alright. I didn’t mean to put you on the spot.
Theresa Zoe Williams:
I had looked this up, but I didn’t write it down. 16 1700.
Jill Simons:
Okay.
Theresa Zoe Williams:
So we’re dropping back quite a little bit. About about 300 years is what we’re looking at here. So Saint Alphonsus Liguori, I he is such an underrated saint. He’s, like, a sleeper hit, I feel like.
Jill Simons:
So he started
Theresa Zoe Williams:
as a lawyer, and so he was able to pull knowledge from all different kinds of things and through people of all walks of life and synthesize these in ways that would help people in their pursuits. And that’s a great use of it. But he saw how the secular world turns on a whim, and he didn’t like that. He didn’t like the instability that the world offers. And so he and he was pretty famous as a lawyer at this point, but he gave it all up and went on to become to study, become a priest, and all of that. And then he wrote so he probably has a secondary charasm of writing as well because he wrote on moral, theological, and aesthetic matters, giving us clarity and understanding on certain points of faith, certain points of moral theology, certain parts of, like how would you describe aesthetic for someone who doesn’t know?
Jill Simons:
Oh, just, like, what the denial of self, like, really is for and what it looks like in the Christian life and where that falls in things.
Theresa Zoe Williams:
And he was very good about making this understandable to large groups of people. So he had this knowledge in his head that he could then transmit in a completed sort of way. And these, again, were things that hadn’t been synthesized before that he was writing on. Because of all that he did, he is named a doctor of the church too. So I just I love that. He’s not one you hear about very often at all, and yet he plays this almost like a pillar part in our theological life and our moral life as Catholics.
Jill Simons:
And that’s something so commonly is that knowledge coming alongside another charism that’s really about transmission, so having it together with writing or sometimes it’s together with teaching or together with another mode that helps you have that means of relaying the knowledge you’ve synthesized.
Theresa Zoe Williams:
Yeah. And he’s just such a beautiful example. He was such a beautiful man and just very mild mannered, especially after he decided not to be a lawyer anymore and just a very calming presence in the world. Yeah. And I think it’s just so beautiful that he then had this bigness inside of him that he was able to get out and invite people into.
Jill Simons:
Yeah. That magnanimity. That’s awesome.
Theresa Zoe Williams:
That’s a great word. I love that word.
Jill Simons:
Who is our final saint?
Theresa Zoe Williams:
Our final saint is someone dear to me again. I guess they’re all dear to me. Once you learn about someone, how can they not be dear to you? But Saint Jerome, grumpy Jerome, and he was known for being crotchety. That’s his big thing. I love him for it. Someone’s it means that anyone, regardless of temperament, can become a saint, can be holy, can be close to God. Why? Because we’re all made in his image, and it’s just about surrendering ourselves to him and to his love. And Jerome did that despite being very crotchety.
Theresa Zoe Williams:
He once got in a fight with Saint Augustine over different matters, and they sniped at each other and everything. And then they were able to repair their relationship and be on friendly terms before they died. And but just his temperament was not an easy one to get along with, unlike Alfonsus Liguori. Jerome, we’re going back really far.
Jill Simons:
If he was a contemporary of Augustine, then that would be, like, 300.
Theresa Zoe Williams:
Yep. 4th 5th centuries. Yeah. Now we’re going back about a 1000 years. So really early on. First of all, he amassed all kinds of knowledge. So he studied Latin, Greek, grammar, philosophy, rhetoric. He’s studied under Saint Gregory Nazianzus, who then imported lots of theological and moral information to him.
Theresa Zoe Williams:
And so he’s got all of these things going on in his brain. And and what it really synthesized as he translated the bible from hebrew from the Hebrew and old Latin into the Vulgate. And that was the gift to the world so that suddenly everyone could understand it. As long as you had a priest or a learned person among you, you could understand the bible in your in terms that you could understand now. And then that leads then to the translations of the bible that we have now. It made all of this possible. And but he needed all of that knowledge first, and he studied Latin and Greek and grammar philosophy rhetoric before he became a Christian. So he had all this going on pre conversion and then had his conversion, studied under one of the greats, and made friends with Augustine, so many other contemporaries of that time, and then he amassed more.
Theresa Zoe Williams:
And he needed all of these diverse types of knowledge to be able to translate the Bible because it’s very diverse. It talks even just looking at the Bible as a history book, it spans so many different eras and decades and cultural and social understandings that you really had to understand what was going on in each of these time periods to understand what these different things mean in the Bible and and why they’re using the wording they are or the traditions they are or whatnot. And I just love him for it. He’s my favorite uncle’s confirmation saint, so I have a soft spot. My uncle is also a little crotchety, so they get along very well.
Jill Simons:
A good fit. It’s a great thing that you pointed out, like, the education and really the minds that he had prior to his conversion. And so many people will point to that and be like, how can you say that’s a charism because clearly this is, like, something he could do and he even pre baptism and stuff, and that’s a good reminder that grace builds on top of nature. And so this really truly supernatural thing to have been able to translate the entire bible at a time when it had not been done before in that way is something where grace is overlaying the way that God made him to be, right, because he doesn’t have anything in his makeup that isn’t designed intentionally by God. So a lot of times people will say, oh, I know someone who’s just so smart or so whatever’ and fill in the adjective, but they haven’t been baptized, does that kind of contradict this idea of charisms or something like that? And that no. That person is likely just called to really greatness in that area because that’s where grace would likely overlay and take that ability even further if that’s something that they receive in the sacrament of baptism, and so I love that example. That’s what’s happened for him, that he had that very natural inclination towards learning a great mind for it because God created it that way, And when we see grace overlay that, we have incredible things happen.
Theresa Zoe Williams:
Right. We forget that. I think we forget this because we’re we’re very invested in infant baptism as Catholics. Having that grace from the very beginning of your life, which is a huge help. That that’s a whole other conversation, but very simply, it’s a huge help to have baptism very early on. But because of that, we don’t get to see a lot of what nature has given us. We see it overlaid with grace a lot more often than we don’t. So we forget that God made you a certain way so that grace can then build upon that.
Theresa Zoe Williams:
Yep. And so even whatever charisms you do have, you had them naturally first. They were given to you as gifts naturally first, and then grace built upon them. Mhmm. I should have said this in music, but a lot of big musicians were actually baptized Catholics. So secular musicians. So, like, Dave Grohl of the Foo Fighters was baptized Catholic, and then you see all the great work that he’s gone on to do in music and in his personal life. He’s very devoted to charities and helping the poor and the homeless and things like that.
Theresa Zoe Williams:
Pete Wentz and Patrick Stump from Fall Out Boy were both baptized Catholics as kids. And so you see grace building upon nature even when we don’t let it, when we’re not actively allowing it to, when we’re just passively allowing it to. And just, again, grace builds upon nature. I love that. And I I love Jerome for this too, because he’s such just a great example of of how and Augustine is too. If we’re really looking at that, we’re gonna talk about him later, but in another episode. He was an adult convert, basically. And he had all of this knowledge beforehand too and then how it exploded once he was baptized, once he was Christian.
Theresa Zoe Williams:
And so Jerome and Augustine are really great examples of that explosion that we see happen from grace, not because we didn’t have it before, but because now it’s given its supernatural quality.
Jill Simons:
Yeah. Absolutely. Thanks so much for sharing about these saints for knowledge with us. We will see you back in 2 weeks when we’ll have another episode looking at more saints for a new Charism, and on our off weeks we’re having regular episodes of the podcast so you can catch those as well. If you have never left a review for the podcast, I really encourage you to do that because that helps a lot of new people to come across the podcast as they’re looking in general kind of Catholic podcasts that shows them this as an option so that they can discover more about their charisms as well. 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, head to our website at manypartsministriesdot com where you can download our free pdf guide to all 24 charisms and also begin your own journey by taking our charism assessment.
