Charisms, also known as spiritual gifts, play a significant role in the life of a Catholic. Discerning and understanding one’s charisms is essential for personal growth and for contributing to the building of the Church. However, one crucial aspect that is often overlooked is the commitment to one’s charisms. In this blog post, we will explore the importance of transitioning from the phase of discernment to a commitment to actively using and living out one’s charisms.
The Paralysis of Endless Discernment
Just like facing numerous choices when buying a vacuum, the discernment of charisms can sometimes lead to analysis paralysis. Endless discernment without moving into the stage of commitment can prevent individuals from fully utilizing their charisms and experiencing the fruits of the Holy Spirit.
The Importance of Making a Decision
While discernment is crucial, it is equally important to make a decision and move into a committed phase where one actively utilizes their charisms. Committing to one’s charisms is about standing firm in one’s knowledge and understanding of what gifts the Holy Spirit has bestowed upon them.
The Power of Commitment
Committing to charisms is not about limiting oneself but rather about embracing the freedom to live out one’s spiritual gifts. It provides a clear direction and allows individuals to be intentional in recognizing opportunities to use their charisms. Just as in the commitment of marriage, where one is no longer entertaining other options, committing to charisms enables individuals to fully embrace and utilize the grace and gifts given by the Holy Spirit.
Moving from Discernment to Action
It is important to acknowledge that the real work and joy begin when one makes the commitment to their charisms. Instead of lingering in a phase of doubt and perpetual discernment, individuals are encouraged to move forward and actively engage in ministering through their charisms on a daily basis.
Understanding and discerning one’s charisms is only the beginning of the journey. The transition from discernment to commitment is where the true empowerment and fruitfulness lie. By making a firm commitment to one’s charisms, individuals can actively contribute to the work of the Church and experience the freedom and joy that comes with living out their spiritual gifts. Committing to charisms allows for a deeper connection with God and a more intentional approach to serving others within the community.
Overall, it’s essential to emphasize the significance of stepping beyond discernment into action, living confidently in the knowledge of one’s charisms, and embracing the opportunities to serve and minister in the most meaningful and impactful ways.
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 are 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:
Hello, dear friends. Today, we are talking about charism commitment, which I actually had to go back and look at all the archives of the podcast to see if we’d already talked about. Because I was like, man, this is really important. Have we not talked about this yet? And lo and behold, we have not. We touched briefly in the discernment episode, way back close to the beginning of the run of the podcast on how do you discern your charisms. We talked a little bit about the importance of ending the discernment process and having the time where you actually move into active use of your charisms versus charisma discernment. But we haven’t done a whole episode on just this idea of charism commitment. So that’s what we’re gonna do today. We’re gonna talk about really how you end a discernment process and how you move into committing to your charisms on a regular basis.
Jill Simons:
And this is a really important step of the process because if you’ve ever had analysis paralysis, say you’re trying to buy a new vacuum and there’s so many hundreds of models on the market with such competing reviews that you get so overwhelmed. You just don’t buy a vacuum. Your floor stays dirty. Right? You don’t get the result that you were going for in researching vacuums in the first place. And so what happens if we just kind of leave charism discernment as this open ended question. We never actually make the decision, make the purchase, if you will, and move into the stage where we’re actually having clean floors on a daily basis, where we’re actually are using our charisms on a regular basis from a a really settled place of knowing that that is our charisms. And so that’s why this stage of commitment is really important. And actually why it is such a criminal oversight that it’s not talked about enough and why it’s probably criminal on my part that I haven’t talked about it yet on the podcast.
Jill Simons:
We made it into the fifties without having a dedicated episode on it because ultimately, the goal is to spend the majority of your life in charism commitment and not charism discernment. There is a very real strain of perfectionism, I think, which we talked about a couple weeks ago, and also just doubt in in God and who he is when we feel like we need to stay in an endless discernment cycle. We yes. We always need to be listening for God’s voice, and, yes, he can say a new thing at any given time. I’m not about to discount that. But we also don’t want to be so paralyzed by the idea of getting it wrong or paralyzed by the fact that God could tell us something different tomorrow that we never actually invest in what God is doing now. And your charisms are what God is doing now. So that’s why moving from this testing, tinkering phase of discernment into these are my charisms.
Jill Simons:
This is what I’m showing up with. This is what I’m doing is so empowering for the individual and ultimately gives us so much more access to the fruits of the Holy Spirit. Because discernment is completely necessary. Right? Looking through all of the vacuum options and reviews It’s completely necessary if we’re gonna make a decision, but we also have to make the decision at some point. We can’t keep searching for input forever. And the decision’s never gonna get made for us unless we really make a commitment. And so that’s that’s the goal of this episode today is to really invite you into making that commitment personally and deciding, for lack of a better term, what charisms you’re gonna show up with on a regular basis. And, yes, we wanna decide In light of everything we’re receiving from the Holy Spirit, we’re receiving from other people, we’re receiving from personal prayer, things like that.
Jill Simons:
So it’s not like we’re deciding in a in a vacuum. Excuse the unintentional wordplay. But we are deciding using the best of our ability, using the best of the resources available to us. But then ultimately choosing to reject the impulse to fear or to second guess because we don’t want to be uncomfortable in standing strong in our commitment. And this is the exact same power that the commitment of marriage has or the commitment of Holy Orders. Once, you know, the discernment of that is vital, so important that you actually think about it, that you actually consider all of the options. And the person in front of you, if you’re discerning marriage, is this the person that I am supposed to marry versus somebody else? And that discernment phase is tantamount, but we also can’t stay there forever, we need to move from discerning. And if if you’re not gonna marry him, you need to stop stringing him along.
Jill Simons:
You need to break up can see and and be open and available for whoever God does ultimately have for you if you know that this is not going anywhere. And if you know that you wanna move forward in marriage with someone or move forward on Holy Orders, you need to take steps to actually do that. That doesn’t always mean you get married tomorrow, but you’re moving forward towards the commitment of being in that vocation for the rest of your life. And so when we’re committing to charisms, we wanna have that same kind of mental shift that happens from when we’re discerning marriage into being married as from when we are discerning charisms into living our charisms and committing to them. Because part of the beauty, really have marriage and all this applies for holy orders. But for simplicity’s sake, I’m gonna keep my examples specific to marriage because that is the most common vocation within our listening audience. Just as the real power in the commitment of marriage is the fact that now all the other options are closed to you, and you can really access all of the grace and all of the good things that God has for you in the context of that very specific vocation, in committing to your charisms, you are no longer kind of just up for whatever. I mean, you are up for whatever God puts in front of you, but you have very concrete tools that in mind whatever it is that God puts in front of you.
Jill Simons:
And this allows you to make your decisions with a greater amount of freedom, which is so countercultural to say the fact that commitment actually engenders freedom versus commitment being limiting. Commitment to your charisms gives you the freedom to really test the boundaries of them, to show up with them every day, to be really intentional about allowing God to show you the opportunities to use them. As opposed to being in the discernment phase, there’s a lot more question marks. And those question marks don’t lead into swift and obedient action In the same way that the commitment does. When you are doubting whether or not or whether or not you have a charism of prophecy, you’re probably gonna think a little bit longer and harder about sharing that word you received with someone versus when you have committed to it, there should be a knee jerk reaction, this is what I always do kind of response. And that is why commitment is really important. And that is something that is very large in my mind for 2024. And what we want to provide for you is more resources to be able to commit more fully to your charisms.
Jill Simons:
So, we’ve got a couple projects that we’re working on on that front. Nothing that I can share with you yet, but more resources, more tangible concrete resources that we can provide for you on this front are coming down the pipeline so that you are able to just be more free, more surrendered in making that commitment to your specific charisms. And if nothing else, I really want this episode to serve as your permission slip to move out of discernment. There, I think that there’s something that seems really virtuous and really Catholic and really spiritual about discerning something that we might feel like is kind of lost when you move into committing to something. But that couldn’t be further from the truth. There’s actually the real work starts. The real joy, the real fruit starts when you make the commitment, just like in a family. You know, ideally, the commitment is made before there is the fruit, the children, within that marriage.
Jill Simons:
And we know that that’s not the only way that it comes about, but that’s very much the the goal. That’s what we’re looking for is to not put the cart before the horse and to remember that it’s really in the freedom of commitment that we’re called to use and minister out of your charisms every single day.
Jill Simons:
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 manypartsministries.com, where you can download our free PDF guide to all 24 charisms and can also begin your own journey by taking our charism assessment.
