Charisms vs. natural gifts

Sherry Weddell, Associate Director

The differences explained

In every Called & Gifted Workshop, the same issue comes up: What is the difference between natural gifts and charisms? The answer is not a simple one because all gifts, whether natural or supernatural, are mysterious. When George Frederick Handel wrote his famous oratorio "Messiah" in twenty-seven days under what he believed to the be the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, was he simply using his already well-developed natural musical ability, or is the "Messiah" the fruit of a charism of music? Were both Handel’s natural gifts and charisms at work in this masterpiece? How important is that we know? Natural gifts and charisms both come from God, don’t they? Is trying to separate out the role of natural gifts and charisms a bit like trying to ask which blade of a scissors does the cutting?

These are the sorts of questions to which wise Christians are tempted to respond in that classic teacher’s dodge, "Good question! Next?" After all, if the Holy Spirit had intended this whole charism business to be crystal clear, the least he could have done would have been to inspire St. Paul to be a bit more specific when he wrote about the gifts. Paul just rattles off lists of charisms without ever clearly defining what he means by them or talking about how they are related to and interact with natural gifts. So we need to recognize at the very beginning that there is a certain ambiguity about this whole issue that is of divine origin.

Perhaps it is best to begin with what we do know about what charisms and natural gifts have in common. We know that they are both given to human beings by God. For both, the old adage is true "that you can’t put it what God’s left out." The many different kinds of intelligence, such as the kinesthetic (the lack of which has ensured that as a dancer, I’m a great singer) and the various kinds of creativity (How come some people create books instead of paintings or new businesses?) are all from God and are intended to be used to his glory and in accordance with his good and loving purposes.

In this sense, the role of a natural gift in the life of one who seeks to follow Jesus as Lord takes on a certain charism-like quality. As disciples, we desire that all that we are, including all our natural gifts, become channels of God’s love and life in the world.

Of course, natural gifts can be inherited from our parents while charisms are not. Natural gifts may show up very early in life, and their emergence may not be connected to any spiritual direction in our lives. We can utterly reject God at every turn and still possess powerful natural gifts. But the appearance of charisms is directly connected to our openness to the Spirit of God in our lives. For some Catholics, the sacraments are the catalyst. Others experience a gradual deepening of faith that has occurred slowly. Some find, as I did, a charism of intercessory prayer emerging suddenly after a conversion experience.

A Christian can possess a natural gift in an area and yet not have the corresponding charisms (not all competent public school teachers have charisms of teaching, for instance). Sometimes it seems that God takes a natural gift and raises it to the level of a charism, or sometimes the exercise of a charism seems to be built upon the foundation of natural gifts. When Christopher Parkening, the virtuoso classical guitarist, gave up his musical career at the age of 30, he was burned out. His conversion to a living faith in Christ three years later led him back into the musical world where he now says, "My music and my commitment to Christ are so intertwined that I can’t separate the two" (Christianity Today, December 11, 1995, page 43). One of the characteristics of a charism is that it is a direct expression of one’s faith, and the exercise of a charism often has a prayerful or contemplative quality about it. I suspect that Christopher Parkening’s natural musical talent may have been raised to the level of a charism of music.

While a natural gift may become a channel of grace when offered back to the one who first gave it to us, it can also become a channel of evil. Here we see one of the significant differences between a charism and a natural gift. A charism is designed for only one thing—to enable ordinary Christians to serve as a channel of God’s love and provision for the world. You can’t take the charism of administration that you use to run a parish and put it to work running a drug cartel. A charism is a sort of channel that will only carry the pure water of the Holy Spirit and can’t be turned into a sewer pipe at the whim of its steward. Unless we are seeking to follow Jesus, our charisms will wither away.

But does that mean that the workings of a true charism will always be obviously supernatural? I don’t think that either scripture or the teaching of the Church indicates that this will always be so. The Catechism of the Catholic Church teaches, "Whether extraordinary or simple and humble, charisms are graces of the Holy Spirit which directly or indirectly benefit the Church, ordered as they are to her building up, to the good of men, and to the needs of the world" (799). For lay Catholics, whose special vocation is "engaging in temporal affairs and directing them according to God’s will" (CCC, 898), our charisms are intended to be exercised for "the good of men and the needs of the world" primarily outside our parishes.

The same charism of leadership or teaching that seems obviously supernatural when exercised in a small Christian community can be used by God in a very different setting. The committed Christian who feels called by God to evangelize the structures of society by working for health care reform will be doing the work of God and using his or her charisms in doing so. Will it be obvious to a senate subcommittee or university class that the man or woman standing before them is seeking above all to do the will of God and is operating out of charisms? Probably not. Would you be able to separate out this Christian’s natural gifts and education, family and cultural background, spiritual gifts and spiritual life in trying to analyze the effectiveness of his or her presentation? Probably not. While charisms are a critical addition to our natural abilities, when we stand before our Lord and the world, we stand as a whole person whose various parts are harmonized and integrated by the Holy Spirit for divine ends. At that moment when God is lavishing his love on the world through us, can we be certain as to whether God is accomplishing his purpose through a charism or our natural gifts or through a mysterious melding of the two?

Why is it important to discern our charisms if we don’t exercise them in some kind of chemical isolation? Our charisms are both essential tools that enable us to carry out our God-given mission in life and critical clues as to what our mission may be. All that God intends to do through us requires that we take up in obedience all the sources of grace and spiritual power he provides for us. The world desperately needs what God intends to provide through your charisms. But let’s not confuse the process of discerning charisms with actual lived experience of using them in the vocations to which we have been called. Grace builds on nature, as St. Thomas observed, and God delights in blending the natural gifts and supernatural gifts that he has given us together in a single expression of his love and redeeming power.

Reprinted with permission from Gleanings, the newsletter for the Western Washington Catholic Charismatic Renewal.