A Charismatic Check-Up

A Charismatic Check-Up

Pat Collins C.M., a lecturer in Spirituality at All Hallows College, Dublin helps us to see where we are spirituality

Many of us have an annual check-up. When the results become available, the doctor usually gives us a pep talk and recommends life-changes such as dieting and taking exercise. While it is good to take care of the body, in this way, it is even more important to care for the soul. Surely, we need regular spiritual check-ups. They should look at important aspects of our spiritual lives, with a view to ascertaining what changes might be needed. This questionnaire focuses on three outstanding characteristics of charismatic spirituality, being filled, guided and empowered by the Spirit.

A Questionnaire

Where applicable indicate whether your answer is:

• Never = 0
• Sometimes = 1
• Often = 2
• Always = 3

1. At some point you experienced a spiritual awakening, one that enabled you to have an a new, personal awareness of the length and breadth, the height and depth of the unconditional love of Christ for you. Have you had subsequent in-fillings that have strengthened that sense of God’s merciful love?

2. A spiritual awakening is often associated with the granting of the charismatic gifts mentioned in 1 Cor 12:8-10. If you received one or more of the charisms when you were filled with the Spirit or afterwards, e.g. the gift of praying in tongues, do you exercise them as much now as you once did?

3. Charismatic spirituality is scripture based. The Holy Spirit leads those who prayerfully reflect upon it into the truth about God and God’s purposes. Do you find that when you read the scriptures, the word of God, which is true in itself, regularly leaps alive off the page into your heart with such inner meaning and relevance, that it guides your everyday actions?

4. The exhortation, “Walk by the Spirit” in Gal 5:16 is the key to an inspired Christian ethic. The spiritual guidance, required to carry out this injunction, can come in different ways, such as an inner prompting, a twinge of conscience, a prophetic word of knowledge etc. Are you sensitive and docile to such forms of guidance?

5. The gift of discernment of spirits enables you to identify the origin and orientation of your inspirations. Those that come from God, and lead to God, are prompted by the Holy Spirit and will be associated 17with feelings of consolation, such as joy and peace. Those that come from ourselves or the Evil Spirit will sooner or later lead to feelings of desolation, such as sadness and dissatisfaction. Are you reflective enough to notice what spirits are motivating you?

6. St Ignatius of Loyola pointed out that God may withdraw the consolation of the Spirit as a result of such things as spiritual laziness, neglect of prayer, lack of effort in resisting temptation, or because the person is focusing on the consolations of God rather than the God of consolation. When you suffer from desolation of spirit, do you prayerfully try to recognize how God is trying to purify you?

7. Genuine religious experience and divine guidance, usually lead to a greater sense of inner freedom. As St Paul observed: “Where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom” 2 Cor 3:17. Do you find that instead of living your life on the basis of cheerless duty, you are increasingly motivated by a joyful sense of inner conviction?

8. St Paul asked rhetorically in 2 Cor 13:5 “Do you not realize that Jesus Christ is within you?” Besides being aware of the transcendence of the loving God beyond you, are you also aware of the immanence of Christ’s Loving presence within you, enabling you, by the power of the Holy Spirit, to live in Him all that he himself lived?

9. When you are conscious of the love of God, do you try to see and love in others, especially the poor and the oppressed, what the Lord is seeing and loving in you? Does your love find practical expression in deeds of mercy and action for justice, or is your spirituality so heavenly minded as to be of no earthly use?

10. Those who have a spiritual outlook appreciate the fact that the existence of the world around them, the countless blessings they have received, are all the gifts of God. Not only that, they believe that evil, their own and that of others, never has the last word. It belongs to God and it is always a word of blessing. Do you express gratitude always and for everything Cf. 1 Thess 5:17-18), by thanking and praising God in all circumstances, good and bad alike?

Diagnosis Leads to Remedial action

cartoon When you have done your best to answer the ten questions, you will be more aware of your charismatic state of health. If you got 0 – 10 you are in an unhealthy state; if you got 11 – 20 you are moderately healthy; if you got from 21 – 30 you are enjoying good charismatic health. It is worth noting that, the results are merely intended to be humorously indicative rather than statistically accurate. Just as the doctor would make recommendations on the basis of a physical check-up, so a spiritual director could make recommendations on the basis of a charismatic inventory. I suspect that he or she might encourage you to concentrate on the following three points.

Firstly, spend time in prayer every day. Ask God, not only to fill you with the Holy Spirit, but to help you to acknowledge whatever might be blocking that in-filling. Ask with confidence, mindful of the promise of Jesus: “If you who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will the heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him!” Lk 11:13.

Secondly, the charismatic ethic can be summed up in the words of Paul in Gal 5:16 “live by the Spirit.” Every day ask the Lord for divine guidance. You can do so by saying a prayer like the following, “Father in heaven, your Spirit is a Spirit of truth and love. Pour that same Holy Spirit into my body, mind and soul. Preserve me today from all illusion and false inspirations. Reveal your Presence and your will to me in a way I can understand. And I thank you that you will do this, while giving me that ability to respond, through Christ our Lord. Amen.”

Thirdly, believe that when God reveals the dvine will, you will be empowered to carry it out even to the point of healings and miracles. Before embarking on any task, especially a demanding one, you might say a prayer like this: “Lord, the good I wish to do, I cannot do, but you are living out the mysteries of your life in me. Enable me by the Spirit that animated your loving service, to continue and fulfill that same loving service in my own life. Give me the ability to do this task, and I thank you that you will achieve even more than I can ask, or imagine through the power of your Spirit at work within me.”

The check-up proposed here, not only intends to help you to gauge your charismatic state of health, it also aims to help you to identify what you could do to improve it. However, the questionnaire is experimental and tentative in nature. If you have any constructive criticism or suggestions to make, please let me know, by writing to Goodnews.

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