Once in a while I run into statements like: “Catholics shouldn’t seek to exercise the charisms of the Spirit because St. John of the Cross cautioned against them.” Such concerns come in different forms and are usually raised by people who sincerely desire to grow in holiness through the influence of Carmelite spirituality. In her article, “‘Power Evangelization’: A Catholic and Carmelite Perspective,” Elizabeth Salas offers her version and argues two main points: 1) Unless “other methods have been exhausted,” Catholics should refrain from using extraordinary gifts in evangelization, because according to John of the Cross it is “extraordinarily difficult for [these gifts] to be used without abuse.” 2) Seeking to exercise such gifts in evangelization is not Catholic.¹

While Salas is to be commended for her concern that Catholics who evangelize grow in faith, hope, and charity, her article about evangelization and the gifts of the Spirit contains many serious misunderstandings and errors. Here I will argue that seeking to exercise gifts in evangelization is indeed Catholic and is not precluded by the teachings of John of the Cross. I will close with a pastoral exhortation to humble confidence in Jesus who endows his bride, the Church, with the graces of the Spirit to advance the wonderful good news of salvation.

The Spirit’s Action in Evangelization Is Catholic

Salas lumps Catholics who seek to exercise certain charisms in evangelization into one category called “power evangelists.”² Even if this is an oversimplification, the concept of power evangelization, properly understood, is relatively straightforward and uncontroversial. One can define power evangelization as the preaching of the gospel while praying for and expecting the Spirit to supernaturally confirm the word preached. Such confirmation can include signs of miracles, healings, deliverance from evil spirits, a prophetic word, supernatural conviction in the heart, or even a gentle perception of God’s presence.³ Evangelization accompanied by such signs of God’s presence is not my idea, nor was it the idea of other Christians who have influenced Catholics. It was Jesus’s idea.⁴ So pervasive is the Spirit’s action in evangelization in these confirming ways in the New Testament that one does not need to find a Catechism quote to justify such an approach to evangelization for it to be Catholic.⁵ That some non-Catholic Christians have played a key role in the rediscovery of our Catholic heritage does not make the practice of praying for signs in evangelization any less Catholic. In fact, praying with people and expecting the Spirit to act through the charisms is a common practice among Catholics today.⁶ Salas’s own bishop, Archbishop Vigneron of Detroit, offers a beautiful exhortation to look for signs and wonders to accompany the gospel:

Jesus proclaimed the Gospel not only in words but in healings, miracles, signs and wonders that visibly demonstrated the message: in him the kingdom of God had truly become present (Lk 9:11; Acts 2:22). When he commissioned his disciples to continue his mission, he commanded them to preach the Gospel both in words and in deeds of power (Lk 9:1–2; 10:8–9; Jn 14:12). “They went forth and preached everywhere, while the Lord worked with them and confirmed the word through accompanying signs” (Mk 16:20). Often it was these signs that moved the hearers to believe the Gospel (Acts 8:6; Heb 2:4). So today we look for the proclamation of the good news to be accompanied by signs and wonders that visibly demonstrate God’s love and convince people that Jesus Christ is truly alive. We have been given a prison-shaking Savior, a deliverer who sets captives free! Signs, small and great, are a normal part of the Christian life. Our focus is not on the signs themselves, but on the risen Lord Jesus to whom they point. “By the power at work within us [he] is able to do far more abundantly than all that we ask or imagine” (Eph 3:20).⁷

Sifting through Straw-Man Arguments

Salas sets up a “case study” that examines the methods and teachings of Encounter Ministries, a ministry of which I am the president.⁸ Upon closer examination, this “case study,” as well as her subsequent characterization of Catholics seeking to evangelize with the gifts of the Spirit, are straw men crafted out of false assumptions, factual errors, and puzzling reasoning.⁹ Salas consistently misunderstands and misjudges theological positions and pastoral practices to such a degree that she attributes to the proponents of evangelizing in the power of the Spirit positions and practices that are not even taught or held by them.¹⁰

A set of Salas’s errors on discernment of charisms is especially egregious. She objects to what she perceives is “the lack of proper discernment.” In conjecturing about the assumptions of those who practice “power evangelization,” she makes her own set of assumptions, all of which are completely mistaken.¹¹ She also makes an additional set of false assumptions, which if made intentionally would be considered uncharitable.¹² While Salas rightly acknowledges that the abuse of a good does not destroy the proper use of that good (abusus non tollit usam), her readers would probably conclude that most people seeking to exercise charisms fail to take discernment of God’s movements very seriously. Her readers might also come away believing that Catholics seeking to obey the promptings of the Spirit in evangelization do not share, and are not even aware of, John of the Cross’s general concerns about vanity, pride, and spiritual attachment to certain supernatural phenomena. Of course, these too are false.

Contrary to what Salas’s article implies, I do not hold that miracles are necessary in the strict sense in every act of evangelization.¹³ Nor do I hold that philosophical discourse and intellectual approaches such as apologetics are unnecessary for evangelization. Rather I make the case that praying for signs and wonders, especially healing, to accompany the preaching of the gospel is one of the ways to maximize our evangelistic efforts in a postmodern culture, which on account of its intellectual skepticism and relativism hold personal experience and testimony in high regard.¹⁴ After all, the witness of Scripture remains: signs, wonders, and miracles make the words of the gospel credible, and the words of the gospel make the signs that accompany it intelligible.¹⁵ One of the central conclusions of my book is that the proclamation of the Word of God is sacramental just as the Word itself is. Since the gospel comes in both word and deed in the New Testament — the gospel preached by Jesus and the apostolic Church was accompanied by signs, wonders, and miracles — and since there is no biblical reason why miracles of healing cannot be used in evangelization at all times, healing can be understood as essential to the Church’s evangelization in every age.

In arguing against what she calls the “democratization of the extraordinary gifts,” Salas falsely states that people who practice power evangelization believe that everyone should be exercising extraordinary gifts often in evangelization.¹⁶ Rather, we simply seek to hold to the very tension found in the New Testament between the real authority of every believer to pray effectively for healing and the truth that a special charism of healing is given to some people that enables them to pray for healing more effectively.¹⁷ Encouraging people to step out in faith is not at all the same as claiming this is going to happen all the time through every person. Moreover, Salas’s attempts to use magisterial texts to indicate the “extraordinary” and “exceptional” nature of some charisms as an argument to why they should be more uncommon and rare today is unpersuasive.¹⁸ Nothing in these texts gives us reason to believe that these charisms should be rarer than they are today.¹⁹

John of the Cross in Context

Understanding John of the Cross in his historical context is necessary for any application of his spiritual teachings to believers today. In sixteenth-century Spain, John was writing against a heretical sect called the Alumbrados, who believed that the more visions, prophecies, and ecstasies a person had, the holier they were.²⁰ He was responding to an extreme position which overvalued personal revelation and giftedness to the exclusion of growth in charity. Indeed, excessive focus on personal revelation and extraordinary gifts wreaks havoc on one’s interior life, especially as one is going through the painful purification of the dark nights of the senses and of the spirit. The dangers, as Salas notes, are real. Thus, it’s no surprise that John chose to lead the Carmelites through an apophatic approach to growing in union with God, which would lead them to reject or deemphasize more kataphatic elements of prayer. Nevertheless, John does not reject the charisms. Rather, he is concerned with their proper exercise so that “they might truly achieve the ends, both in those who exercise them, and in the lives of those who benefit from them, that God intends for them to have.”²¹

John was writing to Carmelite religious devoted to the contemplative life in secluded monasteries. As such, they were not directly engaged in missionary work of witnessing to Christ in the midst of an unconverted culture. Since the charisms of the Spirit are given for the building up of the Church, it should not surprise us that the Spirit would work differently through cloistered monks than he would through Christians living in an apostolic age seeking to preach Christ to an unbelieving culture. If it is unwise to assume the action of the Spirit is identical in both contexts, then it is also unwise to take John’s writings about the Spirit’s actions in the charisms and seek to apply them univocally across centuries to a drastically different pastoral context in a different era of the Church. The situation today in postmodern America and much of the West, for example, is in fact more like that faced by the young apostolic Church of the Acts of the Apostles than the Carmelite monasteries of sixteenth-century Spain.

Theologians and popes distinguish between the charismatic movements of the Spirit throughout the history of the Church and the stable activities of the Spirit in the sacraments and the hierarchical dimension of the Church.²² The Spirit’s charismatic movements in Church history vary in intensity and form according to both the needs of the Church and the mysterious action of the Spirit.²³ As the Church traverses through history and engages various cultures, and as she struggles with her own internal problems, the Spirit responds accordingly, giving her everything she needs to grow in holiness and witness to Christ. In fact, this interplay between the Church’s tradition and the Spirit’s ever-new action in history is what gives rise to the development of doctrine.²⁴ Moreover, while the saints and doctors of the Church give us perennial insights into the riches of life in Christ, it would be incorrect to read the entire tradition through the lens of only one vantage point in history. Nor would it be correct to read the work of God in the Church through writings of one saint, when God has enriched her with so many spiritual teachers.

Univocally applying John’s warnings about charisms to other times and contexts in the Church also leads to strange conclusions. If, according to Salas, only the “advanced” can exercise extraordinary gifts without abuse, what was Jesus thinking when he commanded his still-immature disciples to heal the sick, raise the dead, drive out demons and cleanse lepers? What was the young apostolic Church thinking when having been filled with the Holy Spirit after Pentecost, they went off healing the sick and following the prophetic words of the Spirit? Were they foolish when they gathered together and asked the Risen Jesus to give them more boldness and to work more signs, wonders and healings through them? Was it dangerous for Paul to exhort the believers in Corinth to seek the higher gifts, especially prophecy? Or was it not rather that the early Christians weren’t concerned so much about themselves, but understood the Spirit’s charisms in terms of loving others and making the love of the Risen Jesus present?

The Boldness of Love to Unleash the Gospel

One might get the impression from Salas’s article that charismatic workings of the Spirit should be seen as dangerous temptations away from love rather than occasions of love. In fact, with the exception of the charism of tongues (cf. 1 Cor 14:4), God does not give charisms for the sake of the recipient. They are given as tools of love to build up the Body of Christ. Properly understood, the charisms of the Spirit therefore are God-given means of loving others. This means that freely yielding to the charismatic promptings of the Spirit is itself an act of virtue, which can lead to growth in charity. Of course, one must be aware of the various challenges that accompany exercising charisms. But focusing too much on the dangers inherent in certain charisms can ironically lead one into the very self-preoccupation and pride that one is seeking to avoid. Pride comes in many forms, and choosing not to love out of fear is one of them. There is nothing holy about disobedience to the Spirit of love. In fact, the excessive fear associated with a self-protective attitude toward the movements of the Spirit ironically produces the very condition that prevents God’s love from being expressed through a charism. In other words, a misplaced suspicion toward the charismatic action of the Spirit hinders the exercise of charisms in people who hold this suspicion.

Maybe instead of asking what could happen to a Christian who seeks the charisms, we should be asking another pressing question: what will happen to the Church and unconverted world if we do not seek these graces?²⁵ After all, it was through these graces that Jesus built up the Church in the first place. What’s needed today is a renewed confidence in the power of grace. God does not grant charisms to believers without also granting the graces necessary to exercise them in charity and holiness. If Catholics have a “right and duty” to use the charisms of the Spirit for the sake of apostolate, we can be confident God will give them the grace to use them in holiness.

For the exercise of this apostolate, the Holy Spirit Who sanctifies the people of God through ministry and the sacraments gives the faithful special gifts also (cf. 1 Cor 12:7), ‘allotting them to everyone according as He wills’ (1 Cor 12:11) in order that individuals, administering grace to others just as they have received it, may also be ‘good stewards of the manifold grace of God’ (1 Pt 4:10), to build up the whole body in charity (cf. Eph 4:16). From the acceptance of these charisms, including those which are more elementary, there arise for each believer the right and duty to use them in the Church and in the world for the good of men and the building up of the Church, in the freedom of the Holy Spirit who ‘breathes where He wills’ (Jn 3:8).²⁶

God faithfully reminds his Church that in the face of temptation to sin, his grace is always stronger. One of the most beautiful and rarely discussed aspects of exercising charisms is the humble simplicity of both the promptings of the Holy Spirit and the response required of the believer. This simple but bold confidence of a believer in the power of God’s love often involved in obeying the Spirit’s promptings is not unlike the call to humble confidence in the grace of Christ by another Carmelite Doctor of the Church, St. Therese of Lisieux.

The more childlike we become in our trust in Jesus, the more he can do through us. As one who often teaches people to yield to the Spirit in exercising charisms, it astonishes me how much we often complicate the simple love of the Spirit of Jesus. In fact, some of the most profound healings and prophetic words I’ve personally witnessed resulted when simple and ordinary believers chose in humble boldness to obey the prompting of the Spirit. What if more believers approached the work of the Spirit with the littleness of St. Therese? What if along with dutifully discerning these promptings, Christians were also willing to be bold in trusting in God’s love given through charisms, just as they trust his love for them? Is not the God who grants charisms looking for humble and willing instruments through whom to show his love? What if humility, love and the charismatic workings of the Spirit were always meant to come together in a simple faith like that of St. Therese?

I believe the parable of the talents can serve as a simple exhortation for the Church (Mt 25:14-30). After the rich master entrusts his riches to three servants according to their ability, the two who take risks and invest their master’s riches multiply them. Upon his return the master is pleased with their venture and rewards them accordingly. But one servant, knowing his master to be demanding, buries his talent out of fear that he might lose it. What was entrusted to him is then taken away and given to others. The application is simple: the Risen Lord has entrusted the riches of his life to the Church. Everything he has is ours, including the riches of the charisms of the Spirit. Jesus our Master expects us to take risks and invest what he has given us so that when he returns he will see the fruit multiplied due to our venture of faith. Multiplication of his riches in this world follows upon risks of faith. The Church cannot afford to bury the charisms of the Spirit out of fear, knowing that Jesus is demanding. Rather, she must be willing to boldly follow the Spirit who lavishes his charisms upon the faithful to make Jesus, our Risen Lord, known and loved. Would that the Church would respond to Pope St. John Paul II — who himself wrote a doctoral dissertation on John of the Cross — when he said, “Accept gratefully and obediently the charisms which the Spirit never ceases to bestow on us!”²⁷