Some quotes about charisms
Two palm trees
I’ve collected here several quotes about charisms in the Catholic Church. For background, I should mention that since the Second Vatican Council in the 1960s, the various gifts of lay movements and religious orders have been recognized as charismatic.
“15. If, in the exercise of the hierarchical gifts, the offer of Christ’s grace, to the whole People of God throughout history, is assured, nonetheless, each individual member of the faithful is called to accept and correspond to this grace personally in the concrete circumstances of their lives. The charismatic gifts, therefore, are freely distributed by the Holy Spirit, so that sacramental grace may be fruitful in Christian life in different ways and at every level. Because these charisms “are perfectly suited to and useful for the needs of the Church”,[61] through their diverse richness, the People of God are able fully to live their evangelical mission, discerning the signs of the times and interpreting them in the light of the Gospel.[62] The charismatic gifts, in fact, enable the faithful to respond to the gift of salvation in complete freedom and in a way suited to the times. In this way, they themselves become a gift of love for others and authentic witnesses to the Gospel before all mankind.” (Paragraph 15: ‘Identity of the charismatic gifts’ from Letter Iuvenescit Ecclesia, emphasis mine. Paragraphs 15-17 are especially pertinent while paragraph 18 lists 8 criteria for discernment of charisms)
“I often say that a charism is an ultimate terminus of the Incarnation: that is, it is a particular way in which the Fact of Jesus Christ Man and God reaches me and, through me, can reach others.” (Giussani, quoted in Communion and Liberation: a Movement in the Church by Davide Rondoni)
“The Holy Spirit may suddenly illuminate parts of revelation that have always been there, but have not been sufficiently reflected upon. The history of the Church confirms this. Before Saint Francis, no one had thought so deeply about the poverty of Christ. This poverty is not a secondary consideration but a new access to the center. Before Augustine, many had spoken about the love of God, but none did it in as penetrating a manner as he. Before Ignatius, no one had grasped Christ's obedience to the Father in quite so central a way.” (Hans Urs von Balthasar, Test Everything, p 88-89)
Passages below are from Balthasar’s essay “Lay Movements in the Church”
“it is not in the least a flight from the world that sends the layman Anthony of Egypt into the wilderness; rather it is his desire to help the Church through prayer and asceticism; he frequently returns to the city, and a great movement of disciples is spontaneously brought to life by his existence. The same is true of the great charisms of the layman Benedict, later of the layman Francis of Assisi, and later still that of the layman Ignatius Loyola: no one other than the Holy Spirit urges them to set out on their journey and leads them to their goal, often by lengthy, circuitous routes upon which they must allow themselves to be blindly led. If the great movements they kindled into life became partly or wholly clerical communities later on, for both internal and external reasons, nevertheless the lay and purely pneumatic origin ought never to be forgotten.” (Balthasar, The Laity and the Life of the Counsels, 252-253)
“There could also be problematic, indeed, tragic cases such as some of the movements for poverty started by laymen in the Middle Ages, whose charismatic origin drove them out of the visible Church, sometimes through the impatience of the members and sometimes also through a lack of insight on the part of the hierarchy, so that they were not able to bear all the fruit that was intended. The Poverello [St. Francis] possessed both the necessary patience and the almost boundless reverence for ecclesiastical authority that were needed to ensure for his movement its proper place in the Church’s structure and, indeed, to fortify this place through his own, deeply personal sacrifices. (Balthasar, The Laity and the Life of the Counsels, 253-254)
“The situation becomes dangerous only when the individual would find his identity and come to see his true self only within this particular experience of fellowship, which then seems to him to make concrete the true, living Church. This can at best be tolerated in an initial stage of belonging to the community, especially in the case of young people, but the leadership of the community must seek from the outset to develop the personality of the members in such a way that they can fulfill their task in the world autonomously and, perhaps, even in isolation.” (Balthasar, The Laity and the Life of the Counsels, 271)
As a bonus, here’s an interesting article about lay people sharing in traditional charisms (e.g. Carmelite, Benedictine, etc.): Ecclesial Movements: A New Framework for Ancient Charisms | Articles | Communio (communio-icr.com)