SPIRITUEL GIFTS IN THE SERVICE OF THE CHURCH:

Pope John XXIII said of the announced Council that there must be a new Pentecost. He remembered the powerful work of the Holy Spirit in the early Church, as described in the Acts of the Apostles. There was a sense of stagnation in the Church before the Council. Too often, impulses or mostly simply decrees from above, i.e., from the hierarchy, while the Christian people behaved largely passive. 

The Council Fathers acceded to the Pope’s request. Relying on revelation, they showed new ways and did not relinquish concrete instructions for a new revival in the Church. (Cf. The expressions “must,” “right and duty” in the texts of the Council mentioned below.) After the first crisis, these suggestions   increasingly being taken seriously, and their importance and impact  (cf. the Synod of Bishops in Rome 1985). To properly understand what is at stake, we must again start from the mystery of the divine love that emanates in his creation and would like to become fruitful.  Love is never lonely and alone. Love means being there for each other; it means giving and receiving. Love means communion. Only after a long period of preparation, as we see in   Old Testament writings, God reveals himself in and through Jesus, who became man, and his most profound mystery is that his essence  is love, which is why he is triune. The Father gives himself entirely to the Son,  the Son to the Father. This mutual love is inwardly fruitful in the Holy Spirit. Yet there is never – and this is true of love in general – the abolition of personal diversity (contrary to the ideas of Eastern religions). The Father is and remains forever  Father. The Son is and remains forever the Son. Just as the Holy Spirit. The mutual giving and receiving is complete so that the Son can say, “I and the Father are one” (Jn 10.30) and also: “Do you not believe that I am in the Father and the Father is in me?” (J 14,10). 

God has called and ordained humans to participate in His divine love life. Thus, we can expect in advance to receive a share of this peculiarity of his divine love. Paul points to this fact in his teaching on the body of Christ:  “You are the body of Christ, and each of you is one of his members.”  (“Just as the body is one, but has many members,  and as all the members of the body are one body, though many,  so it is with Christ” (1 Cor. 12:12). As the unity of all who are in Christ – one body – as well as diversity – each individual is one member -both are given and worked by the Holy Spirit,  without which our participation in the divine life would be unthinkable.  Paul first explains unity: “The One Spirit baptized them one body, and we are all watered by the same Spirit” (1 Cor 12:13). 

(Teilhard de Chardin rightly pointed out that our purely human capacity for love cannot be enough to unite all humanity.)  We Christians must accept and maintain this unity given by the Spirit and not want to “produce” it ourselves.  (cf. Eph 4:3).  Paul then speaks of the diversity of the members, or instead of, their capacities and the gifts of grace with which they are endowed. For a harmonious whole to be formed in the body of Christ, he already works in advance God’s wisdom: “But God gave the members of the body, and one of them  he gave to each one of them a task as He willed,” (1 Cor 12:18). And again, it is the Spirit, who gives the individual members special powers and tasks  to serve for the good of others and the entire. “All this works  the same Spirit, who bestows on each one a special gift, as himself” (1 Cor 12:11). As the one Spirit thus permeates all the members of the body and thus guarantees unity, so too is the one Spirit who assigns tasks to the individual members and mutually brings them into harmony to complement and enrich each other. “They are different endowments, but the same Spirit” (1 Cor 12:4). 

Thus, God’s mutual giving and receiving of love for us Christians is enabled marvelously. 1CO 12:14 and following, Paul points out that no member should feel  useless, expendable, or even as worthless.  Every limb has a task. But this is given to it by the Spirit, “as He Himself wills” (1 Cor. 12:11), not as the member would have it. The limbs of the Church  cannot arbitrarily choose their tasks or assign them to others. They are given beforehand by God (cf. 1 Cor 12:18).  Some gifts mark the person concerned beyond death. For example, Mary is and remains the mother of Christ  as the head and body, i.e., the mother of the Church. The Apostles and prophets remain the living foundation to build (cf.  Eph 2:20). The Christian people have always had a feeling for the unique gifts of the saints and, therefore, have also asked these saints for help. (The Beatitudes in Heaven, for they belong with us to the one living body of Christ).  In religious societies, the Council referred to the particular charism  of the founders to remain faithful to them and continue cultivating them (II.  Vat., Religious Life, 2). 

As the love of God implies communion and individual divine  persons are precisely themselves that they can fully give themselves to others, so to the members of the body of Christ realize themselves by  “serving others as good stewards of the grace of God in its manifolded, each one by the gift he has received” (1 Peter 4:10).  Therefore, The Church is alive to the extent that all its members  pursue spiritual gifts as they receive, develop, and use them to serve their neighbors and the whole. The gifts are principally given to exercise mutual love and must serve that love.  Love, therefore, cannot be used against spiritual gifts.  “Hold fast to love and pursue spiritual gifts” (1 Cor. 14:1).  It is no accident that service is repeatedly listed among the charisms in the Bible. “He that serveth, let him do it out of the strength which God gives (1 Peter 4:11).  The charism of service is indispensable to the body of Christ (cf. 1 Cor. 12:22) and is especially valued by the Lord.  (cf. Mt 20:26 ff.).  We may ask ourselves why the liturgy knows only the petition for the seven gifts of the Holy Spirit (e.g., in the hymns of Pentecost), which are derived from Isa. 11:2 ff.  by theological tradition (Augustine, Thomas Aquinas) to the divine virtues (faith, hope, and charity) and the eight Beatitudes. These gifts help the personal sanctification of the limbs. For the good of the body of Christ, for the animation of the Church, carried by the whole people of God, the charismata are always to be implored also, and (as in the primitive Church before Pentecost) together  (cf. “with one accord,” “together,” “in one place,” Acts 1:14; 2,1) because they help to build up the whole body of Christ, the community of believers! 

It is by promptly placing the individual member, without arbitrariness or conceit, at the service of the entire, and always in a new way, as the Spirit gives and enables, that the task which God has prepared for him and thus works on his personal holiness.  For the unique spiritual gifts that are enumerated  in 1 Cor. 12:8-10 (especially the gift of prophecy, the gift of interpreting what  to speak in tongues, and, as the case may be, to impart knowledge) is the transparent permeability of what would  Holy Spirit would like to show that this is particularly important because otherwise, there would almost inevitably be falsification. If someone displays a charisma of this kind or can be traced  (cf. 2. Vat., PO, n.9), the person concerned must be open and willing to be purified by God and do it himself to contribute to his work. Clinging to charismata, desire for honor and assertion, impatience, zeal, desire for conversion and healing that do not have their origin entirely in God, conceit in spiritual matters, lack of willingness to be corrected by the proper party, resistance, or even rejection attitude towards particular neighbors: these are all obstacles that threaten the appropriate use of spiritual gifts. It must be  extended to wait until these gifts come forth purely and clearly. Cf. Pr 3:11-34: “Do not cast away, my Son,“He laughs at the scornful but gives grace to the humble.” The Holy Spirit would give to the members of a group or community varied charisms and use them always in new ones, in new and varied ways. Cf. 1 Cor 1:4-7: “Always for you God I give thanks to you for the grace of God that has been given to you in Christ Jesus; He has enriched you in every way… For the testimony of Christ was confirmed among you so that you are not left behind in any gift of grace.”