Discerning Our Spiritual Gifts – a Gift to the Associates
By Douglas Gundlach, Associate, Racine Dominicans
A Timely Seminar
Recently the Racine Dominicans hosted a one-day seminar by Jeanne Connelly entitled, “Discerning Our Spiritual Gifts.” It was open to Sisters as well as Associates. I was fortunate to attend this with my wife and fellow Racine Dominican Associate, Catherine. Just a month earlier we had renewed our initial 2-year commitment as Associates and I had commented that I wanted to get back into formation at Siena Center, the mother house of the order.
To Learn About Ourselves and Our Spiritual Gifts
This opportunity presented itself and we seized the rare open day on our calendars to learn more about ourselves and our spiritual gifts. Whereas we have explored our skills and talents using secular tools like Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI), we had long sought to study our faith-oriented gifts. Being a FOCCUS couple for helping engaged couples prepare for the sacrament of matrimony at our parish, we were quite familiar with taking an inventory in advance. We eagerly completed the 60-question self assessment of our spiritual gifts and even filled one out on each other. We had to wait for the seminar to understand the themes that would come out from analysis of our answers. Jeanne Connelly came with a deep understanding of the theory as well as a practical perspective, having applied it as a Wheaton Associate within her community. We learned that not all skills are charisms and that charisms are special gifts from God that enable us to identify and carry out our personal mission and calling. We also learned that charisms are not as specific as the roles or offices that we might hold; they are deeper, fewer, and more instinctive.
The Three Signs of a True Charism
There are three signs of a true charism: The first is an inner experience of peace, joy, and energy that comes in its application. The second is the effectiveness and success we achieve with it. The last is that others recognize our special gift, often more easily and earlier than we do. The scoring of the self assessment form led to a rating for each of us across 20 different spiritual gifts, which ranged from artistry to hospitality to prayer to writing; clusters among these 20 gifts included creative, communications, organizational, pastoral, and understanding charisms. In a deliberate, multi-step process, we focused on the top rated gifts based on our self assessments. We wrote a short reflection on each. We then read Jeanne’s succinct description of each gift listing common behaviors, Scripture references, and possible roles or expressions of the gift. Finally we categorized our charisms with labels of unsure, possible, or probable.
Finding my Charisms
I was not surprised when “administration” and “teaching” were probable charisms for me based on my experience with coordinating schedules for RCIA in our parish and camping trips for our parish Boy Scout troop. I also enjoy teaching RCIA and sharing the faith at home with our four sons.
The "aha" Moment
The “aha’ moment came in discerning a possible “knowledge” charism, which listed the diaconate as a potential ministry. It reminded me of a past promise to myself to investigate becoming a deacon when our youngest son completes high school. We discussed that within any group the ideal situation occurs when everyone agrees that they will do something and that everyone is free to discern which role in the group they are best suited to play.
When everyone works from their God-given gifts, results are strong and energy remains high. When some hold back and the remaining people must work outside their charisms, quality can suffer and burn-out often results. We must remain respectful and non-judgmental in our discernment of roles to make the parish, community, or committee most effective. Sharing this rare day of reflection and discernment with Catherine and other friends of ours in the Racine Dominican community has led to easier conversation on this important topic because we now share a common language. It has also made me think more deliberately about which volunteer opportunities to pursue within the Dominicans as an Associate.
Douglas Gundlach
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