1.  GOD DID IT!  How is it that the Second Vatican Council, enacted under a prayer for a New Pentecost, restored St. Paul’s teaching on charisms to the doctrine of the Church in 1965 . . . A retreat with college students in 1967 included an unexpected outpouring of the Holy Spirit that began a renewal of the Church that continues past 120,000,000 people in just over 40 years . . . The Popes, Paul, John Paul I, John Paul II, Benedict XVI have all been very encouraging?  God did it!  When God does something, we should care.

2.  THE SACRAMENTS NEED IT.  The sacraments confer sanctifying grace, which is hidden from our experience (we can experience the "signs" of the sacraments without experiencing the "grace").  Charismatic graces do not confer sanctifying grace, but they are always, in some way, experienced by the person who receives them, by the persons who witness the gift, and/or by the Church who discerns them.  Jesus intended sacramental and charismatic graces to remain together.  The sacraments can remain BOUND when not received with FAITH.  They can remain as capacities, not lived realities until faith opens the door.  When faith is present, the Holy Spirit reveals Jesus who acts in every sacrament.  The insistence of the last two Popes on a New Evangelization is a call to lead the baptized to an act of faith that will open the door for the baptized to recover the awareness of  who they are in Christ.  This is what Pope Benedict calls being “baptized in the Holy Spirit.”

3.  PRAYER NEEDS IT.  There is more for your Christian life.  Pope John Paul II proposed that all of us can progress in prayer.  “But we who have received the grace of believing in Christ, the revealer of the Father and the Saviour of the world, have a duty to show to what depths the relationship with Christ can lead.  The great mystical tradition of the Church of both East and West has much to say in this regard. It shows how prayer can progress, as a genuine dialogue of love, to the point of rendering the person wholly possessed by the divine Beloved, vibrating at the Spirit's touch, resting filially within the Father's heart. This is the lived experience of Christ's promise: "He who loves me will be loved by my Father, and I will love him and manifest myself to him" (Jn 14:21). Novo Millennio Ineunte #33

4.  THE SUCCESS OF THE NEW EVANGELIZATION DEPENDS ON IT.  Every time we receive a charismatic grace, docility to the Spirit is required.  The charismatic dimension teaches Christians how to be docile, like turning sails into the wind.  Pope John Paul II said that docility to the Spirit is the primary spirituality of the missionary.  This spirituality is expressed first of all by a life of complete docility to the Spirit. It commits us to being molded from within by the Spirit, so that we may become ever more like Christ. It is not possible to bear witness to Christ without reflecting his image, which is made alive in us by grace and the power of the Spirit. This docility then commits us to receive the gifts of fortitude and discernment, which are essential elements of missionary spirituality (Redemptoris missio, 87).

5.  VOCATIONS ARE BUILT ON IT:  About the “office” of Bishop, Priest and Deacon, Pope Benedicts wrote: That this structural element of the Church, the only enduring one, is a sacrament, means at the same time that it must be perpetually created anew by God. It is not something that the Church can dispose of herself; it is simply not there. It is not something that can be determined by the Church on her own initiative. Only secondarily is the sacrament realized through a call on the part of the Church. But primarily it comes into being by God’s call, that is to say, only at the charismatic and pneumatological level. It can only be accepted and lived by virtue of the newness of the vocation and by the freedom of the pneuma. Since that is so, and since the Church cannot simply appoint “officials” by herself, but must await the call from God, it follows for the same reason—and for that reason alone—that there may bea shortage of priests in the Church.

6.  IT IS INSEPARABLE FROM THE GOSPEL THAT JESUS PREACHED:  Fr. Cantalamessa, Preacher to the Papal household, remarked that the Gospel has a content, but also a method, and the method is the Holy Spirit.  A simple question to get to the truth:  Did Jesus communicate the Kingdom in word only, or word and charismatic deed?  His disciples continued the proclamation in word and deed and so we must also.

7.  THE MISSION OF THE LAITY DEPENDS ON IT.

8.  THE GIFTS OF THE SPIRIT ARE MORE THAN “7.”  Pope John Paul II can speak for himself:  The biblical references (Isa 11:2; Lk 4:8) just cited have been compared to the fundamental dispositions of the human soul, considered in light of its supernatural elevation and the infused virtues themselves.  The medieval theology of the seven gifts was thus developed, which, although not having an absolutely dogmatic character and so not claiming to limit the number of gifts or the specific categories in which they can be distributed, has been and remains very useful both in understanding the variety of the gifts in Christ and the saints, and in giving a good structure to the spiritual life (John Paul II, General audience of April 3, 1991. “The Spirit: Source of New Life” in The Spirit, Giver of Life and Love,. (Boston: Pauline, 1996).

9.   THE DEVIL CARES.  when the disciples of Jesus returned from their test-drive of the gifts of the Holy Spirit in Luke 10 Jesus rejoices because the dark kingdom is being overthrown by simple people acting in Jesus name.  When Jesus cast out the devil the source of his action is attributed by some to the devil.  Jesus says that they are fallacious in their reasoning.  He cast’s our devils by the Holy Spirit’s power.  

10.  MARY CARES.  She is full of grace because she always showed up when God was pouring out the Spirit.  At the Incarnation of the Word by the Spirit she was there.  At Pentecost she was there.  Where there is grace, she is alway there