The role of the supernatural today
Generally speaking, Catholic Christians are by no means skeptics when it comes to miracles, even miracles happening in our own time. Many are aware that the rigorous canonization process for saints ordinarily requires that two miracles occur through the intercession of the saint-to-be. There are many miracles recorded in Scripture, both in the Old Testament and the New. Jesus’ own public ministry included many miracles, especially healings and exorcisms. He was known even by non-Christians as a “wonder worker.” Of course, the central event of the Christian faith is a miracle: the resurrection of Jesus from the dead. Besides Jesus himself, we see the apostles and other disciples working numerous miracles in the gospels and especially in Acts of the Apostles. Likewise, the Church’s two-thousand-year history is filled with miracles, often performed through men and women who were later canonized as saints. To this day, many people experience miraculous physical healings, such as those reported at Lourdes in France. Others testify to the psychological and emotional healing they received. Then there are the sober and detailed accounts of exorcists who testify to the reality—and defeat—of the demonic. Still other people report “close calls” and “coincidences” of protection that they can only explain by divine intervention or providence.
Outside of the Bible and the lives of the saints, however, there seems to be a widespread conviction that miracles have become less and less common over the centuries (a conviction which is not easy to measure, but by all accounts, false). In my experience, the expectation for anything supernatural happening is very low among most Christians. More specifically, if we asked people how much they expect God to use them in supernatural and miraculous ways, we would probably discover even less expectancy. The response would probably be something like, “Who, me? Oh no, I’m no saint!” This response isn’t surprising given how most people have been taught to understand holiness, spiritual gifts, and the Christian life in general. But when we look at what Scripture and Church teaching say about the role of the supernatural and miracles in every Christian’s life, I think most people will find it surprising—and encouraging. That was certainly my reaction when, a few years ago, I began to learn about this dimension of the Christian life and experience it for myself.
In recent decades, there has been a revival of openness to supernatural signs and wonders happening through “ordinary” Christians. This began in the Protestant world through Pentecostalism in the early 20th century. In the Catholic Church, this revival has come about in large part thanks to the Catholic Charismatic Renewal, a movement that began in 1967. I want to emphasize the words “revival” and “renewal,” because the idea that the Holy Spirit wants to manifest in every baptized person is in no way new or original in Church history. Admittedly, there have been times (even long periods of time) in the Church when the importance of supernatural gifts was downplayed. However, the Church has never taught that such gifts ended with the early Church, or that only a few, exceptionally holy people possess them. The downplaying of the gifts was not a doctrinal change or development but a result of cultural shifts in the ways people lived the Christian faith.
Intellectual snobs vs. Jesus (and the Church)
There are some people of a more intellectual bent who can have a snobbish or condescending kind of attitude that looks down on miracles as somehow being a low or cheap motive for believing in God and Jesus. Such people often see faith as more pure and authentic when it arises from arguments or the internal movement of one’s heart in prayer. But here’s the inconvenient question: What was Jesus’ approach to evangelization? Many if not most people came to believe in him through his miracles, especially physical healings and exorcisms. This is also true of the apostles in Acts of the Apostles. If this approach was good enough for Jesus, as well as the saints and other Christians throughout history, why should we think we’re above it—or below it? Jesus is the only standard for ministry, and he clearly taught his disciples to imitate him, not only in terms of his tone or style but in his concrete actions (more on this below).
The First Vatican Council (1869-1870) explicitly condemned the idea that faith cannot or should not be motivated by miracles. In the canons of the Council’s dogmatic constitution, we read the following two “anathemas” (i.e. denunciations, which are always fun to read):
3. If anyone shall say that divine revelation cannot be made credible by outward signs, and therefore that men ought to be moved to faith solely by the internal experience of each, or by private inspiration; let him be anathema.
4. If anyone shall say that miracles are impossible, and therefore that all the accounts regarding them, even those contained in Holy Scripture, are to be dismissed as fabulous or mythical; or that miracles can never be known with certainty, and that the divine origin of Christianity is not rightly proved by them; let him be anathema.
The direct implications of these statements are that divine revelation can be made credible by outward signs, miracles can be known with certainty, and the divine origin of Christianity is rightly proved by miracles. Given this affirmation of the role of miracles, what is the basis for our expecting them as Christians?
Christians = anointed ones
First, we need to properly understand the foundation of our identity as Christians. The word “Christian” comes not from the name of Jesus but from his title, the Christ. “Christ” comes from the Greek word Christos, which translates the Hebrew word mashiach (Messiah), meaning “anointed one.” In the Old Testament, kings, prophets, and priests were ceremonially anointed with oil. At his baptism in the Jordan River, Jesus too was anointed, not with oil, but with the Holy Spirit (see Mk 1:9–11). At the beginning of his public ministry, Jesus recited the following messianic prophecy from Isaiah 61 and claimed that it was fulfilled in him:
“The Spirit of the Lord is upon me,
because he has anointed me
to proclaim good news to the poor.
He has sent me to proclaim liberty to the captives
and recovering of sight to the blind,
to set at liberty those who are oppressed,
to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor” (Lk 4:18-19).
Jesus is the Christos, the Anointed, the one filled with God’s Spirit to bring healing, freedom, and salvation to all. As “Christians,” therefore, we are also “anointed ones.” We are “little Christs,” those who have been baptized into Christ and therefore share his anointing with the Holy Spirit. Because we share in Christ’s anointing, we also share in his mission, power, and authority. There is not one Holy Spirit that filled Jesus and another who fills us. It is the same Spirit.
Jesus promised his Church power and authority
Just prior to his ascension into heaven, Jesus gave his disciples—and, by extension, all Christians—the “Great Commission.” He said,
“All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age” (Mt 28:19-20).
The first words about Jesus having “all authority in heaven and on earth” are critical. Here, Jesus is giving his apostles a share in his own authority, as he had already indicated on other occasions. For example, when he gave the apostles the power and authority to forgive sins, he said, “As the Father has sent me, even so I send you” (Jn 20:21). How did the Father send Jesus? With power and authority. Regarding the authority to preach and teach, Jesus said, “He who hears you hears me, and he who rejects you rejects me, and he who rejects me rejects him who sent me” (Lk 10:16). When the disciples speak, God speaks. St. Paul made this authority clear when he wrote: “we also thank God constantly for this, that when you received the word of God, which you heard from us, you accepted it not as the word of men but as what it really is, the word of God, which is at work in you believers” (1 Thess 2:13).
Someone might object that Jesus only gave power and authority to the Twelve, the apostles, and not to “ordinary” disciples. But in Luke’s gospel, we have clear evidence against this objection. When Jesus sent out the 72 disciples, he commanded them: “Whenever you enter a town and they receive you, eat what is set before you; heal the sick in it and say to them, ‘The kingdom of God has come near to you’” (Lk 10:8-9). Later, when the 72 return and report their success in driving out demons, Jesus rejoices and tells them, “Behold, I have given you authority to tread upon serpents and scorpions, and over all the power of the enemy; and nothing shall hurt you…” (Lk 10:19). Jesus clearly granted a powerful share of his supernatural power and authority to a wider group than just the twelve apostles.
Christians will do greater works than Jesus (Say what?)
Jesus makes even stronger statements about the power and authority that every disciple will possess. In the Gospel of John, Jesus promises that those who believe in him will perform supernatural works. “Truly, truly, I say to you, whoever believes in me will also do the works that I do; and greater works than these will he do…” (Jn 14:12). Greater works than Jesus? What does that mean? It sounds like hyperbole if not nonsense. Importantly, the context shows that Jesus is not simply speaking about acts of service or the works of mercy (feeding the poor, clothing the naked, etc.). Nor does the expression “greater works” refer to the quantity of the works. In the verse immediately before this, Jesus says, “Believe me that I am in the Father and the Father is in me; or else believe me for the sake of the works themselves” (Jn 14:11). This shows that the works Jesus is speaking of are actions that will move people to faith in Jesus as the one who reveals the Father; they will have a supernatural quality which demonstrates their divine origin.
Already in Acts of the Apostles, we see these “greater works” happening through the apostles. For example, while the woman with hemorrhaging was healed by touching Jesus’ clothes (see Mk 5:24-34), sick people were healed when Peter’s shadow fell on them (see Acts 5:14-16). And about Paul we are told: “And God was doing extraordinary miracles by the hands of Paul, so that even handkerchiefs or aprons that had touched his skin were carried away to the sick, and their diseases left them and the evil spirits came out of them” (Acts 19:11-12). Healings and exorcisms occurred remotely through Paul’s anointing with the Holy Spirit! Obviously, there is no competition with Jesus here, and miracles like these do not detract from God’s glory, because it is only in the name of Jesus and through his Holy Spirit that such acts are possible.
The supernatural is ordinary for Christians
We still need to consider Jesus’ strongest and clearest promise of all concerning supernatural signs happening through Christians. At the end of Mark’s gospel, just prior to ascending into heaven, Jesus makes the following statement. He says:
“And these signs will accompany those who believe: in my name they will cast out demons; they will speak in new tongues; they will pick up serpents with their hands; and if they drink any deadly poison, it will not hurt them; they will lay their hands on the sick, and they will recover” (Mk 16:17–18).
Notice that Jesus’ promise of supernatural signs applies universally to “those who believe.” He did not say that the signs would accompany “you [the apostles],” or “some,” or “many,” or “the first couple generations of disciples.” No, he said simply, “those who believe.” He couldn’t have been much more inclusive than that! This is a blanket statement promising that supernatural signs will follow every Christian. A supernatural lifestyle is therefore ordinary for Christians—it is our inheritance!
Note: Some people get distracted or confused by Jesus’ mention here of snakes and poison. We need to understand that these are not spiritual gifts to be practiced in ministry but rather a promise of supernatural protection (notice that they are not included in any of Paul’s lists of spiritual gifts). A literal example of this can be seen in Acts 28, when Paul gets bit by a viper on the island of Malta. We are told the following about the native people’s response: “They were waiting for him to swell up or suddenly fall down dead. But when they had waited a long time and saw no misfortune come to him, they changed their minds and said that he was a god” (v. 6).
The spiritual gifts: for all Christians in every age
When spiritual gifts are mentioned, many Catholics and other Christians will immediately think of the traditional seven Gifts of the Holy Spirit, which are based on the messianic prophecy in Isaiah 11. These seven gifts are: wisdom, understanding, counsel, fortitude, knowledge, piety, and fear of the Lord. In preparation for the Sacrament of Confirmation, for example, these are typically the focus. Given the young age of confirmandi, this is understandable to some extent (especially in our own diocese, where 3rd graders are confirmed). However, the spiritual gifts or charisms, while also given by the Holy Spirit, are distinct from the Isaiah 11 Gifts of the Holy Spirit.
In his letters, St. Paul offers several lists of various gifts of the Holy Spirit, but the spiritual gifts or charisms that I want to focus on are those found in 1 Corinthians 12:8–10. There, Paul mentions the word of wisdom, the word of knowledge, faith, healings, miracles, prophecy, discernment of spirits, tongues, and interpretation of tongues. Paul’s overall description of the gifts makes it clear that they are freely given and for everyone:
Now there are varieties of gifts, but the same Spirit; and there are varieties of service, but the same Lord; and there are varieties of activities, but it is the same God who empowers them all in everyone. To each is given the manifestation of the Spirit for the common good. For to one is given through the Spirit the utterance of wisdom, and to another the utterance of knowledge according to the same Spirit, to another faith by the same Spirit, to another gifts of healing by the one Spirit, to another the working of miracles, to another prophecy, to another the ability to distinguish between spirits, to another various kinds of tongues, to another the interpretation of tongues. All these are empowered by one and the same Spirit, who apportions to each one individually as he wills (1 Cor 12:4-11, emphasis added).
When people try to downplay the reality or importance of spiritual gifts, I always think of this passage and ask, “So, what about this?” Notice that Paul is making these universal claims about supernatural gifts of the Holy Spirit. These are not people’s natural human capacities, talents, skills, or preferred ways of serving in the Church based on their temperament or interests. Spiritual gifts are not the supernatural icing on the natural cake of the Christian life; they are given to animate the lives of all Christians and to build up the Church. There is no reason to think that they are optional or part of some niche spirituality.
Along this same line, there is no scriptural or theological basis for thinking that the spiritual gifts are no longer active or essential for the Church’s mission. I hear many people admit the reality or at least possibility of such gifts in theory, but in practice, who expects them or even desires them? And how often do we talk about them? Besides stories about canonized saints (most of whom lived long ago), I never heard of them until a few years ago. I went through most of my seminary formation and theology education without hearing anyone seriously discuss the spiritual gifts. If people can have gifts of prophecy, healing, discernment of spirits, tongues, etc., I think priests ought to know about this (they just might come in handy)! I suspect most Catholics are unaware of these gifts as present-day realities. Some people—again, especially the more intellectual and educated—seem almost embarrassed by talk of miracles and supernatural expressions of the Christian life. And yet, when we read the New Testament, they are everywhere; they are unavoidable. Thanks be to God, today the spiritual gifts are being rediscovered and activated in many Christians, including Catholics. We cannot fulfill our supernatural mission if we are not equipped with the supernatural gifts that Jesus promised us through the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit is not a vague, background force that gives a little extra “oomph” to our planning, preaching, and teaching. He does not only bring about conversions by making people slightly more open to the Gospel message. His inspiration and power are meant to be expressed in concrete and often visible ways, especially through the spiritual gifts such as physical healing and prophecy.
In my experience, we Catholics—including priests, lay ministers, and teachers—rarely if ever talk about these gifts. Why not? There are surely many reasons for our reluctance. I think the ultimate reason is that we have underlying doubts about God. Even if we do not doubt His existence altogether, we may still doubt His love for us and His willingness to intervene in our lives. Doubt can have different sources, but it often comes from a lack of experience of God (“If that’s real, then how come I've never seen it?”) or from a wound of disappointment (“I prayed for a miracle, and nothing happened.”). When doubt does not result in total unbelief, it often takes the form of self-reliance and control: “God isn’t going to do anything, so I have to.” This leaves us with a purely natural approach to our faith where we do not actually expect God to move and act in our lives or the lives of others. Even if it means seeing little personal growth and little fruit in our ministry, we often prefer the familiarity and comfort of control to the risk of trusting. And so, instead of leaving room for the Holy Spirit to move in times of prayer, preaching, teaching, etc., we come up with more “programs.” We don’t ask or expect God to show up, and then we come up with a theology that explains His absence. “God doesn’t work that way anymore,” we think. “Those signs were necessary in the early Church, but they aren’t now.” Nonsense. We need to let God decide what’s necessary. Instead of allowing our personal experience (thus far) to water down the promises of Jesus, we need to allow those promises to determine what is possible. This is a great question for reflection: Do I interpret the words of Jesus through the lens of my experience? Or do I interpret my experience through the lens of Jesus’ words?
What will convince people?
To be fair, we’re not the first generation of Christians attempting to rely on our own strength. St. Paul himself first tried to preach the Gospel to the Gentiles in a merely human way, that is, in a more comfortable and intellectually “respectable” way. At Athens, he addressed the Greeks using rational arguments, and he enjoyed very mixed success. When he spoke at the Areopagus, he was able to convince only a few people (see Acts 17). After that experience, he deliberately and dramatically changed his strategy, as he explains in the First Letter to the Corinthians:
And I, when I came to you, brothers, did not come proclaiming to you the testimony of God with lofty speech or wisdom. For I decided to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ and him crucified. And I was with you in weakness and in fear and much trembling, and my speech and my message were not in plausible words of wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit and of power, so that your faith might not rest in the wisdom of men but in the power of God (1 Cor 2:1-5).
I have to confess that, in my own life and ministry, I have all too often relied entirely on “plausible words of wisdom” and “the wisdom of men.” This comes naturally to me because I am inclined towards arguments and evidence. When I find something intellectually convincing, I assume that others will also be convinced by it—if only I can explain it well enough to them. But there are many obstacles to objective reasoning, and even before those obstacles can be faced, many people simply aren’t interested enough to give their time and attention. You have to have an audience before you can convince your audience. Despite this glaring problem, many of us in the Church continue to double down on the strategy of trying to convince people through our human wisdom, skills, and programs (“A new video series! Maybe this will be the one!”). Although the task of proclaiming the Gospel in our world today can seem intimidating and even overwhelming, it can still seem easier to think that everything depends on me. The reason is simple: self-reliance does not require faith or trust in God. I can talk about God, teach about God, argue about God, and even convince a few people intellectually about God without ever relying on Him to reveal Himself.
As we just read, St. Paul, the Apostle and one of the greatest minds of the Church, took a completely different approach: “my speech and my message were not in plausible words of wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit and of power.” What in the world does that mean? What did that actually look like? It doesn’t sound to me as though St. Paul simply prayed, “Come, Holy Spirit,” and then went back to “business as usual.” I think that is what we often do. We like to ask God to stamp His Holy Spirit seal on whatever we’re already doing, instead of sincerely asking what He wants to do and cooperating with Him. When something we’ve done appears to have been successful, we might pay lip service to the Holy Spirit, “Oh, that wasn’t me, it was the Holy Spirit!” And to be fair, maybe it was. The Holy Spirit does not only work in overt and extraordinary ways. Sometimes He is more subtle. But the question remains: where is the supernatural manifestation of God? Where is what Paul described as “demonstration of the Spirit and of power?” If we’re truly empowered by the Holy Spirit, things should be happening in and through us that ignite people’s faith and even cause unbelievers to come to faith. To give just one example, consider what St. Paul said about the gift of prophecy:
…if all prophesy, and an unbeliever or outsider enters, he is convicted by all, he is called to account by all, the secrets of his heart are disclosed, and so, falling on his face, he will worship God and declare that God is really among you (1 Cor 14:24-25).
Imagine if people came into our parishes and had this kind of experience! Do people come to our times of prayer and worship and say, “God is really among you”? According to St. Paul, that’s what should be happening, because for the Christian, a supernatural lifestyle is ordinary.
The supernatural is not optional
I realize that the perspective I’m presenting is a huge shift for most people. Even if you agree with what I’m saying, we can’t all start exercising the spiritual gifts in a healthy and mature way tomorrow. Like the early Christians, we need guidance, formation, and activation in the gifts. But I’m convinced that there is no way forward for the Church unless we Christians recognize our full spiritual inheritance and heed St. Paul’s advice to “earnestly desire the higher gifts” (1 Cor 12:31). The experiment of relying primarily on human efforts and strategies to communicate the Faith and sustain the Church has failed miserably; it’s time to acknowledge this and return to our roots. A growing number of Christians and Catholics are doing exactly this. We want to live the model of the first Christians, summarized in one sentence in last words of Mark’s gospel: “And they went out and preached everywhere, while the Lord worked with them and confirmed the message by accompanying signs” (Mk 16:20). The first part, “preaching everywhere,” is incomplete without the second, “accompanying signs.”
This is the heart of what I want to say: The proclamation of the Gospel is incomplete without supernatural signs and wonders. Jesus never proclaimed the good news without also demonstrating it, and he always commanded his disciples to do the same. Again, natural forms of serving, teaching, healing, etc. are indispensable. We are obligated to do everything we can to help those in need, and there is no opposition between human effort and divine intervention. Christians have undeniably contributed countless good things to human culture, including charitable outreach to the poor, medicine, education, respect for human rights in law, etc. But natural expressions of love, compassion, and concern are not proofs of God or the presence of the Holy Spirit. These are available to people of all religions and, of course, even to atheists. Our witness has to have a specifically Christian dimension. Jesus told us how to do this: he gave us the Holy Spirit—“power from on high” (Lk 24:49)—and commanded us to do the works that he did (Jn 14:12). When we try to proclaim the Gospel without the “demonstration of the Spirit and of power” of which St. Paul spoke, we betray the Gospel by presenting it as a mere worldview or philosophy, what Paul called “plausible words of wisdom.”
The Catholic scripture scholar Dr. Mary Healy made this point in a talk she gave on the spiritual gift of healing. She said, “When the Gospel is proclaimed in a powerless way, it is actually betraying the Good News. The Gospel is not good news without power.” Without power that demonstrates its truth, the Gospel inevitably gets reduced to a set of moral teachings and perhaps a vague hope that, “Maybe I’ll go to heaven someday.” The bored and indifferent response that countless people (especially young people) have to Christianity and to the Church today shows the inadequacy of the powerless Gospel. We frequently hear statistics about the droves of people leaving the Church and abandoning faith altogether. Most of these people are not rejecting the real Gospel, but only a powerless counterfeit. All of this might sound rather negative, but it’s actually very hopeful. It's hopeful because, based on the Church's 2000-year history, if we can shift from self-reliance to a life animated by the Holy Spirit, people will respond because everyone desires the abundant life that Jesus offers (Jn 10:10). Human nature has not changed since New Testament times. Of course, we know that plenty of people rejected Jesus himself, so we cannot measure our effectiveness entirely by how people respond. But it was also Jesus himself who said, “You will recognize them by their fruits” (Mt 7:16, 20). I don't know about you, but I'm not interested in perpetuating a powerless version of the Gospel. I want the real thing, for myself and for everyone else.
More to come…
I recognize that for many readers this post may have raised more questions than it answered, but that’s okay! You might be thinking, “Okay, so we need more supernatural signs, spiritual gifts, and power as we proclaim the Gospel—but what does that actually look like?” I will address this in later posts (if you can’t wait to learn more, please see the recommending reading list below). This post is the first in a series on the charismatic dimension of our Faith. In Part II, I will address in greater depth the major concerns, objections, and obstacles to this charismatic dimension. I will then write posts explaining specific spiritual gifts, such as healing and prophecy, and how we can pursue these for the upbuilding of the Kingdom. Since I am still relatively new to all of this myself, I will be drawing from a variety of sources to show that embracing a supernatural lifestyle through the Holy Spirit is possible and necessary. It is also a joyful adventure!
† Under the Mercy,
Fr. Christopher Trummer
Other articles in this series (titles are tentative):
Part II: Answering Objections to Charismatic Christianity
Part III: Baptism in the Holy Spirit
Part IV: The Gift of Tongues
Part V: The Gift of Healing
Part VI: The Gift of Prophecy
Part VII: Other Spiritual Gifts
Recommended reading:
- Lord, Renew Your Wonders by Damian Stayne
- Healing by Mary Healy
- The Spiritual Gifts Handbook by Randy Clark and Mary Healy
- From Christendom to Apostolic Mission by Msgr. James Shea (University of Mary)
