I have a charism that causes problems for me periodically. It can feel like I am tossing a spiritual hand grenade into the room and walking out before it goes off.  But, before I tell you more about it, I want to make sure we all understand charisms the same. A charism is a gift of the Holy Spirit, given for the good of others, so the person with the charism becomes a channel of God’s love for others.

One of the charisms I have discerned is prophecy. No, this doesn’t mean that I can foretell the future. What it means is that I get this burning desire to tell people things that God wants them to hear. Sometimes these things are inconvenient. Sometimes they make me unpopular. Sometimes I really don’t want to say these things. Sometimes it cuts to the heart and hurts.
Like a spiritual hand grenade.

To be clear, not everything I say is a use in this charism. Sometimes I can speak like a jerk and the Holy Spirit doesn’t have anything to do with that (Lord forgive me!). But, when I do exercise this gift, it sometimes is life-changing for others. Oh, the stories…but I digress.

One thing I think the Catholic Church needs to hear again, has already been stated by another Catholic who had the gift of prophecy - St. Pope John Paul II. Here is what he wrote:

"[Some baptized Catholics are] still without any explicit personal attachment to Jesus Christ; they only have the capacity to believe placed within them by Baptism and the presence of the Holy Spirit."
-St. JPII, CT

NOTICE..."no personal attachment to Jesus" and "only have the capacity to believe". He then goes on to talk about how faith needs to come through conversion for these people.

JPII is stating that many Catholics still need to be evangelized, converted, and made disciples. 

• They may go to Mass
• They may be “involved”
• They may work at the parish
• They may even be ordained or vowed religious
• Simply put - You don't know until you know their story

This is why we never should make spiritual assumptions about another person based on titles, outward behaviors, or labels alone. The stats back this up:

• More than 100 million people in the U.S. identity in some way to being Catholic
• Approximately 30,000,000 Americans have left the Catholic Church
• Only about 21.2% of Catholics will go to Mass on any given Sunday
• Close to 4% of Catholics in the U.S. attend Mass weekly + are active in the parish and/or diocese outside of Mass. About 3 million.
• 5,000,000 Catholics give 80% of time and money.
• About 1,000,000 Catholics consider themselves Missionary Disciples.
• The best guess (no hard numbers on this stat) - about 100,000 or so Catholics in the USA are able to form other Missionary Disciples.
• (Note - numbers from Pew and CARA)

The evangelization problem we have in our Church is that we have few Catholics who have been evangelized, we don't have enough Catholics who know how to evangelize, and we have even fewer who can form others to go evangelize!

So, here is another hand grenade.
Many bishops, priests, religious, and lay professionals in Catholic ministry need to be evangelized themselves and even more don’t know how to evangelize effectively!

Until we start to talk about, and do something about this hard reality, we aren’t going to move the needle too much. 

Now you know why we need to radically change the way we currently operate. But, where do we start? Here are two things I suggest.

First - support innovative apostolates, programs, movements, and people who are trying new things and having an impact in this area. Send them your money. Volunteer. Promote them. As a leader and founder of an apostolate that is in the wilderness of this work, I have discovered that the number one thing holding us back from reaching more people (besides personal limitations) is having the financial resources needed to grow.

Second - If you are Catholic - make it a goal to move up a category or two this year.

• If you just attend Mass weekly and don’t do much else - start giving more of your time, money, and effort.
• If you are part of the 5 mil who give time/money - work on becoming a missionary disciple who can evangelize. This is best done in community, if you have others you can do this with.
• If you are part of the 1 mil who already evangelize actively - learn to make missionary disciples of others and how to empower them.

God is not a God of the status quo. His people shouldn’t be stagnant either!