One Spirit, One Body

American Pentecostal pastor: “When did your family become Christians?”

Palestinian Catholic priest: “On the Day of Pentecost.”

That exchange has happened at least once, because I was there. As one of mine for Catholic365 begins: “The whole Church was baptised with the Holy Spirit on the Day of Pentecost, which we celebrate on Sunday, and She manifests that baptism through a rich plurality of gifts, the charisms. The whole Church, and thus every member, is therefore both Pentecostal and Charismatic. Every gift is a charism, and each is always given for the good of the whole body, in response to Her evangelistic activity, in the context of Her sacramental life, and subject to Her gift of discernment. She exercises that gift within Her institutional life, because the institutional Church and the charismatic Church are inseparable, being two aspects of a single reality.”