Last Sunday we heard St. Paul’s First Letter to the Corinthians, where he said, “There are different kinds of spiritual gifts but the same Spirit;  there are different forms of service but the same Lord; there are different workings but the same God who produces all of them in everyone.

But how do we know what gifts of the Spirit we have been given? Is it something that we always have or is there a certain moment at which they are given? A listener recently called in to Father Simon Says™ to ask about the gifts of the Spirit, and why we need to receive the Holy Spirit at Confirmation when we already received the Spirit at our Baptism. Fr. Simon responded:

“A lot of people will say, ‘I thought the gifts of the Holy Spirit were speaking in tongues, etc.’ No, those are the manifestations of the Holy Spirit, not the gifts of the Holy Spirit.

Some people will say, ‘I don’t have the Holy Spirit.’ I don’t care if you have the Holy Spirit, I want to know if the Holy Spirit has you. The apostles received the Holy Spirit on Easter, when Jesus said, ‘Receive the Holy Spirit. Whose sins you forgive are forgiven.’ They received the indwelling Spirit of God when they realized who Jesus was. That He was God’s love in the flesh and had forgiven their sins.

So what did they receive at Pentecost? They received the outpouring of the Holy Spirit. In other words, the Holy Spirit that was in them manifested itself in an exterior way, so that they could go out and do the work of bringing the Gospel to the world. So Baptism is about the Holy Spirit within, Confirmation is about the Holy Spirit pouring out.

These gifts of the Holy Spirit, these infused abilities, are put into us when we know the Lord and they are supposed to pour out of us when we are empowered by the Holy Spirit and we correspond to that grace.”

Listen to the conversation below:

Father Simon Says airs weekdays at 2:00 p.m. Eastern/11:00 a.m. Pacific on Relevant Radio® and the Relevant Radio App.