Envoy Magazine
Q
I recently attended a meeting of a charismatic renewal group. I had heard of the phenomenon of “speaking in tongues,” but hadn’t ever witnessed it. A friend explained that it is one of the “original gifts” given to the Church at the time of the Apostles, but that it had become uncommon until the new outpouring of the gifts of the Holy Spirit in our times. What do you say?
A Well, it’s not what I say that counts, but what Scripture and the Sacred Tradition of the Church say. I’ll answer by following St. Paul’s treatment of the “gift of tongues” in 1 Corinthians 14.
It has always been the constant and unquestioned teaching of both Scripture and Tradition that the gift of tongues is a miraculous charism, whereby the speaker prays to God or instructs the hearers in a language unknown to him, which he is able to speak by a special grace. If anyone is present who understands that language, either because he knows it naturally or has a special gift of interpretation akin to the gift of prophecy, then the gift of tongues edifies and instructs the hearers. If not, then the speaker speaks only to God in a manner more or less private, and of relatively little importance for the community.
St. Paul is quite clear in his preference for interpreted tongues over the uninterpreted variety, the importance of building up the Church being greater than that of building up the individual. In addition, the use of the gift in church is to be carried out in an orderly fashion.
He particularly criticizes a situation in which those present all speak in tongues together. The Apostle describes this as "a command of the Lord."
St. Augustine teaches that in the first days of the Church, this gift was especially necessary in order for the gospel to be preached swiftly to all the nations of the world, in a manner which gave miraculous proof of the divine origin of the doctrine taught.
He goes on to say that since now the Church really does speak all the languages of the world and is found in every land, the gift is less necessary. In the 32nd of his treatises on the Gospel of John, he adds,
"Nowadays when the Holy Spirit has just been received, no one speaks in the languages of all the nations, since the Church already speaks the languages of all the nations, and if one is not in her, he does not receive the Holy Spirit."
St. Thomas Aquinas, in his Summa Theologiae, offers the same doctrine as St. Paul and St. Augustine, but he goes on further to infer from St. Augustine’s words a connection between the practice of Christ and of the Church. Aquinas, the Church’s officially proclaimed “Common Doctor,” points out that Our Lord surely had the knowledge of all languages, but because He was sent to preach to only one nation, the Jews, He used only His “mother tongue.” So too, the Church, which has the Holy Spirit, being now in every land and speaking all languages naturally, does not need to use this miraculous gift as much as she did previously.
Even so, the gift is still given. There are true examples of this gift in the lives of the saints. For example, St. Pachomius in the fourth century, St. Norbert in the 12th century, St. Anthony of Padua in the 13th century, St. Vincent Ferrer in the 14th century and St. Bernardine of Siena in the 15th century. I even know personally a priest who, while leading a pilgrimage at the monastery where Padre Pio lived in San Giovanni Rotondo in Italy, invoked Padre Pio and was able to hear confessions and give advice in English even before he learned English. This was a clear example of the gift used to “disclose the secrets of hearts,” as St. Paul mentions in 1 Corinthians 14:25.
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