Find My Charism
Naming a concern
You raise a difficult issue because people are being harmed or an important responsibility is being neglected.
Prophet
Offering words that call people toward Christ through consolation, encouragement, or challenge.
Wondering how this gift may show up in your life? Discover your charisms →
Understanding Prophet
A prophet helps people hear and respond to what God asks in the circumstances of their lives. Through the gift of prophecy, the Holy Spirit can give words that build up faith, bring consolation, or call people toward conversion and justice. This service is rooted in the truth already revealed in Christ. Words believed to come from God need prayerful testing and the Church’s guidance, including willingness to receive correction.
Where you may recognize it
Consider the relationships and responsibilities already part of your life.
Offering consolation
You prayerfully share a word rooted in Scripture that helps someone recognize God’s care, while remaining open to how it is received and tested.
Receiving correction
You allow others to test your words and reconsider how or when something should be said.
Nathan speaks to David
The image at the top of this page shows Nathan confronting King David after David has taken Bathsheba and arranged her husband Uriah’s death. Sent by God, Nathan tells a story about a rich man taking a poor man’s lamb. When David becomes angry at the rich man’s wrongdoing, Nathan reveals that the story is about David himself, making the king face his own abuse of power.
You are that rich man!
Nathan is sent by God to make David face the harm he has done. The word calls the king toward truth and repentance. Christian prophetic service can also build up and console, as Paul describes; its purpose is a faithful response to God, and its truth must be tested rather than assumed from the speaker’s certainty.
More Scripture & Church teaching
1 Corinthians 12:4–11, 27–31
Paul describes a variety of gifts from the same Spirit, given for the benefit of the whole body.
Catechism 799–801
Charisms are gifts of the Holy Spirit for building up the Church and serving others. Love is their measure, and their discernment includes the guidance of the Church’s pastors.
Catechism 904–906
All baptized Christians share in Christ’s prophetic witness by living and speaking the faith. That shared calling does not by itself establish a particular charism of prophecy.
1 Corinthians 14:1–5, 29–33
Paul describes prophecy as building up, encouragement, and comfort. Prophetic words are to be weighed by others and exercised in an orderly way.
Catechism 66–67
God’s Revelation is complete in Christ. Later private revelations cannot improve or complete it; any authentic message helps people live the Gospel already given.
Prophetic service for others
These ministries and programs may offer ways to serve through prophetic witness. Speak with parish staff about where help is needed, how to prepare, and the parish’s volunteer process.
Peace and justice ministry
Support parish work that joins Catholic social teaching with care for people facing injustice.
Parish communications
Help people understand parish life through clear writing, photographs, accessible information, livestreams and other parish media.
Resources for learning and preparation
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The Catechism in a Year with Fr. Mike Schmitz
A guided journey through the Catechism of the Catholic Church, connecting Catholic teaching with Scripture and daily life, offered by Ascension.
As you discern
Bring these experiences to prayer, Mass and the sacraments, and conversation with a priest or trusted guide in the faith. Look over time for love of God and neighbor, faithfulness to Church teaching, and the good of those you serve. Joy, difficulty, and others’ feedback can help you recognize patterns. Look for words that serve conversion, consolation, or growth in faith, and welcome others’ testing of them. If no example comes to mind, begin with the experience suggested below.
Recall a word of consolation or challenge you believed someone needed. Who helped you test it, and what did the response teach you?
When the truth you want to speak also challenges your own life, how do you receive it and allow others to examine your words?
Something to try: Bring a possible word of consolation or a concrete concern to prayer and a trusted person who can challenge your perspective. If sharing it is appropriate, speak with charity and listen to the response. Reflect together afterward on what served the person and what needs correcting in your understanding.
Bring this to prayer
Saint Catherine of Siena
Come, Holy Spirit. Help me love truth and speak with courage and charity.
Correct what is mistaken in me, and let my words serve conversion, justice, and the good of others.
Saint Catherine of Siena, pray for me.
Through Christ our Lord. Amen.
Catherine was a lay Dominican from Siena, Italy, whose prayer and care for others grew into a public mission of counsel and peacemaking. Through letters and personal appeals, she urged Christians, including Church leaders, to turn back to God and renew the Church’s life. Her courageous love for Christ shows prophetic service as helping others recognize and respond to what the Gospel asks of them.
More about her life ↗