A ministry dedicated to helping Catholics discern their charisms is launching a prayer program that spans the 50 days of the Easter season. Though many Catholics commit to spiritual renewal during Lent, Fire 50 seeks to help them continue growing in faith as they prepare for Pentecost.
The free challenge by Many Parts Ministry has five simple daily commitments: prayer, action, discernment, praise, and reflection. It also has 3-5 videos per week with influential Catholics, including Sr. Josephine Garrett, sister of the Holy Family of Nazareth; Joel Stepanek, an author and chief marketing officer for the National Eucharistic Congress; and Manny Gonzales, a Catholic evangelist. It begins on Easter Sunday and ends on Pentecost, though it is self-paced, so participants may join at a different time.
Jill Simons, the executive director of Many Parts Ministries, told Zeale News in a Feb. 23 interview how the program will help Catholics discern their spiritual gifts.
What is Many Parts Ministries?
We are a charism discernment apostolate, so our goal is to provide both the software and technology, as well as the ministry resources, for people at every level of the church to be able to discern their charism. So we serve everyone from individuals randomly Googling all the way up to diocesan groups that will have this rolled out for their entire diocese.
What inspired you to create the Fire 50 Challenge and why did you decide to launch it during the Easter and Pentecost season?
We launched our Fire 50 program for the first time in 2025, so this will be our second year doing it. We wanted to create something that is specifically in the Easter season because we are called to be an Easter people. I love that emphasis from John Paul II that we're called to be an Easter people.
But if you look at where our time and energy and mental formation happened, it might be easy to think that we are a Lenten people. And obviously it's a good thing to observe all of the norms of Lent, to take that as a time for intentional spiritual growth. We're not denigrating that in any way. But we also wanted an opportunity to put a similar emphasis on the Easter season and how we actually become these Easter people that John Paul II was talking about.
Could you describe what it means to be an Easter people?
Our program is set up so that it starts with the awe of the power of God at the time of the Resurrection and recognizing that that power is present in our lives, not just in the fact that we get to attend the Mass and have the miracle of the Transubstantiation. There's this power of God that's present in us that we're invited to cooperate with.
So what we focus on during Fire 50 is this: How can you personally better cooperate with grace, with God's power in your life, so that you can help build up the Church in the way that the Holy Spirit empowers us to do?
For Catholics who are unfamiliar with the concept of charisms, could you explain what a charism is?
A charism is a specific kind of grace received by any baptized person to be able to build up the Church. These are gifts that we get to give away, things that other people need from us. Unlike the gifts of the Holy Spirit — you receive those for your own personal faith to be a faithful Catholic — charisms are things you get for you to be able to provide for other people. It can tell you really clear and helpful information about what you are meant to do to become a saint.
And what are some common misconceptions you've seen that Catholics might have about discerning what their spiritual gifts are?
I think that one of the biggest ones is that it is Protestant. Anything that is coming from the Holy Spirit is 100% our birthright. It is definitely something that Protestants have really invested in and run with, but that isn't something that should make us run in the opposite direction. They also have invested deeply in having a personal relationship with Jesus Christ and things like that, and just because the value has been seen in that space shouldn't engender any fear in Catholics.
We should recognize that if something is authentically from God, then we should absolutely be investing in it, interested in it, and learning about it. During the real epidemic of loneliness and people being so disconnected from each other, being able to understand what the Holy Spirit is empowering you to provide for other people can really help people understand how they fit into the context of not just their larger local community, but also into the Church as a whole. It can be a real antidote to this disenfranchisement and this fragmentation that's happening in our culture in a large part because of the prevalence of digital media.
What kind of participation are you hoping to see in the Fire 50 challenge?
We had just over a thousand people join us last year, and we would love to double that this year. We're actually able to see how many of the interviews are watched and things like that. We had a really high, like 50% engagement rate of the signed-up people last year. We’d love to hold steady with that this year, having people engage with at least one video on a weekly basis for the seven weeks of Easter.
How can pastors or other church leaders integrate Fire 50 into their parishes?
We have a media kit on our landing page for parishes to share about this. It's something that parishioners can get involved in for free, so it's an easy lift for parishes to not have to come up with more programming for Easter season. They can just use the programming we're providing.
We'd love to see people engaging in this as small group units. For example, Bible study groups could show a video of one of the interviews and discuss how the weekly topic has already shown up in their life and how they would like to continue to grow in that in the Easter season.
Note: This interview has been edited for brevity and clarity.