"No matter how much we love a person, accept him, give him support, have warmth and affection for him, no matter how much we help him in so many ways, unless we can actually call him forth so that he is himself exercising the uniqueness God gave him, then the love is incomplete; he is not free, he is less than fully human.

We have said that the most effective thing we can do to call forth the gift of another is to employ our own gift in freedom. This may seem selfish at first. Aren't we supposed to help the other person? What does our gift have to do with it? We start here.

The charismatic person is one who, by her very being, will be God's instrument in calling forth gifts. The person who is having the time of her life doing what she is doing has a way of calling forth the deeps of another. Such a person is herself Good News. She is the embodiment of the freedom of the new humanity. Verbal proclamation becomes believable. The person who exercises her own gift in freedom can allow the Holy Spirit to do in others what He wants to do."

"A primary purpose of the Church is to help us discover and develop our gifts and, in the face of our fears, to hold us accountable for them so that we can enter into the joy of creating. The major obligation of the Church to children is to enjoy them and to listen to them so that each can grow according to the design which is written into the being of each and emerges only under the care and warmth of another life. One of the reasons we experience so much difficulty with our gifts is that parents have thought their chief function in life is to feed, clothe, and educate the young. However, their really important ministry is to listen to their children and enable them to uncover the special blueprint that is theirs. There is one line in Scripture that will instruct us in these matters: 'But Mary treasured up all these things and pondered over them.' (Luke 2:10 NEB)

Every child's life gives forth hints and signs of the ways that it is to go. The parent that knows how to meditate stores away these hints and signs and ponders over them. We are to treasure the intimations of the future that the child gives to us so that, instead of unconsciously putting blocks in the way, we help that life to fulfill its destiny. This is not an easy way to follow. Instead of telling our children what they should do and become, we must be humble before their wisdom, believing that in them, and not in us, is the secret that they need to discover."

"A patron is 'one chosen, named, or honored as a special guardian, protector, supporter, or the like.' A patron is much more fundamental than we have thought to the discovery and emergence of gifts. Very few people creatively and happily engaged in their work can look back without seeing behind the evolving of their gifts the face of their patron saints."

O'Connor goes on to list several activities of a patron. A patron helps you to uncover and affirms your gifts. A patron helps you to identify the gifts you have by naming them or helping us name them, perhaps in a way that is particularly fitting or evocative. A patron encourages you, believes in you, and calls you forth.