What “Baptized in the Holy Ghost” Means

“Are you baptized in the Holy Ghost?”

This is a question you’ll often hear if you hang around Charismatic Christians—whether Protestant or Catholic. What they usually mean is, “Have you experienced the presence of the Holy Spirit in a powerful way?” Often they think a sign of this “baptism” is the outward manifestation of certain spiritual gifts, like speaking in tongues.

But for Catholics, the language of “being baptized in the Holy Spirit” need not be reduced to a subjective experience that we may have of him or the ability to speak in strange tongues. It refers to a sacrament: namely, the sacrament of confirmation.

In Acts 1:4-5, Jesus instructs the apostles not to leave Jerusalem until they receive the promise of the Father to be “baptized with the Holy Spirit,” which, according to St. Peter in Acts 11:15-16, refers to the descent of the Spirit on the day of Pentecost (recorded in Acts 2).

Now, the Catechism of the Catholic Church teaches that the sacrament of confirmation “in a certain way perpetuates the grace of Pentecost in the Church” (1288). This is in Acts 8 when Peter and John lay hands on the newly baptized Christians in Samaria and give them a special outpouring of the Holy Spirit, similar to that of the Christians in Acts 2 on the day of Pentecost.

If Pentecost was the event where the early Christians received their “baptism” of the Holy Spirit, and the laying on of hands in confirmation perpetuates the graces of Pentecost, it follows that to be confirmed is to be “baptized the Holy Spirit.” By by means of the sacrament we receive the same outpouring of the Spirit that allows us courageously to spread and defend the faith in word and deed.

Furthermore, just because some confirmed Christians might not have the gift of tongues, this doesn’t mean they haven’t been “baptized in the Holy Spirit,” since, according to St. Paul in 1 Cor. 12:30, not all members of Christ’s Body have this gift.

So, to the question, “Have you been baptized in the Holy Ghost?” Christians who’ve been validly confirmed can say with some charismatic flair, “Amen, brotha!”