Catholic CSC Vocabulary

When I first came to the CSC and was thinking about becoming Catholic, I had to learn a whole new vocabulary. There were so many unfamiliar words and phrases which people would toss around during conversation, and it took me a little while to place them all in context and make definitions for them. For example:

'The gifts' brought up to the altar during Mass are the bread and the wine, not the collection baskets that go around church.

A 'monsignor' is a fancy priest, whereas a 'monstrance' is the gold stand which holds up the consecrated Host during eucharistic adoration.

'Perpetual' adoration means it's going to be at some terrible hour of the night.

The 'Our Father' is the same thing as "The Lord's Prayer.'

The 'Gary' in 'Father Gary' is his first name, not his last name.

'OCD' refers to the initials of the Discalced Carmelites, not Obsessive Compulsive Disorder. And CCD is something totally different - a Catholic education class.

All the different "ladies" in Catholicism are not actually different. Names like "Lourdes" and "Guadalupe" are not these women's names, but refer to the places where Mary was seen.

When you're new to the Catholic Student Center and somebody comes up and invites you to 'Masensupe on Tuesday,' they mean a Mass service first and then a soup dinner afterwards :P

'Scoot to the middle of your pew' isn't meant literally, but rather means you're supposed to scoot towards the end of the bench closest to the middle of the church.

In any case, I've enjoyed getting more familiar with all the linguistic idiosyncrasies of Catholicism and the CSC, and I'm currently in the process of trying to figure out this term: charism. I've heard Fr. Gary use it as a synonym for "ministry" but sometimes people use it as a synonym for something more vague like "community spirit." And yet other people talk about it as though it's a quality you're born with, like an extra chromosome or something. So, for example, what does it mean to talk about the "charism of the CSC"? I'm trying to build a working definition for this word and this is what I've got so far:

"A charism is the shared principle by which the members of a particular community articulate the love of Christ in their interactions with God, one another, and the world. A charism is not a static quality possessed by an individual, but rather a relational capacity manifested in community. This articulation of love is infused and guided by the Holy Spirit and thus, with God's help, individuals can grow into the community semantic. Fulfilling this potential lends efficacy to the community's abstract spirit. When a charism is shared by the members of a community, it forms the grammar of their love in everyday prayer, relationship and ministry. The manifestation of charism is essentially the continued speaking of god's eternal word through the lived language of a particular community."

Okay, does that definition work according to your experiential understanding of the term? And if we buy this definition, then what would the "CSC charism" be? What is our particular gift in articulating the love of Christ?