The 7 gifts of the Holy Spirit; wisdom

The great feast of Pentecost is finally upon us, and we have reached the final gift of the Holy Spirit, wisdom, the greatest of them all!  Here is the definition of wisdom that I gave in my initial summary of the gifts:

Wisdom is the gift that allows us to value the truths of the Faith, and see the world through the eyes of that faith.  We see creation as God's gift to us, we see our place in relation to God, and our need of a Savior, the reality that Jesus Christ is that Savior, and that He founded One Church for the salvation of all men.

This gift allows us to see God as God sees himself.   (Remember, in knowledge, we see created things as God sees them.  Here, we see God himself.)   We see God as the cause of all things.  It is not so much grasping the faith, as it is in the gift of understanding.  Rather, it is more seeing and judging all reality through the lens of faith.

Speaking of faith, this gift does presuppose right faith, so in order to receive it, one must first believe in the Divine Revelation of God.  One must believe in Jesus as the Son of God and Savior of the World and in the fullness of Revelation in Scripture and Tradition.  One can have a certain natural wisdom still, perhaps, without it, but one cannot have the supernatural gift of wisdom, the gift of the Holy Spirit that we are speaking of here.

Here are the effects of this gift in us:

1) It gives us an idea of how to reach our end.    We see what our end truly is, God.  The light that comes from seeing our end illuminates our path.

2) It increases charity (love) in us, and allows us to live it to heroism.  We know why we need to do what we need to do, and we do it, no matter the cost.

3) It perfects all the virtues, and gives us what we need to practice them in the highest degree.  We do things best when we do them out of love for God. 

4) It steadies hope.  It is a little easier to believe in God's promises if we can have at least a little supernatural understanding and experience of him.

5) It gives us a sense from which we can judge all things.  When we see God, it gives us the vision and insight to judge everything as he does, both in temporal and spiritual affairs.

6) It allows us to not just believe, but to live the mysteries of faith.

This gift is associated with the Beatitude "Blessed are the peacemakers."   In order to bring peace to the world, one must first be at peace within her or herself.  Peace, according to Thomas Aquinas, is not merely the absence of conflict, but the tranquility of order.  One who has this gift operative in them has things in right order.    With wisdom comes right order, right order brings peace within, and peace within leads to peace without.

The Son of God, Jesus Christ, is called the Wisdom of God.  In Corinthians 1:24, Paul says Christ is "the power of God and the wisdom of God".  When Jesus appeared on the Earth, he graced it with a new understanding into the reality of God.  This is what wisdom gives us above all us, insight into God himself.  Then, flowing from that, we can live out our lives as we ought to, just as Our Lord and Savior did.

To dispose us to receive this gift, we can:

1) Practice prayer and mortification, as we do to cultivate all the gifts.

2) Practice humility.

3) Look at things from God's point of view; focus not how do I feel about what I am doing, how do I think God sees this?

4) Combat the wisdom of the world. If something does not seem right, look for and learn the reasons why, and be able to propose an alternative.

5) Do not judge in worldly fashion.  Judge as you think God would.

6) Cultivate detachment from all created things.

7) Cultivate indifference to spiritual consolations.  Do what is right at all times, no matter how you feel.

We need wisdom, and all the gifts of the Holy Spirit, to be perfected in the spiritual life.  We cannot attain spiritual maturity without them. Once we have established somewhat of a basic foundation in the Christian life (living a life of prayer and virtue, and being free from mortal sin, and detached from venial sin), we then need to do what we can to cultivate the gifts in our lives, and when we do that, God will send them to be operative in our lives.  If you need a refresher on the other gifts, you can go further back on my Facebook timeline, and click on the individual posts from there,  or you can click the orange banner above, and you will have access to all my posts not just for this series, but for all of them since I started this blog in 2015.

I wish you all a great Feast of Pentecost!  

Let us close this series on the gifts of the Holy Spirit with this well-known prayer to the Holy Spirit:

Come Holy Spirit, fill the hearts of your faithful and kindle in them the fire of your love. Send forth your Spirit and they shall be created. And You shall renew the face of the earth.

O, God, who by the light of the Holy Spirit, did instruct the hearts of the faithful, grant that by the same Holy Spirit we may be truly wise and ever enjoy His consolations, Through Christ Our Lord, Amen.

Saint Joseph, pray for us.