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Like a dear that longs for running streams, so longs our soul for God (cf. Ps 42:1). That is to say, we all desire to grow in the spiritual life. Two basic ways to do so are by growing in the virtues and in the gifts of the Holy Spirit.

Throughout this coming year, I will talk about the Gifts of the Holy Spirit off and on, today discussing them in general (what they are and so forth), and later on we will go over each one of the seven.

Our goal is that you, Gentle Reader, may find these thoughts helpful in increasing your spiritual perfection, which consists in the love of God above all things and the love of neighbor as oneself.

So, what are these “gifts”? They are supernatural and permanent qualities of the soul. They render us more obedient and docile to the Holy Spirit, who acts in us, and these acts are in fact his gifts. The Holy Spirit pours them into our hearts. They are cultivated in prayer, fasting, and almsgiving, together with a constant effort to truly overcome our sins. They make us attentive to God’s voice, and they make us love the things of God.

Images help, so let me offer this one: Imagine that you are trying to cross a sea, and this sea is your spiritual life. On the other side, there is God, with Mary, the angels, and the Saints, and the Holy Trinity. You have to means with which to move your boat: oars and sails.

When you make progress through the waters of this life, progress in the spiritual life, by using the oars, that is when you are exercising the virtues (we will talk about the virtues in other bulletin articles). It takes effort and sweat, but the rewards are great. You can’t make progress without this type of labor.

But when you make progress by raising the sails, the ship slides along gracefully without heaving the heavy oars. The wind picks you up and sends you along. All you need to do is hang on. The gifts of the Holy Spirit are like sails, not oars, because God does these actions in you.

It is one thing, for example, to consider something attempting to exercise prudence, and that’s when you’re exercising virtue; but then when you say that thing that was more perfect than even you could have thought of, and when it came out better than you thought; or when you made that decision which turned out way better than you ever hoped, especially in spiritual matters, that’s when the gift of the Holy Spirit was kicking in (in this case, counsel).

The seven gifts come from God. We say from the “Holy Spirit” and not from the “Trinity,” because of some expressions in scripture. Sometimes we say the Father or the Son or the Spirit did something, not because the whole Trinity ever fails to act as one, but because in the external events of the history of salvation, one of the persons seems to be more closely and directly related to the fact in question than the others.

Another good thing about the gifts: they continue into heaven with us, and get better there than they were here.

We will study each of the seven gifts in future articles throughout this year.

If you’re wondering about the layout, Fr. Mark recommended I spice it up a little. Your feedback is welcome. God bless you all in this new year, 2006!