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Wisdom, Thinking and Acting according to God: Gifts of the Holy Spirit (part 5 of 8)

Associate Pastor's Column

Sunday, May 14, 2006

            Today let’s continue our series on the Gifts of the Holy Spirit. Now it’s time to think about wisdom. Wisdom is that gift by which we think and act in reference to God, who is the cause of all things, and who is love.

            Before we sink our teeth deeper into that, explain it, and see some examples, let’s recap where we are with all this talk about the Gifts.

            We know that in the spiritual life, we are striving after (or should be) spiritual perfection, which consists in the love of God above all things, and of one’s neighbor as oneself. To attain this we have the sacraments, the virtues, and the Gifts of the Holy Spirit.

            By the virtues, we prove and grow in our love by work and sweat. By the Gifts, we do so by special aids of the Holy Spirit, for the Gifts come from Him and not from within ourselves.  I compare the virtues to moving a boat through the water by laboriously pulling on the oars; I compare the Gifts to moving the boat (one’s soul) by sails, where the Spirit is the wind that pulls one along effortlessly.

            We also studied some gifts already. We saw the fear of the Lord, which is that reverential fear of offending God by sin. The beginning of wisdom is the fear of the Lord.

            Then we began studying the three gifts that aid our faith life. First there was understanding, by which we grasp the faith, the content of faith, and the things that pertain to the faith. Then we saw knowledge, by which we judge all temporal things rightly and with a supernatural disposition. Now we turn to the third and the last, wisdom.

            Someone is said to be wise when they judge and act rightly; a medical professional, for example, is wise when he is able to discern either health or sickness, and understand the causes behind it, especially the deepest causes which are hard to see for the untrained or less talented doctor or nurse. He is wise, because he understands the principles, the causes.  (And by “he” I mean either man or woman, following the canons of English grammar, obviously.)

            An architect is wise when he comes up with marvelously creative and original plans, which only his brilliant mind is able to construe. Understanding the principles of physics, he can design great buildings, bridges or works of art. He is wise because he knows and acts referring to the principles and deepest causes of his craft.

            So too Catholics are wise when they think, judge, and know, or when they act, decide or deliberate, always in reference to God and the Holy Catholic Church which is his Mystical Body.

            I have met many persons who are not “smart” in the way the world at large sees or judges, but were very wise. Poor people, souls without education, elderly scoffed by the young, the sick who are a nuisance to the healthy, you name it: all full of Wisdom! I have met little old ladies in the Churches in Germany who spoke with more Wisdom about God and spiritual things than so many of the theologians whose books I studied in the seminary. They knew God, by a special Gift of the Holy Spirit, and this understanding of God led to Wisdom, which is a true Gift.

            I stress this only to point to this fact: this Wisdom is not the same as one obtains by one’s efforts of studying, reading and consulting with experts. As good as these things are, this Wisdom is different: it comes from God and is infused into their hearts. It is this type of Wisdom, therefore, which we know to be a Gift of the Holy Spirit.

            They are wise in how they led their spiritual lives. They are wise in their conversations, so many of which about spiritual matters. They are wise in their prayer lives. They are wise in judging that this world and all that is in it will pass away. They are wise in living penitential lives. They are wise in being joyful, for God is love, he came to save us, and he rose from the dead in the flesh.

            Let us therefore as God the Holy Spirit for the gift of Wisdom.

Picture: Jesus appears to Mary Magdalene, Bordone, Giotto 1276-1336