Pearls Ep 122: Knowing the Giver by His gifts.

[Pearls Ep. 122: Monday motivation]

OK, some Monday humor to start:

What did one Buddhist Master give to the child for his birthday?  Nothing wrapped in Emptiness.

To which the child responded, “You are thoughtless for giving me this meaningless gift.”

And the Buddhist Master replied, “Thank you.”

You can tell a lot about someone by the gifts they give.  Some people are great at finding the perfect gag gift (my sister has a particular genius for Chinese grab bags).  Some people give deep and insightful gifts.  Some people are great at just giving lots of little “every-day” gifts.  And some people (perhaps one of the persons writing this) aren’t so hot in the love language of gifts.

There are seven gifts that are specifically associated with the Holy Spirit.  They are associated with the Spirit because the Spirit is the “motor cause” of these gifts.   They are not virtues – they are not habits that we can cultivate on our own.  These seven gifts are ways the Holy Spirit acts through us – to draw us closer to God and bring grace into the world.

It’s worth reflecting on these, because they tell us quite a bit about God and what He values, and also our own nature.

In the postscript we provide a summary of the seven gifts (in Pearls episodes 70 and 71 we provided a more detailed discussion of each.

Blessings on your journey with Christ –

Steve

Postscript:  The Gifts of the Spirit and related virtues.

GIFTS OF THE INTELLECT

Wisdom – to judge and choose divine things (which expresses Charity).  Wisdom, the highest of the gifts, in Hebrew (hhakham or chokhmah), is associated with wise men, sages and their students.  The object of wisdom is God – to love what God loves (the Hebrew for wisdom is also associated with “heat” – which might call to mind “were our hearts not burning?”).

What’s more, wisdom (chokhmah) is also creative:

Him that by wisdom made the heavens  (Ps 136:5)

The Lord by wisdom hath founded the earth (Prov 3:19)

That creative/active element is why wisdom builds on knowledge and understanding.  Ultimately our Spirit-inspired knowledge and understanding must become active in the world – and that is the roll of wisdom.

Understanding – a deep penetration of the Truth that strengthens Faith.  The Greek root of understanding is binah, which is also associated with “between” – as in standing between good and evil, truth and error.  And binah is also associated with “build.”  Here it gets lively – moving now from the ancient Hebrew to the Christian tradition, the Gift of Understanding stands between knowledge and wisdom, and it builds on knowledge to guide us in wisdom.  Neat.

Knowledge – a deep knowledge of God, from which grows our Hope.   We were made to “know Him, love Him and serve Him.”  This does not mean to know God like we know a TV character.  It is to know Him intimately in our soul.  Ancient Hebrew has a word for this type of knowing – “yada” = this is the gift of Knowledge.

Counsel – to judge our actions (and strengthens prudence).   Counsel stands in the breach, between the gifts of the intellect and of the will.  Technically it is a gift of the intellect, but it has much to do with how we choose and act amidst in daily events.

“The gifts of knowledge and understanding provide us with general principles, the gift of counsel enables us to apply these to the thousand and one particular cases which present themselves ….  Counsel perfects the virtue of prudence by making us judge promptly and rightly, as by a sort of supernatural intuition, what must be done, especially in difficult cases.”  (Fr. Adolphe Tanquerrey)

GIFTS OF THE WILL

Piety – worship that due to God, and strengthens the virtue of justice (by which we give to God the worship that is due to Him.)  Here’s a key to understanding piety – in the Old Testament “piety” and “fear of the Lord” have almost the same meaning.  But in the world of the New Testament, this isn’t a servile fear.   It is a recognition that God loves us perfectly and cares for us perfectly.  We have only to turn to Him.  That is why Saints Augustine and Aquinas connect piety to this scripture:  “For you did not receive a spirit of slavery to fall back into fear, but you received a spirit of adoption, through which we cry, “Abba, Father!”  According to St. Aquinas, piety is also the through the gift of piety that the Holy Spirit prays on our behalf with “inexpressible groanings.”

Fortitude – strengthens our will against the fear of danger so that we can do great things joyfully and fearlessly despite all obstacles.  It is different from the virtue fortitude in that it is not the operation of our own will (with its natural hesitancy and anxiety).  We are filled with a supernatural determination, assurance, joy.  It is operating under the gift of fortitude that St. Stephen is described during his martyrdom as “being full of grace and fortitude…”

Fear of the Lord – this is where we start (it is the “lowest” of the gifts) – it is the school of love in which we learn to choose the things of God for His sake.  Fear of the Lord wells up from Love of the Lord.  It is a loathing of anything displeasing to God and a deep desire for the things that are pleasing to God.   This is why Fear of the Lord perfects the virtue of temperance.  We become naturally detached from the things of the world.  That is why fear of the Lord strengthens the virtue of temperance.  We especially understand Fear of the Lord in light of this: “Fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom” – Fear of the Lord sets us on our path to wisdom.