Gifts Of The Holy Spirit — Wisdom

By DON FIER

The seven gifts of the Holy Spirit, as we saw last week, are abiding supernatural habits or qualities which are first imparted to the soul as an effect of the Sacrament of Baptism and then fortified or strengthened by Confirmation. “They are supernatural impulses,” says Fr. John A. Hardon, SJ, “by which the Holy Spirit urges us to the practice of the Christian virtues. They correspond to the instincts of our human nature” (The Faith, p. 164).
Moreover, both the infused supernatural virtues (theological and moral) and the gifts of the Holy Spirit reside in the human faculties, and both have the supernatural perfection of man and heavenly beatitude as their final cause. Their mode of operation within us, however, is essentially different.
The infused virtues lead a person to act through the operation of natural reason illumined by faith and prompted by grace. The gifts of the Holy Spirit, in contrast, demand docility rather than activity on our part. They are put into motion directly by the Holy Spirit and thus operate in a divine or supernatural mode.
As noted last week, theologians liken the operation of the virtues to oarsmen advancing a boat forward through a body of water through strenuous effort. The gifts, on the other hand, correspond to a boat skimming forward through the impetus of sails swelled by the wind (i.e., the promptings of the Holy Spirit). In a manner of speaking, God takes over the soul’s activity and the faculties become His instruments.
The Church teaches that the gifts of the Holy Spirit are necessary for salvation. As expressed by Pope Leo XIII in his 1897 encyclical on the Holy Spirit (Divinum Illud Munus):
“The just man living in the state of grace and acting through the virtues that fulfill the function of the faculties, stands also in need of the seven gifts of the Holy Ghost.”
Thus, both the virtues and the gifts are necessary for the efficacious development of one’s spiritual life; they complement and complete one other.
As expressed by Fr. P. Marie-Eugène, OCD, in his masterful synthesis of Carmelite spirituality entitled I Want to See God, “The different ways of acting do not set the virtues and gifts in opposition but permit them to complete one another and to unite harmoniously for the perfection of the spiritual life” (p. 342).
We will now examine each gift of the Holy Spirit individually, following the order given in the Book of the Prophet Isaiah (see Isaiah 11:2). We begin with the gift of wisdom, which Fr. Jordan Aumann, OP, defines as: “To judge and order all things in accordance with divine norms and with a connaturality that flows from loving union with God” (Spiritual Theology [SpT], p. 97). The highest and most perfect of the seven gifts, it is inseparable from the theological virtue of charity. Just as charity embodies all the virtues, wisdom embodies all the gifts.
In what faculty does the gift of wisdom reside? “So far as it presupposes a judgment,” says Fr. Aumann, “the gift of wisdom resides in the intellect as its proper subject” (SpT, p. 271). He goes on to explain, however, that although it belongs to the gift of wisdom to contemplate the divine, it also pertains to wisdom to direct human acts according to divine things. Thus, as Fr. Adolphe Tanquerey, DD, expresses it, wisdom “resides at once in the intellect and in the will, since it infuses light and love into the soul” (The Spiritual Life [TSL], p. 629).
To explain this concept more clearly, Fr. Tanquerey cites St. Bernard of Clairvaux (1090-1153), who states that the gift of wisdom contains a twofold element:
“1) a light which illuminates the mind, and enables it to judge aright of God and of created things by relating them to their first principle and last end; . . . and 2) a supernatural taste which acts upon the will and enables it to relish divine things as by a sort of natural attraction. . . . It is like the sunbeam, a ray of light illuminating and delighting the eyes of the soul, and a ray of heat that warms the heart, inflames it with love, and fills it with joy” (ibid.).
The connection between the gift of wisdom and the theological virtue of charity ties directly to the concept of connaturality. If one is in the state of grace and in a relationship of “friendship with God” through charity, he will know what pleases and displeases His beloved Creator in a connatural way, as if by a “second nature.”
The more that charity grows in a person, the better he is able to judge the things of God — what is ordered to Him and what is not ordered to Him. In a certain sense, the gift of wisdom (a word which comes from the Latin word sapientia or “to taste”) enables one to develop a “taste” for the things of God, a knowledge that is possible only through a relationship of charity. As charity grows, wisdom grows.
Simply put, wisdom is the highest gift because it is knowledge of the First Cause and the Final End. It gives one the ability to see things in the right proportion and from the right perspective, namely from God’s perspective. It is to judge all things in relation to the wisdom of God, especially as revealed in His Paschal Mystery; it is to have the mind of Christ and to participate in His saving mission. The gift of wisdom also enables love of neighbor to reach a sublime perfection and it gives all the virtues their ultimate perfection.
The beatitude connected with wisdom is: “Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called sons of God” (Matt. 5:9). Peace, which Fr. Hardon defines as “the tranquility of order” (Modern Catholic Dictionary, p. 411), is the right order of all things, ultimately with regard to God. As expressed by St. Thomas Aquinas, “It belongs to charity to be at peace, but it belongs to wisdom to make peace by setting things in order” (Summa Theologiae II-II, Q.45, art.6, ad 1).
It is not necessarily the absence of conflict, but the presence of order — which creates peace. The gift of wisdom enables one to become a peacemaker, a quality that is so beautifully demonstrated in the lives of the saints. They make peace between God and man by seeing all things in relation to God, by having an innate sense to be able to sort the important from the unimportant.
It is vital to understand, however, that peace may often cause conflict in the short term in the interest of obtaining what is truly the ultimate good. Our Lord, who is the consummate peacekeeper, said, “Do not think that I have come to bring peace on earth; I have not come to bring peace, but a sword. For I have come to set a man against his father, and a daughter against her mother, and a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law” (Matt. 10:34-35).
Peacemakers are able to preserve a deep inner peace and tranquility of order in the midst of great exterior turmoil, and are able to communicate it to others.
The principal effects produced by the gift of wisdom, as summarized by Fr. Aumann, are truly remarkable: 1) It gives its possessor a divine sense to judge all things — a “divine instinct” replaces a human manner of judgment; 2) one is given the ability, to the extent possible in this life, to live the mysteries of faith in an entirely divine manner; 3) it enables one to live in union with the three divine Persons through an ineffable participation in the trinitarian life — prodigious and fruitful external activity in no way compromises interior peace and tranquility; 4) it raises the virtue of charity to heroism — all semblance of human motives and self-interest are displaced by love of God; and 5) it gives to all the virtues their ultimate perfection and makes them operate in a truly divine manner (cf. SpT, pp. 272-273).

Keep The Commandments

How does one prepare and dispose himself for actuation of the gift of wisdom? First of all, it bears repeating that all baptized persons who are in the state of grace possess the gifts of the Holy Spirit. However, for many souls these gifts, in a manner of speaking, remain dormant and unavailed for long periods of their lives.
To cultivate wisdom (or any of the gifts), the first requisite condition is to keep God’s Commandments and precepts, to practice the moral virtues, and to be true to all that is proper to one’s state in life. Detachment from all created things, including self, must be resolutely sought. Also, in order for one to be docile to the voice of the Holy Spirit, it must be heard. This requires a serious life of prayer, one of recollection in an atmosphere of silence so that His quiet movements might be discerned.
Once again, Fr. Aumann provides an excellent summary of the principal means, all within the workings of ordinary grace, that the faithful are called to practice: 1) see and evaluate all things from God’s point of view, regardless of whether they are pleasant or painful; 2) combat the wisdom of the world, which is foolishness in the eyes of God; 3) detach oneself from things of this world, however good and useful they might be; and 4) develop an indifference to spiritual consolations — learn to love the Giver rather than the gift (cf. SpT, pp. 273-275).

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(Don Fier serves on the board of directors for The Catholic Servant, a Minneapolis-based monthly publication. He and his wife are the parents of seven children. Fier is a 2009 graduate of Ave Maria University’s Institute for Pastoral Theology. He is doing research for writing a definitive biography of Fr. John A. Hardon, SJ.)