Let us begin with the Prayer to the Holy Spirit:
Come, Holy Spirit, fill the hearts of Thy faithful, and kindle in them the fire of Thy love.
V. Send forth Thy Spirit, and they shall be created.
R. And Thou shall renew the face of the earth.
Let us pray. O God, Who didst instruct the hearts of the faithful by the light of the Holy Spirit, grant us the same Spirit to be truly wise, and ever to rejoice in His consolation. Through Christ our Lord.
Amen.
I believe that these days, you will be hard-pressed to find a person who has nourished all Seven Gifts of the Holy Spirit. While many have taken care of, say, fortitude and piety, it seems that they have not fostered wisdom and counsel in themselves. And it seems that only the Saints raised to the altars were able to perfectly nourish all these gifts.
Why these gifts are important
We received the gifts of the Holy Spirit in Baptism, and yes, they are sealed and strengthened in us in Confirmation. The Catechism of the Catholic Church (CCC 1830) states that these gifts “sustain the moral life of Christians, and make man docile in following the promptings of the Holy Spirit.”
But along with the rise of modernity and inventions, so emerged the secular world and its effects, such as atheism, low moral standards, perversion, deviations and permissiveness. Even Catholics are not safe from these effects; for we often find ourselves struggling with temptations from living in this secularized society. And unless fortified in the will and in good relationship with the Lord, which enable us to battle all these, many of us Catholics repeatedly fall into sin, which affects our sanctifying grace and the power of the Holy Spirit working in our lives.
That is why more than ever, we need to be more conscious if we are truly cultivating the Seven Gifts of the Holy Spirit through prayers, the Sacraments, penances and sacrifices, to be able to fight off all the evils of the world, and therefore, lead good lives pleasing to God, and serve Him and our neighbors in perfect faith, hope and charity.
Confusion among the gifts
What I have always noticed in the articles you find on the internet is that they are using overlapping definitions of these Gifts instead of distinguishing them apart, which is rather confusing. They define Wisdom in similar terms with Counsel, for example. I also see ones with interchangeable meanings of Wisdom, Fortitude and Counsel. But while all related, the gifts of the Holy Spirit actually differ from each other. Each one is unique.
My Reflection
These Posts will explain the Seven Gifts of the Holy Spirit. I tried to really comprehend what they actually mean and recognize what makes them different from each other. By using examples, I will define and distinguish every gift and give more clarity to it. This way, our Readers will be able to focus on cultivating each particular Gift of the Holy Spirit. I will also make the explanations more understandable for all laity, speaking in layman’s terms.
2. UNDERSTANDING
The Gift of Understanding, the second gift of the Holy Spirit, enables us to comprehend or grasp the meaning of certain truths and teachings of the Church.
I thought of what would demonstrate this. While there are Catholics who are basically not catechized, which is why they do not know the particular truths of the Faith, there exist many Catholics who are very much aware of the teachings of the Church because they regularly go to Mass, and have heard of these truths many times in the Gospel and in homilies. Yet, these Catholics deliberately speak or do against what they “know”—not believing them as true or necessary to obey. The Church is not their authority; they make themselves their own authority, and follow their own made-up ‘God’s law.’
An example would be the many Church-going Catholic married couples that use methods of contraception, despite having heard it many times during Holy Mass, read in Catholic websites or seen in programs, that the Catholic Church has always been against it. Such couples use their own personal reasoning as to why it is better to prevent pregnancy artificially, rather than giving birth to children as God would will, or using Church-approved, natural birth control methods. They also defend themselves that it’s their ‘right’ as a married couple to ‘plan’ pregnancy by preventing it however way they choose. This opposition is because their minds simply could not understand why it is immoral and against the law of God to use those various contraceptives. They lack in the Gift of Understanding, despite being somewhat religious, whether because they have not been living in state of grace, or there is just something wrong inside their hearts that cloud their understanding.
In another example, I personally met many Catholics who believe that God does not mind homosexuality and its sins, even though they very well know the fact that God destructed Sodom and Gomorrah due to such immorality, and read other Bible verses that teach against homosexual behavior. They and Catholics like them are either homosexual themselves, or showing support their friends and relatives. They tell everybody that God must have ‘modernized’ Himself, too; that it is not against His law anymore. They think that they could be ‘Catholic,’ and declare support for gay pride at the same time. These people are ‘cheering’ on their homosexual friends in homosexual relationships, or sharing posts about gay pride parades and the like—all the while posting also about how ‘Catholic’ they are in social media. They could not grasp that any homosexual act was considered a sin since ancient times, remains to be a sin in the eyes of God, and that being Catholic who fully supports it is just wrong.
This was why many of us Catholic faithful who were truly deeper into the Faith did not feel any need to debate with the Church as to why contraception and homosexual perversion were immoral. We were already satisfied with what we learned from Catholic websites and EWTN programs, for example, as the presenters had explained the facts. We clearly got the rationale of these Church teachings, all because of the Gift of Understanding from the Holy Spirit that we had nourished.
It’s sad how even some servants of God have yet to nourish their Gift of Understanding of some fundamental Commandments of God. I will tell you an example about the Confession I had years ago. If you read my other articles, you’d know that my immediate family and I have always been against movie, series and music piracy. I bought songs in iTunes… while the majority of people just downloaded them for free using piracy programs like torrents. So back when I was a movie buff, watching all sorts of movies and series that interested me (I often say in my articles that I don’t watch majority of these things anymore.), I would only either go to cinemas to see them, or buy or rent them from Google Play, and subscribe to Netflix. I personally didn’t know anybody at the time that paid for these. My Mom would always joke, ‘Perhaps we’re the only ones paying a lot for these things.” Even the rich, at least here where I live, just downloaded them from torrents, and streamed them in piracy websites.
So once, I remembered a dance scene from a favorite movie of mine. Not having a digital copy of it, I checked it out on YouTube. However, I ended up watching many other parts of the film there. Even though it wasn’t strictly movie piracy, as YouTube allowed those lengthy parts of the movie to be available there, I thought that I had watched more than what I was ‘fairly’ supposed to. The next time I went to Confession, I thought of mentioning that to my Confessor. I was shocked when the priest told me, “You should not confess movie piracy. I, too, only watch pirated movies. Because everybody watches pirated movies.”
This is again a demonstration of the lack of Gift of Understanding. The priest must have encountered many times that piracy is a sin that falls under “Thou shall not steal” of the Ten Commandments. I clearly remembered reading that example in my Catholic textbooks in high school and college. And it doesn’t even need to be in textbooks—the producers, directors, actors and actresses have always expressed concerns about piracy, and been vocal in requesting people to not pirate their work. So doing anything opposite to what they say is stealing. Although these people are wealthy, it’s still a sin to take something from them, that is, their earnings.
But the said priest and other Catholics who are into piracy contradict this teaching by using human reasoning as to why it’s not a sin (And they do believe in their hearts that it’s not.). This is the same situation with many baptized Catholics who say that they commit pre-marital sex because “everybody does it” anyway. Sometimes, you can tell that they are telling you the truth—they actually believe that it’s not a sin, despite having read and heard many times that it is. And to be fair, I thought that this priest I talked about was kind—most of the time, he wouldn’t leave the confessional when there were people in the queue still, even it’s already way past the Confession schedule (while the other priests would leave way before the Confession schedule, even there were people in the queue still…). It’s just that he needs to work more on his Gift of Understanding to be able to better shepherd the flock.
Protestants, such as the Born Again ‘Christians,’ are another example that demonstrates the lack of the Gift of Understanding. Their pastors and many of their members are very knowledgeable about the entire Bible; at times, much more than Catholics do. They could recite Bible verses at any given time, even without turning a page in the Bible. Whatever topic you have in mind, they could cite a Bible verse or two related to it. While Catholics could learn from their desire to know God well through the study of the Bible (because Catholics ought to read the Bible more), and while I think that they are good in putting an emphasis on treating people with kindness, the problem is that these Protestants and members of sects have a different interpretation of mostly everything in the Bible that is related to dogmas (truths and infallible teachings of the Catholic Church that have been divinely revealed), doctrines (infallible teachings of the Church but have not been or have not yet been divinely revealed), theological opinions (teachings that are not taught by the Church but are permitted by the Church) and disciplines (liturgical and theological practices and customs of the faith, which unlike dogmas and doctrines, can be changed) of the Catholic Church. Most of them also lash out against the Catholic Church, and bad-mouth Catholics for their beliefs. And sometimes, even among the presence of their Catholic friends.
Their souls are starved from a serious lack of the Gift of Understanding from the Holy Spirit. They seem to know all the details about God and His words in the Bible, yet they do not understand as faithful Catholics do. I compare it to knowing the words of a song in another language you do not understand. Like up to now, I very well know the words of some Japanese Anime or cartoons I used to watch, which I could not be bothered to translate in English to understand what they actually meant. But Bible verses are obviously not song lyrics. Thus, they require great spiritual understanding to grasp the truths in them.
Find any verse in the Bible that is related to dogmas, doctrines, theological opinions and disciplines in the Bible, and for sure, Born Again ‘Christians’ and other Protestants have their own interpretation that are opposite of what the Catholic Church teaches regarding these. To demonstrate this, I will mention the one most topic they are most heretical about—the Blessed Virgin Mary.
Having memorized a lot of Bible verses, there is simply no plausible reason that they missed reading the Magnificat, or the Canticle of Mary, in the Gospel of Luke 1:46-56. If you observe how Protestants and other sects ‘defend’ their ‘faith,’ they evidently give the lowest regard for the Blessed Mother, compared to any other characters, major and even minor, in the Bible. They give the highest regard, say, to key prophets (If you have been reading my Blog, you would know that I have a deep love for the prophets, especially Prophet Elijah. But of course, I have the most love for the Blessed Mother). But for some reason, when it comes to the Blessed Mother, these non-Catholics seem to show severe aversion.
The words that Protestants know from the Bible, they use to paint the Blessed Mother as a mere ‘tool’ or some sort of surrogate. They believe that God could have selected just any other woman, as if saying that she was just ‘lucky’ that she was there at the right moment and the right time. That’s why they pay no respect for her. Whichever character in the Bible that God has “blessed,” they give them all their attention. But they disregard words regarding the Blessed Mother, such as what St. Elizabeth said, “Most blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb. And how does this happen to me, that the mother of my Lord should come to me?” (Luke 1:42-43)
Other sects only have understanding in the most basic sense. They expect other people to show their human mothers respect (Perhaps they would even punch anyone who disrespects their mothers right to their faces!). But with the Mother of God, they preach and tell people not to honor and venerate “that woman.” The Gift of Understanding through the Holy Spirit lets us grasp the Truth about God. When it comes to teachings about the Blessed Mother, which are among the highest truths of the Faith, the understanding of non-Catholics could not grasp them anymore. Hence, their knowledge of the Bible about the divinity and humanity of Jesus, conceived by the power of the Holy Spirit, and born of the Virgin Mary, becomes futile.
On the spiritual level, I believe that it is the devil that blinds the understanding of heretics. Though on a personal level, I think that a sin that terribly plagues the Gift of Understanding is the sin of Pride. When people think that they know better than God and the Church, there is no room in their souls to understand what our Faith truly professes. My suggestion as a way to nurture Understanding is to be empathetic with the Crucified Christ and the Sorrowful Mother. When we put ourselves in the shoes of another, we are able to try to feel for them; if we show empathy for Jesus in His Passion and Death, and the Blessed Virgin Mary by His side, our hardened hearts will be opened. Then, the voice of God will sow in us an understanding of the true message in Scripture—be it about contraception, homosexuality, God’s commands, the Mother of Our Lord, and other spiritual truths.
***
My other articles in this Series:
Wisdom: The First Gift of the Holy Spirit
Counsel: The Third Gift of the Holy Spirit
Fortitude: The Fourth Gift of the Holy Spirit
Saint Paul the Apostle, pray for us!
Saint Joseph, pray for us!
Mama Mary, pray for us!
Amen.
She graduated cum laude from the University of Santo Tomas, the country's Pontifical and Catholic university, with an AB in Legal Management and minor units in Theology.
As an unmarried woman, prayer holds a central place in her daily life, with a focus on the Rosary and the Divine Office. Embodying her faith, she emphasizes the growth of her inner spiritual life, guided by the wisdom of Carmelite spirituality.
God manifested to her in a unique and radical manner, which made her know Who He truly is and led her to total surrender of her life to Him.
She has studied the Bible with her family, developing a particular fondness for the Old Testament.
Her adorable and intelligent toy poodle is a delightful companion in her daily life, bringing warmth and joy to her home.
Her hobbies include reading about everything, learning Japanese and German, listening to music and playing the flute.
In her leisure time, she enjoys gaming on PlayStation 5, Nintendo Switch OLED, Nintendo 3DS, iOS and OS, and collecting things related to PlayStation and Nintendo.
Email: [email protected]
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