The gifts of the Holy Spirit – Wisdom

You know with Pentecost here I feel as if we’ve just celebrated a HUGE Birthday and we’re now opening up all those wonderful presents.

When we talk about the gifts of the Holy Spirit, I don’t know about you, but I start to sing a song.

We were taught it to help us remember what the gifts of the Spirit are, but most times I just hum the tune.

So we’re going to do a little education this week and go through – again – because I’m sure I’ve done this before on this blog – what the gifts of the Holy Spirit are.

Today we start with Wisdom.

Now when I think of Wisdom two things come to mind – Old people and the Book of Kings.

Incidentally since we’ve started Ordinary Time we have been reading from the Book of Kings.

But why would I think about old people.

We all associate Wisdom with age. For whatever reason, old people are just wiser than young people. In general and it is mainly because most old people have had a lot of experience “living”

One would then argue – so how is it that we can gain “wisdom” at an early age.

Yes we’ve heard of very young children saying and expressing very profound statements that leave the most learned of us all dumbfounded.

So it is true – Age is not a pre-requisite for having Wisdom, but no one can deny it sure helps.

So what is Wisdom?

The Oxford online Dictionary defines it this way

• The quality of having experience, knowledge, and good judgement; the quality of being wise: listen to his words of wisdom

• The fact of being based on sensible or wise thinking: some questioned the wisdom of building the dam so close to an active volcano

• The body of knowledge and experience that develops within a specified society or period: Eastern wisdom

We can see from these definitions why wisdom and age will be so closely tied.

But what is the Wisdom that we gain from the Holy Spirit?

Wisdom is the perfection of faith. As Fr. John A. Hardon, S.J., notes in his Modern Catholic Dictionary,

“Where faith is a simple knowledge of the articles of Christian belief, wisdom goes on to a certain divine penetration of the truths themselves.”

The better we understand those truths, the more we value them properly.

Wisdom is that gift which makes the soul responsive to God in the contemplation of divine things. To know the truths of faith and to allow them to penetrate one’s entire being.

Wisdom moves a person to higher plane of Faith and Love.

I like to compare it to an old married couple – they know each other so well that they contemplate each other effortlessly and do for each other without even thinking about.

When Wisdom exists there seems to be little thought – the person is in an intense union, of mind and body, with God.

As such they are able to properly put into perspective the things of this world.

Naturally built into wisdom is the element of love,

which inspires contemplative reflection on the divine mysteries,

rejoices dwelling on these mysteries, and

directs the mind to judge all things according to their principles,

which is having right detachment and discernment to what is most needed for the soul.

Because Wisdom is indeed a gift and not something that is “learned” or “developed” we can clearly see how even the very young can possess a world of wisdom,

simply because they are so in love with God that they know how to view everything from that perspective.

That my friends in the greatest Wisdom of all.

Keep following as we discuss in a few days the next gift of the Holy Spirit, and closely related to Wisdom – Knowledge.

Have a wonderful day all.

Hilary De Freitas

Catholic Blogger and  Author (among other things.)

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About Hilary De Freitas

Hilary De Freitas is a wife, mother, engineer and marketer. She is dedicated to helping people build better businesses using the information available to them. Apart from helping people build businesses she runs her own Knights Consulting business as well as being a network marketer. Hilary has been on a faith journey that guided her along her professional life. She shares what she had learned in her faith and how she uses it in her everyday life.

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