XXVI — THE GIFTS OF THE HOLY SPIRIT

Presence of God. — O Holy Spirit, develop in me Your gifts, so that I may receive Your divine motions.

Meditation

1 — We have already seen that it is not possible to reach perfect orientation in God, holiness, without the help of the Holy Spirit. And this help is not reserved to privileged souls, but is necessary for every Christian. In holy Baptism, in fact, every soul receives, together with sanctifying grace, infused virtues and the gifts of the Holy Spirit. The infused virtues are supernatural principles of activity by which we become capable of acting in a virtuous way not only from a human point of view but from a supernatural one, so that we have the capacity to perform meritorious actions and therefore to apply ourselves actively to attaining holiness. The gifts of the Holy Spirit, instead, are supernatural habits by which we become capable of receiving the Holy Spirit’s help, of recognizing his inspirations, and of following them. In other words, the gifts are permanent dispositions that God has placed in our faculties so that we may receive and follow the Holy Spirit’s impulse. St. Thomas compares them to the sails of a boat: as a boat, by means of sails, has the capacity to be moved and carried by the wind, so our soul, by means of the gifts, has the capacity to be moved and guided by the Holy Spirit.

If a sailor sets sails on his craft, it means he intends to move it forward not only by force of oars but also by the push of the wind. Likewise, if God has infused into our soul the gifts of the Holy Spirit, it means He intends to advance it not only by active exercise of virtues but also by the intervention of the Holy Spirit. And whereas the sailor can set sails on his boat but cannot raise the breath of the wind, God instead not only gave us the gifts of the Holy Spirit, but also has the power to put them into act when and as He wills. The very fact that in our spiritual organism God willed to insert the gifts is the clearest proof that He wants to intervene in the work of our sanctification, that He wants to grant us the Holy Spirit’s help.

2 — The encyclical Divinum illud munus teaches: “The just man, who already lives the life of grace and acts with the help of virtues, needs those seven gifts that are called proper to the Holy Spirit. Through these man becomes at once more pliant and stronger in following with greater ease and readiness the divine instinct.” “The divine instinct” is precisely the Holy Spirit’s inspiration and motion; now, man by his nature, even with the best intelligence and good will, is incapable of understanding and following such instinct: “the natural man,” says St. Paul, “does not receive the things of the Spirit of God; they are folly to him and he cannot understand them” (1 Cor. 2:14). Hence the gifts of the Holy Spirit, given to us precisely to make us sensitive to the “divine instinct”: without them we could not receive the Holy Spirit’s motions. This makes us understand ever more the preciousness of the gifts and therefore the importance that they develop in us in all their fullness. In fact, the gifts we received in seed in Holy Baptism are destined, like sanctifying grace and infused virtues, to grow and develop until death. And it is very consoling to think that, given the profound unity of our supernatural organism, grace, virtues, and gifts grow simultaneously and in parallel with the growth of charity. If we want the gifts to develop fully in our soul, we must exercise ourselves unceasingly in charity; to each progress in divine love there will correspond a new development of the gifts. The gifts are the soul’s sails, but these sails can remain furled, tied by our selfishness, by self-love, by attachments to ourselves and to creatures; charity, instead, frees the sails from every hindrance and spreads them to the gentle breath of the Holy Spirit: the more loosed and broad the sails are, the more capable they will be of catching the least impulse of the divine Paraclete.

Colloquy

“I see You, God Father, Word and Spirit, and I understand that You go seeking, with supreme wisdom and eternal goodness, your creature, in such a way that it seems You have no glory and no satisfaction except in your creature, though it is so vile; and this your Spirit is the love by which You go seeking to take it. And the heart that receives the Spirit is like that bush Moses saw, which burned and was not consumed. In supreme purity it burns with desire that God be not offended and is consumed by desire that God be honored, though it is not seen to be consumed.

“Come, come, Holy Spirit. Let there come the union of the Father, the delight of the Word, the glory of the Angels. You are, O Spirit of Truth, reward of the saints, refreshment of souls, light of darkness, riches of the poor, treasure of those who love, satiety of the hungry, consolation of pilgrims; in a word, You are He in whom every treasure is contained.

“O Holy Spirit, with eternal wisdom You gently urge, without taking away freedom, rational creatures who wish to receive your gifts. You go knocking at all hearts, but You knock gently, seeking that each may dispose himself to receive these gifts. You go sweetly singing with tender weeping. You go rejoicing, weeping, and seeking that each may be disposed to receive You. Let the intellect know You, the will note You, let memory understand your immense goodness, O Holy Spirit, who infuse Yourself and your gifts into the soul! O Spirit proceeding from the Father and the Word, You infuse Yourself into the soul so gently that You are not perceived; and not being perceived, by few are You esteemed. Yet, beyond your Goodness, You infuse into the soul the Power of the Father and the Wisdom of the Son; and the soul, made thus powerful and wise, becomes apt to bear You within itself as sweet indweller, caressing You, that is, behaving in such a way that You may delight and not depart from it” (St. Mary Magdalene de’ Pazzi).