“On the seventh day of Christmas, my true love gave to me seven swans a swimming….” by Cindy LaTouf
The Seven Swans a Swimming reminds us of the Seven Gifts of the Holy Spirit, Wisdom, Understanding, Counsel, Fortitude, Knowledge, Piety, and Fear/Respect of the Lord.
For many of us, New Year’s Eve is a day of festivity: We’re going to ring in the New Year! Maybe you are headed to a big party—possibly a quiet celebration with a few friends. Or perhaps you will stay home and contemplate your New Year’s resolutions.
As we look forward to bringing in the New Year, it’s a good time to reflect on the gifts of the Holy Spirit.
We receive these gifts in confirmation and baptism. Like any gifts, you must open them and use them. Left unopened, they become like the strange sweater that your Aunt Gurdy gave you or that thing that weird Harold gave you that you’re not sure what it is, but you are almost positive that he re-gifted. Let’s unwrap the Gifts of the Holy Spirit, so they don’t become something strange to us.
In 2014 Pope Francis began teaching about the Gifts of the Holy Spirit with these words:
You know that the Holy Spirit constitutes the soul, the lifeblood of the church, and of every individual Christian: He is the love of God who makes our hearts his dwelling place and enters into communion with us. The Holy Spirit abides with us always, he is always within us, in our hearts.
The Spirit himself is “the gift of God” par excellence (John 4:10) he is a gift of God, and he, in turn, communicates various spiritual gifts to those who receive him.
“The love of God who makes our hearts his dwelling place.” That statement is remarkable! God, who is Love, pours Himself into our hearts. In learning, understanding, and using these gifts, we come to know God and ourselves more intimately. That intimate knowledge will lead us to our salvation.”
As we begin the New Year and work to stay faithful to our 2023 resolutions, let’s take time to learn more about these gifts and pray passionately for a deeper understanding of how God wishes for us to use these gifts.
1. WISDOM – Wisdom is the first and highest gift of the Holy Spirit because it is the perfection of faith. Through wisdom, we come to value properly those things which we believe through faith. The truths of Christian belief are more important than the things of this world, and wisdom helps us to order our relationship to the created world properly, loving Creation for the sake of God rather than for its own sake.
2. UNDERSTANDING – Understanding is the second gift of the Holy Spirit, and people sometimes need help understanding (no pun intended) how it differs from wisdom. While wisdom is the desire to contemplate the things of God, understanding allows us to grasp, at least in a limited way, the very essence of the truths of the Christian Faith. Through understanding, we gain absolute certainty about our beliefs that moves beyond faith.
3. COUNSEL – Counsel, the third gift of the Holy Spirit, is the perfection of prudence, proper judgment, and careful choices. Anyone can practice prudence, but counsel is supernatural. Through this gift of the Holy Spirit, we can judge how best to act almost by intuition. Because of the gift of counsel, Christians need not fear to stand up for the truths of the faith because the Holy Spirit will guide us in defending those truths.
4. FORTITUDE – Fortitude is ranked as the fourth gift of the Holy Spirit because it gives us the strength to follow through on the actions suggested by the gift of counsel. While fortitude is sometimes called courage, it goes beyond what we usually think of as courage. Fortitude is the virtue of the martyrs that allows them to suffer death rather than renounce the Christian Faith
5. KNOWLEDGE – The fifth gift of the Holy Spirit, knowledge, is often confused with wisdom and understanding. Like wisdom, knowledge is the perfection of faith, but whereas wisdom gives us the desire to judge all things according to the truths of the Christian Faith, knowledge is the actual ability to do so. Like counsel, it is aimed at our actions in this life. In a limited way, knowledge allows us to see the circumstances of our life the way God sees them. Through this gift of the Holy Spirit, we can determine God’s purpose for our lives and live them accordingly.
6. PIETY – Piety, the sixth gift of the Holy Spirit. With the gift of reverence, sometimes called piety, we have a deep respect for God and the church. A person with reverence recognizes our total reliance on God and comes before God with humility, trust, and love. While we tend to think of religion today as the external elements of our faith, it means the willingness to worship and to serve God. Piety takes that willingness beyond a sense of duty, so that we desire to worship God and to serve Him out of love, the way that we desire to honor our parents and do what they wish.
7. FEAR OF THE LORD (Wonder and Awe) – The seventh and final gift of the Holy Spirit is the fear of the Lord, and perhaps no other gift of the Holy Spirit is so misunderstood. With the gift of fear of the Lord, we are aware of the glory and majesty of God. A person with wonder and awe knows that God is the perfection of all we desire: perfect knowledge, perfect goodness, perfect power, and perfect love. This gift can be described as a fear of separating oneself from God. It is described as a “filial fear,” like a child’s fear of offending his father, rather than a “servile fear,” that is, a fear of punishment. Also known as knowing God is all-powerful. Fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom (Prov 1:7) because it puts our mindset in its correct location with respect to God: we are finite, dependent creatures, and He is the infinite, all-powerful Creator. Our desire not to offend God is more than simply a sense of duty; the fear of the Lord arises out of love.