What are the gifts of the Holy Spirit?
Saint Thomas Aquinas defines the gifts of the Holy Spirit by saying: “They are perfections that dispose a person to follow the promptings of the Holy Spirit.” The gifts of the Spirit, then, are dispositions of devotion that incline the soul to listen to the Spirit’s promptings and act on them. For a person, even if grace has beautified his soul and the virtues have adorned it, remains liable to error. His will is still weak and his mind prone to going astray. Very often he is swept away by the turbulent current of the passions. He can only sanctify himself with the help of the Spirit. When the Spirit dwells in a believer’s soul, he pours out his seven gifts on it and creates in it a favourable spiritual climate that makes the work of salvation easier.
The number of the gifts
The gifts of the Spirit are not limited to seven, but in the Bible the number seven often signifies the fullness of perfection. The prophet Isaiah points to this when he prophesies about Christ: “There shall come forth a shoot from the stump of Jesse, and a branch from his roots shall bear fruit. And the Spirit of the Lord shall rest upon him, the Spirit of wisdom and understanding, the Spirit of counsel and might, the Spirit of knowledge and piety, and his delight shall be in the fear of the Lord” (Isaiah 11:1-3). Each of these seven gifts gives the soul a particular light.
1. Wisdom
It helps a person to know divine things, to go deep into them and to savour them, as the Psalmist says: “Taste and see that the Lord is good” (Psalm 33 [34]:8). So we prefer serving God and dwelling in his house to choosing the riches of the world and indulging in its pleasures, repeating with the prophet David: “How lovely is your dwelling place, O Lord of hosts!… For a day in your courts is better than a thousand” (Psalm 83 [84]:1, 10).
2. Understanding
It helps us understand the Holy Scriptures and go deeper into the truths of the faith. We do not claim that this gift enables a person to grasp the mysteries of religion in their essence, but it gives the mind a spiritual light by which, if he reads a passage of the Gospel, for example, he understands it properly, even if he had never noticed it before despite reading the text many times, and he takes from it a rule to follow in his spiritual life. All the Fathers of the Church who explained doctrine and brought it closer to the minds of the faithful received this gift, “for the Spirit searches everything, even the depths of God” (1 Corinthians 2:10).
3. Counsel
It keeps a person from rashness, haste and presumption, and from their dangers to the spiritual life. Whoever makes decisions without seeking God’s inspiration and turning back to him falls into error: he worships and exalts himself, when he should worship and glorify God, “for every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights” (James 1:17). Christ himself gave us an example in this: he did nothing without consulting his Father, and he said of himself, “The Son can do nothing of his own accord, but only what he sees the Father doing” (John 5:19).
4. Fortitude
It enables a person to do God’s will, face hardships and endure trials and misfortunes, so that however hard the world becomes before us, we feel that God is with us, as God told Moses when he charged him with bringing the people of Israel out of Egypt: “I will be with you” (Exodus 3:12). And we have strength to “obey God rather than men” (Acts 4:19; 5:29), even if it costs us our blood. All the martyrs received this strength and preferred death to denying God.
5. Knowledge
It shows us things in a lofty spiritual light. The unbeliever sees nature and people by his natural light, but the believer sees them by the light the Holy Spirit pours out on him. He sees the image of God in nature and in people, avoids whatever could make him fall into the pits of darkness and error, and walks toward his final goal, using the effective means that lead him there.
6. Piety
This is the most precious of the Spirit’s gifts: it strengthens resolve and fortifies weak souls, as the apostle Paul says: “The Spirit helps us in our weakness” (Romans 8:26). Piety governs a person’s relationship with God and establishes it on sound and solid foundations. It is therefore a blend of worship and filial respect for the heavenly Father.
7. Fear of the Lord
It does not contradict piety. By fear we do not mean fear of punishment, which is the fear of slaves, but fear of offending God by sin, which is the fear of sons. This is the fear the prophet Isaiah spoke of when he said of the Lord Christ: “His delight shall be in the fear of the Lord” (Isaiah 11:3). It is the fear the angels feel in God’s presence, and its source is respect, honour and worship. As the book of Psalms teaches us: “The fear of the Lord is clean, enduring forever” (Psalm 18 [19]:9). And the apostle Paul also spoke of this spirit of fear: “You did not receive a spirit of slavery to fall back into fear, but you received the Spirit of adoption as sons, by whom we cry, ‘Abba! Father!'” (Romans 8:15).
