The Seven Gifts of the Holy Spirit—Do They Matter?

 

By F.X. Blisard*

 

Remember confirmation class?  You were probably taught that, at the moment the Bishop anointed you with the holy oil, you would be endowed by God with several spiritual “gifts” or “charisms.”  You’ve probably wondered more than once since then why your teacher(s) made such a fuss about such obscure notions as Wisdom, Understanding, Counsel, Fortitude, Knowledge, Piety, and Fear of the Lord.  As an antidote to this common ecclesial ailment, I ask you to travel with me in your imagination to a dramatic, desperate scene from ancient history that, “Believe It Or Not,” has more than a little bearing on the situation.

 

DATELINE: Jerusalem, 722 B.C. -- Refugees from the north are pouring into the southern kingdom, Judah, with tales of the terrors inflicted upon Galilee and Samaria by the Assyrian army.  For a whole generation now, Israel and Judah have watched with increasing anxiety as one Assyrian king after another has conquered nation after nation along the eastern Mediterranean coast.  The Prophet Isaiah portrays the advancing Assyrian forces as an instrument in the hands of God, a divine axe felling the surrounding nations like trees in an attempt to get His wayward People’s attention: 

 

Behold, the Lord, the LORD of hosts will lop the boughs with terrifying power; the great in height will be hewn down, and the lofty will be brought low.  He will cut down the thickets of the forest with an axe, and Lebanon with its majestic trees will fall.  (Isaiah 10:33-34)

 

During this tumultuous period, the kings of Israel and Judah alike have failed miserably to provide the kind of leadership that the Chosen People need in order to enjoy the peace, prosperity, and security that God promised their ancestors “if only they would keep His law.”  Not only have they allowed the rich to trample upon the poor, but they themselves worship the idols of the surrounding nations and seek to establish national security by way of treaties with those same nations rather than through intimate relationship with the Lord.  The divided monarchy itself is but a symptom of this deep alienation from the God who originally created a united people and nation. 

 

Chapter 11 of the Book of Isaiah opens with a shocking image, one that implies that the House of David never “got the message” and, in its turn, fell to the blows of that same divine axe:

 

There shall come forth a shoot from the stump of Jesse [father of King David] , and a branch shall grow out of his roots.  (Isaiah 11:1)

 

Isaiah’s vision, however, is that of a slate wiped clean, upon which the Lord will write anew:

 

There shall come forth a shoot from the stump of Jesse, and a branch shall grow out of his roots.  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 the fear of the LORD [ancient Greek versions translated this as “piety” ].  And his delight shall be in the fear of the LORD.  He shall not judge by what his eyes see, or decide by what his ears hear; but with righteousness he shall judge the poor, and decide with equity for the meek of the earth; and he shall smite the earth with the rod of his mouth, and with the breath of his lips he shall slay the wicked. (Isaiah 11:1-3)

 

This apocalyptic vision of the Prophet Isaiah provides us with the earliest recorded instance of those heroic character traits that the Church has come to call the Seven Gifts of the Holy Spirit.  In the midst of national disaster, with no hope in sight, Isaiah sees a new king of a renewed Israel, establishing a kingdom in which every person is treated justly and evildoers do not escape detection and retribution.  As Christians, we believe that that king is none other than Jesus of Nazareth and that he calls us to join him in his efforts to establish that kingdom.  Any takers? 

 

[Originally published May 27, 2004 in The Monitor,

official newspaper of The Diocese of Trenton, New Jersey]

 

 

*F.X. Blisard is a member of Blessed Sacrament Church, Trenton, which he serves as a lector and extraordinary eucharistic minister.  He works as a technical editor for a medical education and marketing firm in southeastern Pennsylvania.  He can be reached for comment at: frankblisard@msn.com .