Unity of the Virtues: Gifts of the Spirit

Last week, we talked about the unity of the virtues and how the virtuous person practices all of the virtues. We especially ought to go out of our way to work on specific weaknesses, because by doing so we become more virtuous overall. The Catechism quotes St. Augustine, who sums it all up by talking about the greatest virtue, “Love is itself the fulfillment of all our works. There is the goal; that is why we run: we run toward it, and once we reach it, in it we shall find rest.”

We have talked a bit about practical ways to become more virtuous: developing the habit of examining your conscience each night before bed, using the sacrament of confession, coming to mass and participating, daily prayer, meditation on the Scriptures. All of these are avenues of God’s grace. He makes high demands on us; in fact, today we will hear proclaimed from the Gospel the words of Our Lord, “Be perfect as the Father is perfect.” Be perfect! God sees great potential in you and he plans a great future for you. In the natural, with our own intellect and will, we are able to be naturally virtuous and achieve a good life, but God demands a perfect life. For this we need supernatural help.

God does not leave us to sort out our moral life alone. He makes great demands and then he provides great gifts. All of those things we listed, the sacraments, prayer, Scripture, they are God’s way of helping us out. It’s funny, it’s as if he gives us this very difficult test and then leans in and whispers the answer to us. There is actually a moment in the Bible when God is giving the Israelites a choice; he tells them “I set before you today Life and Death. Choose Life!” He wants us to succeed. He is desperate for us to succeed. All of the saints in heaven want us to succeed. St. Paul says that they are in heaven cheering us on, and we know that they are praying for us.

All of these gifts are made possible by the Holy Spirit. It is the Spirit who remains here with us after Jesus ascended to heaven. He is our direct link to the heavenly throne room. We might say that the Holy Spirit is the soul of the Church; he makes the Body of Christ alive. In the same way that your own soul unifies and gives form to your body, so too does the Spirit unify and give form to the Church.

Our Holy Father Emeritus, Benedict XVI, says, “Enriched with the Spirit’s gifts, you will have the power to move beyond the piecemeal, the hollow utopia, the fleeting, to offer the consistency and certainty of Christian witness!” What he means is that the Spirit perfects and unifies all the seemingly separated pieces of our lives and he brings unity to the Church. We are all very different, but we are one in the Spirit. Even your own life may have very different aspects to it, different roles you are placed in; sometimes you are church-goer, sometimes an employee, sometimes a parent, or a spouse, or a friend….the Holy Spirit is at work in you in all of these situations, meaning that in all things you are a beloved child of God.

The virtuous life is sustained and unified by the Spirit. How do you get it? You get it in the sacrament of baptism and it is completed at confirmation! 7 gifts are dispensed to us in this wonderful sacrament, I won’t get into them all in detail but they come from Isaiah 11: Wisdom, understanding, counsel, fortitude, knowledge, piety, and fear of the Lord. These gifts of the Spirit are in each one of you, active at every moment of your life, to support you in your desire to live with virtue. In this way, we see how God’s love is alive and active.

I promise that this is the very last week we will talk about virtue, so here is a closing thought from Proverbs 15 “the Lord love the man who pursues virtue.” Why? Because the more virtue you have, the more space there is in your soul for God.