GIFTS OF THE HOLY SPIRIT

THE SPIRIT IS BLOWING!
1 WISDOM

Losing Jesus and finding Him in the Temple is counted as one of the Sorrows of Mary, as it would

have been for any parent. Who would blame Mary for affectionately chiding Him, "Son, why have you treated us so? Your father and I have been looking for you anxiously."

Astonishing that He replied, "Did you not know I must be in my Father's house?" Jesus, being not only the Son of Mary but also Son of God, thought the time had come to introduce them to the bewildering idea that He had this lofty relationship with His Heavenly Father. With His feet firmly grounded Jesus, through the Gift of the Holy Spirit, Wisdom, was here setting His life priorities from God's perspective rather than from a very down-to- earth 'Nazareth- Carpenter-shop' perspective

(Lk. 2).

God wants His Gift of Wisdom to give all of us, both young and old, an instinctive, powerful intuition of what He intends for us and expects of us.

Through Wisdom we come to value properly those things we believe through Faith. The truths of the Christian Faith are more important than the things of this world. Wisdom helps us to order our relationship to the created world properly by loving creation for the sake of God, rather than for its own sake.

St Paul in his First Letter to the Corinthians raises our understanding of the Gift of Wisdom to a much higher level – one that enables believing Christians to accept and make sense of the Crucifixion of Jesus.To Jews it was the weakness of being a failure; to the gentiles it was meaningless nonsense.

"We are preaching a crucified Christ, to the Jew an obstacle they cannot get over, to the gentiles foolishness, but those who have been called, a Christ who is both the power of God and the wisdom of God."(1 Cor 24 ).

Surely, only this Gift of Wisdom could have inspired Paul to write to the Philippians,

"Because of the supreme advantage of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, I count everything else as loss. For Him I have accepted the loss of all other things, and look on them all as filth if only I can gain Christ,"(Phil. 3.8).

The Gift of Wisdom enables us to recognize, appreciate and live according to God's priorities. This will happen if we keep our sails hoisted, so that we are propelled by the breath of the Holy Spirit

AND KEEP MOVING IN GOD'S DIRECTION!

Peter Clarke, O.P.