Wisdom and counsel

A while back I wrote about how the charism of wisdom relates to the gift of wisdom, which in turn presupposes the virtue of charity.

Now I'm going to write about how the charism of wisdom relates to the gift of counsel, which in turn presupposes the virtue of prudence.

As it happens, St. Thomas mentions both a charism of wisdom and a charism of counsel, considered as extensions of the respective gifts, in the Summa Theologiae's Treatise on Virtues. (His (somewhat inelegant) term for "charism" is "gratuitous grace," which is distinct from the sanctifying grace that makes the recipient holy.^**)

In the article, "Whether wisdom is in all who have grace?", after explaining that yes, the gift of wisdom "is wanting to none who is without mortal sin through having sanctifying grace," St. Thomas adds:

Some, however, receive a higher degree of the gift of wisdom, both as to the contemplation of Divine things (by both knowing more exalted mysteries and being able to impart this knowledge to others) and as to the direction of human affairs according to Divine rules (by being able to direct not only themselves but also others according to those rules). This degree of wisdom is not common to all that have sanctifying grace, but belongs rather to the gratuitous graces, which the Holy Ghost dispenses as He will, according to 1 Corinthians 12:8: "To one indeed by the Spirit is given the word of wisdom," etc.

In considering "Whether counsel should be reckoned among the gifts of the Holy Ghost? " he counters the objection that "counsel seems to be one of those things which are given by the Holy Ghost specially to certain persons":

That a man be of such good counsel as to counsel others, may be due to a gratuitous grace; but that a man be counselled by God as to what he ought to do in matters necessary for salvation is common to all holy persons.

In both cases, then, the charism given only to some extends the gift given to all by enabling the one who has received the charism to benefit others. (Perhaps if everyone fully developed their gifts of wisdom and counsel, there'd be no need for the charisms.)

Okay, so for St. Thomas the charism of wisdom consists of:

• knowing particularly exalted mysteries
• being able to impart knowledge of particularly exalted mysteries to others
• being able to direct others according to Divine rules

And the charism of counsel consists of

• being able to counsel others

But how is "being able to direct others according to Divine riles" different than "being able to counsel others"? Wouldn't you counsel them according to Divine rules, if you're counseling them as directed by God?

I think the distinction is suggested by St. Thomas's explanation of how wisdom, which is about Divine things that are eternal and necessary, can nevertheless be practical, even though practicality is about contingent things (i.e., things that don't have to be as they are):

Divine things are indeed necessary and eternal in themselves, yet they are the rules of the contingent things which are the subject-matter of human actions.

Wisdom, then, gives you the rules by which you judge contingent things.

Counsel, on the other hand, helps you decide among contingent things:

Since, however, human reason is unable to grasp the singular and contingent things which may occur, the result is that "the thoughts of mortal men are fearful, and our counsels uncertain" (Wisdom 9:14). Hence in the research of counsel, man requires to be directed by God who comprehends all things: and this is done through the gift of counsel --

 -- or the charism of counsel, if one person is counseling another.

Wisdom provides the higher level direction -- "Go this way. Don't go that way." Counsel gets down into the details, "Go ahead and take the job. Don't be afraid to trust her."

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** "[T]here is a twofold grace: one whereby man himself is united to God, and this is called 'sanctifying grace'; the other is that whereby one man cooperates with another in leading him to God, and this gift is called 'gratuitous grace,' since it is bestowed on a man beyond the capability of nature, and beyond the merit of the person. But whereas it is bestowed on a man, not to justify him, but rather that he may cooperate in the justification of another, it is not called sanctifying grace. And it is of this that the Apostle says (1 Corinthians 12:7): 'And the manifestation of the Spirit is given to every man unto utility,' i.e. of others."

Labels: Charisms and Gifts

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Inspired writing

T.S. O'Rama quotes Shelby Foote from a 1997 interview:

Good writing doesn’t come from inspiration. It may spark you, set you off, but if you write under the influence of inspiration, you will write very badly—probably sentimentally, which is even worse.

This caught my attention for a couple of reasons.

First, as an anti-sentimentalist myself, I am all for preventing sentimental writing, and I applaud Foote for striking this blow. I take him to mean, more or less, that someone writing under the influence of inspiration, in trying to inspire readers in much the same way, is likely to fall into sentimentalism as the easiest way to get a response.

Foote's concern is the quality of writing itself; as he says earlier in the interview:

As I get older, I care less and less what happens in a book. What I care about is the writing—how it’s told. I read words and I don’t see a scene going on as if I were at a movie; I want to see how these words are shaped and how they intertwine and what the sounds are next to each other, how they rub up against each other, along with the distribution of commas and semicolons.

To the extent writing under the influence of inspiration is hasty writing -- inspiration is fleeting, so you need to write quickly -- the way the words are shaped and intertwine is haphazard. Apart from the rare genius, good hasty writing is likely to be derivative, since the writer will be using whatever words come most quickly to mind. And someone who cares about writing isn't likely to think derivative is good.

All sentimental writing is derivative, at least in the sense that it follows well-worn paths to well known emotional responses. It's manipulative, so if it fails to manipulate -- as it will, if the reader cares about the writing and not what happens -- it fails as writing. Sentimental writing that fails to evoke sentiment is like the illogical logic puzzle detective novel Raymond Chandler criticized in his essay "The Simple Art of Murder": "If it is not that, it is nothing at all. There is nothing else for it to be."

Having said all that, I'm also interested in Foote's comment because I'm interested in the idea of writing as a charism. I can dress that up as a special docility toward the movement of the Holy Spirit in building up Christ's Church through the written word, but it comes down to writing under the influence of inspiration.

Granted, Foote wasn't talking about that kind of inspiration. But the idea of a writing charism does make me think about Foote's distinction quoted above, between "what happens" and "how it's told." Art is right reasoning about a thing to be made, and you have to think the Holy Spirit reasons rightly about the writing He inspires, which suggests that it will be artful writing. Both what happens and how it's told ought to be exceptional.

And yet, the purpose of a charism is to have an effect on others, and I'd bet there aren't a lot of readers as discriminating as the elderly Shelby Foote. For that matter, a lot of readers might well be put off by writing that's too well written. So we might think the Holy Spirit isn't too concerned with words being artfully arranged as long as the meaning He intends is conveyed. But does that really make sense? We wouldn't say that someone with the charism of painting might paint ugly pictures as long as you could tell what they were paintings of.

We could distinguish between writing and writing down. Writing is a creative act, the art of making a piece of writing intended to be read. Writing down is an act of recording spoken or thought words, to convey the intelligible ideas written down to others who weren't there to hear them spoken. The Holy Spirit can inspire either act, right? The writing down of words, so that others can know what the writer-down wants them to know, need not be particularly artistic.

If the Holy Spirit inspires a writer, though, then surely the work that gets written gets written well. And that should make it easy for a writer to know whether he has the charism of writing, since writing well without God as your co-author is hard work.

Labels: Charisms and Gifts

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[Not] A Word of Wisdom

I may not be cut out for this small group sharing thing.

I'm going through the discernment in depth phase of the Called & Gifted program at my parish. I'm supposed to spend two hours a week testing whether I have been given the charism of wisdom. Every two weeks thirty or so of us get together to listen to a short presentation on CD, then break into smaller groups to discuss how things are going with our discernment.

As I mentioned the other day, the gift of wisdom that is given to every Christian at Baptism is associated with the beatitude, "Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called the children of God." Wisdom sets things in order, and from order comes peace.

I have not had a peaceful two weeks. My work has been jam packed with opportunities, "opportunity" being the positive way of speaking of "challenges," by which I mean "bull goose looniness has been screaming up and down the hall all month."

If I were using my gift of wisdom properly, I would have set, if not things, at least myself in order, and taken the craziness in stride. In the event, however, I took the craziness in the floating ribs.

All of which is to say, I have not found a superfluity of wisdom in my heart, to pour out like unction upon the troubles of others, since the last discernment in depth meeting.

Which meeting was last night.

After an eleven hour day, I had enough wits left to do the math: There were eight of us in our small group, we had forty-five minutes to discuss before reconvening with the rest of the discerners, so if everyone talked for six and a half minutes on average, I wouldn't have to say a word.

I was prepared to say something along the lines of, "Know wisdom, know peace. No peace, so no wisdom. I'll restatus you in two weeks," but I think we all agree it would be better if I didn't have to say a word.

As it happens, everyone did talk for six and a half minutes on average, and I didn't say a word. Ah bliss! (Some people think introverts don't like it when extroverts talk a lot. Whether we like it depends a lot on what would happen if they weren't talking. If what would happen is me talking a lot, then please, chatter away.)

I say I didn't say a word, and I mean that literally. I nodded and smiled, but said absolutely nothing -- until the very end, when, as we were getting ready to reconvene, someone said, "And Tom, you were working on the charism of wisdom?"

I shook my head and corrected her, "Silence."

It was a stretch, I admit, both because most of the people in the group don't know me apart from the few words I'd said (which were not memorable) at the previous meeting and because I left off the words, "No, the charism of..." to maximize the humor at the expense of intelligibility. But eventually most people got it, I think, and one person said I hadn't changed since the Renew 2000 small group we'd been in together.

What are the three signs of a charism?

1. An unmistakable inner experience of peace, energy, and joy when you're using the gift
2. Unusually effective and successful results in what you're trying to accomplish
3. Other people's direct or indirect recognition of the gift's presence

I was certainly pleased with my joke (here I am, blogging about it the next morning).It was certainly effective (hey, mutterings and groans are effects too). And I received direct recognition that, after fifteen years, I still got it.

Apparently I have the charism of wit. Won't my family be surprised?

Labels: Charisms and Gifts

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Use your gifts and be happy

While I'm thinking of it, here are the virtues, gifts, and beatitudes St. Thomas associates with each other:

1. The gift of wisdom corresponds to the virtue of charity and to the beatitude, "Blessed are the peacemakers."
2. The gift of understanding corresponds to the virtue of faith and to the beatitude, "Blessed are the pure of heart."
3. The gift of counsel corresponds to the virtue of prudence and to the beatitude, "Blessed are the merciful."
4. The gift of fortitude corresponds to the virtue of fortitude and to the beatitude, "Blessed are they who hunger and thirst after justice."
5. The gift of knowledge corresponds to the virtue of faith and to the beatitude, "Blessed are they who mourn."
6. The gift of piety corresponds to the virtue of justice and to the beatitude, "Blessed are the meek."
7. The gift of the fear of the Lord corresponds to the virtue of hope and to the beatitude, "Blessed are the poor in spirit."

Some of the connections seem pretty straightforward. Fortitude and counsel are pretty obviously related to fortitude and prudence.

Some connections are more obscure. Wisdom, for example, "sets things in order," and peace, in St. Augustine's famous phrase, is the tranquility of order.

Some, I have to say, are stretches of the sort you wind up making when you're trying to build these parallels. Sure, peacemakers will be called children of God, and sure, we are children of God insofar as we bear the likeness of His only-begotten Son, and sure, His on;y-begotten Son is Wisdom Begotten. So the reward is "fittingly ascribed" to the gift, or at least not unfittingly ascribed, but that particular reward could be fittingly ascribed to most or all of the gifts.

The most curious one, to my mind, is the association of the gift of knowledge with, "Blessed are they who mourn, for they will be comforted." For St. Thomas, the gift of knowledge is a certitude of judgment about created things, and he suggests that, when you judge rightly about created things, you realize how often you sin through them, which causes sorrow, and then you are consoled, because you start using created things properly. He gets this -- and much of the above list -- from St. Augustine, who simply says that, with knowledge of created things, "the loss of the highest good is mourned over, because it sticks fast in what is lowest."

Labels: Charisms and Gifts

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From virtue to gift to charism

A charism is a special capacity for being the channel of God's grace to others. The different charisms are distinguished by the different graces they channel. Regardless of the specific graces in question, the effectiveness of your charism -- and remember, if you are a baptized Christian, you have a charism (if you aren't a baptized Christian, drop me a line and we'll see what we can do) -- depends upon your relationship with God.

From the negative perspective: To the extent you place sin -- including indifference, which is what we call the sin of impiety these days -- between you and Jesus, you clog up the channel of graces to others by which your charism is meant to operate.

But there's also a positive perspective: As you build up your relationship with God, particularly along the lines He calls you to, so you build up how well your charism operates (which is to say, how freely God's grace flows through you to others). For example, someone with a charism of hospitality might find their charism more effective the more they contemplate God as welcomer of the stranger or Jesus as the Good Shepherd who celebrates the arrival of the one lost sheep.

Note that this means discerning a charism is a good thing to do whether or not you have the charism, since either way you will be building up your relationship with God.

The charism of wisdom, as described in the Catherine of Siena Institute's Called and Gifted program, happens to share a name with one of the 7 Gifts of the Holy Spirit, but they're two distinct gifts. General distinctions between the Gifts of the Holy Spirit and the charisms include:

• The Gifts of the Holy Spirit are the seven gifts explicitly mentioned in Isaiah 11:2-3; while there are several lists of charisms given in the Bible, there's no complete, canonical set.
• Each baptized Christians gets all 7 Gifts of the Holy Spirit; each baptized Christian gets one or more charism, and must discern which ones they have been given.
• The Gifts of the Holy Spirit are primarily for the sanctification of the individual Christian who receives them; charisms are primarily for others to receive grace.

If, then, I were in the process of discerning whether I have the charism of wisdom, then it would help if I were to contemplate God's wisdom, and a good way to do that is to develop the Holy Spirit's gift of wisdom, which I know for sure I have, since I am a baptized Christian.

And if I do that, I will come across St. Thomas's argument for why the gift of wisdom is associated with the virtue of charity:

[W]isdom denotes a certain rectitude of judgment according to the Eternal Law....

[I]t belongs to the wisdom that is an intellectual virtue to pronounce right judgment about Divine things after reason has made its inquiry, but it belongs to wisdom as a gift of the Holy Ghost to judge aright about them on account of connaturality with them...

Now this sympathy or connaturality for Divine things is the result of charity, which unites us to God, according to 1 Corinthians 6:17: "He who is joined to the Lord, is one spirit." Consequently wisdom which is a gift, has its cause in the will, which cause is charity....

To improve the chances of observing the charism of wisdom in action, then, I should make better use of my gift of wisdom, and to do that I should do all I can to grow in charity.

And lately I've been asking St. Catherine of Siena to pray for me to grow in charity. Getting me involved in a small discernment group that will require exactly that seems like just the sort of thing she would do.

Labels: Charisms and Gifts

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H_0: I am not wise.

As those of you with eidetic memories who read aloud every post I write will recall,

My results from taking the Catherine of Siena Institute charism self-assessment indicate I might work on discerning whether I have the charisms of knowledge, writing, wisdom, teaching, and encouragement.

When I was invited to join my parish in a six-week charism¹ discernment program, I decided I would attempt to discern whether I have the charism of wisdom, since it was the highest scoring implausible charism on that list. (Frankly, it hardly matters whether I have the charisms of knowledge, writing, or teaching, since either way I'm going to keep on doing the things that gave me high scores on the self-assessment; encouragement was lower scoring and is even less plausible than wisdom.)

In Catherine of Siena Institute parlance, the charism of wisdom is defined as "insight that comes up with creative solutions to specific problems and enables others to make good decisions." (The key feature that wisdom is practical is what makes it implausible that I have the charism.)

CSI's charism discernment process involves looking for indications of the presence of these three signs (quoting from "Discerning Charisms: A Workbook for Navigating the Discernment Process"):

1. An unmistakable inner experience of peace, energy, and joy when you're using the gift
2. Unusually effective and successful results in what you're trying to accomplish
3. Other people's direct or indirect recognition of the gift's presence

The idea is to repeatedly arrange circumstances in which I could make use of a charism if I had it, and then discern how often the signs were present. In my case, the basic question is, what happens when I am presented with someone else's specific problem?

If you have a specific problem you'd like some help with, let me know, and I'll give it a whirl. (Most of my readers these days seem to be Chinese hackers, but there's no reason we can't be interfaith about it.)

That said, I do wonder whether I've been tricked into doing this by St. Catherine. The saint, I mean, not the institute.

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1. "Whether extraordinary or simple and humble, charisms are graces of the Holy Spirit which directly or indirectly benefit the Church, ordered as they are to her building up, to the good of men, and to the needs of the world." Catechism of the Catholic Church, n. 799.

Labels: Charisms and Gifts

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Gratio ergo bloggo

My results from taking the Catherine of Siena Institute charism self-assessment indicate I might work on discerning whether I have the charisms of knowledge, writing, wisdom, teaching, and encouragement. Which seems to be pretty much the Blogger Sampler Pack.

Well, except for "wisdom," but then it is a self-assessment. Pretty sure a 360-degree assessment would come out differently.

Labels: Charisms and Gifts

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The question of a contemplative

One of the best things I heard at the Called and Gifted workshop I went to this weekend wasn't about charisms. It was the question of a contemplative:

• How can
• I
• be
• here
• now?

It's the who, what, where, when, and how that most of us take for granted or never even think about.

Labels: Charisms and Gifts

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The Holy Spirit called. He wants His gifts back.

After this evening's introductory session of the Called and Gifted Workshop, I settled down (with a Manhattan, thank you very much) to run through the spiritual gifts inventory.

I was told that zeros -- i.e., "Never"s on a scale from "Never" to "Often" -- are good, "discernment" coming from the Latin for "to separate apart" and zeros suggesting that I can separate myself apart from the charism associated with that question. Combine this predisposition to give myself zeros with the facts that a) a lot of the questions begin, "People often tell me..." and b) I don't often listen to what people tell me, and I managed to score a zero (on a scale of 0-15) on the following charisms:

• Administration
• Celibacy
• Craftsmanship
• Discernment of spirits
• Giving
• Healing
• Hospitality
• Leadership
• Mercy
• Missionary
• Music
• Service
• Voluntary Poverty

That should really speed up the discernment interview.

Labels: Charisms and Gifts

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Get back to work, you

I've been reading Intentional Disciples long enough that I had no choice but to hear, in the words,

He leaves home and places his servants in charge, each with his own work,

a reference to charisms.

The Catherine of Siena Institute offers a Called & Gifted workshop, where you can learn about charisms in general and begin to discern your own charisms in particular. If you can't attend a workshop, you can buy their self-administered Catholic Spiritual Gifts Inventory.

And if you don't have time for all that fancy stuff, you can follow this quick method for discerning your charisms:

1. Figure out what graces of the Holy Spirit you have been given that directly or indirectly benefit the Church, ordered as they are to her building up, to the good of men, and to the needs of the world.
2. These are your charisms.

Once you've discerned your charisms, what do you do with them? This:

1. Accept them with gratitude.
2. Use them in full conformity with authentic promptings of the Holy Spirit, that is, in keeping with charity, the true measure of all charisms.
3. Refer and submit them to the Church's shepherds.

There you go. Now you're all set, charism-wise. No need to thank me; helpfulness is my charism.

Labels: Charisms and Gifts

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The Short Shrifts of the Holy Spirit

In an ecclesial "What's Hot/What's Not" list, you'd find "Charisms" in the first column and "The Seven Gifts of the Holy Spirit" in the second. Evidently, humans can only maintain the heat of a fixed number of things, so as attention on charisms has increased, the Seven Gifts have consequently taken it in the neck.

Whether or not anything in the above paragraph is true, here is what you find in the Catechism's index under "Holy Spirit, gifts of the Holy Spirit":

gifts of the Holy Spirit, 1830-32

charism of healing, 1508
charisms, 799, 951
charity as the fruit of the Holy Spirit and of the fullness of the Law, 1824
chastity, 2345
in Confirmation, 1289, 1303
in episcopal consecration, 1556, 1558
fear of God, 2217
fruits of the Holy Spirit, 736, 1832
grace, 2003
grace of repentance and conversion, 1433
love, 733, 735, 2712
in the power of forgiving sins, 976
in the sacrament of

Anointing of the Sick, 1520
Holy Orders, 1538, 1585-89
Matrimony, 1624
seven gifts of the Holy Spirit, 1831, 1845
what is necessary for receiving, 1310
wisdom, faith, and discernment, 2690

If you check the links (go ahead; this post should still be here when you get back), you'll find that most of these refer to graces generally, or to specific graces other than the Canonical Seven, or to the Holy Spirit Himself, Whose proper name is Gift. About all the Catechism tells us about the seven gifts as listed in Isaiah 11:2-3 is this:

1830. The moral life of Christians is sustained by the gifts of the Holy Spirit. These are permanent dispositions which make man docile in following the promptings of the Holy Spirit.

1831. The seven gifts of the Holy Spirit are wisdom, understanding, counsel, fortitude, knowledge, piety, and fear of the Lord. They belong in their fullness to Christ, Son of David.[Cf. Isa 11:1-2.] They complete and perfect the virtues of those who receive them. They make the faithful docile in readily obeying divine inspirations.

Let your good spirit lead me on a level path. [Ps. 143:10]
For all who are led by the Spirit of God are sons of God . . . If children, then heirs, heirs of God and fellow heirs with Christ. [Rom 8:14,17]

If, then, there's much worth understanding about the Seven Gifts of the Holy Spirit beyond the above, we'll need to look elsewhere.

But given the profusion of terms that all mean nearly the same thing -- gift, grace, charism ("after the Greek term used by St. Paul and meaning 'favor,' 'gratuitous gift,' 'benefit'") -- we'd want as a guide someone capable of making sound distinctions and clear definitions. At the same time, these being things of God, our guide should be someone close to God, learned by Divine light and not merely human reason.

Where do you suppose such a guide might be found?

Labels: Charisms and Gifts

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