Gifts of the Holy Spirit: the Gift of Counsel

The Gifts of the Holy Spirit empower us to deepen our intimacy with God and to participate in His Divine Life. Four of the Gifts enhance our intellect: knowledge, understanding, wisdom, and counsel. These gifts enlighten our human understanding with the divine guidance of the Holy Spirit.

The Gift of Counsel

The Gift of Counsel is the Holy Spirit’s help to us to make good moral choices, especially when it’s difficult for us to know exactly the right thing to do. Most of our moral choices are pretty clear-cut, intellectually. We know stealing is wrong. Our temptation to steal isn’t an intellectual challenge – it’s a challenge of willpower against sinful desire. But sometimes life isn’t so clear. Sometimes doing what is evil seems to be right, or even to be the only choice. These are the times we need the Gift of Counsel the most. But the Holy Spirit’s help isn’t only available to us in difficult situations. He also helps us in the daily formation of our conscience. He nudges us not just to avoid the big evils, but to fine-tune our conscience so that we choose ever-greater goods. Venerable Archbishop Fulton Sheen called these nudges “temptations to good.”

When I ask people to define the conscience, they often describe it as the “little voice inside your head that tells you what’s right and wrong.” That’s not a good understanding of conscience. However, it does sort of describe the Holy Spirit’s nudging in the daily formation of our conscience.

While natural prudence is focused on attaining authentic good so that we can live the truly good life that God has planned for us, supernatural prudence is focused on knowing the goodness of God himself. Natural virtue is aided by grace, but supernatural virtue is complete cooperation with grace.

There is …

Participating in the Gifts of the Holy Spirit (what does this mean in practical terms?)

1. The Gift of Counsel helps us to live the moral law as a relationship with God. The Holy Spirit speaks to us in the depths of our hearts about how to embrace goodness.

2. The Holy Spirit’s “temptations to good” draw us further out of our sinful, fallen selves and into the new creation Jesus gives us through grace.

3. Seeking the best way to have a relationship with God requires us to seek the counsel of God Himself. Who else knows how to have a relationship with Him?

4. The Gift of Counsel directs us to have mercy on others so that our hearts will be open to receiving God’s forgiveness (as the Lord’s Prayer says, “Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us”).

5. The Gift of Counsel inspires us to see God’s moral law as a beautiful expression of His love and an invitation to participate in His goodness, rather than seeing it as a burden.

Like all of the Gifts of the Holy Spirit, the Gift of Counsel is active in all of us, but it is especially strong in some Christians. Saint Martin de Porres is a great model of the Gift of Counsel. Not only did St. Martin live a morally upright life, he always strove for the greater good. He was known as the servant of the poor – not in some generic “social justice” sense but in a very personal way. The Gift of Counsel guided him in judging how he needed to respond to the unique needs of each person he served so they could experience God’s love and mercy.

The Gift of Counsel is the Holy Spirit’s help to us to make good moral choices, especially when it’s difficult for us to know exactly the right thing to do.

Your Challenge

Your challenge is to examine your own life and see how the Gift of Counsel is active. In what ways does the Holy Spirit seem to guide you to embrace true goodness? Discover ways this gift is active for you and share them in the comments below!

The Gifts of the Holy Spirit are powerful aids not only in deepening our relationship with God but also in living the mission of Jesus. Identifying which ones are strongest in you and cooperating with the Holy Spirit through that gift can open a door to true adventure in your life.

Your Next Action Step

Even though it is an expression of grace, cooperating with the Gift of Counsel takes practice and perseverance. So does the spiritual life in general. From the Abbey is here to show you how to deepen your relationship with God, and to support you as you strive to do so. Would you like to get more involved with From the Abbey? Check out the special offer below!

Brought to you by Jeffrey S. Arrowood at From the Abbey, dedicated to helping you rediscover the JOY of learning and living your faith so you can grow in intimacy with God.

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