The Gift of Knowledge

By Fr. Conor Donnelly

(Proofread)

In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

My Lord and my God, I firmly believe that you are here, that you see me, that you hear me. I adore you with profound reverence. I ask your pardon for my sins and grace to make this time of prayer fruitful. My Immaculate Mother, Saint Joseph, my father and lord, my guardian angel, intercede for me.

“I have spoken these things. … Because I have spoken these things, sorrow has filled your heart. But I speak the truth to you: it is expedient for you that I depart, for if I do not go, the Advocate will not come to you. But if I go, I will send him to you. And when he has come, he will convict the world of sin and of justice and of judgment: of sin, because they do not believe in me; of justice, because I go to the Father, and you will see me no more; of judgment, because the Prince of this world has already been judged (John 16:1, 4-11)

We are finding this week that the Scripture readings that we have in the Mass speak more and more of the Holy Spirit, the Advocate. This week and next week, we are sort of being prepared little by little for the great Feast of Pentecost.

It is good that we use these days and weeks and hours to invoke the Holy Spirit, to ask Him to come with all His gifts and His graces, His true spiritual treasures to give to each one of us.

The gifts of the Holy Spirit are wisdom, understanding, counsel, knowledge, piety, fortitude, and fear of the Lord—spiritual treasures that we get into our souls every time that we receive the sacraments.

It is as though we become like spiritual millionaires. It is good that we want to be rich in these gifts, which can shape our soul and heart in very special ways.

In this meditation, we want to talk about the gift of knowledge. It is a special gift that the Holy Spirit gives us to help us to understand the world in the light of God's plan for Creation and our elevation to the supernatural order.

We are not just called to lead a natural life on this earth. We are called to lead a supernatural life, a life of the soul—to be aware and conscious of our soul and to know that our soul has been lifted up onto a supernatural plane and that our whole life has a supernatural end to it.

We try to understand the world in the light of God's plan. The Psalm says, “The heavens are telling the glory of God, and the firmament proclaims his handiwork” (Ps. 19:1).

In other words, if we look around us, we find God speaking to us through the world, through things, through the things He has created.

St. Thomas Aquinas says that if we look at all the things in the world that God has created, then we know an awful lot about the Creator. It's like looking at a table or a chair. From just looking at that, you know an awful lot about the carpenter that made them.

Through the ordinary things of every day, we can learn an awful lot about God. “The heavens are telling the glory of God, and the firmament proclaims his handiwork.”

The gift of knowledge helps us to know the true value of everything that God has created.

Sometimes the devil tries to convince us of the apparent value. He leads us in certain directions and tells us, ‘This is a very great value’, or ‘This is very important’, or ‘Look at this particular aspect of this thing.’ But that may not be the true value.

It’s very good that we know the truth about things. We live by the truth, we see the truth. Then we can order our lives a little better, and know what we're at and where we're going.

St. John of the Cross says, “Creatures are, as it were, a trace of the passing of God, whereby his greatness is revealed, together with his power, wisdom, and other divine virtues” (St. John of the Cross, The Spiritual Canticle, V, 3).

Everything that God has created, including human persons obviously, contains a trace of God. We can see God in people, in places, in things.

St. Josemaría liked to say that “there is something divine, hidden in the most ordinary human reality, and it's up to each one of us to discover it” (Josemaría Escrivá, Conversations, Point 114).

Sometimes it might not be screaming at us. We have to discover it, we have to look for it, we have to find it. We have to want to see it, that true value that there is in this particular thing. Its value is very much tied up in how it is in the sight of God.

Thus, created things are like a mirror. They reflect the splendor, the beauty, the goodness, and the power of God.

We can ask Our Lord for that grace to see Him in all these things. He might not pass us by. We might become aware of this greatness, that the heavens are truly “telling the glory of God, and the firmament is proclaiming his handiwork.”

The Lord can lead us to live in the presence of God and want to turn to Him many times each day, to offer Him the things of the day in our Morning Offering, and to come to the oratory and talk with God for a few moments. That can bring a great joy and peace and happiness to our souls.

The problem is that there is original sin. We are fallen creatures of a fallen human nature, so we don't easily see these things.

Together with original sin, our own subsequent personal sin can mean that we don't easily see the things of God or the signs of God in the world. Or we don't see Him as the source of all good.

When we see that reality, it can lead us to lift up our heart and soul and mind in thanksgiving to God, for having made me, for this world, so beautiful—the trees, the stars, the sky, the grass—all the miracles that take place around us on a daily basis. It can all pass us by if we're not looking.

Open my eyes, Lord, to see those things. Help me with the gift of knowledge, to see the true value of the whole of Creation.

There was an Irish poet many years ago who wrote a poem that says:

I see His blood upon the rose
And in the stars the glory of his eyes,
His body gleams in the snow
His tears fall from the skies.
(Joseph Mary Plunkett, I See His Blood Upon the Rose).

We try to see God. The Book of Wisdom says, “For all men who were ignorant of God, were foolish by nature...”

We’re ignorant of God; we're foolish by nature. We don't see the true value of the world and everything around us.

“…and they were unable from the good things that are seen to know him who exists; nor did they recognize the craftsman while paying heed to his works; … If through delight in the beauty of these things men assumed them to be gods, let them know how much better than these is their Lord, for the author of beauty created them” (Wisd. 13:1,3).

We may find that many people around us delight in the things of God, “assuming them to be gods.” They get off on the wrong track, or they get focused on purely human things.

They set their life to acquire money or power or success, or all sorts of material things. They forget that this world is passing. It's a fleeting nature of this world. We could be here today and gone tomorrow.

It's one of the messages of the pandemic: to focus a little less on the creative realities around us, and more on the spiritual truth behind them, the reality of our spiritual soul, so we take care of it in a special way.

Lord, give us this gift of knowledge on this particular Pentecost.

Help me to have a whole new Pentecost in my life. Come with all your gifts and graces to enlighten me.

Help me to understand all creative things as signs that lead us to God, and also to see their elevation to the supernatural order.

One of the things that Our Lord has called us to do is to lift up this world, to sanctify it, to give glory to God.

St. Paul says, “In all that you do, in eating and in drinking, give glory to God” (1 Cor. 10:31). It's a very powerful phrase.

When we're making our bed in the morning, we can give glory to God. When we're putting a chair correctly under a table, we can give glory to God. When we're putting a fork down on a table, pressing a button on a machine, or polishing a floor, we can give glory to God. Or in a classroom, or with our friends. “In all that you do,” says St. Paul, “in eating and in drinking, give glory to God.”

There was a lady once in Singapore who came to a class that I was giving, and I happened to make that quotation during the class.

The class was on something completely different. But the Holy Spirit often works in these situations. People get messages that you never really meant them to get, or intended them to get, which is another sign that the Holy Spirit is working.

For some reason, she grasped onto that phrase. What a wonderful phrase from Scripture. She said it sums up the whole of the spirit of Opus Dei: “In all that you do, in eating and in drinking, give glory to God.”

She told me a week later, ‘I went out to my car, and the inside of my car was in a bit of a mess, so I decided I should clean up the inside of the car. Because in all that I do, in eating and in drinking, I should give glory to God.’

She was a lawyer, and she went to her office, and often lawyers have files all over the place, and she decided to put them back in their place. Her secretary came into the room and found the place very ordered. The secretary said, ‘What earthquake in reverse hit this place?’ She said, ‘Well, I'm trying to give glory to God.’

She said, ‘I went home that night, and usually I watch the news at nine with my husband, and in the middle of the news, he asked me to get him a cup of tea. And usually, I go down the stairs, grinding my teeth, and he asks me to get him a cup of tea. But this time I had a cup of tea ready for him. He said, What happened to you?’

She said, ‘I'm trying to give glory to God.’ So she got an awful lot of mileage out of that particular phrase.

The Holy Spirit enables us to see the greater things that are hidden deep in human realities. It leads us to contemplate the wisdom, the power, and the goodness of God, to see his nature reflected in created things.

It's “a contemplative gift.” One writer says it “enables us to see the very mystery of God” (Michel-Marie Philipon, The Gifts of the Holy Spirit), the greatness of Him and ultimately, that “God is love” (1 John 4:8,16).

In Christ Is Passing By, St. Josemaría says that through this gift, a Christian perceives and understands that “all creation, the movement of the earth and the other heavenly bodies, the good actions of creatures, and all the good that has been achieved in history, in short, everything, comes from God and is directed towards him” (J. Escrivá, Christ Is Passing By, Point 130).

We get that deeper knowledge to learn deeper things.

You see, this gift sometimes is given to the Holy Spirit through the sacraments, to people who might have very little education. They might never have gone to school, but sometimes you talk to these people, and you find they have a great knowledge, great wisdom, great supernatural sense.

They see the true value of the world. Even though maybe they haven't gone to school, they seem to be so full of special gifts. This is the Holy Spirit working in their soul.

This gift is a supernatural disposition whereby the soul participates in God's knowledge and grasps the relationships between creatures and their Creator, and perceives how and in what way Creation serves man's last end.

Man's final end is to be with God forever in heaven. We have an intellect and a will. Our intellect is directed toward truth, and our will is directed towards good.

But we find that all the truths and the goodness in this world don't fully satisfy us. You may have one day a tremendous piece of ugalior of chapati, and you say, ‘That was just fantastic. That was really good.’

You might tend to say, ‘I am now perfectly satisfied. I don't need any more ugali or chapati for the rest of my life. Because I have been so completely and infinitely satisfied.’

Even if you say that, you may find in 24 hours, ‘I think I'd like a little bit more ugali.’ So the human things of this world, no matter how good they are, don't satisfy us perfectly.

We can detect from that that we have an appetite in us—an appetite not just for good things, but for infinitely good things.

Because it doesn't satisfy us completely, we want more tomorrow. We realize, ‘I hunger for something that will satisfy me completely. Infinite goodness. Infinite truth.’

That’s the goal of the human person, to acquire that infinite truth and infinite goodness, and that’s contained in a person—a person that we call God: God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit, the three Persons in the Blessed Trinity.

That’s why the human person is directed towards God. We don't find our true satisfaction outside of Him. We yearn for Him. There's a hole in the human heart that yearns for Him.

The gift of knowledge then helps us to see where He is in all the human realities. Discover their true value.

There's a hymn that you may have heard that often we say in this chapel after Mass. The hymn of the three young men in the Book of Daniel is a clear expression of the gift of knowledge.

All created things are asked to bless and give glory to God.

The hymn says, “All works of the Lord, bless the Lord; praise and bless him forever. Angels of the Lord, bless the Lord. Heavens…waters above the heavens…sun and moon…stars of heaven, bless the Lord. Rain and dew…all winds…winter cold and summer heat…nights and days.”

All the things that God has created, invite them to give Him glory.

“Light and darkness…mountains and hills…plants…springs…seas and rivers…whales and fish…birds of the air…wild beasts and cattle…priests of the Lord…spirits and souls of the righteous…the holy and humble in heart, praise and thank him because his mercy is everlasting” (cf. Dan. 3:57-90).

We remind ourselves of these realities on a regular basis. We remind ourselves of the purpose of Creation.

We remind ourselves that we are called to give more glory to God by using well the things of the earth, by offering our work to God, by trying to work well. Because we have that gift of knowledge, we know that is the right thing to do, the right way to go.

In a particular way, it's the vocation of the laity to order all temporal realities, all the material and human things of this world—the worlds of work, of finance, of study, of art, of fashion, of beauty, of buying and selling—to order all this.

Every time we do a little bit of work and putting order in a bedroom, on a shelf, in a living room, doing this or dusting that, or helping the things that we cook or bake to turn out well or to present things well—this is all part of giving glory to God, helping all of that material Creation to fulfill its true purpose.

After Mass, which is the sacrifice on this earth that gives God the most glory—the renewal of the sacrifice of Calvary—it's very appropriate then that we spend a few moments at Thanksgiving, thanking God for letting us share in this great work that gives Him the most glory, where we bring all of the work we do, our anxieties and our thoughts and our prayers and our petitions, and we place them on the paten.

In the world we live in, there have been many developments in all sorts of areas. It's easier for men to think themselves self-sufficient. ‘I can solve all the problems of the world with what I know, with what I can do.’

But you see, that's a very proud thought. It's thinking that all power comes from me, not that all power comes from God.

We have reminders around us on a regular basis of sickness, of death, of talents and lack of them. All these things could be taken away from us. We could lose all our talents, all our abilities. At any moment, life can change very quickly, and so we can't put our trust in those things, having a very human outlook.

Man can think that when he sees the magnificence of things, their complexity, their variety, their beauty, that these are the gods that we have to adore, divinizing these things—money, success, power, what people think of me, how I appear in the eyes of others. The devil can want us to be drawn in that direction.

The gift of knowledge helps us to see the idols of the world for what they are, so that we don't bend down and worship those idols, but rather the things that will last forever. Our Lord invites us to resist the subtle temptations that the devil may give us.

The Holy Spirit comes to us with this gift of knowledge to look a little deeper. Put your thoughts and your minds into the things that matter. Help to see the dependence of those things that they have on their Creator. See all things in relation to Our God who made them.

St. Thomas Aquinas says that we are helped by this gift “not to esteem creatures more than they’re worth” (Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologiae, Question 9).

You see, as we go through our teenage years, we can all have idols that we look up to—film stars, celebrities, pop stars, whoever is the latest idol. Even the word pop idol comes.

But then you see, we get a bit older and we realize, ‘Maybe that person isn't such a great idol’ or ‘We don't like them anymore’ or ‘We don't like their music.’

We try and look to the things that are of real value. Know the real worth of things.

There's an educationalist in the States who says that young people tend to idolize celebrities. But, he says, most celebrities in the world are jerks, so they're worshipping the wrong people—the Hollywood stars, the red carpet, all these things we hear of on a regular basis.

He said, ‘We've got to look to people that have really lived good lives, done worthwhile things, inspiring things, people who've changed the world.”

The Church invites us to look at the saints who lived their lives for God, who did decent things with their life, didn't waste their time, practiced virtue, concerned themselves with other people, with helping people in the world to make the world a better place.

We shouldn't esteem human persons for more than their worth. See what they were worth in the eyes of God, how happy God is or was with the lives that they led.

That helps us to appreciate then the true beauty and truth and love that's there in the world in which God has created us. “The heavens are telling the glory of God, and the firmament proclaims his handiwork.”

Lord, let me pray with the Psalms to see your glory, the authentic beauty, authentic value, and authentic worth.

Give me that gift of knowledge—not a false knowledge but a true knowledge—so that I can be enlightened by this great gift of the Holy Spirit.

With that gift, we discover the infinite distance that separates us from God. We see our own limitations and how we can fall into the wrong ways of doing things.

We can fall into sin very quickly, making improper use of the things that God has created. So we see the chasm that separates us.

But that also leads us then to walk along the right paths that can bring us closer to God—pathways of prayer, of the sacraments, of living in the state of grace.

A knowledge also that helps us to see our own misery: “I am nothing.” St. Josemaría liked to use those words frequently. “I am nothing, I have nothing, I can do nothing” (cf. J. Escrivá, Friends of God, Point 215).

It's God who does everything through me. That's why we give all the glory to God. We can spend our days thanking Him for the gifts He's given us: that we have two arms and two legs, that we have a mind that we can go to school and to college and learn things and grow.

Everything that we are is because God has given it to us. St. Paul says, “What have you that you have not received?” (1 Cor. 4:7).

Everything is a gift. The cup of tea that we'll take today is a gift. The one we had yesterday is a gift. The one we might have tomorrow is a gift.

There is nothing too small or too common or too regular that is not a great gift of God that God has given to us.

We know there are many people not too far away from us that God has perhaps not given a cup of tea to. That's why we can thank Him for everything.

That realization can lead us to want to turn to Him more frequently, with a greater knowledge of who we are, in humility. ‘Lord, I am nothing. But with you beside me, I can do everything.’

St. Josemaría used to say, “We're just one big zero” (cf. J. Escrivá, Friends of God, Point 473). But beside us, there's a greater one, and that means we're all of an eternal value, of great worth, because God is with us.

Through this gift then, we learn to discern between the things that lead us to God and things that separate us from Him. We come to see what are the occasions of sin: This is a cul-de-sac. This is the wrong road. I can't go down this way.

Maybe, with our friends or acquaintances, we might see other people going down that wrong way, making wrong decisions. We see that there are a lot of bad ideas around in society. We need to be careful distinguishing between what is a good idea and a bad idea.

Lord, help me to see what leads me closer to you so that I can walk along your paths.

The prayer of Moses: “Show me your ways” (Ex. 33:13). Even if everybody around me is walking in a certain direction, that doesn't mean that it's the right direction. I have to think for myself. I have to make up my own mind. I have to get advice.

Maybe everybody is going to walk over a cliff. That doesn't mean that I should walk over a cliff also. I have to see where I'm going.

“Lord, show me your ways.” “Guide me along straight paths” (Ps. 23:3).

The Book of Wisdom says, “Wisdom showed him the kingdom of God and gave him knowledge of angels” (Wisd. 10:10).

The Holy Spirit will warn us about what is good and true, and what is in danger of becoming bad by leading us away from our supernatural end and goal to which we have been created.

We need a lot of humility and we need a lot of detachment, detachment from material things. The devil can want us to be super-attached to everything.

Christians who must sanctify themselves in the middle of the world have a particular need of this gift, so as to direct all temporal activities to God, making them a means of holiness and apostolate.

Through it a housewife discovers how her work at home is a way to God if it's done with an upright, honest intention and with a desire to please God; a student learns that study is the ordinary way to love God, do apostolate, and serve society; for an architect, the way to God is through plans and drawings; for a nurse, her care of the sick.

We understand that we must love the world and temporal affairs and come to discover the truth of those words that St. Josemaria taught, “There is something holy, something divine hidden in the most ordinary situations, and it's up to each one of us to discover it” (J. Escrivá, Conversations, Point 114).

As we move towards Pentecost, we can ask for this great gift and increase it, so that in the course of our life, we grow to have a great knowledge.

St. Josemaría says, “When a Christian carries out with love the most insignificant everyday action, that action overflows with the transcendence of God. That's why I've told you repeatedly and hammered away once and again at the idea that the Christian vocation consists in making heroic works out of the prose of each day” (Ibid., Point 115).

We can ask Our Lady, that she might help us to obtain a greater amount of this virtue. The Book of Sirach in the Old Testament says she is “the mother of fair love, of fear, of knowledge, and of holy hope” (Sir. 24:24). Our Mother can obtain for us than a greater amount of this gift.

In Friends of God, St. Josemaría says, “Mary is also the Mother of knowledge, for it is with her that we learn the most important lesson of all, that nothing is worthwhile if we are not close to Our Lord. All the wonders of this earth, the fulfillment of our every ambition, all this is worthless unless the living flame of love burns within us, unless there is the light of holy hope giving us a foretaste of never-ending love in our true homeland in heaven” (J. Escrivá, Friends of God, Point 278).

Mother of fair love, of fear, and of knowledge, help us to obtain in this coming Pentecost a greater amount of this very special gift that can do so much good for our soul.

I thank you, my God, for the good resolutions, affections, and inspirations that you have communicated to me during this meditation. I ask your help to put them into practice. My Immaculate Mother, Saint Joseph, my father and lord, my guardian angel, intercede for me.

In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

EW