Wednesday before Pentecost

Summary of the Morrow’s Meditation

Continuing to study the gifts of the Holy Spirit, we will meditate to-morrow upon the gift of wisdom, and we shall see: 1st, what the gift of wisdom is; 2d, what the excellence of it is. We will then make the resolution: 1st, frequently during the day to invoke the Spirit of wisdom that He may direct our acts, our thoughts, and our words; 2d, to watch over our heart that it may not be seduced by the false maxims of the world in respect to enjoyments, riches, honors, and the desire to attract notice. We will retain as our spiritual nosegay the maxim of the Holy Ghost: “Wisdom is better than all the most precious things; and whatsoever may be desired cannot be compared to it” (Prov. viii. 11).

Meditation for the Morning

Let us return to the cenacle, let us represent to ourselves Mary and the apostles at prayer, and ourselves in the midst of them. What an admirable prayer was theirs! and ours—what is ours going to be? Let us recollect ourselves; let us conceive a great desire to make of our prayer to-day the best prayer of our life, and to attract within us the gift of wisdom, on which we are about to meditate.

FIRST POINT

What is the Gift of Wisdom?

Wisdom, according to St. Bernard, is disgust for the things of this world and taste for the things of God. The soul which has received this divine taste finds an inexpressible pleasure in thinking of God, in enjoying the things which belong to God, His greatness, His beauty, His perfections, His mysteries: so infinitely adorable, so infinitely amiable does it find them to be. All the goods of this world, its praises and its honors, its riches and its pleasures, are supremely insipid to it. It has tasted God, it cannot henceforth enjoy anything else. Thanks to this gift of wisdom, it knows no other pleasure in this world than that of prayer, of meditation, of spiritual reading, of good works, of exercises of piety, no other attraction than that of the divine pleasure, so that it is more delighted to perform the meanest things for the love of God than to bear sceptres and wear crowns, as St. Teresa said of herself. Poverty seems to it to be a treasure, austerities an enjoyment, contempt an inestimable blessing; sufferings are happiness, humiliations a glory, prison and scourges a privilege (Acts v. 41). The whole earth is as nothing to it, it esteems heaven alone. Time appears to it but as a shadow, eternity alone is worthy of occupying its thoughts. Oh, what great need have we of this gift! for without it we have no taste for the things of God; we neither desire nor seek for them, we end by neglecting them because everything about them seems to us dry and insipid, and even the most touching prayers and the most pious exercises say nothing to our hearts. Without this gift, we allow ourselves to be seduced by the folly of the world, which places its last end in the creature and not in God; its content in things which pass away, and not in eternal things; in things which dazzle, which flatter vanity or give pleasure, and not in humiliation, poverty, the cross, all of which things are so much loved by Jesus Christ and the saints. Let us here examine ourselves; have we the gift of wisdom, or do we not give ourselves up to worldly folly? We shall discover this by examining what are our tastes and our dislikes, whether with regard to God and divine things, or with regard to creatures and earthly things; what gives us pleasure and what gives us pain, what gives rest to our heart and what makes it discontented; in a word, whether we have no taste except for that for which the saints and Our Lord had a taste, that is to say, poverty, abjection, the cross.

SECOND POINT

What is the Excellence of the Gift of Wisdom?

1st. It is the specific remedy for the corruption left within us by original sin. Such, in point of fact, is our evil nature, that we have a taste for everything which amuses and gives us pleasure, for all that flatters self-love and vanity, for all that attracts towards us praise and esteem, in a word, for the world and its false treasures; whilst, on the contrary, we have but little taste for spiritual things, for exercises of piety, for the practice of virtues; we even often feel an aversion and a disgust towards everything which belongs to duty, so that it is sometimes sufficient that a thing should be commanded in order to make it displeasing to us; that it should be forbidden in order that it should become attractive to us. Now the gift of wisdom is precisely that which corrects these depraved tastes. It shows us in all its nakedness the falsity of everything which the world esteems, and inspires us with disgust for it, the real merit of all which sanctifies, and inspires us with a love for it. 2d. The gift of wisdom renders all virtues easy to us, and makes us run with dilated heart in the ways of perfection. It makes us enjoy God and spiritual things, the cross and privations, recollection in God, charity and devotedness towards our neighbor, humility and self-sacrifice; and with these supernatural tastes, there is nothing in regard to our salvation which costs us anything. We do all things well, because we do them with a taste for them; we perform them courageously and without weariness, because they are a pleasure to us; we perform them lovingly, because we find happiness in them, even in this present life. Let us ask and entreat with all our hearts for so precious a gift.

Resolutions and spiritual nosegay as above.