Youtube Interviews
In this episode of Roadmap to Heaven, host Adam Wright is joined by Father Wade Menezes to discuss Pentecost and the 7 gifts of the Holy Spirit. The episode begins with a discussion on virtues, confession, and the upcoming celebration of Pentecost as the birth of the Church and the bride of Christ.
The importance of regular confession for the forgiveness of mortal sin is highlighted, and Fr. Menezes mentions his book, Catholic Essentials, which delves deeper into the 7 gifts and 12 fruits. He explains each of the seven gifts: wisdom, understanding, counsel, fortitude, knowledge, piety, and fear of the Lord, as well as the twelve fruits: charity, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, longsuffering, gentleness, faithfulness, modesty, self-control, and chastity.
Father Menezes discusses the idea of sanctifying grace and the presence of the seven gifts and twelve fruits within the soul. He likens the development of the gifts and fruits to working out a muscle, with each act strengthening and growing them. He also addresses the consequences of mortal sin, which removes a person from sanctifying grace but does not sever the gifts and fruits completely.
Throughout the episode, Father Menezes emphasizes the need to exercise these gifts and fruits consistently. He also discusses the supernatural levels of faith and joy that can be experienced through the gifts and fruits of sanctifying grace.
Overall, this episode of Roadmap to Heaven is focused on the 7 gifts of the Holy Spirit, with useful information about each particular gift and how each one fits into a life of faith.
Adam Wright:
Perhaps it’s the liturgical musician in me, but I have always looked at Pentecost as one of the unofficial markers that summer is here, that it is time for summer break for the kids, time for summer vacation. I love Pentecost, but in about two months, I’m going to be thinking of one particular line from the Veni Sancte Spiritus, or the Veni Creator Spiritus: “sweet refreshment in the heat” when the Midwest summer actually sets in. I’m going to be saying, “Come Holy Spirit and relieve this humidity that has descended upon us.” And I don’t know if that’s actually something that we can be praying for or saying, but I do know that Father Wade Menezes, if there was ever anyone that would have an answer to what I just said, Father Wade Menezes from the Fathers of Mercy is the guy that I would go to. And luckily, he’s here with us on the show today. Father, it’s good to have you back.
Fr. Wade Menezes:
Thank you, Adam, so much. It’s great to be with you to talk about Pentecost and the 7 gifts and the twelve fruits of the Holy Spirit today. Just following up from a week ago or so, talking about the ascension of our Lord and what that means for the transfigured and resurrected glorified state of human nature, the body-soul composite. It’s a joy to be here with you again today, but I’ll tell you this. You’ve got to remember, talking about the heat as you just did in this prelude of yours, or should I say a monologue even, remember, it was flames of fire that descended down upon the apostles and the Blessed Mother. So there you go.
Adam Wright:
Alright. Alright. Well, we’re talking about Pentecost. We’ve been preparing for this all week, Father. And in many ways, it’s both a completion and a beginning. I mean, we’re getting to formally wrap up the Easter season, but we also – I think of so many great families in our listening area that this Sunday will have birthday cakes at their Sunday dinner with the family, happy birthday to the church. So there’s a lot going on in this great feast.
Fr. Wade Menezes:
Yeah, and the preface of the mass for Pentecost tells us a lot about these different themes of the solemnity itself. The preface prayer is the prayer just before the Eucharistic prayer. When there’s a dialogue between the celebrant and the people: “The Lord be with you and with your spirit lift up your hearts. We lift them up to the Lord. Let us give thanks to the Lord our God. It is right and just.” And then the precelebrant goes into the preface prayer. So I just wanted to remind our listeners today, Adam, what exactly is the preface prayer and what part of the Mass is it? It’s just before the Eucharistic prayer itself and after the offering of the bread and wine. I say bread and wine because, during the offertory, it still is bread and wine. The consecration hasn’t taken place yet. But in the prayer for Pentecost Sunday, we read this: “It is truly right and just, our duty and our salvation, always and everywhere to give you thanks, Lord, Holy Father, Almighty, and eternal God for bringing your paschal mystery to completion. You bestowed the Holy Spirit today on those you made your adopted children by uniting them to your only begotten son.”
So, I’ve always said, and rightly so, the paschal mystery within the life of the church, the bride of Christ, which she founded, and which is expressed throughout the celebration of her Sacramental economy, the celebration in of any of the 7 Sacraments, is that four-event event that we call the Paschal Mystery, capital p, capital m. And the second time I use event there, let’s capitalize the e. Right? The Paschal Mystery is that four-event Event of our Lord’s passion, death, resurrection, and ascension into Heaven. And all that He did in those four events for the main event that we call the paschal mystery, that these four events comprise, is brought to its official completion, as the preface just told us, in the great solemnity of Pentecost. The preface continues: this same spirit as the church came to birth (this is why we often refer to Pentecost Sunday as the birth of the bride of Christ, the birth of the church) open to all peoples, the knowledge of God, and brought together the many languages of the earth in profession of one faith. And we know that one faith by her four marks. She is one, holy, Catholic, and apostolic. The preface continues and ends then, Adam: therefore overcome with paschal joy. Every land, every people exalts in your praise. And even the heavenly powers with the angelic hosts sing together the unending hymn of your glory as they acclaim “sanctus, sanctus, sanctus” holy, holy, holy Lord God of hosts hymn.
So, there you have it. Pentecost Sunday brings to completion the beautiful paschal mystery. It’s also the birthday of the church by which we are sent out precisely because of the fruits of the paschal mystery. And we are adorned, if you will. I love that word in this regard. We are adorned with the 7 gifts and the 12 fruits of the Holy Spirit, these 19 great gifts and fruits, to let grow in our lives as we go out as the evangelizers we’re called to be. Each one according to his or her own a vocation and state in life. And by that, I mean not only the proper vocation, so to speak, of single, married, or consecrated, bishop, priest, Deacon, or consecrated religious brother or sister. I mean also employment vocation, you know, the doctor, the farmer, the lawyer, the homeschooling mother of four striving to live her vocation fully. Even the divorced dad of three who’s striving to live a chaste life. Regardless of one’s vocation and state in life, we’re called to view these 19 gifts and fruits, the 7 gifts and the 12 fruits of the holy spirit, and let them grow in our lives and go forth now into the world, and live them, and share them with others.
Adam Wright:
I think of a couple things right off the bat. I think of the end of Matthew’s gospel. Go there to all nations preaching and baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. The great commission.
Fr. Wade Menezes:
Which we heard it from our Lord’s ascension. We heard at our Lord’s ascension. Right.
Adam Wright:
And then also, I think of the responsorial psalm that we hear: “When the Holy Spirit comes to you, you will be my witnesses” that we sing in the chorus of the liturgy over the next few days. Another one. It’s a reminder for me, by the way, that as you mentioned, these gifts and these fruits of the Holy Spirit. It’s like, well, what do I need? You give me this great commission. You know, we say the Lord gives me this great commission, what do I need to accomplish that mission? Well, He gives us everything we need for that, and that’s what we’re celebrating this coming Sunday.
Fr. Wade Menezes:
Right. And if one has the moral certitude that they are in a state of sanctifying grace, which simply means that to the best of your sincerest of knowledge, you’re not aware of any mortal sin on your soul. You have these 7 gifts and 12 fruits within your soul working in you. Now they may be infantile in you, meaning very small, minute. So you’ve got to work each one of the 19 like a muscle. Right? I know a little bit about this post-rotator cuff surgery, which included a detached upper bicep. And one of the longest parts of my surgery from back in December that needs to be healed, it’s taking the longest to heal, is precisely that upper bicep because it was detached. So, every time I work that bicep, it gets stronger. Well, every time I work fortitude in my life, do an action, a fortuitous act, a courageous act, then that gift of the Holy Spirit, one of the 7, grows in me. So you’ve got to work each one of these 19, that is to say the 7 gifts and the 12 fruits, like a muscle. And each time you work it faithfully and regularly, it gains strength in your life and it grows.
The only thing that takes us out of a state of sanctifying grace is a mortal sin, grave matter done with fullness of knowledge and done with deliberate consent of your will. The three elements that constitute a mortal sin having been committed: grave matter, done with fullness of knowledge, and done with full consent of your will. If any one of those three or any two of the three are missing, then you’ve committed a venial sin. Now, venial sin constricts the 7 gifts and 12 fruits from working in our lives fully, but it doesn’t sever them supernaturally. Mortal sin severs them supernaturally from working in our life, and we know that the ordinary means for having mortal sin forgiven is through holy confession.
So I want to comb through the 7 gifts and the 12 fruits just by name, and then I’d like to spend a little bit of time describing each of the 7 gifts themselves in a little bit more detail. And I’d like to remind our viewers, Adam, that my latest book, Catholic Essentials: a Guide to Understanding Key Church Teachings, it’s 81 short chapters on 81 different points of Catholic doctrine that come from 5 parent categories: morals, dogma, ecclesiology (the study of the church), sacraments, and liturgy. So 2 of the 81 chapters, are of the 7 gifts of the Holy Spirit and the 12 fruits of the Holy Spirit where I describe these 19 gifts and fruits more in detail. So I’d like to encourage our listeners to get a copy of Catholic Essentials. I think I might have said it in a previous episode with you, I’m so so edified, Adam, that I’m finding out more and more that parishes are starting to get Catholic Essentials for their RCIA classes and for the RCIA candidates. I’m just so humbled and edified by that. You know, I wrote the book wanting each of the 81 chapters to be purposely short and to the point. Think of it as the 1, 2, punch to the “why” of the doctrine. Everybody seems to know what the Catholic church teaches, both Catholic and non-Catholic alike, but very few can articulate why she teaches it. And so I wanted these 81 chapters to all be short on each of these different 81 points of doctrine, from these 5 parent categories. Again: morals, dogma, ecclesiology, sacraments, and liturgy. And just explain the why very faithfully according to the church’s catechesis. So the gifts and the fruits are discussed in greater detail in Catholic Essentials.
The 7 gifts of the Holy Spirit, Adam, are found in the book of Isaiah chapter 11 verses 1 through 3, wherein the biblical passage refers to the characteristics of a messianic figure, understood by Christians to be Jesus Christ empowered by the spirit of the Lord who will be coming into the world. It’s a foretelling of the sacred incarnation of the second person of the most holy trinity. Again, chapter 11 verses 1 through 3 of the book of Isaiah is where we get these 7 gifts, and they are: wisdom, understanding, counsel, fortitude (which I just used as an example, a fortuitous act and each time you do it, it grows in you as a gift), knowledge, piety, and fear of the Lord. Then the 12 fruits of the Holy spirit, which are given to us in Galatians 5, verses 22 through 23. And this is an interesting point. Most passages that appear in different scriptural translations of Galatians 5:22 and 23, Adam, have only 9 listed. So where do we get the other 3 to make it 12 gifts of the Holy Spirit or 12 fruits, excuse me? It’s from Saint Jerome’s Latin Vulgate translation. He puts in the extra 3 because of the ancient manuscripts. I think that’s very, very important, especially for today’s day and age, when talking, for example, about modesty and self-control and chastity, which are 3 of the 12.
The 12 fruits of the Holy Spirit again from Galatians 5 verses 22 through 23: charity (or love, synonymous there), joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, longsuffering, gentleness, faithfulness, modesty, self-control, and chastity. Kindness is sometimes called benignity in the older translations of scripture. Longsuffering is sometimes referred to as longenemity, the virtue or the gift of longenemity. Gentleness is sometimes referred to in the older translations, Adam, as mildness. And self-control is often in the older translations described as continency. But charity, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, longsuffering, gentleness, faithfulness, modesty, self-control, and chastity, again, are the 12 fruits from Galatians 5 verses 22 through 23. The 3 extra ones come from Saint Jerome’s very, very well-known Latin Vulgate translation of scripture, the ancient manuscripts from the New Testament epistles. Book of Isaiah chapter 11, verses 1 through 3, we have wisdom understanding, counsel, fortitude, knowledge, piety and fear of the Lord as the 7 gifts the Holy Spirit.
Adam Wright:
So here’s the question that I’ve been wondering about all of this, as I’ve been preparing for Pentecost, Father. We talk about these gifts of the Holy Spirit and that —
Fr. Wade Menezes:
We’re in the midst of a nine-day Novena right now.
Adam Wright:
We have them. Right. And as someone who’s been confirmed, I mean, I have these gifts. I may, as you have said, only have them to an infantile degree, and we have to flex that muscle, per se, to use those gifts. But going back to the muscle analogy, and if I were to work my bicep every day and do a great workout, you would know this because eventually instead of a flabby arm, you would see this big muscle bulging out of my shirt sleeve. When we talk about the fruits of the Holy Spirit, is that a mark? Like, if we see someone who has all of these characteristics, that someone then, we can say, has been exercising all of those gifts of the Holy Spirit?
Fr. Wade Menezes:
Yes. Especially if they demonstrate it at a supernatural level. We see this with the martyrs going to the point of death when their faith is challenged on the spot, like blessed Miguel Pro before the firing squad. “Viva Christo Rey! Viva!” That’s to a supernatural degree. It is possible that somebody can have joy at a natural level. But when we’re talking about the gifts and fruits, we’re talking about a supernatural level, precisely because God’s sanctifying grace is feeding those 12 gifts and those 12 fruits. So remember these double, Adam, as virtues. Right? So you can have a virtue at a natural level or at a supernatural level. And you know it’s at a supernatural level if it’s really, really brought to the point of what is seemingly extinction giving up the faith, for example, before the firing squad, but instead just the opposite happens. You stay strong even to the point of death. You’re willing to die. You know, Saint Paul: “You have not yet resisted the temptations against the faith to the point of blood.” You know? Now, he’s using that as a literal example for martyrdom, but also to the point of a white martyrdom where you don’t literally die for the virtue in question, but you’re willing to stand up for it to the point of a type of white martyrdom, tribulation and persecution, because of the virtue that’s in question.
So what you’re asking could be at a natural or a supernatural level, and for purposes of talking about the 7 gifts and the 12 fruits properly speaking being fed by God’s sanctifying grace in a soul that has no mortal sin on it, hence the need for regular confession, right? And regular confession has the very strong possibility of keeping one away from mortal sin on a regular continuum, on a regular basis. That’s one of the great things about monthly confession. Chances are a monthly confession, a confessee, a monthly penitent that is, we’ll only have venial sin to confess. Why? Because it’s precisely the practice of a monthly confession that is per se keeping them away from mortal sin, and that’s a beautiful thing. So, what we’re talking about when we talk about the 7 gifts and the 12 fruits properly speaking, it’s at a supernatural level.
Adam Wright:
Now I think the question that some of us ask from time to time: how do I build these muscles, these spiritual muscles, these gifts of the Holy Spirit? I mean, I can’t just wake up in the morning and decide “I’m going to be wise today. Father, I’ve declared it. Adam Wright is going to be wise in everything he does today because I have said so in my morning offering, I said, ‘Lord, I’m going to be wise today.'”
Fr. Wade Menezes:
And then at the end of that very same day, I’m going to ask your wife: “Was Adam wise today?”
Adam Wright:
And she’s going to say no.
Fr. Wade Menezes:
So we pray for these. We offer communion for these, these gifts and fruits. I’m about to go into the 7 gifts per se and expound on each one of the 7 a little bit more. For purposes of this interview, I can’t go into all 12 of the fruits, but I can cover the gifts. But whether any of the 19 you’re talking about, you offer them to God in your morning offering, the triune Godhead, during your morning offering. You have communions, holy communions, offered for this intention. You can have Masses set for this intention. You can carry out any one of the 3 imminent good works: prayer, fasting, and almsgiving. Not for the works themselves, but for the charity they help prosper among our fellow human persons, one human person to another human person in a world today that greatly needs it. Right? Any combination of the 14 works of mercy, the 7 corporal works of mercy for the body or the 7 spiritual works of mercy for the soul. This is how — embracing your suffering, whether physical or psychological, embracing your suffering, and offering up your suffering in union with the cross of Jesus Christ who’s now risen gloriously from the dead. But because His body, the church, still aches, we can still offer up our own suffering with that one sacrificial act on that one good Friday that the holy sacrifice of the mass makes present again.
We don’t keep crucifying our Lord over and over and over again like some of our Protestant brothers and sisters believe we do in the Mass. No. We acknowledge it was one supreme act. Right? But the body makes up for the lack of suffering from Christ, meaning His body, the church, her bride, still suffers. That’s what that passage means from scripture. We’re called to help make up, in union with our head, what is still lacking in the perfection of His body, meaning the church. So we can still offer our own suffering, and that’s very, very important. So these are different ways that we can do these flexes to make the muscle grow, because like you said, it might still be minute in you. But then it begins to manifest itself like you also intimated.
So now to go into the 7 gifts, I’d like to comb through each one of them briefly with a little paragraph. Again, they’re described in Catholic Essentials along with the 12 fruits. The gift of wisdom, the first of the 7, is our ability to value spiritual things over worldly ones. It enables us to desire the things of God and correctly order the things in our life properly, putting God first. This gift of the Holy Spirit helps us view the world through God’s perspective and not merely our own. And the light of faith, through the lens of the light of faith, I think that’s important to say. It instills in one a desire to constantly want to contemplate the things of God, even while still living on Earth. This is seeking heavenly wisdom. A proper ordering of things placing God first. And I think that’s very, very important. The gift of understanding helps us to grasp the truths of the faith more easily and profoundly. Our human intellect cannot grasp all of God’s mysteries, but through the Holy Spirit’s gift of understanding, we can be led to the truth, even when we do not fully comprehend it.
Think of a married couple who’s struggling with whether or not they should contracept. They know what the church teaches. They know it clearly, in fact. They’ve even become students of studying that one teaching of the church. But they just cannot intellectually arise to it. But because they’ve been praying for the gift of understanding, slowly but surely, they begin to not only know more fully the church’s teaching against contraception is something morally illicit for the marriage bed. But they begin to literally embrace it because they want sanctifying grace to imbue their marriage. They want sanctifying grace to lead them in their marriage. And so they both begin to grow in the gift of understanding, or one spouse may have it and the other spouse not yet have it. And so that one spouse begins to witness to the other spouse about it. And I’ve had many men at men’s conferences tell me, Adam, “Father, when I began to seriously make a eucharistic holy hour at my parish’s perpetual eucharistic adoration chapel, even on my own without my spouse, I began to question myself, why are my wife and I so afraid to conceive again? Why do we continue to contracept? What is this fear and why are we letting it rule our marriage with a capital R?” And they’ve been converted from the use of contraception, and they began to witness to their wife in their married life. They began to witness to their wife, as the husband and father to their family, and to the current children they have.
So they began to understand more fully the church’s actual teaching. Backing up to the gift of wisdom, let’s use the example of a person with their business ethic. We said that the growth and the gift of wisdom was the ability to order things appropriately by placing God first, maybe in a place of business, in their vocation of employment that is, they didn’t always have good ethical practices. But because they’ve been slowly but surely converted more and more to live their Catholic faith, they began to place things in such an order that God was first in their business. And so the former lacks or the former, dare I say evil, ethics practices ceased. They came to a halt. No more. “I’m not going down that road anymore with my business practices,” maybe the businessman or the businesswoman says. So did they begin to place God first and put things properly ordered.
Adam Wright:
That is a great example for us, Father. It seems to me that with both of those, there’s also this element of trust, especially with understanding because with each of these, I may have more degrees of understanding as time goes on, or a greater depth of understanding as time goes on, but I’m not going to have that complete understanding, if I understand this correctly, on this side of the veil. It might not be until we’re in the beatific vision with our Lord himself that we actually fully understand everything.
Fr. Wade Menezes:
And remember, we have the 3-legged stool of sacred scriptures, sacred tradition, and the Magisterium, the teaching office of the church from the Latin word “magister”, which itself, the Magisterium is grounded or rooted in the apostolic college of the apostles. We have the 3-legged stool: scripture, tradition, and the Magisterium presenting to us everything in the sacred deposit of faith that we need to know to put ourselves on the path to salvation to indeed work out our salvation as Philippians 2:12 tells us. And so, by the light of faith, we’re guided. By the religious assent to what’s been revealed, we are guided. And that’s what’s important.
The gift of knowledge is awareness of God’s plan for me and for the world. This is a traditional listing of the order too, so the wisdom leads to the understanding, the understanding leads to the knowledge, now thirdly, I’m talking about. The gift of knowledge is awareness of God’s plan. It is not simply an accumulation of facts. No, rather an understanding of God’s purpose and how we ought to respond to His purpose. The Holy Spirit’s gift of knowledge helps bring to life the temptations that we face daily and to strive for a certain resoluteness to live a life worthy of God’s approval. That’s very, very important. So I like to say the gift of knowledge, the third one in the traditional listing of the 7, follows precisely from the first two: wisdom and understanding. So I want to begin to only put myself in predicaments that I know will lead to virtue and virtuous living. I’m not going to put myself in predicaments where I know in the past I’ve been led to sin.
Like the friends you hang out with, for example, what’s the old maxim, Adam? Help me out here. Show me your friends and I’ll show you your life. In other words: bad friends, bad life. Good holy and virtuous friends, good holy and virtuous life. Now you never want to cut off the bad friend completely, because you might be God’s answer to their coming to the fullness of truth one day. So you never amputate, but you do have a right to detach with love if this particular friendship is leading you into sin. Right? So that’s just one example of wanting to put myself on the right path now, with the knowledge that I’ve gained.
The gift of fortitude or courage, I love this one. I always have. The gift of fortitude or courage sustains our decision to follow the will of God in any given situation and defend our faith even when threatened by bodily injury, or even death. This gift allows us to be steadfast in our decisions, to do well, and to endure evil even when we do not want to. And it could be an evil, too, as I intimated earlier, that doesn’t lead to the red martyrdom of blood, but it could be an evil that leads to the white martyrdom of persecution and tribulation. A theme, this latter martyrdom, the white martyrdom, that John Paul II frequently talked about at his World Youth Days, throughout his 26-plus years pontificate. He frequently exhorted the young people gathered at the World Youth Days and the different countries and the different continents throughout the world to not only prepare themselves and be ready for a red martyrdom of blood, but to be ready for the white martyrdom of tribulation, the white martyrdom of persecution. And I think that’s very important. And this 4th gift of fortitude or courage is very important in that regard.
And I think you as a husband and father, the protector, the provider, the defender, the natural gifts to the masculine genius. Where the nurturer, the comforter, the nester, or the natural gifts to the feminine genius, John Paul II would say, not that you and your wife can’t share in each other’s 3 gifts, your wife, I’m sure, is to a certain degree is a provider, protector defender. The old phrase “mama bear”, right, don’t poke mama bear. Right? And you yourself, Adam, can share in her primary gifts of her feminine genius as a comforter and a nester. There’s no doubt. Okay? But all I’m saying is in your masculine genius, you’re the provider, the protector, the defender. That’s where fortitude and courage comes in your life to be practiced, to demonstrate to your own children, especially your sons, what that means because they’re called to carry that torch one day. So your living the 7 gifts are modeled to your loved ones. They’re modeled for the ones that you’re called to lead to salvation, through your vocation as a husband and father. And I think that’s important to remember.
Adam Wright:
And a quick word to all the dads out there listening, to all the husbands out there listening: pray for this gift daily. It is difficult to exercise all of the things we’re called to as fathers. And even sometimes within our own homes, answering the children. “Well, Dad, why can’t we do this? My friends all do this at school. Why can’t I have this? Why can’t I watch that? Why can’t I?” It’s hard to be the one that has to say no from time to time, but pray for that gift of fortitude.
Fr. Wade Menezes:
Yeah. That’s exactly right. That’s exactly right. And this leads us to the very next one. “Well, Dad, why can’t I do it?” “Well, because of such and such. Or because of such and such.” The gift of counsel, also known as the gift of right judgment. See, you’re imbuing your children with the gift of Holy Spirit of right judgment also called the gift of counsel, when you explain the reasons why, about temporal factors, you know, why they can’t go roller skating today with their friends, for example. Or whatever it is. It could be about something temporal, no doubt. But you’re still imbuing them with the gift of right counsel, the gift of right judgment. This gift acknowledges the difference between right and wrong and bestows proper judgment as the human intellect and will work together to love and to choose the good, the true, and the beautiful. So the intellect is to know, the will is to choose. Why do I point to my heart when I say the will is to choose? Because the heart, poetically speaking, is a symbol of love, within human nature, across cultures even.
So, hopefully, we always choose based on an ordered love and not a disordered love. So we have the intellect to know and the will to choose. Again, the gift of counsel or right judgment acknowledges the difference between right and wrong and bestows proper judgment as the human intellect and the human will work together to love and choose what is good, true, and beautiful on a regular basis, on a continuum, in concrete daily actions. The Holy Spirit’s gift of counsel inspires us to speak up and to encourage others to do the correct thing always. It bestows upon us prudence, allowing us to act promptly and rightly in the face of difficult situations, which takes us back to fortitude and courage, which is the one we just discussed before right counsel and right judgment. This is why there’s a traditional listing, Adam, to the 7. Because each one really feeds off its prior one. And at the end of the 7, you have a cohesive whole of these beautiful gifts, that we are, I’d like to say, adorned with. Scripture is loaded with imagery of “adorned with jewels”, “adorned with diadems”, “adorned with crowns”. Right? And, really, this is what the 7 gifts are, and I think it’s very, very important.
The gift of piety, or reverence, the gift of reverence, is our obedience to God and our willingness to serve Him no matter what. It is not just obedience through a sense of duty or obligation. No. It goes much more deeper than that, but rather, obedience out of love and devotion The first 3 commandments, right, have to do with love of God. And the remaining 7 of the commandments beginning with commandment 4 have to do with love of neighbor. But really, you see God in your neighbor, because isn’t your neighbor made in the same image and likeness of God in their human nature as you are in your human nature? Of course your neighbor is made in God’s image and likeness. So really, all 10 commandments have to do with love but especially the first 3 because they deal with God directly and our reverence and our devotion and our respect and obedience toward Him. So again, the gift of piety or reverence is our obedience to God and our willingness to serve Him. It is not just obedience through a sense of duty or obligation. No. But rather obedience out of love and devotion. It facilitates a deeper respect and honor for God and his bride, the church. Founded by the God-man Jesus Christ, the second person of the Trinity.
So I just love how all these feed off one another, you know? And it’s important because they’re enacted not only in our spiritual life, Adam, they’re really truly enacted in our secular temporal vocational life as well. And you can plug these into the most mundane things of everyday life and living. You know? So the last one is the gift of fear of the Lord, also known as the gift of wonder and awe of the Lord. Again: the gift of fear of the Lord, also known as the gift of wonder and awe of the Lord. The gift of fear of the Lord makes us aware of the glory and majesty of God. Now doesn’t that make sense that this one follows piety and reverence? The 6th gift of piety and reverence towards God. Right? The gift of fear of the Lord also known as the gift of wonder and awe of the Lord makes us aware of the glory and majesty of God.
This gift is also synonymous with the fear of the Lord, in which we dread sin. We dread sin and fear offending God, not out of a servile fear, which I’ve talked about in the past with you on Roadmap to Heaven, but rather out of the filial fear. The filial fear is the fear of a child who doesn’t want to disappoint the parent precisely because they know the parent loves them. And in the prior gift of piety, we talked about how it’s not just out of obedience, but it’s out of love that we carry out piety. Right? So it’s not a servile fear that’s the fear of the underling receiving a punishment from the superior. That would be a servile fear. But rather fear of the Lord has to do with a filial fear, the fear of a child who doesn’t want to disappoint the parent, precisely because they know the parent loves them. It has nothing to do with punishment. We fear displeasing God and losing our connection with him and sanctifying grace, or even actual grace, because of our love for Him. The Holy Spirit’s gift of wonder and awe increases our desire to draw closer to God and to literally depart from sin, even venial sin. And I think that’s important.
So there you have it. Gift of wisdom, gift of understanding, gift of knowledge, gift of fortitude or courage, the gift of counsel or right judgment, of the gift of piety and reverence, and the gift of fear of the Lord, also known as the gift of wonder and awe of the Lord. So I just love the 7 gifts and, again, I encourage our viewers today, and even and listeners. I say viewers because some might be watching us with your link that you’ve posted at the Covenant Network Roadmap to Heaven website, and I’m hoping to get a link to this as well, Adam, to post to the Fathers of Mercy website of our interview today. But I talk about the 7 gifts further in Catholic Essentials, as well as the 12 fruits.
Adam Wright:
Well, I’m just going to say this, Father. I have this book on my bookshelf over here, Catholic Essentials: A Guide to Understanding Key Church Teachings.
Fr. Wade Menezes:
Hey, I knew I liked you, Adam.
Adam Wright:
And I have it on my bookshelf because I use it. And just like this book, the gifts of the Holy Spirit, we’re supposed to use them each and every day. We’re not called to have droopy Holy Spirit muscles, you know, kind of like my arm here. We’re called to flex them, to work them out, to use them each and every day. And to be just shining examples of what it means to be using these gifts of the Holy Spirit. So, Father, I want to thank you for breaking them open in-depth for us, but I wouldn’t be surprised now if you have a couple quotable quotes from the Saints, like you usually do, on these gifts. What a great reminder this has been for us.
Fr. Wade Menezes:
Well, thank you. And it’s been a joy to be with you this time. I do have quotes, and they’re from scripture specifically. I want to talk about the name “Holy Spirit”. You know, it was given to us by Christ Himself. He’s the one that identified the third person of the Trinity per se under that name, “Holy Spirit” in Matthew 28:19. And then on 4 other occasions, Jesus also refers to the Holy Spirit as, “the advocate” such as in John 14, John 15, and John 16. Meaning “paraclete” which is the same as advocate: one who speaks on behalf for. Advocare, advocate to speak on behalf for. The Greek word would be paraclete. The Latin root word would be where we get the English word “advocate” “advocare” the Latin Infinitive. But paraclete and advocate mean the same, and Jesus uses both. The Greek phrase paraclete and the Latin foundation term advocate in the translations we see in scripture.
It’s something kind of comical we’re worth mentioning here because the Holy Spirit is often depicted as a dove hovering over the Father and the Son in different religious art. I remember being a Seminarian when I was studying philosophy and we would have Sunday solemn Vespers at Seminary every Sunday, at Saint Phillips Oratory in Toronto. And there was a family that came, and the little girl in the family, with her family sat not too far behind the last pew of the seminarians during the solemn Sunday vespers. And when we did the divine praises at the end of the solemn benediction of the Blessed Sacrament at the end of Solomon Vespers, which closed this beautiful half-hour service each Sunday evening in the church. When we’d say “Blessed be the Holy Spirit, the paraclete” she would say at the top of her voice, and we could hear her so clearly, Adam, “Blessed be the Holy Spirit, the parakeet” because she saw the Holy Spirit depicted as a dove. Okay. But there’s a beautiful innocence there, you know, so if you say paraclete or advocate, That’s okay. But try to remember that it’s paraclete with the “l” in there and not just parakeet. Okay. So I think that’s important.
Our Lord also calls the Holy Spirit in John 16, “the spirit of truth”. The spirit of truth who will guide the church. Right? And also the consoler, the consoler, which makes sense if you have someone who speaks on your behalf who’s working for you, it brings you consolation. You know, we also use the English word advocate, for a lawyer, Adam. For a lawyer. So think of the Holy Spirit as your lawyer. Our Lord calls the confession, the sacrament of confession, a tribunal of mercy, a tribunal is a court. Think of the marriage tribunal of a diocese. Right? That’s brought together, cleric and laity, that formed the tribunal, the marriage court. The marriage tribunal, the diocese, to judge whether or not this particular marriage was ever sacramental to begin with, or if it was not ever sacramental to begin with. So my point is that tribunal is a court. Well, He calls the sacrament of confession to St. Faustina, which she records the title 3 times in her diary, “a tribunal of mercy”. And that’s a court of mercy. Think of the Father, the first person of the Trinity, as the judge, the just judge. Think of the Son as your public defender, right? Your public defender. And think of the Holy Spirit as your advocate, even as a juror in the jury box, that hopefully the juror would be your advocate. I think those are nice images in an analogous way when we think of confession specifically. Going to confession specifically as a tribunal of mercy, again, which our Lord called it to St. Faustina. So He’s the spirit of truth, and the consoler, the advocate, the paraclete. He’s the Holy Spirit per se. St. Paul calls Him, the 3rd person of the Trinity, “the spirit of promise” in Galatians 3, “the spirit of adoption” in Romans 8, “the spirit of Christ” in Romans 8, “the spirit of the Lord” in 1st Corinthians 3, and “the spirit of God Himself” in Romans 8. So there you have it. These beautiful titles of the Holy Spirit, who gives us the 7 gifts and the 12 fruits.
Adam Wright:
I love it. I absolutely love it. So, again, if you want to know more about this, Father’s giving you the tip right here. Catholic Essentials has it all. Or go back to this podcast. Go back to this YouTube video. If you’re listening to us on the radio right now, go look us up on the podcast, go look us up on the YouTube video. You can always find great information at fathersofmercy.com. Father Wade, sadly, we are out of time, but we need to pray. So I’m going to turn that over to you.
Fr. Wade Menezes:
Amen. Adam, may the blessing of Almighty God, the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit descend upon all of our Covenant Network and Roadmap to Heaven listeners and remain with each and every one of you this day and always. Saint Joseph Terror of Demons.
Adam Wright:
Pray for us. Alright. If you want to hear more from Father Wade, beyond everything I just mentioned, you can also tune in Tuesday afternoons at 2 pm central time right here on Covenant Network for Open Line Tuesday. Father Wade, until the next time. Thank you so much for being with us today.
Fr. Wade Menezes:
Thank you so much, Adam, and I encourage listeners to also go to championshrine.org to learn more about Our Lady at Champion Shrine, the only fully approved Marian apparition site in the United States.
Adam Wright:
Alright. Wonderful. Well, everyone, you’ve been listening to Roadmap to Heaven. Stay tuned for more.
Adam Wright:
Perhaps it’s the liturgical musician in me, but I have always looked at Pentecost as one of the unofficial markers that summer is here, that it is time for summer break for the kids, time for summer vacation. I love Pentecost, but in about two months, I’m going to be thinking of one particular line from the Veni Sancte Spiritus, or the Veni Creator Spiritus: “sweet refreshment in the heat” when the Midwest summer actually sets in. I’m going to be saying, “Come Holy Spirit and relieve this humidity that has descended upon us.” And I don’t know if that’s actually something that we can be praying for or saying, but I do know that Father Wade Menezes, if there was ever anyone that would have an answer to what I just said, Father Wade Menezes from the Fathers of Mercy is the guy that I would go to. And luckily, he’s here with us on the show today. Father, it’s good to have you back.
Fr. Wade Menezes:
Thank you, Adam, so much. It’s great to be with you to talk about Pentecost and the 7 gifts and the twelve fruits of the Holy Spirit today. Just following up from a week ago or so, talking about the ascension of our Lord and what that means for the transfigured and resurrected glorified state of human nature, the body-soul composite. It’s a joy to be here with you again today, but I’ll tell you this. You’ve got to remember, talking about the heat as you just did in this prelude of yours, or should I say a monologue even, remember, it was flames of fire that descended down upon the apostles and the Blessed Mother. So there you go.
Adam Wright:
Alright. Alright. Well, we’re talking about Pentecost. We’ve been preparing for this all week, Father. And in many ways, it’s both a completion and a beginning. I mean, we’re getting to formally wrap up the Easter season, but we also – I think of so many great families in our listening area that this Sunday will have birthday cakes at their Sunday dinner with the family, happy birthday to the church. So there’s a lot going on in this great feast.
Fr. Wade Menezes:
Yeah, and the preface of the mass for Pentecost tells us a lot about these different themes of the solemnity itself. The preface prayer is the prayer just before the Eucharistic prayer. When there’s a dialogue between the celebrant and the people: “The Lord be with you and with your spirit lift up your hearts. We lift them up to the Lord. Let us give thanks to the Lord our God. It is right and just.” And then the precelebrant goes into the preface prayer. So I just wanted to remind our listeners today, Adam, what exactly is the preface prayer and what part of the Mass is it? It’s just before the Eucharistic prayer itself and after the offering of the bread and wine. I say bread and wine because, during the offertory, it still is bread and wine. The consecration hasn’t taken place yet. But in the prayer for Pentecost Sunday, we read this: “It is truly right and just, our duty and our salvation, always and everywhere to give you thanks, Lord, Holy Father, Almighty, and eternal God for bringing your paschal mystery to completion. You bestowed the Holy Spirit today on those you made your adopted children by uniting them to your only begotten son.”
So, I’ve always said, and rightly so, the paschal mystery within the life of the church, the bride of Christ, which she founded, and which is expressed throughout the celebration of her Sacramental economy, the celebration in of any of the 7 Sacraments, is that four-event event that we call the Paschal Mystery, capital p, capital m. And the second time I use event there, let’s capitalize the e. Right? The Paschal Mystery is that four-event Event of our Lord’s passion, death, resurrection, and ascension into Heaven. And all that He did in those four events for the main event that we call the paschal mystery, that these four events comprise, is brought to its official completion, as the preface just told us, in the great solemnity of Pentecost. The preface continues: this same spirit as the church came to birth (this is why we often refer to Pentecost Sunday as the birth of the bride of Christ, the birth of the church) open to all peoples, the knowledge of God, and brought together the many languages of the earth in profession of one faith. And we know that one faith by her four marks. She is one, holy, Catholic, and apostolic. The preface continues and ends then, Adam: therefore overcome with paschal joy. Every land, every people exalts in your praise. And even the heavenly powers with the angelic hosts sing together the unending hymn of your glory as they acclaim “sanctus, sanctus, sanctus” holy, holy, holy Lord God of hosts hymn.
So, there you have it. Pentecost Sunday brings to completion the beautiful paschal mystery. It’s also the birthday of the church by which we are sent out precisely because of the fruits of the paschal mystery. And we are adorned, if you will. I love that word in this regard. We are adorned with the 7 gifts and the 12 fruits of the Holy Spirit, these 19 great gifts and fruits, to let grow in our lives as we go out as the evangelizers we’re called to be. Each one according to his or her own a vocation and state in life. And by that, I mean not only the proper vocation, so to speak, of single, married, or consecrated, bishop, priest, Deacon, or consecrated religious brother or sister. I mean also employment vocation, you know, the doctor, the farmer, the lawyer, the homeschooling mother of four striving to live her vocation fully. Even the divorced dad of three who’s striving to live a chaste life. Regardless of one’s vocation and state in life, we’re called to view these 19 gifts and fruits, the 7 gifts and the 12 fruits of the holy spirit, and let them grow in our lives and go forth now into the world, and live them, and share them with others.
Adam Wright:
I think of a couple things right off the bat. I think of the end of Matthew’s gospel. Go there to all nations preaching and baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. The great commission.
Fr. Wade Menezes:
Which we heard it from our Lord’s ascension. We heard at our Lord’s ascension. Right.
Adam Wright:
And then also, I think of the responsorial psalm that we hear: “When the Holy Spirit comes to you, you will be my witnesses” that we sing in the chorus of the liturgy over the next few days. Another one. It’s a reminder for me, by the way, that as you mentioned, these gifts and these fruits of the Holy Spirit. It’s like, well, what do I need? You give me this great commission. You know, we say the Lord gives me this great commission, what do I need to accomplish that mission? Well, He gives us everything we need for that, and that’s what we’re celebrating this coming Sunday.
Fr. Wade Menezes:
Right. And if one has the moral certitude that they are in a state of sanctifying grace, which simply means that to the best of your sincerest of knowledge, you’re not aware of any mortal sin on your soul. You have these 7 gifts and 12 fruits within your soul working in you. Now they may be infantile in you, meaning very small, minute. So you’ve got to work each one of the 19 like a muscle. Right? I know a little bit about this post-rotator cuff surgery, which included a detached upper bicep. And one of the longest parts of my surgery from back in December that needs to be healed, it’s taking the longest to heal, is precisely that upper bicep because it was detached. So, every time I work that bicep, it gets stronger. Well, every time I work fortitude in my life, do an action, a fortuitous act, a courageous act, then that gift of the Holy Spirit, one of the 7, grows in me. So you’ve got to work each one of these 19, that is to say the 7 gifts and the 12 fruits, like a muscle. And each time you work it faithfully and regularly, it gains strength in your life and it grows.
The only thing that takes us out of a state of sanctifying grace is a mortal sin, grave matter done with fullness of knowledge and done with deliberate consent of your will. The three elements that constitute a mortal sin having been committed: grave matter, done with fullness of knowledge, and done with full consent of your will. If any one of those three or any two of the three are missing, then you’ve committed a venial sin. Now, venial sin constricts the 7 gifts and 12 fruits from working in our lives fully, but it doesn’t sever them supernaturally. Mortal sin severs them supernaturally from working in our life, and we know that the ordinary means for having mortal sin forgiven is through holy confession.
So I want to comb through the 7 gifts and the 12 fruits just by name, and then I’d like to spend a little bit of time describing each of the 7 gifts themselves in a little bit more detail. And I’d like to remind our viewers, Adam, that my latest book, Catholic Essentials: a Guide to Understanding Key Church Teachings, it’s 81 short chapters on 81 different points of Catholic doctrine that come from 5 parent categories: morals, dogma, ecclesiology (the study of the church), sacraments, and liturgy. So 2 of the 81 chapters, are of the 7 gifts of the Holy Spirit and the 12 fruits of the Holy Spirit where I describe these 19 gifts and fruits more in detail. So I’d like to encourage our listeners to get a copy of Catholic Essentials. I think I might have said it in a previous episode with you, I’m so so edified, Adam, that I’m finding out more and more that parishes are starting to get Catholic Essentials for their RCIA classes and for the RCIA candidates. I’m just so humbled and edified by that. You know, I wrote the book wanting each of the 81 chapters to be purposely short and to the point. Think of it as the 1, 2, punch to the “why” of the doctrine. Everybody seems to know what the Catholic church teaches, both Catholic and non-Catholic alike, but very few can articulate why she teaches it. And so I wanted these 81 chapters to all be short on each of these different 81 points of doctrine, from these 5 parent categories. Again: morals, dogma, ecclesiology, sacraments, and liturgy. And just explain the why very faithfully according to the church’s catechesis. So the gifts and the fruits are discussed in greater detail in Catholic Essentials.
The 7 gifts of the Holy Spirit, Adam, are found in the book of Isaiah chapter 11 verses 1 through 3, wherein the biblical passage refers to the characteristics of a messianic figure, understood by Christians to be Jesus Christ empowered by the spirit of the Lord who will be coming into the world. It’s a foretelling of the sacred incarnation of the second person of the most holy trinity. Again, chapter 11 verses 1 through 3 of the book of Isaiah is where we get these 7 gifts, and they are: wisdom, understanding, counsel, fortitude (which I just used as an example, a fortuitous act and each time you do it, it grows in you as a gift), knowledge, piety, and fear of the Lord. Then the 12 fruits of the Holy spirit, which are given to us in Galatians 5, verses 22 through 23. And this is an interesting point. Most passages that appear in different scriptural translations of Galatians 5:22 and 23, Adam, have only 9 listed. So where do we get the other 3 to make it 12 gifts of the Holy Spirit or 12 fruits, excuse me? It’s from Saint Jerome’s Latin Vulgate translation. He puts in the extra 3 because of the ancient manuscripts. I think that’s very, very important, especially for today’s day and age, when talking, for example, about modesty and self-control and chastity, which are 3 of the 12.
The 12 fruits of the Holy Spirit again from Galatians 5 verses 22 through 23: charity (or love, synonymous there), joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, longsuffering, gentleness, faithfulness, modesty, self-control, and chastity. Kindness is sometimes called benignity in the older translations of scripture. Longsuffering is sometimes referred to as longenemity, the virtue or the gift of longenemity. Gentleness is sometimes referred to in the older translations, Adam, as mildness. And self-control is often in the older translations described as continency. But charity, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, longsuffering, gentleness, faithfulness, modesty, self-control, and chastity, again, are the 12 fruits from Galatians 5 verses 22 through 23. The 3 extra ones come from Saint Jerome’s very, very well-known Latin Vulgate translation of scripture, the ancient manuscripts from the New Testament epistles. Book of Isaiah chapter 11, verses 1 through 3, we have wisdom understanding, counsel, fortitude, knowledge, piety and fear of the Lord as the 7 gifts the Holy Spirit.
Adam Wright:
So here’s the question that I’ve been wondering about all of this, as I’ve been preparing for Pentecost, Father. We talk about these gifts of the Holy Spirit and that —
Fr. Wade Menezes:
We’re in the midst of a nine-day Novena right now.
Adam Wright:
We have them. Right. And as someone who’s been confirmed, I mean, I have these gifts. I may, as you have said, only have them to an infantile degree, and we have to flex that muscle, per se, to use those gifts. But going back to the muscle analogy, and if I were to work my bicep every day and do a great workout, you would know this because eventually instead of a flabby arm, you would see this big muscle bulging out of my shirt sleeve. When we talk about the fruits of the Holy Spirit, is that a mark? Like, if we see someone who has all of these characteristics, that someone then, we can say, has been exercising all of those gifts of the Holy Spirit?
Fr. Wade Menezes:
Yes. Especially if they demonstrate it at a supernatural level. We see this with the martyrs going to the point of death when their faith is challenged on the spot, like blessed Miguel Pro before the firing squad. “Viva Christo Rey! Viva!” That’s to a supernatural degree. It is possible that somebody can have joy at a natural level. But when we’re talking about the gifts and fruits, we’re talking about a supernatural level, precisely because God’s sanctifying grace is feeding those 12 gifts and those 12 fruits. So remember these double, Adam, as virtues. Right? So you can have a virtue at a natural level or at a supernatural level. And you know it’s at a supernatural level if it’s really, really brought to the point of what is seemingly extinction giving up the faith, for example, before the firing squad, but instead just the opposite happens. You stay strong even to the point of death. You’re willing to die. You know, Saint Paul: “You have not yet resisted the temptations against the faith to the point of blood.” You know? Now, he’s using that as a literal example for martyrdom, but also to the point of a white martyrdom where you don’t literally die for the virtue in question, but you’re willing to stand up for it to the point of a type of white martyrdom, tribulation and persecution, because of the virtue that’s in question.
So what you’re asking could be at a natural or a supernatural level, and for purposes of talking about the 7 gifts and the 12 fruits properly speaking being fed by God’s sanctifying grace in a soul that has no mortal sin on it, hence the need for regular confession, right? And regular confession has the very strong possibility of keeping one away from mortal sin on a regular continuum, on a regular basis. That’s one of the great things about monthly confession. Chances are a monthly confession, a confessee, a monthly penitent that is, we’ll only have venial sin to confess. Why? Because it’s precisely the practice of a monthly confession that is per se keeping them away from mortal sin, and that’s a beautiful thing. So, what we’re talking about when we talk about the 7 gifts and the 12 fruits properly speaking, it’s at a supernatural level.
Adam Wright:
Now I think the question that some of us ask from time to time: how do I build these muscles, these spiritual muscles, these gifts of the Holy Spirit? I mean, I can’t just wake up in the morning and decide “I’m going to be wise today. Father, I’ve declared it. Adam Wright is going to be wise in everything he does today because I have said so in my morning offering, I said, ‘Lord, I’m going to be wise today.'”
Fr. Wade Menezes:
And then at the end of that very same day, I’m going to ask your wife: “Was Adam wise today?”
Adam Wright:
And she’s going to say no.
Fr. Wade Menezes:
So we pray for these. We offer communion for these, these gifts and fruits. I’m about to go into the 7 gifts per se and expound on each one of the 7 a little bit more. For purposes of this interview, I can’t go into all 12 of the fruits, but I can cover the gifts. But whether any of the 19 you’re talking about, you offer them to God in your morning offering, the triune Godhead, during your morning offering. You have communions, holy communions, offered for this intention. You can have Masses set for this intention. You can carry out any one of the 3 imminent good works: prayer, fasting, and almsgiving. Not for the works themselves, but for the charity they help prosper among our fellow human persons, one human person to another human person in a world today that greatly needs it. Right? Any combination of the 14 works of mercy, the 7 corporal works of mercy for the body or the 7 spiritual works of mercy for the soul. This is how — embracing your suffering, whether physical or psychological, embracing your suffering, and offering up your suffering in union with the cross of Jesus Christ who’s now risen gloriously from the dead. But because His body, the church, still aches, we can still offer up our own suffering with that one sacrificial act on that one good Friday that the holy sacrifice of the mass makes present again.
We don’t keep crucifying our Lord over and over and over again like some of our Protestant brothers and sisters believe we do in the Mass. No. We acknowledge it was one supreme act. Right? But the body makes up for the lack of suffering from Christ, meaning His body, the church, her bride, still suffers. That’s what that passage means from scripture. We’re called to help make up, in union with our head, what is still lacking in the perfection of His body, meaning the church. So we can still offer our own suffering, and that’s very, very important. So these are different ways that we can do these flexes to make the muscle grow, because like you said, it might still be minute in you. But then it begins to manifest itself like you also intimated.
So now to go into the 7 gifts, I’d like to comb through each one of them briefly with a little paragraph. Again, they’re described in Catholic Essentials along with the 12 fruits. The gift of wisdom, the first of the 7, is our ability to value spiritual things over worldly ones. It enables us to desire the things of God and correctly order the things in our life properly, putting God first. This gift of the Holy Spirit helps us view the world through God’s perspective and not merely our own. And the light of faith, through the lens of the light of faith, I think that’s important to say. It instills in one a desire to constantly want to contemplate the things of God, even while still living on Earth. This is seeking heavenly wisdom. A proper ordering of things placing God first. And I think that’s very, very important. The gift of understanding helps us to grasp the truths of the faith more easily and profoundly. Our human intellect cannot grasp all of God’s mysteries, but through the Holy Spirit’s gift of understanding, we can be led to the truth, even when we do not fully comprehend it.
Think of a married couple who’s struggling with whether or not they should contracept. They know what the church teaches. They know it clearly, in fact. They’ve even become students of studying that one teaching of the church. But they just cannot intellectually arise to it. But because they’ve been praying for the gift of understanding, slowly but surely, they begin to not only know more fully the church’s teaching against contraception is something morally illicit for the marriage bed. But they begin to literally embrace it because they want sanctifying grace to imbue their marriage. They want sanctifying grace to lead them in their marriage. And so they both begin to grow in the gift of understanding, or one spouse may have it and the other spouse not yet have it. And so that one spouse begins to witness to the other spouse about it. And I’ve had many men at men’s conferences tell me, Adam, “Father, when I began to seriously make a eucharistic holy hour at my parish’s perpetual eucharistic adoration chapel, even on my own without my spouse, I began to question myself, why are my wife and I so afraid to conceive again? Why do we continue to contracept? What is this fear and why are we letting it rule our marriage with a capital R?” And they’ve been converted from the use of contraception, and they began to witness to their wife in their married life. They began to witness to their wife, as the husband and father to their family, and to the current children they have.
So they began to understand more fully the church’s actual teaching. Backing up to the gift of wisdom, let’s use the example of a person with their business ethic. We said that the growth and the gift of wisdom was the ability to order things appropriately by placing God first, maybe in a place of business, in their vocation of employment that is, they didn’t always have good ethical practices. But because they’ve been slowly but surely converted more and more to live their Catholic faith, they began to place things in such an order that God was first in their business. And so the former lacks or the former, dare I say evil, ethics practices ceased. They came to a halt. No more. “I’m not going down that road anymore with my business practices,” maybe the businessman or the businesswoman says. So did they begin to place God first and put things properly ordered.
Adam Wright:
That is a great example for us, Father. It seems to me that with both of those, there’s also this element of trust, especially with understanding because with each of these, I may have more degrees of understanding as time goes on, or a greater depth of understanding as time goes on, but I’m not going to have that complete understanding, if I understand this correctly, on this side of the veil. It might not be until we’re in the beatific vision with our Lord himself that we actually fully understand everything.
Fr. Wade Menezes:
And remember, we have the 3-legged stool of sacred scriptures, sacred tradition, and the Magisterium, the teaching office of the church from the Latin word “magister”, which itself, the Magisterium is grounded or rooted in the apostolic college of the apostles. We have the 3-legged stool: scripture, tradition, and the Magisterium presenting to us everything in the sacred deposit of faith that we need to know to put ourselves on the path to salvation to indeed work out our salvation as Philippians 2:12 tells us. And so, by the light of faith, we’re guided. By the religious assent to what’s been revealed, we are guided. And that’s what’s important.
The gift of knowledge is awareness of God’s plan for me and for the world. This is a traditional listing of the order too, so the wisdom leads to the understanding, the understanding leads to the knowledge, now thirdly, I’m talking about. The gift of knowledge is awareness of God’s plan. It is not simply an accumulation of facts. No, rather an understanding of God’s purpose and how we ought to respond to His purpose. The Holy Spirit’s gift of knowledge helps bring to life the temptations that we face daily and to strive for a certain resoluteness to live a life worthy of God’s approval. That’s very, very important. So I like to say the gift of knowledge, the third one in the traditional listing of the 7, follows precisely from the first two: wisdom and understanding. So I want to begin to only put myself in predicaments that I know will lead to virtue and virtuous living. I’m not going to put myself in predicaments where I know in the past I’ve been led to sin.
Like the friends you hang out with, for example, what’s the old maxim, Adam? Help me out here. Show me your friends and I’ll show you your life. In other words: bad friends, bad life. Good holy and virtuous friends, good holy and virtuous life. Now you never want to cut off the bad friend completely, because you might be God’s answer to their coming to the fullness of truth one day. So you never amputate, but you do have a right to detach with love if this particular friendship is leading you into sin. Right? So that’s just one example of wanting to put myself on the right path now, with the knowledge that I’ve gained.
The gift of fortitude or courage, I love this one. I always have. The gift of fortitude or courage sustains our decision to follow the will of God in any given situation and defend our faith even when threatened by bodily injury, or even death. This gift allows us to be steadfast in our decisions, to do well, and to endure evil even when we do not want to. And it could be an evil, too, as I intimated earlier, that doesn’t lead to the red martyrdom of blood, but it could be an evil that leads to the white martyrdom of persecution and tribulation. A theme, this latter martyrdom, the white martyrdom, that John Paul II frequently talked about at his World Youth Days, throughout his 26-plus years pontificate. He frequently exhorted the young people gathered at the World Youth Days and the different countries and the different continents throughout the world to not only prepare themselves and be ready for a red martyrdom of blood, but to be ready for the white martyrdom of tribulation, the white martyrdom of persecution. And I think that’s very important. And this 4th gift of fortitude or courage is very important in that regard.
And I think you as a husband and father, the protector, the provider, the defender, the natural gifts to the masculine genius. Where the nurturer, the comforter, the nester, or the natural gifts to the feminine genius, John Paul II would say, not that you and your wife can’t share in each other’s 3 gifts, your wife, I’m sure, is to a certain degree is a provider, protector defender. The old phrase “mama bear”, right, don’t poke mama bear. Right? And you yourself, Adam, can share in her primary gifts of her feminine genius as a comforter and a nester. There’s no doubt. Okay? But all I’m saying is in your masculine genius, you’re the provider, the protector, the defender. That’s where fortitude and courage comes in your life to be practiced, to demonstrate to your own children, especially your sons, what that means because they’re called to carry that torch one day. So your living the 7 gifts are modeled to your loved ones. They’re modeled for the ones that you’re called to lead to salvation, through your vocation as a husband and father. And I think that’s important to remember.
Adam Wright:
And a quick word to all the dads out there listening, to all the husbands out there listening: pray for this gift daily. It is difficult to exercise all of the things we’re called to as fathers. And even sometimes within our own homes, answering the children. “Well, Dad, why can’t we do this? My friends all do this at school. Why can’t I have this? Why can’t I watch that? Why can’t I?” It’s hard to be the one that has to say no from time to time, but pray for that gift of fortitude.
Fr. Wade Menezes:
Yeah. That’s exactly right. That’s exactly right. And this leads us to the very next one. “Well, Dad, why can’t I do it?” “Well, because of such and such. Or because of such and such.” The gift of counsel, also known as the gift of right judgment. See, you’re imbuing your children with the gift of Holy Spirit of right judgment also called the gift of counsel, when you explain the reasons why, about temporal factors, you know, why they can’t go roller skating today with their friends, for example. Or whatever it is. It could be about something temporal, no doubt. But you’re still imbuing them with the gift of right counsel, the gift of right judgment. This gift acknowledges the difference between right and wrong and bestows proper judgment as the human intellect and will work together to love and to choose the good, the true, and the beautiful. So the intellect is to know, the will is to choose. Why do I point to my heart when I say the will is to choose? Because the heart, poetically speaking, is a symbol of love, within human nature, across cultures even.
So, hopefully, we always choose based on an ordered love and not a disordered love. So we have the intellect to know and the will to choose. Again, the gift of counsel or right judgment acknowledges the difference between right and wrong and bestows proper judgment as the human intellect and the human will work together to love and choose what is good, true, and beautiful on a regular basis, on a continuum, in concrete daily actions. The Holy Spirit’s gift of counsel inspires us to speak up and to encourage others to do the correct thing always. It bestows upon us prudence, allowing us to act promptly and rightly in the face of difficult situations, which takes us back to fortitude and courage, which is the one we just discussed before right counsel and right judgment. This is why there’s a traditional listing, Adam, to the 7. Because each one really feeds off its prior one. And at the end of the 7, you have a cohesive whole of these beautiful gifts, that we are, I’d like to say, adorned with. Scripture is loaded with imagery of “adorned with jewels”, “adorned with diadems”, “adorned with crowns”. Right? And, really, this is what the 7 gifts are, and I think it’s very, very important.
The gift of piety, or reverence, the gift of reverence, is our obedience to God and our willingness to serve Him no matter what. It is not just obedience through a sense of duty or obligation. No. It goes much more deeper than that, but rather, obedience out of love and devotion The first 3 commandments, right, have to do with love of God. And the remaining 7 of the commandments beginning with commandment 4 have to do with love of neighbor. But really, you see God in your neighbor, because isn’t your neighbor made in the same image and likeness of God in their human nature as you are in your human nature? Of course your neighbor is made in God’s image and likeness. So really, all 10 commandments have to do with love but especially the first 3 because they deal with God directly and our reverence and our devotion and our respect and obedience toward Him. So again, the gift of piety or reverence is our obedience to God and our willingness to serve Him. It is not just obedience through a sense of duty or obligation. No. But rather obedience out of love and devotion. It facilitates a deeper respect and honor for God and his bride, the church. Founded by the God-man Jesus Christ, the second person of the Trinity.
So I just love how all these feed off one another, you know? And it’s important because they’re enacted not only in our spiritual life, Adam, they’re really truly enacted in our secular temporal vocational life as well. And you can plug these into the most mundane things of everyday life and living. You know? So the last one is the gift of fear of the Lord, also known as the gift of wonder and awe of the Lord. Again: the gift of fear of the Lord, also known as the gift of wonder and awe of the Lord. The gift of fear of the Lord makes us aware of the glory and majesty of God. Now doesn’t that make sense that this one follows piety and reverence? The 6th gift of piety and reverence towards God. Right? The gift of fear of the Lord also known as the gift of wonder and awe of the Lord makes us aware of the glory and majesty of God.
This gift is also synonymous with the fear of the Lord, in which we dread sin. We dread sin and fear offending God, not out of a servile fear, which I’ve talked about in the past with you on Roadmap to Heaven, but rather out of the filial fear. The filial fear is the fear of a child who doesn’t want to disappoint the parent precisely because they know the parent loves them. And in the prior gift of piety, we talked about how it’s not just out of obedience, but it’s out of love that we carry out piety. Right? So it’s not a servile fear that’s the fear of the underling receiving a punishment from the superior. That would be a servile fear. But rather fear of the Lord has to do with a filial fear, the fear of a child who doesn’t want to disappoint the parent, precisely because they know the parent loves them. It has nothing to do with punishment. We fear displeasing God and losing our connection with him and sanctifying grace, or even actual grace, because of our love for Him. The Holy Spirit’s gift of wonder and awe increases our desire to draw closer to God and to literally depart from sin, even venial sin. And I think that’s important.
So there you have it. Gift of wisdom, gift of understanding, gift of knowledge, gift of fortitude or courage, the gift of counsel or right judgment, of the gift of piety and reverence, and the gift of fear of the Lord, also known as the gift of wonder and awe of the Lord. So I just love the 7 gifts and, again, I encourage our viewers today, and even and listeners. I say viewers because some might be watching us with your link that you’ve posted at the Covenant Network Roadmap to Heaven website, and I’m hoping to get a link to this as well, Adam, to post to the Fathers of Mercy website of our interview today. But I talk about the 7 gifts further in Catholic Essentials, as well as the 12 fruits.
Adam Wright:
Well, I’m just going to say this, Father. I have this book on my bookshelf over here, Catholic Essentials: A Guide to Understanding Key Church Teachings.
Fr. Wade Menezes:
Hey, I knew I liked you, Adam.
Adam Wright:
And I have it on my bookshelf because I use it. And just like this book, the gifts of the Holy Spirit, we’re supposed to use them each and every day. We’re not called to have droopy Holy Spirit muscles, you know, kind of like my arm here. We’re called to flex them, to work them out, to use them each and every day. And to be just shining examples of what it means to be using these gifts of the Holy Spirit. So, Father, I want to thank you for breaking them open in-depth for us, but I wouldn’t be surprised now if you have a couple quotable quotes from the Saints, like you usually do, on these gifts. What a great reminder this has been for us.
Fr. Wade Menezes:
Well, thank you. And it’s been a joy to be with you this time. I do have quotes, and they’re from scripture specifically. I want to talk about the name “Holy Spirit”. You know, it was given to us by Christ Himself. He’s the one that identified the third person of the Trinity per se under that name, “Holy Spirit” in Matthew 28:19. And then on 4 other occasions, Jesus also refers to the Holy Spirit as, “the advocate” such as in John 14, John 15, and John 16. Meaning “paraclete” which is the same as advocate: one who speaks on behalf for. Advocare, advocate to speak on behalf for. The Greek word would be paraclete. The Latin root word would be where we get the English word “advocate” “advocare” the Latin Infinitive. But paraclete and advocate mean the same, and Jesus uses both. The Greek phrase paraclete and the Latin foundation term advocate in the translations we see in scripture.
It’s something kind of comical we’re worth mentioning here because the Holy Spirit is often depicted as a dove hovering over the Father and the Son in different religious art. I remember being a Seminarian when I was studying philosophy and we would have Sunday solemn Vespers at Seminary every Sunday, at Saint Phillips Oratory in Toronto. And there was a family that came, and the little girl in the family, with her family sat not too far behind the last pew of the seminarians during the solemn Sunday vespers. And when we did the divine praises at the end of the solemn benediction of the Blessed Sacrament at the end of Solomon Vespers, which closed this beautiful half-hour service each Sunday evening in the church. When we’d say “Blessed be the Holy Spirit, the paraclete” she would say at the top of her voice, and we could hear her so clearly, Adam, “Blessed be the Holy Spirit, the parakeet” because she saw the Holy Spirit depicted as a dove. Okay. But there’s a beautiful innocence there, you know, so if you say paraclete or advocate, That’s okay. But try to remember that it’s paraclete with the “l” in there and not just parakeet. Okay. So I think that’s important.
Our Lord also calls the Holy Spirit in John 16, “the spirit of truth”. The spirit of truth who will guide the church. Right? And also the consoler, the consoler, which makes sense if you have someone who speaks on your behalf who’s working for you, it brings you consolation. You know, we also use the English word advocate, for a lawyer, Adam. For a lawyer. So think of the Holy Spirit as your lawyer. Our Lord calls the confession, the sacrament of confession, a tribunal of mercy, a tribunal is a court. Think of the marriage tribunal of a diocese. Right? That’s brought together, cleric and laity, that formed the tribunal, the marriage court. The marriage tribunal, the diocese, to judge whether or not this particular marriage was ever sacramental to begin with, or if it was not ever sacramental to begin with. So my point is that tribunal is a court. Well, He calls the sacrament of confession to St. Faustina, which she records the title 3 times in her diary, “a tribunal of mercy”. And that’s a court of mercy. Think of the Father, the first person of the Trinity, as the judge, the just judge. Think of the Son as your public defender, right? Your public defender. And think of the Holy Spirit as your advocate, even as a juror in the jury box, that hopefully the juror would be your advocate. I think those are nice images in an analogous way when we think of confession specifically. Going to confession specifically as a tribunal of mercy, again, which our Lord called it to St. Faustina. So He’s the spirit of truth, and the consoler, the advocate, the paraclete. He’s the Holy Spirit per se. St. Paul calls Him, the 3rd person of the Trinity, “the spirit of promise” in Galatians 3, “the spirit of adoption” in Romans 8, “the spirit of Christ” in Romans 8, “the spirit of the Lord” in 1st Corinthians 3, and “the spirit of God Himself” in Romans 8. So there you have it. These beautiful titles of the Holy Spirit, who gives us the 7 gifts and the 12 fruits.
Adam Wright:
I love it. I absolutely love it. So, again, if you want to know more about this, Father’s giving you the tip right here. Catholic Essentials has it all. Or go back to this podcast. Go back to this YouTube video. If you’re listening to us on the radio right now, go look us up on the podcast, go look us up on the YouTube video. You can always find great information at fathersofmercy.com. Father Wade, sadly, we are out of time, but we need to pray. So I’m going to turn that over to you.
Fr. Wade Menezes:
Amen. Adam, may the blessing of Almighty God, the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit descend upon all of our Covenant Network and Roadmap to Heaven listeners and remain with each and every one of you this day and always. Saint Joseph Terror of Demons.
Adam Wright:
Pray for us. Alright. If you want to hear more from Father Wade, beyond everything I just mentioned, you can also tune in Tuesday afternoons at 2 pm central time right here on Covenant Network for Open Line Tuesday. Father Wade, until the next time. Thank you so much for being with us today.
Fr. Wade Menezes:
Thank you so much, Adam, and I encourage listeners to also go to championshrine.org to learn more about Our Lady at Champion Shrine, the only fully approved Marian apparition site in the United States.
Adam Wright:
Alright. Wonderful. Well, everyone, you’ve been listening to Roadmap to Heaven. Stay tuned for more.
In this episode of Roadmap to Heaven, host Adam Wright is joined by Father Wade Menezes to discuss Pentecost and the 7 gifts of the Holy Spirit. The episode begins with a discussion on virtues, confession, and the upcoming celebration of Pentecost as the birth of the Church and the bride of Christ.
The importance of regular confession for the forgiveness of mortal sin is highlighted, and Fr. Menezes mentions his book, Catholic Essentials, which delves deeper into the 7 gifts and 12 fruits. He explains each of the seven gifts: wisdom, understanding, counsel, fortitude, knowledge, piety, and fear of the Lord, as well as the twelve fruits: charity, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, longsuffering, gentleness, faithfulness, modesty, self-control, and chastity.
Father Menezes discusses the idea of sanctifying grace and the presence of the seven gifts and twelve fruits within the soul. He likens the development of the gifts and fruits to working out a muscle, with each act strengthening and growing them. He also addresses the consequences of mortal sin, which removes a person from sanctifying grace but does not sever the gifts and fruits completely.
Throughout the episode, Father Menezes emphasizes the need to exercise these gifts and fruits consistently. He also discusses the supernatural levels of faith and joy that can be experienced through the gifts and fruits of sanctifying grace.
Overall, this episode of Roadmap to Heaven is focused on the 7 gifts of the Holy Spirit, with useful information about each particular gift and how each one fits into a life of faith.
We often send out our newsletter with news and great offers. We will never disclose your data to third parties and you can unsubscribe from the newsletter at any time.
Unfortunately, we’re unable to offer free samples. As a retailer, we buy all magazines from their publishers at the regular trade price. However, you could contact the magazine’s publisher directly to ask if they can send you a free copy.
You can create a new account at the end of the order process or on the following page. You can view all of your orders and subscriptions in your customer account. You can also change your addresses and your password.
No, you don’t have to create an account. But there are a few advantages if you create an account.
You never have to enter your billing and shipping address again
Find all of your orders, subscriptions and addresses in your account
Download invoices of your orders
No, we don’t have a physical store location at the moment. We accept only orders through our online shop and we’re shipping all orders with the Swiss Post Service. Please visit our shipping section for more details.
From time to time you will find us at design fairs and popup markets in Switzerland. Subscribe to our newsletter and you’ll receive the latest news.
An initiative of Covenant Network
