Gift of Understanding: View Our Own Weakness

Let your mercy shine upon evil...

Saint Teresa of Avila

The Gift of Understanding...gives us a penetrating insight into the truth s of faith and at the same time a realistic view of our own weakness.. It communicates the experience of our nothingness and our incapacity to do anything good by ourselves... The Gift of Understanding, whether it comes through terrible suffering or develops gradually through a life of prayer, makes us aware that we are capable of any evil and that only God is our strength. Only God can protect us from the evil we might do if we were placed in circumstances of enormous tragedy and suffering. In this sharp light there can be no elation or pride in one's own gifts. There is no appropriation one's own talents... All of this is burned away... as we realize ever more profoundly that we owe infinitely more to God and to others than we can ever give back. Humility is the right relationship to God. It is the same total dependence on God and invincible hope in God's infinite mercy.

Blessed are the pure in heart: for they will see God. Matthew 5:8

Gift of Understanding: Truths of Faith

Jesus, thank You for Your light.

The Gift of Understanding reveals what is hidden in the major truths of Christian doctrine. The Gift of Understanding perfects, deepens, and illumines faith as to the meaning of revealed truth, adding new depths to the mystery to which we consent. For instance, it could be some aspect of the Holy Trinity or the greatness of God. It could be the presence of Jesus Christ in the Eucharist. It could be the infinite mercy of God in the Sacrament of Reconciliation. In other words, it is not merely the affirmation of something we believe and assent to. A characteristic of the Gift of Understanding is that it provides a kind of living experience of the mystery. One or two of those experiences can last a lifetime and make such a deep impression as to reorient one's whole spiritual life once and for all.

1 Corinthians 2:10, 12

These things God has revealed to us through the Spirit; for the Spirit searches everything, even the depths of God...We have received...the Spirit that is from God, so that we may understand the gifts bestowed on us by God.