Holy Spirit, Give Your Gift of Understanding

 "We are matter and spirit, senses and intellect. We begin with the material, but we can arrive through our intellect at the spiritual, the transcendental, and the immaterial. Since our intellect is limited, the Holy Spirit gives us the gift of understanding to help us comprehend the truths of our faith. This gift enables us to go beyond the boundaries of human reason and attain a knowledge that we could not reach on our own."

-Arther J. Serratellil, p. 25

"The Gift of Understanding: Seeing through the Heart"

The Seven Gifts of the Holy Spirit

The Effects of Understanding

• We can penetrate more deeply into the meaning of divinely revealed mysteries (e.g., the Eucharist, the Divinity of Christ, the Holy Trinity)
• We can relate God's eternal truths to how we ought to act
• We can penetrate more deeply into the Sacred Scripture (especially how the New Testament is pre-figured in the Old Testament)
• We see God's providence in our joys and triumphs, as well as our trials and suffering
• We receive greater appreciation for the Sacraments

More than an "Aha!" moment, the gift of understanding is a habit of mind given by grace. 

Reflect on Jesus appearing to the two distraught disciples on the road to Emmaus as a microcosm of the gift of understanding: 

1) An opening of the Scriptures, 

2) Recognition of God in the breaking of the bread, 

3) Awareness of God's providence beneath suffering: the Messiah crucified and Israel still under Roman rule. 

"Ordinary people always have room to take in the mystery. Perhaps we have reduced our way of speaking about mystery to rational explanations; but for ordinary people, the mystery enters through the heart. In the homes of the poor, God always finds a place." 

-Pope Francis 

Address to the Bishops of Brazil 

Rio de Janeiro, 2013

Luke 24:30-32

When he was at the table with them, he took bread, blessed and broke it, and gave it to them. 31 Then their eyes were opened, and they recognized him; and he vanished from their sight. They said to each other, “Were not our hearts burning within us while he was talking to us on the road, while he was opening the scriptures to us?” 

. . . A million ancient bees

Began to sting our knees.

While we were on our knees,

Prayin' that disease,

Would leave the ones we love,

And never come again.

On the radio

We heard "November Rain"

That solo's real long:

But it's a pretty song.

We listened to it twice

'Cause the DJ was aslee-eep . . .