December 9, 2025
“Wisdom and Understanding”
What can prevent us from becoming a lost lamb? The Prophet Isaiah speaking for God says, “I will prepare a path for you.” God creates this path through the Holy Spirit’s Gifts.
Wisdom is the first and highest Gift of the Holy Spirit because it is the perfection of the theological virtue of faith. Faith tells us the Truths of the Christian belief are more important than the things of this world. Through the Holy Spirit’s Gift of Wisdom, we come to value properly those things which we believe through our faith.
Wisdom helps us order our relationship to the created world properly, loving Creation for the sake of God, rather than for its own sake. This is not a rejection of the world (even our fallen world remains worthy of our love). Rather, the Gift of Wisdom simply helps us see our world in its proper light. Wisdom instills within us a desire to contemplate the things of God through the world.
Understanding is the second Gift of the Holy Spirit and people sometimes have a hard time grasping how it differs from Wisdom. Here is the difference: While the Gift of Wisdom is the desire to contemplate the things of God, the Gift of Understanding allows us to grasp (at least in a limited way) the very essence of the Truths of our Catholic faith.
Understanding is an ability given through the Holy Spirit abiding within us. Through the Holy Spirit’s Gift of Understanding we gain a certitude about our beliefs that moves beyond simple faith. A bed-stone of our Catholic faith is that faith must be reasonable. Understanding is the Gift that reveals this reasonability to us and enables us to share our understanding with others.
Thus, the Holy Spirit’s Gifts of Wisdom and Understanding help us to desire to contemplate God and then have the ability to grasp what we are contemplating. In this way the Holy Spirit “teaches us what is good and leads us on the way we should go.”