The Gift of Counsel and the Indwelling of the Holy Spirit: A Roadmap to Holiness

When our children were growing up and didn't particularly like vegetables, I always had them take seven beans or seven peas, etc. and recite the seven gifts of the Holy Spirit: wisdom, understanding, counsel, fortitude, knowledge, piety, and fear of the Lord. I thought of the gift of counsel as the Holy Spirit enabling us to offer wise advice to others. But this morning as I was reading the meditation in my Benedictus prayer book I read this by Fr. Barthélemy Froget, a French Dominican theologian who wrote frequently on the indwelling of the Holy Ghost:

It happens not infrequently...that on account of exceptional or particularly difficult circumstances, human prudence is found to be insufficient. It is in vain that we reflect, seek advie, and study the question from every angle, we cannot succeed in clarifying matters, nor in taking an kind of a firm and precise resolution. What is one to do in such conjunctures when prudence is silenced and reason baffled?

As so frequently happens in my prayer time, this exactly corresponded to a question I was pondering before I opened the book. I was sitting on my front porch thanking God for the beauty of the day and for all my senses that see Him in nature's glory, hear Him in the song of the birds, smell Him in the sweet summer air -- everything testifies to Him and echoes His song of love. And then I asked for guidance on a difficult spiritual question. "Be still and know that I am God," is often the answer. So I went inside to pray and read, read and pray. 

That's when the Lord revealed through Fr. Froget an aspect of the gift of counsel that I hadn't thought of before perhaps because of my pride and self importance. I've always thought of the gift of counsel as the Holy Spirit offering insight for counseling others. And surely that is something parents especially need. But, even more, I need the counsel of the Holy Spirit to see the right road to travel in my spiritual journey. And Fr. Froget emphasizes the necessity for the gift:

[If one] has recourse to Him Who never refuses His help for things necessary or useful to salvation and thereupon receives an impression from on high -- call it an inspiration -- which puts an end to all his perplexities, and thus is possessed with a kind of certitude pointing out what he must do -- this is what is above the human mode, this is the effect of the gift of counsel.

However, Father does not let the soul off the hook by just saying let God do all the work. He emphasizes man's obligation to use his reason to study, to listen, and to be an active participant in coming to decisions about serious spiritual matters. In the end, however, to let the Lord rule us:

This superior order of guidance in high spiritual affairs is obtained through the intermediary of the gift of counsel...In this case, then, man has not to examine, nor to decide on the best line of conduct. The Holy Ghost takes over this task, and man has only to listen with docility to His inspirations, for, as St. Thomas says, it is the mover and not the instrument who judges and commands. 

Today and every day I want to seek the counsel of the Lord through the Holy Spirit in all things. Sometimes I imagine my guardian angel sitting across from me as I pray and thank him for his role as messenger of God. May he pass on the counsel of the Holy Spirit every morning until I meet the Lord on the day of judgment.

Come, O Holy Ghost, fill the hearts of the faithful and enkindle in us the fire of Thy love.

May Jesus Christ be praised, now and forever.