2008 May archive at Cornell Society for a Good Time

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Archive for May, 2008

Among the seven Gifts of the Holy Spirit, only two relate to the speculative power of the mind, and the first of these is the Gift of understanding. This is the Gift by which the intellect penetrates and grasps those holy things that could not be grasped without the special help of divine grace. Happily, this may be one case in which the natural connotations of the English word really do point us in the right direction, because the Gift of understanding does seem to relate to that seeing-within, or that ah ha! feeling, that we associate with the verb ‘to understand.’ St. Thomas speaks of the necessity of seeing what “lies hidden” beneath the external appearances of things — this is what happens when we understand.

Not all understanding relates to the supernatural Gift. We have natural capacities for understanding that can give us insight into natural things. The Gift of understanding allows us to see holy things that could not have been grasped through our natural capacities alone. Thus, when we get intimate insights into the nature of grace, the Sacraments, the lives of the Saints or theological truths of the faith, the Gift of understanding is probably aiding us.

Published by Clara May 16th, 2008 0 Comments

The Gift of Counsel

For the modern English-speaker, the Gift of counsel is somewhat badly named, because for us counsel is something that one person gives to another. Evidently the Latin consilium also had this as a possible connotation, because St. Bonaventure mentions it as one possible meaning of the word. It is not, however, the meaning most relevant here (though in a secondary sense it might not be wholly inapplicable, since the person blessed with the Gift of counsel will surely be better equipped to advise others.) Though there is indeed an etymological connection to the Italian consiliari, you should banish from your mind at once all associations with The Godfather.

Published by Clara May 15th, 2008 0 Comments

The Gift of Courage

The Gift of courage (also sometimes called the Gift of fortitude) is initially curious in that it is the only Gift to actually be the duplicate of a natural virtue. Courage is of course included among the four cardinal virtues, together with prudence, temperance and justice. So, given that courage is already a virtue, why should it also be a Gift?

To answer that question it will be worthwhile to take a look at the natural virtue of courage. Courage, like all natural virtues, is characterized by Aristotle as being a mean between two unhealthy extremes. Courage relates to feelings of fear and confidence, so in this case the relevant extremes would be on the one hand fearlessness or rashness, and on the other cowardice. It should be noted that the acts appropriate to the virtue will not be the same for every person. Suppose, for example, that a man walks into a bank, demands a large sum of money and, upon receiving it, shoots the teller and flees. If I am a policeman in the vicinity who is alerted to what’s going on, it is my obligation to chase the man and try to stop him from escaping. If fear keeps me from doing my job, I will rightly be condemned as a coward. On the other hand, if I am an unarmed civilian with no relevant training who just happens to be standing in the bank line, it would be merely foolish of me to take off after an armed and dangerous criminal. Particularly if there are police or security guards present to handle the situation, the virtuous thing would be to leave the job to them (though I might make myself useful in other ways, say by tending to the injured teller or by calming other bank patrons who are beside themselves with terror.) The courageous person is able both to stand firm in the face of danger and to flee, depending on what prudence dictates.

Published by Clara May 14th, 2008 0 Comments

The Gift of Piety

There is some disagreement among the Doctors regarding the Gift of piety. St. Augustine lays out the different possible meanings of the term pietas in The City of God when he explains that, “Piety most properly has been understood to be the worship of God, which the Greeks call theosebiam, and yet it is also said to be had dutifully towards parents, and in the customs of the commoners this word is even often used of works of mercy (Cap.1, n.3).” So for St. Augustine, it seems that true piety is directed towards God, though he recognizes that there are parallels between this kind of worship and earthly filial piety, such as is offered to parents.

St. Thomas, thinking in a similar vein, declares that the Gift of piety is that thing “whereby, at the Holy Ghost’s instigation, we pay worship and duty to God as our Father.(II.II.121)” Though he says relatively little about this Gift, I would imagine that he thinks of piety as the Gift whereby we worship God specifically as our spiritual Father (as opposed to our Creator, our Judge, our final end, or any of His other aspects.)

Published by Clara May 13th, 2008 1 Comment

The Gift of Fear

Taking the Gifts in ascending order, fear of the Lord is the first among them. It happens also to be the Gift about which the Scholastics had by far the most to say, probably in part because it seems a bit counterintuitive at first to denote fear as a Gift. Is not fear one of the most unpleasant of life’s experiences? Did not St. Paul promise us that we had not been given a “spirit of fear”?

Speaking in broad and generic terms, fear was traditionally classified as one of the four basic emotions (the other three being hope, joy, and grief or pain.) Fear is an aversion to, or shunning of, something that is evil. Like all the emotions, fear is in itself neither salutary nor pernicious; it can be either one depending on how it is directed. The Gift of fear enables us to feel this aversion towards those things that are appropriately feared, which is to say, towards those things that are genuinely the most evil. Obviously we don’t fear God as an evil thing, but we should fear certain things by virtue of their relationship to God. We can fear God’s punishments, most especially if they involve our own separation from Him, and we can also, out of love, fear to do what would be displeasing to God.

Published by Clara May 12th, 2008 2 Comments

The Gifts of the Holy Spirit

So, I’m finally back from my trip to the Northeast. It’s a little sad to see that no one decided to post in my absence… though I happen to know that at least some of our contributors have had good excuses for lying low. It was certainly a pleasure to see so many of our CSGT contributors over the last week (the only ones we missed, in fact, were Iacobus and Catharina Oxoniensis. With most of us moved or moving from the Ithaca area, it’s hard to say when we’ll be so lucky again.)
Continue reading

Published by Clara May 11th, 2008 5 Comments

Poking some good-natured fun

In preparation for an academic conference I’ve been going through some texts from the Doctors of the Church concerning marriage. Among the many enjoyable aspects of this activity is the amusement to be had in reading some of the silly ideas the medievals had about sex and human reproduction. Mind you, I’m not at all the sort of person who opens a medieval text expecting it to be full of silly outdated ideas. If anything my expectations tend to run the opposite way — I’m a little startled when I run across a good idea that the ancients and medievals didn’t have first. Still, it must be admitted that human reproduction was something they didn’t understand all that well. They weren’t stupid, of course, but it just happens to be an area of knowledge where the true facts of the case can’t easily be discovered through ordinary observation. (Also, I get the impression that some of those folks — St. Thomas, for example — didn’t spend a lot of time around women.)

Anyway, I thought I would share with you all, in the spirit of good-natured fun, some of the sillier things that I’ve run across in the past few days from some of the Doctors. I might start out by saying that St. Augustine seems perhaps the least naive. (Perhaps this should not be surprising. The Bishop of Hippo had a bit more, err, experience than the Angelic Doctor.) Continue reading

Published by Clara May 2nd, 2008 6 Comments