I Have Much More to Tell You But You Cannot Bear it Now
The Gift of Science
May 19th, 2024
Pentecost Sunday
We are celebrating Pentecost Sunday. God wants to send the Holy Spirit upon each one of us today so that the Giver of Life can bestow upon us His wonderful gifts as He did with the Apostles. The image of the tongues of fire clearly speaks about God’s intimate life. Remember the burning bush from which God spoke to Moses? Fire is an image of love. God’s love is an incombustible fire. It is eternal. It cannot be exhausted. We participate in this fire of love through the theological virtue of charity. When that virtue is developed enough, and we have surrendered the whole of our lives to God, then the Holy Spirit takes control of our lives, and moves us with His gifts in a divine mode.
We have been preaching about the gifts by which the Holy Spirit does that. There is one more to explain today and that is the gift of science. Today’s Gospel presents the Holy Spirit as an interior teacher. Jesus is “the” teacher. The disciples called Him by that name. Jesus had many more things to teach the disciples, but they were slow to understand, and could not bear the whole teaching. Our Lord promised that the Holy Spirit would teach them more.
This promise was fulfilled in the case of the Apostles in a very peculiar way. They received a special charism that we will not receive. Have you ever thought about the great authority of the Apostles in their teaching? Whenever we read a letter of the Apostle Saint Paul, at the end of the reading in the Mass, we say that it is the word of God. That charism will never be given to anyone else. Revelation finished with the death of the last of the Apostles.
Today, we are going to concentrate our attention on the ordinary gift of knowledge. As we usually do, let us formulate its definition. The Gift of Knowledge is a supernatural habit, infused with grace, through which the human intellect, under the illuminating action of the Holy Spirit, judges rightly concerning created things as ordained to the supernatural end.
Let us begin with the explanation of the word “knowledge.” When we talk about the gifts of the Holy Spirit, knowledge traditionally translates the Latin as scientia. There is another word in English etymologically close to it, “science.” Knowledge is ampler than science. It would apply to any sort of cognition. We can have experience with things, but it is still not science if we do not know with certainty the causes of those things. For instance, we can know by experience that some sort of natural things are good to treat some sicknesses, but we are not doctors. The doctor who has science knows the causes of those things and how they contribute to health. Still, science is not wisdom because it does not judge by the highest causes. At a natural level, reasoning allows us to go from things and evident principles that are known to clarify the unknown causes of those things in judgments that are conclusions of that science. Similarly, the gift of science enables Christians to rightly judge the connection between created things and God as the final end of their spiritual lives. The gift of science perfects in this manner the virtue of faith. It is also called the science of the saints.
What is the difference between understanding, wisdom, and knowledge? Understanding does not imply any judgment but only simple contemplation. Wisdom judges about divine things. And knowledge judges about created things. But we said that wisdom is about divine things, and through them, also about created things. Now, we say that knowledge is about created things but in connection with God. Both wisdom and knowledge give knowledge about God and creatures, but in different directions; in knowledge, God is known through the creatures, whereas in wisdom, the opposite happens.
Let us use an example to explain the different directions of the gifts of wisdom and knowledge. Let us imagine a coach and his playbook. We can observe a football team playing and figure out by observation the effects of how those plays are connected to the coach’s strategy. A different thing is to get to know the coach personally, and by knowing him, obtain an understanding of how he devises his plays. Both kinds of knowledge are complementary. In a sense, wisdom and knowledge relate similarly. Wisdom is about divine things and knowledge about created things. Wisdom is about the cause, and knowledge is about the effects. Nevertheless, wisdom allows us to see the effects through the cause, and knowledge considers how the effects reflect the cause and can lead or mislead us to it.
The man of knowledge has a double estimation of creatures that are complementary. On the one hand, he can see how creatures reflect God’s Glory. The beauty of God reflected in His creatures also shows how to judge them so that the creatures become a path to the Creator. That judgment is not only contemplative but also practical, that is, about how to use the creatures so that we can arrive at God. On the other hand, the gift of knowledge shows the nothingness of the creatures in comparison to God and how they can be misleading.
This double estimation of creatures has a special application to self-knowledge. The Christian soul has a double knowledge of itself as well. On the one hand, the man of knowledge knows himself as created in the image of God and is called to be a child of God. The awareness of his own dignity calls him to live accordingly. On the other hand, the Christian person can see his nothingness and sinfulness in light of God, Who is the infinite Goodness and Being. This teaching shows us how profoundly interrelated all the gifts are with all the virtues. The impact of the gift of knowledge on the virtues of humility, hope, or fortitude is particularly evident in this point.
The gift of knowledge fills the Christian soul with repentance and sorrow for past sins. Those sins are seen from a supernatural perspective. The true nature of sin as a rejection of God and its horror is not evident. The Cross of Christ reveals the abyss of evil contained in human sin. The man of knowledge instinctively judges about who he is, his nothingness, and his own sins in light of God’s majesty, love, and mercy. The man of knowledge is the man who weeps out of contrition and will be consoled.
I want to make a final consideration by applying the gift of knowledge to a special kind of creature, namely, doctrines. The man of knowledge knows instinctively what to believe and what to reject. The gift of knowledge is the sensus fidei of the saints that infallibly discerns doctrines, devotions, and counsels. We live in times in which this gift is of the utmost importance given the regnant confusion in the world and also among the members of the Church.
We are celebrating Pentecost Sunday. Let us ask God to send us the Holy Spirit so that we can receive all His gifts. Today, we ask especially for the gift of knowledge so that we can enjoy the science of the saints.