Pentecost Tuesday: Gift of Understanding

View from below of the Dove in the Baldacchino of Bernini and the Dome of St. Peter's Basilica.


Today, what is traditionally Pentecost Tuesday, we move to a consideration of the second of the Gifts of the Holy Spirit: the Gift of Understanding.

The Catechism, referring to Isaiah, lists the Gifts thus: "The seven gifts of the Holy Spirit are wisdom, understanding, counsel, fortitude, knowledge, piety, and fear of the Lord." (CCC1831)

St. Thomas Aquinas notes that understanding, like wisdom, is among four of the gifts that belong especially to reason, rather than to the will: "For, seeing that of the seven gifts, four belong to the reason, viz. wisdom, knowledge, understanding and counsel." (STh, I-II, q. 68, a. 1)


Of the Gift of Understanding, the second listed, the Angelic Doctor says, "Since, however, human knowledge begins with the outside of things as it were, it is evident that the stronger the light of the understanding, the further can it penetrate into the heart of things. Now the natural light of our understanding is of finite power; wherefore it can reach to a certain fixed point. Consequently man needs a supernatural light in order to penetrate further still so as to know what it cannot know by its natural light: and this supernatural light which is bestowed on man is called the gift of understanding." (STh, II-II, q. 8, a. 1)  Further, he mentions of this gift in his introduction to the gifts that, "for the apprehension of truth, the speculative reason is perfected by 'understanding.'" (STh, I-II, q. 68, a. 4)

John of St. Thomas adds that, "St. Thomas states that the apprehension of truth which is related to the speculative discovery pertains to the gift of understanding...the gift of understanding quickens and perfects the mind, so that it may proceed without confusion and error. For this purpose the Holy Spirit illumines the soul. Consequently the beatitude which corresponds to the gift of understanding is cleanness of heart." (Gifts of the Holy Spirit, Ch. III, 3 & 13)

St. Thomas Aquinas associates the Gift of Understanding with the theological virtue of Faith, for as John of St. Thomas summarizes in his Introduction to the Summa Theologiae, "Since assenting to what is to be believed is the chief act of faith, and these exceed the natural light, being supernatural things, man must be given a light to penetrate and grasp them, as well as the strength or ability to judge and discern them...such penetration and understanding is a Gift of the Holy Spirit when one understands by union or connaturality with the very things revealed or with the revelation itself, as had be the movement of the Holy Spirit." (Commenting on STh, II-II, q. 8 of Aquinas)  Worthy of note, for later, that power of judging mentioned here fits with another gift, for he notes, "the gift of knowledge...judges of things to be believed according to some cause or merit of credibility."  More on that later this octave!

Like the Gift of Wisdom, St. Thomas is confident that, "unless the human intellect be moved by the Holy Ghost so far as to have a right estimate of the end, it has not yet obtained the gift of understanding, however much the Holy Ghost may have enlightened it in regard to other truths that are preambles to the faith. Now to have a right estimate about the last end one must not be in error about the end, and must adhere to it firmly as to the greatest good: and no one can do this without sanctifying grace; even as in moral matters a man has a right estimate about the end through a habit of virtue. Therefore no one has the gift of understanding without sanctifying grace." (St. Thomas Aquinas, STh, II-II, q. 8, a. 5)

St. Augustine of Hippo, in On the Sermon on the Mount, associates the Gift of Understanding with the Beatitude "Blessed are the Pure of Heart," explaining that, "Understanding corresponds to the pure in heart, the eye being as it were purged, by which that may be beheld which eye has not seen, nor ear heard, and what has not entered into the heart of man: and of them it is here said, Blessed are the pure in heart. " (Book I, chapter 4, 11)

St. Thomas explains, "For cleanness is twofold. One is a preamble and a disposition to seeing God, and consists in the heart being cleansed of inordinate affections: and this cleanness of heart is effected by the virtues and gifts belonging to the appetitive power. The other cleanness of heart is a kind of complement to the sight of God; such is the cleanness of the mind that is purged of phantasms and errors, so as to receive the truths which are proposed to it about God, no longer by way of corporeal phantasms, nor infected with heretical misrepresentations: and this cleanness is the result of the gift of understanding." (STh, II-II, q. 8, a. 7)

For his part, John of St. Thomas associates both the sixth and this seventh beatitude to the life of contemplation, a fitting place for both wisdom and understanding: "The sixth and seventh beatitudes are ordered to the attainment of beatitude through the contemplative life. The sixth beatitude is the cleansing of the heart through purity. Without it contemplation is impossible. 'Blessed are the pure of heart.' The peace which surpasses all sense and inebriates the spirit is a work of justice -- 'Blessed are the peacemakers.'" (Gifts of the Holy Spirit, Ch. IX, 5)

On this Pentecost Tuesday, let us pray for the Gift of Understanding, and for the Purity of Heart that should go with it!

Veni, Sancte Spiritus!  Live well!