There are key moments in our own lives, stages of development and achievements worth remembering and celebrating. We can think here of birthdays, wedding anniversaries, and so forth. Something like this is true of the Church’s life as well. We can think of the Last Supper, the Crucifixion, the Great Commission, and so on. But perhaps the most vital, the most defining, is an event we will soon celebrate: Pentecost. The first Pentecost is when the Church takes her first autonomous breath, as it were, when she takes her first steps in the world to continue the work of her divine Founder and Spouse.

What is so special about Pentecost? It is worth noting that it originated with the Jewish people. They would celebrate Pentecost (in Hebrew, Shavuot) in thanksgiving for the first fruits of the wheat harvest and, later, for the giving of the Mosaic Law at Mount Sinai. It was thus a time to celebrate God’s generosity both in the created order and in the order of salvation. The name “Pentecost” is of Greek origin and means “fiftieth.” In the context of the Jewish liturgical calendar, Pentecost was 50 days after Passover.

For Christians, Passover celebrates something even more profound. It is no longer reckoned according to Passover but according to Easter, the day on which the Lord our Pasch rose from the dead. And thus Passover for us is 50 days after Easter. It does not serve as the birthday of a nation, but rather as the birthday of the Church that calls out to all nations. The Holy Spirit comes upon Jesus’s followers, gathered together in one place, to empower them to preach the Gospel and administer the life-giving sacraments even to the ends of the earth. The invisible mission of the Holy Spirit, the graces and gifts He gives so as to enliven and encourage the Church, is sensibly signified by the tongues of fire that come to rest on each one present (see Acts 2).

In short, Pentecost is important for the Church, and consequently important for our lives as sons and daughters of the Church. At Pentecost we see the power of the Holy Spirit on full display. And that power does not cease in the Church but is on offer in every generation. Granted, the Apostles and first disciples had unique and irreplaceable roles to play in salvation history. Even still, the same Spirit lavishes His gifts upon us today. We think perhaps most readily of charismatic gifts such as prophecy and tongues. These are certainly “flashier,” one might say, even if they are not meant, contrary to popular opinion, for the sanctification of the recipient but for the edification of the Body of Christ. I would like instead to speak about what are traditionally called “the gifts of the Holy Spirit,” since these are more intimately bound up with Christian life and holiness. What are these gifts, and how can we acquire them? What role do they play in the Christian life?

We find the gifts of the Holy Spirit enumerated in Sacred Scripture. The primary place to go is Isaiah 11:1–3. The prophet is speaking of the Davidic Messiah-King upon whom the Spirit of God will rest. The gifts the Spirit imparts are Fear of the Lord, Fortitude, Piety, Counsel, Knowledge, Understanding, and Wisdom. My reflections will draw from a book I highly recommend by Archbishop Luis M. Martinez, The Sanctifier.

What are the gifts of the Holy Spirit? They are supernaturally infused habits or dispositions or instincts whereby we are apt to be moved directly by the Holy Spirit. At times they are compared to the sails of a ship. Sails exist to catch the wind so that the ship might arrive at its proper destination. Likewise, the gifts of the Spirit make the soul docile to the movement of the Holy Spirit as we journey to eternal life.

Fear of the Lord, to mention the first gift, means more than servile fear, the fear we have when we are afraid of just punishment. Fear of the Lord is born of reverence and love; it is like the filial fear a child has before the parent whom he hates to disappoint. “One who loves deeply,” Martinez writes, “has a fear that is above all other fears—fear of separation from the beloved. This is the gift of fear which is directed by the Holy Spirit.” This life is full of trials and difficulties. Without God’s help, these can be obstacles to holiness and eternal life. And thus God gives us the gift of Fortitude, which strengthens us in doing good and avoiding evil, especially when it is dangerous or difficult to do so. “It is a confidence, a security, that produces peace in our souls in the midst of dangers, in struggles, in all our tribulations.” As I mentioned before, we have a reverence and love for God because He is our loving Father. Piety, then, is the gift whereby the Holy Spirit moves us to revere God with filial affection, to worship and praise Him, and to act with limitless generosity to our brethren whom God likewise loves. “And when it is love, not duty, that inspires our actions, we pass all limits, we abandon all measures and generously pour out the love of our hearts. This is the gift of piety.”

The last four gifts pertain to the intellect. First, Counsel is the gift whereby God directs us in matters necessary for salvation. Human life, as I said before, and as we all know well, is full of trials and difficulties. Prudence, even supernatural prudence, would not be sufficient to guide our ship to port, given the complexity of human life. “But God, who never fails us in our needs, has given us a gift by which the Holy Spirit becomes our guide.” God Himself becomes our Helper and Counselor. Second, Knowledge is the gift whereby the Holy Spirit moves us to judge correctly about divine things and about how we ought to act. “It gives us an insight into the mysterious relationships between creatures, and particularly into the great, transcendental, relationship that creatures have with God.” With this gift of Knowledge, we lift ourselves from creatures to the Creator. Third, Understanding allows us a penetrating insight or gaze into the very heart of reality, especially of those things necessary for salvation. “By it the Holy Spirit moves us so that we can penetrate the depths of all supernatural truths and thus attain our eternal salvation.” Finally, Wisdom, which stems from charity and leads back to it, is the gift whereby the Holy Spirit moves us to taste the goodness of the Lord and to judge all other things accordingly. “The gift of wisdom gives to our souls this power to experience divine things, to taste them in the depths of our being and, by that pleasure and experience, to judge all things.” Wisdom is the greatest of the Spirit’s gifts; it directs all the others.

Perhaps you have celebrated Pentecost in the past without knowing about these wonderful gifts. The good news is that the Holy Spirit stands ready to lavish them upon all who ask in faith. This, then, is my advice to you all (and to myself): (1) Get to know these gifts more profoundly, and how the Holy Spirit can use them to sanctify your life. (2) Pray for these gifts daily. All those in a state of grace have them, but perhaps not all seek to receive them in greater abundance. (3) Teach your family members and friends about these invaluable gifts. Imagine a world in which men and women are profoundly open and docile to the movement of the Holy Spirit!

We are by nature social or political animals. We find our full flourishing as human beings not in isolation but in communion with other persons. And so Christ’s injunction not to be of the world (Jn. 17) does not necessitate being some place other than the world in which we live and act. In short, Jesus’s words relate not to our origins but to our affections or desires. Being “not of this world” means seeking first God’s kingdom and His justice, confident that if we do, He will give us our temporal necessities also (Mt. 6:33). It is with this fundamental mentality that Christians, animated by the word of Christ, engage in temporal political affairs.

The problems of the modern age in general, and those of our contemporary socio-political context more particularly, call for well-wrought solutions. But where do we seek these solutions? Not, surely, in the pseudo-logic of momentary fads or of reactionary movements. Instead, we look to the wisdom of the past, to the paths trod by our ancestors. We do this not because our forebearers were perfect, but because human beings of every age seek the truth in part by appealing to a great tradition, which G.K. Chesterton strikingly called “the democracy of the dead.” More than this, as Catholics we appeal to the theological tradition as well as to the philosophical, to faith alongside reason. Why? Because the Church has a message not only about the natural moral law and about how we ought to act together for the sake of the common good of the social order naturally understood, although she does; the Church also has a supernatural message that ought to take root in the hearts of every human being and in every human community. The latter message purifies, perfects, and elevates the former message.

This explains, at least in part, our rationale for hosting the upcoming Faith & Culture Conference, to be held May 12–13 at the Doubletree Hotel in downtown Tulsa. We intend it to be a conversation between great minds, both local and national, about perennial principles and questions. The goal is not merely heady or academic. These conversations have real potential to change the political landscape for the better. An informed, conscientious populace can only conduce to a wiser and more just nation. I would like to discuss a subject that will inevitably color and animate many of the discussions at the May conference: liberalism. The term “liberal” can mean different things in different contexts. In an American context, liberal can designate someone left leaning politically, and thus it may prove a scornful term for those who are “conservative.” On the other hand, liberal is used as a term of praise by more traditionally minded folk when describing a particular notion and method of education.  I am not using the term, therefore, to speak about liberal Democrats or about liberal arts education. I am using liberal here in a more general way to denote something that has been consistently rejected and condemned by the Church, nonetheless something that, to our detriment, permeates every aspect of our social or political life.

What is liberalism? Simply put, liberalism is the undue exaltation of freedom (libertas) above all other social or political goods. Liberalism makes human freedom the chief goal or end of political life. At root, it is based on a tendency, quintessentially modern, to make “will” (as opposed to intellect) the highest principle in human life. Human reason is a measured measure, by which I mean that it is the measure or rule of our actions, yes, but one that is measured or ruled by reality. It is only when we have conformed our minds to reality that we can reach out in love to the good. Or so it is when we properly order intellect and will. Liberalism, which exalts unfettered will and freedom, exists in the theological realm as well, and these two manifestations of liberalism are not unconnected, as Pope Leo XIII argues in his encyclical Libertas:

[F]ollowers of liberalism deny the existence of any divine authority to which obedience is due, and proclaim that every man is the law to himself; from which arises that ethical system which they style independent morality, and which, under the guise of liberty, exonerates man from any obedience to the commands of God, and substitutes a boundless license. The end of all this it is not difficult to foresee, especially when society is in question. For, when once man is firmly persuaded that he is subject to no one, it follows that the efficient cause of the unity of civil society is not to be sought in any principle external to man, or superior to him, but simply in the free will of individuals; that the authority in the State comes from the people only; and that, just as every man's individual reason is his only rule of life, so the collective reason of the community should be the supreme guide in the management of all public affairs.

If you can easily see our own societal moment even in these words from 1888, it is because liberalism, just as Leo XIII describes, is the air we breathe, the water in which we swim, the inescapable presupposition to every political action we take. Bound up with liberalism is an understanding of human rights based not on the goods and ends of human nature, especially those goods we call “common” because they are communicable to many without diminution, but based on a negative precept never to violate the desires of another citizen. Notice that the legitimacy or illegitimacy, the uprightness or perversity, of these desires is immaterial. In a world in which will reigns supreme, it matters not what I have chosen or why; it matters simply that I, a free subject, have chosen it.

First, individual human freedom should not be elevated above all other goods, since the private good is always ordered to the common good, and since law itself as a principle of order in society is an ordinate of reason precisely for the common good. Second, however, the vision of freedom I just described is not the Catholic vision, nor a traditional vision of any kind. For freedom is always founded and grounded in the truth, in an understanding of the wise and good order that God has made and willed for us to inhabit. Human freedom blooms in the soil of truth and responsibility toward our neighbor, to say nothing of our responsibility to Almighty God. It does not grow or bloom in the soil of indifference and self-centeredness. Sometimes these competing visions of freedom are called “freedom for excellence” and “freedom of indifference” respectively. The former gives rise, when appropriated by the members of a nation, to more peace, more justice, more social solidarity. The latter gives rise, as we see daily in our own nation and abroad, to more violence, more malice, more social discord.

Because all interpersonal interactions in the modern world are suspected of being fronts for manipulation and the will to power, the social contract is thought to protect us and to ensure that our “rights” (whether rights in truth or mere licenses to do whatever we want) remain unviolated. However, this need not be the solution, in part because the premise on which it is based is false. True enough, human relationships in this fallen world are subject to abuse and manipulation. Even still, a reorienting of our fundamental narrative, one in which will is paramount, would do much to alleviate the ills of the modern age. Human beings are not political because the social contract is the only way to ensure that we do not routinely plunder and pillage one another. We are political because we have powers of intellect and will that impel and compel us to enter into relationships of knowledge and love with other persons. We find real fulfillment in these communions, even if we are ultimately called for supernatural communion with the Triune God and with those likewise joined to Him in faith and charity.

If casting off the chains of liberalism seems impossible or even undesirable, it is, again, because liberalism so profoundly characterizes the modern project. Voluntarism, nominalism, subjectivism, relativism—these are so many interdependent poisons that weaken us and our society. Granted that liberalism is but one “topic” among many, it is sure to make an appearance at the Alcuin Institute’s Faith & Culture Conference. If you are interested in learning more about the relationship between Church and state, between Catholic culture and (American) political life, do join us on May 12–13! We would appreciate your help in understanding the principles involved and in crafting practical solutions for living as Catholic citizens in a rapidly changing world.

There is arguably a connection between growing levels of stress and anxiety, especially among young people, and a culture of hyperactivity. There is a tendency to think that a person is valuable only inasmuch as he or she is contributing in a tangible, calculable way to civil society or to the Church. This tendency is perhaps more widespread here in the United States than abroad, for as a people we tend to value hard work and grittiness, at least as a hypothetical or ideal. The truth is, though, that this way of seeing work and the human person, which absolutizes work and makes it that for the sake of which human beings exist, is misguided, and it results in less fulfilled persons and thus in a disordered society.

An alternative to this modern hyperactive model can be found in Josef Pieper’s Leisure, the Basis of Culture. He wrote the book in the throes of the post-war period in Europe, when there was indeed much to be done, much to be (re-)built. If leisure, as opposed to work, say, seems like a peculiar foundation for culture, bear in mind that Pieper does not mean laziness (and certainly not the capital sin of sloth), nor does he mean the mere absence of work. Pieper points out that leisure has its origin in the Greek skole and the Latin scola, both of which we might render as school in English. Leisure might not immediately come to mind when we reflect on our own experience of school. In fact, thinking of school might raise our blood pressure and elicit anxiety as we remember the many assignments, exams, and late-night study sessions. But the school exists to form the human person, and in an integral or complete way. It exists for the purpose of human flourishing. That is why, as Pieper explains, leisure is so bound up with the intellectual life, since reason is the highest thing in man and thus that which demands above all else to be fulfilled or perfected.

What characterizes this intellectual life? First, because we are creatures bound up with time and contingency and matter, human knowing progresses step-by-step, as it were, discursively, as it is sometimes called. Second, however, as creatures endowed with intellect, we reach out “beyond” the “human” and touch on the purely spiritual. The first aspect of human knowing does require a certain amount of intellectual work. The second aspect, on the contrary, is characterized by lightness, effortlessness. It is much the same in human relationships. They take work and careful cultivation. They require action. At the same time, an essential element of all meaningful relationships, especially marriage, is a profound receptivity and openness to the being of the beloved, not a complicated equation or rational process but a simple beholding. In short, some things are considered primarily as products of man’s blood, sweat, and tears, while others seem as pure gifts. Pieper relates discursive thought and intellectual contemplation as toil and trouble to effortless possession. The latter is the higher and the more important element even in human relationships, to say nothing of the relationship we ought to have with the Triune God.

To use a famous example from Luke 10, both Mary and Martha serve our Lord when He dwells in their house, but one more perfectly. Martha is “distracted with much serving,” as the Evangelist puts it, and Jesus Himself recognizes that she is “anxious and troubled about many things.” Mary, on the contrary, recognizes the one thing needful and so sits at Christ’s feet and listens to His teaching. Because Mary has chosen to sit in loving contemplation, Jesus judges that she has “chosen the good portion, which shall not be taken away from her.” Mary exemplifies for us the leisurely spirit, which again is not laziness or complacency but loving docility to being and to the Source of being.

This is precisely what we try to accomplish at the Alcuin Institute for Catholic Culture with our annual Great Books intensive courses and Catholic Imagination Fellowship, namely, to encourage and promote the oft-forsaken art of leisure. The classes are open to all, to the motivated high school student wanting college credit and to the retiree wanting to plunge more deeply into the life of the mind. The Fellowship is intended for college-aged students and is one of many ways the Alcuin Institute is trying to bolster Catholic culture in Eastern Oklahoma. The Fellowship in particular might seem to some like a waste of time. After all, while there are certainly books to be read and tasks to be completed, the goal of the program is not action but contemplation, not utility but the pursuit of that which is desirable in itself, for its own sake.

The Great Books allow one to enter into conversation and even communion with brilliant philosophical, theological, and literary minds, despite the considerable temporal distance. What makes this communion possible is truth itself, which has a universality and objectivity such that it transcends time and space. This runs contrary to a tendency, largely modern, to doubt whether our (intellectual) ancestors have anything at all to teach us. After all, the contemporary world is alive with its own unique problems and concerns. What, then, can a Greek man born before the time of Christ teach us about virtue and the good life? What can a fourteenth century Italian poem tell us about love and loss, heaven and hell?  Reading the wisdom of the past quickly dispels this doubt, it seems to me. It is hard to read Plato’s Apology without seeking to emulate the great and noble Socrates; it is practically impossible to read Dante’s Inferno without gaining some insight into divine justice and the beauty of God’s providential plan. Entering into intellectual communion with great minds has the power to make us great likewise, if we are but willing to let ourselves be transformed.

The Catholic Imagination Fellowship includes these Great Books courses, along with prayer, service to the Diocese, and cultural excursions, all of which in their own manner complement the time spent in the classroom. We intend it to be an admixture of work and leisure, always aware that the latter is the higher and more important element.

As the new year begins and many of us make resolutions, some concrete and realistic, others perhaps less so, the words of Jesus may be especially discouraging: “You therefore must be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect” (Mt. 5:48). Our Lord is not addressing, of course, economic, academic, or aesthetic perfection. In other words, the Christian life does not demand that we become rich or supremely intelligent or beautiful. Instead, Jesus is speaking of moral perfection, a natural and supernatural integrity of life and action. But even if we have narrowed our focus, this command of Jesus may seem unreasonable, and an unreasonable command is no real command at all. The good news is that the heights of holiness can indeed be reached with God’s gracious help. Were Christ asking us to pull ourselves up by our spiritual bootstraps, the command would indeed be impossible. Enlivened and empowered by God’s grace, however, a life of holiness is within our grasp.

What does this life of holiness entail? St. John Paul II reflects on the biblical answer to this question in his encyclical Veritatis splendor. Though human life can be complicated and convoluted, the life of holiness requires, above all else, something simple: love. But this word is often distorted today, becoming very much like the squishy, vapid resolutions I mentioned above. Love is reduced to a feeling, an emotional state, and thus reduced to something turbulent and temporary. When Jesus speaks about love, on the contrary, it is something mighty, something profound, something worthy of animating one’s life.

For St. John Paul II, as for the entire Christian tradition, looking to Jesus shows us the path to love. I would like to draw out three essential elements of love. First, love (for example, the kind of love we find in virtuous friendships) involves willing the good of another person, and not for any perceived benefit but for the person’s own sake. While there is an emotional love proper to the human person, the love we are speaking about is fundamentally an act of the will. And because it is such an act, it is not subject to the turbulence and transience of emotional love. Consider a married couple that has been together for 40 years. There are bound to be days when the married persons do not feel in love with each other. Nevertheless, though emotional love when rightly ordered is a good that often accompanies voluntary love, voluntary love transcends emotional love. This distinction between love as an emotion and love as an act of the will explains at least part of the complex reality of divorce in the United States. Because couples confuse the two, often they base a relationship on emotional love and neglect the higher, more stable form of love that wills the good of the other in season and out of season, “in sickness and in health,” as the marriage rite puts it. When emotional love ceases or, God forbid, turns to hatred and resentment, the relationship itself crumbles.

Where do we see this aspect of love exemplified in the life and teaching of Jesus? We see it in His entire life of obedience to the Father for our sake, but especially in His willingness to die on the Cross. In the garden, our Lord’s humanity cannot help but cry out, “Let this cup pass from me.” And yet, because His human will is perfectly conformed to the Father’s will, He can say, “Yet not my will but Thine be done” (Mt. 26:39). It is a fearful thing to approach death, and thus we see Jesus in distress and sweating blood (Lk. 22:44). But He never ceased to will the good of our salvation. We too are meant to show our love for God in acts of obedience: “If you love me, keep my commandments” (Jn. 14:15). For those of us who are still imperfect, our emotions may militate against this saying of our Lord. After all, sometimes I may not feel like obeying God; it may feel better in the short term to pursue bodily pleasure and eschew higher goods. For those who have reached the heights of holiness, however, there is an emotional joy that accompanies obeying God. Love, as St. John Paul II says, is ready to live out the loftiest challenges. In this life, love is inextricably tied to self-giving, to sacrifice. Here, of course, Jesus is the ultimate example. We are not called merely to a fleeting emotional love but to a love that endures all for the sake of the beloved.

The second aspect of love is that it is always founded and grounded in the truth. This is quite a controversial point today, since many people have so absolutized the human will that whatever one chooses to pursue, to love, is justified, and justified precisely because one has chosen it. On the contrary, to state the matter simply, we cannot love what we do not know. Notice the respective implications of these opposing views. For the modern view of love, founded in an understanding of the will as an unfettered power to choose anything whatsoever, might makes right. The person with the stronger will inevitably wins out. Consequently, human relationships devolve into power struggles, occasions to manipulate and dominate others. For the classical view, founded in an understanding of the will as an intellectual appetite, all human beings are beholden to the wise and good order that God has created. Our willing must be in conformity with the truth about the created order, about the human person, and about God. When we choose something contrary to the truth, we are not free persons but slaves. The truth really does set us free (Jn. 8:32), and set us free primarily so that we may love as we ought.

Jesus’s entire mission hinges on the fact that we cannot love what we do not know. That is why the Son, the only one who has seen the Father (Jn. 1:18), comes to reveal the Father to us, so that we may know and love Him. This is our Lord’s prayer: “O righteous Father, the world has not known thee, but I have known thee; and these know that thou hast sent me. I made known to them thy name, and I will make it known, that thy love with which thou hast loved me may be in them, and I in them” (Jn. 17:25-26). It is our job, then, whether by reflecting on the order of creation or on God’s word in Holy Scripture, to know God so that we may love Him all the more.

Finally, love should be focused on God; one should love God above all else. This is true even on the natural level, though for fallen man this is impossible without God’s healing grace. It is all the truer on the supernatural level, since we are called in charity to love God firstly and others, even sinners, out of love for God. God is to be loved above all else because love is of things lovable, and God is most loveable. Indeed, He is goodness itself and the source of all that is good. “God is love,” as 1 Jn. 4:8 says. When we place God first, when we love Him above all else, our other loves become rightly ordered. We are able to love our spouses, our children, our neighbors, our coworkers better when these loves are enlivened and perfected by love of God. Jesus Himself says when asked which is the greatest commandment, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind. This is the great and first commandment. And the second is like it, You shall love your neighbor as yourself.” The entire Christian life hinges on these two commandments. They are inseparable, yes, but one is higher: love of God.