The Isaiah Gifts: Knowledge

Today's first reading at Mass was from Isaiah 11, where we find the prophet speaking about the gifts of the Holy Spirit.

The Spirit of the LORD will rest on him—
the Spirit of wisdom and of understanding,
the Spirit of counsel and of power,
the Spirit of knowledge and of the fear of the LORD—
and he will delight in the fear of the LORD. (Isaiah 11:2-3)

These are the gifts of sanctification, also referred to as the Isaiah gifts. (Note that while the Hebrew text of Isaiah lists only six gifts, with fear of the Lord mentioned twice, the Greek Septuagint and Latin Vulgate translations list seven, with “piety” replacing the repeated occurrence of “fear of the Lord.”). The purpose of these gifts—wisdom, understanding, counsel, might (or fortitude), knowledge, piety, and fear of the Lord—are to make us more like Jesus.

A teaching on these gifts comprises one of the lessons in the HSI School of Discipleship, and I was invited to speak about them at one of our communities a couple of months ago. Wanting to make it a little easier for the members to understand, I spent some time that morning asking God for help and found myself being led to think a bit deeper about a short little parable that Jesus taught in Matthew 13:44.

“The kingdom of heaven is like treasure hidden in a field. When a man found it, he hid it again, and then in his joy went and sold all he had and bought that field."

By the time I got up from my knees I had my teaching ready. I share it with you here, a gift a day (or two). But let me first reorder these gifts for the purpose of this lesson:

Knowledge
Understanding
Wisdom
Counsel
Might/Fortitude
Piety
Fear of the Lord

In Matthew 13, we see Jesus begin to speak in parables, referring in all of them to the "kingdom of heaven". The disciples came to him and asked, “Why do you speak to the people in parables?” He replied, “The knowledge of the secrets of the kingdom of heaven has been given to you, but not to them. (Matthew 13:10-11).

What is this knowledge of the secrets of the kingdom of heaven? Who is it given to? Why isn't it given to everybody? The parables help to explain that, including this little one that we are using to illustrate the gifts of the spirit: The kingdom of heaven is like treasure hidden in a field .....

We will discover what this knowledge is by the time we come to the end of this study. Stay with me on this one; you won't regret it, I promise :)