For me, the seven Gifts of the Holy Spirit have a very important place in understanding why God might ask me to live a predominantly contemplative life but give me no desire to withdraw from the world.

Of course, ultimately, I’m not asked to understand God’s plan. The way I live is just the way I live. I live this way. I’m a “contemplative in the mud”. I’m asked to be. I don’t think I chose it. It would be nice to understand what I’m doing, yes. But at the end of the day, it’s better to live it, if asked, than understand what I’m being asked to do.

Yet it’s natural to want to understand. It’s normal. It helps in explaining myself to other people. It helps in explaining myself to me. For this, I’ve found Thomas Aquinas to be especially helpful.

Saint Thomas talks about the three “contemplative” Gifts of the Holy Spirit like this:

For the apprehension of truth, the speculative reason is perfected by “understanding”… In order to judge aright, the speculative reason is perfected by “wisdom”; the practical reason by “knowledge”. (Sum. theol., Ia-IIae, q. 68, a. 4)

In a life whose graceful composition is written in one of the keys of predominantly contemplative life (rather than predominantly active life), these three Gifts of the Holy will necessarily dominate (not without, of course, the presence of the other four, more active Gifts also!).

If I’m a contemplative by vocation, I find myself most consistently being prompted by the Holy Spirit with these three “contemplative Gifts”: the ones that have to do with interior “actions” rather than exterior ones. If I were active by vocation, I might find myself being prompted in other ways more consistently.

What do the Gifts of Wisdom, Understanding, and Knowledge mean? What do they do?

If I can be so bold, I would comment on Saint Thomas’ words as follows:

Wisdom, the loftiest Gift, is for concentrating on the very self of God as it is given to us little creatures in suffering divine things. It makes contemplation possible. It makes deep love of God possible.

Understanding is for the guiding of the intellect in regards to the high principles according to which which God’s own self and created universe are. In everyday English, we do just understand better or more deeply, more as God does.

Knowledge is primarily for the guiding of the intellect in regards to created things.

They all perfect us primarily inside, not in what we do. That’s what makes them “contemplative” rather than “active”. It doesn’t have to do with a cloister or where I am. It’s just what the Spirit does. As might be expected, there’s a lot of suffering that goes with the Spirit leading by these contemplative Gifts in a rough, muddy world. But that’s always the lot of Christian contemplation, no matter our vocation.