The Virtues and Gifts of the Holy Spirit

Disclaimer:  This entry contains my opinion about the faith.  In fact, this whole blog is opinion.  I am not here to tell anyone they're doing something right or wrong.  I am here to share my point of view; how I see and learn things pertaining to Catholicism.  In no way am I criticizing anyone else.

To begin:

Sanctifying Grace gives you the Three Theological virtues and the seven gifts of the Holy Spirit.  The three theological virtues are Faith, Hope, and Charity.  These three are the backbone to practicing Catholicism the way it was meant to be practiced.  Without Faith, Hope and Charity there is no religion (well, no good religion).  These virtues are key in living a good life; living a life in Christ.
The seven gifts of the Holy Spirit are wisdom, understanding, counsel, fortitude, knowledge, piety, and fear of the Lord.  The link is an example of the wrong way to fear the Lord.  Also I like the video, it's creative - dark, but creative.
I would translate guilt into fear of the Lord.  Remorse, of any sort, for some misdeed is a sign of a healthy fear of God; a fear of punishment rather than a fear of Him.  Just as when you do something you know will hurt a loved one, you feel guilty and afraid of the consequences.  If you fear Him as the people in the video feared Him, how can you love Him with everything you have?
The seven gifts lead to twelve fruits: charity, joy, peace, patience, benignity, goodness, long-suffering, mildness, faith, modesty, continency, and chastity.  To define some of these:

• Benignity - kindness towards others
• Long-suffering - patiently enduring wrongs or difficulties
• Mildness - gentle or kind disposition
• Modesty - purity or chastity in one's words and actions
• Continency - control over impure desires and acts
• Chastity - purity in thought, word, and act

These gifts are excellent.  They are not easy to obtain (particularly patience and chastity for me) but well worth the effort to do so.  I am not yet disciplined enough to have every one of these, and nor will I be.  At least not for a very long time.  This is something I must work on for the rest of my life and rather than dreading it, I relish the prospect of a challenge.  It's painful to disappoint myself - I do it more often than I like - but from that pain I can learn to be better.
The four Moral Virtues are prudence, justice, fortitude and temperance.  These are called cardinal virtues, meaning they are like hinges upon which the remainder of our moral life hangs.  "Cardinal" is derived from the Latin "cardo" meaning hinge.
These virtues give rise to others such as filial piety and patriotism, obedience, veracity, liberality, patience, humility, and chastity (purity).
It is now that I point out exactly how cyclical this is.  Everything begins with the Three Theologicals.  The virtues listed under both Fruits and Morals are the ones to be noted and kept at higher priority, most often if followed properly the ones listed singly will follow.  But none of these is truly complete without the beginning Three (God).

The Eight Beatitudes:

1. Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
2. Blessed are the meek, for they shall possess the earth.
3. Blessed are they who mourn, for they shall be comforted.
4. Blessed are they who hunger and thirst for justice, for they shall be satisfied.
5. Blessed are the merciful, for they shall obtain mercy.
6. Blessed are the clean of heart, for they shall see God.
7. Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called children of God.
8. Blessed are they who suffer persecution for justice' sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. 

I'm going to work on art for each one of these and hang them around my house.  They are good 'rules' to apply to life.  If I can get to a place in my life that I am following these, I think everything will be just fine.
These aren't exactly easy either.  Then again, when was anything good easy to get, or do?  As a rule of thumb good is harder to achieve than mediocre or bad.

The Standards of Christ vs. the standards of the World.  This sort of relates to a previous set of entries I posted.

Standards of Christ	Standards of This World
1. Blessed are the poor in spirit, that is, those who love the humble condition of the poor	1. Be a successful man, that is, one who makes a lot of money
2. Blessed are the meek	2. Get things your own way
3. Blessed are they who mourn	3. We have a right to enjoy life
4. Blessed are they who hunger and thirst for justice, that is, not after the things of this world, but the grace of God and all that goes with it	4. Love the things of this world
5. Blessed are the merciful	5. Get even with those who hurt you
6. Blessed are the clean of heart, that is, those whose hearts are clean of desire for pleasure and desire only God	6. Seek pleasure of all kinds
7. Blessed are the peacemakers	7. Am I my brother's keeper?
8. Blessed are they who suffer persecution	8. Avoid all suffering, and if it comes, complain about it

How do I measure up?  I think I would fall somewhere in the middle on most everything right now.  If I were to say which I was doing best at, I would say the first; blessed are the poor in spirit.  Being rich is not on my priority list at all.  It never has been, I'm pretty sure I've always been destined to be a starving artist.
The fifth is close behind the first for me; blessed are the merciful.  I don't practice revenge.  It's a waste of my energy.

~~~

Now you know why I didn't post all of this in the Lessons entry.  There was simply too much of it to cover.

Source: The New Saint Joseph Baltimore Catechism, Official Revised Edition, Explained by Father Bennet, C.P.,  1969-1962, Catholic Book Publishing Corp., N.Y.

Lessons Nine, Ten, and Eleven

I have finished Convert Instructions!  Next step is a conditional baptism, conditional confession, and first holy communion.  I'm excited!  At my last lesson I picked up a Roman Missal, which I am also super excited about.

Quick note:  check out Dyno-Mom's blog!  She's coming out with a book soon and I'm super excited for it!

I guess I'm just super excited all around this weekend.  It is Christmas, so that could account for most of it.
By the way, Merry Christmas to you, dear reader!  I hope you're having an excellent holiday.

~~~

Lesson Nine:
The Holy Spirit and Grace
"Where the offense has abounded, grace has abounded yet more" (Romans 5, 20).
A.  The Holy Spirirt
The Holy Spirit, symbolized by a dove, comes from the Father and the Son like love from the heart.  He is the mutual love of the Father and the Son.
B.  Grace
110.  How many kinds of grace are there?  There are two kinds of grace, sanctifying grace and actual grace.
C.  Sources of Grace
117.  What are the principle ways of obtaining grace?  The principle ways of obtaining grace are prayer and the sacraments, especially the Holy Eucharist.  

"It seems that all my bridges have been burned,
But you say that's exactly how this grace thing works"

Lesson Ten:
The Virtues and Gifts of the Holy Spirit
A.  Virtues
121.  What are the three theological virtues?  The three theological virtues are faith, hope, and charity.
B.  Gifts of the Holy Spirit
This chapter has so many good lessons in it, I will most likely post a whole entry on it Monday, after Christmas.  For now I will list the beatitudes as I consider them too important to be left out - as a lot of things are in this lesson, actually...
129.  Which are the eight beatitudes?
The eight beatitudes are:

1. Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
2. Blessed are the meek, for they shall possess the earth.
3. Blessed are they who mourn, for they shall be comforted.
4. Blessed are they who hunger and thirst for justice, for they shall be satisfied.
5. Blessed are the merciful, for they shall obtain mercy.
6. Blessed are the clean of heart, for they shall see God.
7. Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called children of God.
8. Blessed are they who suffer persecution for justice' sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

Lesson Eleven:
The Catholic Church
136.  What is the Church?  The Church is the congregation of all baptized persons united in the same true faith, the same sacrifice, and the same sacraments, under the authority of the Sovereign Pontiff and the bishops in communion with him.
The Church is the mystical body of Christ.

~~~

A small note on the difficulties of forgiveness:
I had to call Sears Repair for a second time yesterday to fix my washer, which was broken by my last roommate.  Everything that had happened until this point had been quietly piling up in the shadows, waiting until  my resolve was the weakest to fall over and trigger my emotions.  The pile - being rather high - did some damage and I found myself seething after hanging up the phone.  I was angry that, after everything else, I couldn't just move on.  It was as if - through this broken machine - she was mocking me (which is ridiculous), keeping me from traveling forward on the path of forgiveness and emotional health.
I broke down and posted a rant on another journal about it.  This didn't help because it was, in effect, the wrong thing to do.  However, I decided to keep the journal up, hanging my anger to dry [read dissipate] on the clothesline of the interwebs.  Perhaps I will remove it at a later date.
What I learned is that it's going to be a while longer before I am healed.  The journey through hurt is a long and arduous one, but at the end I will find strength and a new - better - me.
The difficult part is remembering to pray when I'm traversing a crevasse in the icy path.

"It's not the long walk home that will change this heart,
But the welcome I receive with the restart"

 Quotes from the song Roll Away Your Stone by Mumford and Sons