Seven unopened gifts

Tradition calls them gifts of the Holy Spirit and lists them: wisdom, understanding, counsel, fortitude, knowledge, piety, and fear of the Lord. It sounds like a catechism list, but they are very concrete capacities for living: seeing things as God sees them, deciding rightly, holding on when it is hard, treating God as a Father and not as a formality. They are not a prize for mystics. You received them in baptism and in full at confirmation. The thing is, an unused gift goes unnoticed, just as a muscle that is never trained goes unnoticed. And they are put to use in a very simple way: by asking for them. Counsel before a decision, fortitude before a difficult conversation, understanding when faith grows dim. The Spirit does not play hard to get; the one who forgets to ask is you.