Counsel
This gift, Counsel, is given so that the Christian soul may choose what is most pleasing to God and arrive in heaven. The Gift of Counsel enables the soul to make right judgments and has to do with supernatural prudence. This gift guides us in all our ways inclining the heart to the good and turning it away from evil, all this leading our souls to that final goal - eternal life.
In St. John of the Cross’ Sayings of Light and Love # 44, he counsels souls to:
“Be attentive to your reason in order to do what it tells you concerning the way to God. It will be more valuable before your God than all the works you perform without this attentiveness and all the spiritual delights you seek.”
and in #45:
“Blessed are they who, setting aside their own pleasure and inclination, consider things according to reason and justice before doing them.”
There are few things that this saint says the will can rejoice in, but one is “moral goods...for they bring along with them peace, tranquility, a right and ordered use of reason, and actions resulting from mature deliberation. Humanly speaking, a person cannot have any nobler possession in this life.” (Ascent of Mount Carmel Book 3: 27, 2)
Rejoice indeed, since these will lead to the attainment of the final goal of life. Eternity.
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