“Get ready, Kathryn. A new season of your life is about to begin….” I heard those words about five years ago when I took refuge in the chapel after a particularly difficult experience. Actually, it wasn’t the first time I had heard those words whispered in my heart by God or experienced a changing season of life.

Twenty years ago, to identify one of these transition periods, everything was going wrong in my work in the mission, everything blocked by another I was working with. For a year I seemed to be treading water…or more accurately I was sinking. However, I remember speaking with my spiritual director at the time saying to my surprise, that as useless and counterproductive as the experience was, I also had a sense that everything was exactly as it should be. I couldn’t explain it. It made no sense. But a part of me was crying out to God that he certainly would do much better in evangelizing the world if the situation were different. Another part of me sank beneath his mighty hand and blessed him for my undoing.

Remember a time when circumstances left you confused, deflated, angry, unsure of the best way forward? It takes a lot of prudence to reason out the best steps to take, which options to choose, the most effective words you could say…. Without realizing, we could make these decisions based on what is fair, or what we feel, or what we want for ourselves. When we are hurt we can strike out at another even as we think we are responding virtuously.

When we need more than our own devices to understand what is happening in particular events in our life or judgments we need to make, it is the Holy Spirit’s gift of counsel that comes to our assistance. The gift of counsel operates under the impulse of the Holy Spirit, not according to what makes the most sense or is the most comfortable or gives us the most pleasure. The Holy Spirit can lead us to do or say or desire things for which our reason could never explain. Thus, even though the surface of the situation would seem to warrant an angry response that would set things straight for the improvement of the mission, there was a voice within me that said, “Get ready, a new season of your life is about to begin.” A season of contradiction and newness and loss and surprising transformation. A good season….

Sometimes a judgment is required that is beyond us at the time. Perhaps we don’t know how to combine firmness with mercy or there seems no way for us to guard a secret and at the same time meet the obligation of telling the truth. We might be responsible for other people and it is often difficult to know what is best for them. At times we don’t have time for sufficient research or reflection before a decision must be made. It is at times such as these that we want our decision to be the result of the operation of the gift of counsel.

So what habits in daily life will help us grow in responsiveness to the voice of the Spirit who is the Guest of our soul? Incorporate these two qualities of heart and you will prepare your soul for the more intense activation of the gift of counsel in your life:

• Develop the habit of speaking directly to the Holy Spirit, telling him that you don’t know what to do, which option is best, how to most effectively address another or a situation. And then beg the Holy Spirit for light and guidance. Begin to admit that despite every good intention and all our talents and gifts, in some circumstances only the Holy Spirit can bestow on us the wisdom we need to decide aright. We cannot snap our fingers for the Spirit’s guidance. We often will need to wait upon the Lord with patience and humility.
• Observe your experience when you are attached to your own judgments. St. John of the Cross in his Spiritual Maxims advises us: “Renounce your desires and you shall find that which your heart desires. How do you know if what you desire is according to God?” Notice how you experience is different when you act under the impulse of the Spirit. What is different? What are signs that tip you off that you are following your own judgments, and signs that indicate that you are obeying the Holy Spirit, moved by the gift of counsel? These can help you correct your path mid-stream so that you more frequently are seeking to please the Spirit.

Prayer

O Holy Spirit, I adore you present in my soul. I need you. Guide me. Show me the way to please the Father. Counsel me. Give me a wisdom beyond what I can figure out on my own. I promise to obey you. Only let me understand your will. Amen.