COUNSEL, GIFT OF. — One of the seven gifts of the Holy Spirit. It is classified among the intellectual gifts, since it illumines the intellect. It is the gift that “perfects the virtue of prudence, enabling us to judge promptly and surely, through a kind of supernatural intuition, what ought to be done, especially in difficult cases” (A. Tanquerey, no. 1331).
Since the gifts of the Holy Spirit are, as s. Tommaso teaches, dispositions by which the soul is rendered docile and responsive to the Holy Spirit (2a-2a, q. 52, a. 1), and since the virtue of prudence, whether acquired or infused, is “that which directs man, by seeking through a careful examination and an accurate reflection upon examples from the past and the present situation, the means of attaining a proposed end,” the gift of counsel perfects the virtue of prudence to the highest degree “secundum quod regulatur et movetur a Spiritu Sancto” (2ᵃ 2ᵃᶜ, q. 52, a. 2). The gift of counsel makes known in particular the best means of attaining the end, “and even where prudence would remain hesitant, it shows us what we must say or keep silent about, what must be undertaken and what abandoned” (R. Garrigou-Lagrange, p. 330). Hence, s. Tommaso notes, “donum consilii facit certitudinem a Spiritu Sancto de iis de quibus eubulia inquirit et conjecturat” (2ᵃ-2ᵃᶜ, q. 51, a 1).
The gift of counsel guides us in all things ordered to eternal life and, as Dionigi Certosino notes (Trattato dei doni dello Spirito Santo, in Opera omnia, XXXV, Tournai, pp. 157-260, tr. 3, a. 7), in the first degree it directs us in matters of strict obligation; in the second, it inclines us toward the generous practice of the evangelical counsels; in the third, it moves us to undertake holy works with a truly heroic perfection.
It corresponds, as s. Tommaso notes (Sum. Theol., 2ᵃ-2ᵃᶜ, q. 52, a. 4), to the beatitude of mercy, because only the merciful know how to give good counsel.
The gift of counsel may be considered “passively,” as a gift existing in all those who are in a state of grace, or “actively,” insofar as it is operative; in that case it belongs to the order of the graces gratis datae (Sum. Theol., 2ᵃ 2ᵃᶜ, q. 47, 14, 2; 51, 1, 3).
The proper object of the gift of counsel is the direction of particular actions, whereas the gifts of knowledge and understanding provide us with general principles.
This gift is necessary for everyone in certain more important and difficult cases, when eternal salvation and one’s own sanctification are at stake, for example, in one’s vocation or in certain occasions of sin encountered in the exercise of one’s office, since “in the gift of counsel the Christian soul possesses a sure discernment of the means; it sees its own path and follows it fearlessly, however arduous and repugnant it may be” (M. Landrieux, Le Divin Méconnu, Paris 1921, p. 163).
The gift of counsel is in a very particular way necessary to priests, spiritual directors, and superiors, so that they may properly and sufficiently unite severity and goodness, not multiplying precepts, but rather moving people by the way of love rather than that of fear.
As p. Saint-Jure observes (La vie spirituelle, I, Paris 1889, part 1ᵃ, c. 4 § 7, pp. 495-514), the lack of such a gift in the soul “makes men confused in their thoughts, blind in their plans, hasty in their resolutions, imprudent in their words, and rash in their actions.”
In the history of mysticism, numerous saints appear to have been adorned with this gift in a particularly distinctive and characteristic manner. It is sufficient to recall s. Antonino da Firenze, who, for the sagacity of his counsels, was called “Antoninus consiliorum”; Caterina da Siena, Angela da Foligno, Margherita da Cortona; and, among the unlettered, s. Felice da Cantalice and b. Francesco Maria da Camporosso, Capuchin laymen.