Welcome to Day 1 of our Pentecost Novena.
Today's reflection on the gift of Understanding and the fruit of Charity is from Eric Chow, the Director for Proclaim.
It seems like every day when I check the news, there is another incident that causes sadness or confusion in my heart. If God is love, why do we see all of this brokenness in our world?
Without the gift of understanding, we are left on our own to make sense of life. I used to just ignore what I didn’t understand or what didn’t impact me directly but the more I wanted to follow Jesus, the more I wanted to understand how he saw the world.
The Holy Spirit’s gift of understanding helps us to realize that God is at work and his plan is good.
We can pray to Jesus that, like the disciples on the road to Emmaus, He would open our minds to understand… (Luke 24:45)
I also find that empathy grows with understanding and when that happens it makes it easier to love, especially when relationships are hard or complicated.
If I can love when it’s hard then I know that the Holy Spirit is working in me and I’m experiencing the fruit of Charity.
