Meditation 58
The Sevenfold Divine Gifts

Now the soul begins to desire God with a burning love facing the lamp stand which is stronger than death in the blazing flames of the sevenfold divine gifts of the Spirit, these gifts which were revealed to the prophet Isaiah as the distinct mark of “the Anointed One” (Is 11. 2). It are these sevenfold gifts which God reveals by His divine materialism in a twofold way in this Sanctuary as a Recycling Plant of the Holy Spirit: by the greater tools as mentioned above as an anti type of the sacraments (Med. 19) and by the seven lamps of the lamp stand.
 
I. The spirit of wisdom: to know our Redeemer as the God chosen One and gaze at Him as our Royal Archetype in the live of grace in obedience, poverty of spirit and purity (the sacrament of Baptism) in order to attain again the baptismal grace.

II. The spirit of insight:  how we shall have God as our eternal light and remember His presence continuously in our lives to be able to receive His sevenfold gifts (the Sacrament of Confirmation).

III. The spirit of counsel: to compare our own impurity to the purity of our Royal Archetype and thus confess our sins and bear our infirmities with perseverance until God cures us and remember the hour of our death as a gateway and secure way to heaven (the sacrament of Reconciliation and Penance).

IV. The spirit of knowledge: to learn to know by living experience the plentiful love of Jesus' Sacred Heart and follow its only movement by becoming one with it in the union of love (the Eucharist).

V. The spirit of power: to rest in God in His light and nourish us on His heavenly manna until He opens our spiritual eye by His anointment to make us able to discern His power in the live of grace (the sacrament of Anointment).

VI. The spirit of the fear of God: to love God by all the soul's powers and serve Him in accordance with His will by the mortification of the ego of sin to attain to the dignity of the Royal Priesthood of the New Covenant (the sacrament of Sacred Orders).

And finally the spirit which was the distinct mark of the Tree of Life of the “stock of Jesse” (Is 11. 2) – the ruah or Spirit which blazes on the stem of the lamp stand in its center on the stem, the spirit of inspiration and delight,

VII. The spirit of inspiration: to live in eternal beatitude by following the impulses or inspirations of this spirit of God in complete union with Him in the spiritual marriage between the soul as the bride of her Beloved (the sacrament of Matrimony).

After its long exile in the exterior world of the senses our spirit or contemplative intellect is unaccustomed to work with the spiritual senses and thus the discursive reason defines the light of the lamp stand as seven lights, in spite of the fact that this is only one light revealing its seven spirits in the efficient grace of the sacraments. In the prayer of union the spiritual senses will grow in strength and reach maturity and bring the spirit more authentic information from the invisible and spiritual creation. This is a clear sign of fuller participation of the soul in its Royal Image or by the words of the prophet Isaiah,
His judgment will not be by appearance,
his verdict not given on heresy (Is 11. 3).

This disposition the soul will make her own in the inscrutability of the prayer of union as she will taste in an authentic way how sweet her Beloved is and is drawn to Him by an irresistible force. It is the living experience of God which makes the difference between speculative theology and experimental theology – the theology of the saints, or by the words of St. Silouan the Athonite,
We must not quarrel about faith but only pray to God and His Mother, and the Lord will enlighten us , and will enlighten us speedily. [1]

This is the precious lesson at the lamp stand in this University of the Holy Spirit under the guiding hands of the celestial hierarchies and their queen: the Blessed Virgin. When the soul becomes like a wax in the hands of the Holy Spirit He lights these seven lamps of salvation in the inmost core of her being, a truth which the holy fathers and mother of the Church have continuously emphasized through the centuries,
Can a man take fire in his bosom, and his clothes not be burned?“ (Pr 6. 27) says the wise Solomon. And I say: can he, who has in his heart the divine fire of the Holy Spirit burning naked, not be set on fire, not shine and glitter and not take on the radiance of the Deity in the degree of his purification and penetration by fire? For penetration by fire follows upon purification of the heart, and again purification of heart follows upon penetration by fire, that is, inasmuch as the heart is purified, so it receives divine grace, and again, inasmuch as it receives grace, so is it purified. When this is completed (that is, purification of heart and acquisition of grace have attained their fullness and perfection), through grace a man becomes a god. [2]

Here at the lamp stand the seven capital vices: pride, envy, anger, sloth, avarice, gluttony and lust are completely uprooted and replaced by the cardinal virtues of prudence, justice, fortitude and temperance and the divine virtues  of faith, hope and charity. Only thus the soul is able to attain to the Vision of the Celestial City, a truth which urged David to cry, “God, create in me a clean heart, renew within me a resolute spirit” (Ps 51. 12). Thus John of the Cross could sing,
O lamps of fire!
in whose splendors
the deep caverns of feeling,
once obscure and blind,
now give forth, so rarely, so
exquisitely,
both warmth and light to their
Beloved. [3]

The enlightenment which works so speedily here in front of the lamp stand is the splendors of its seven lamps giving warmth and light to all of the faculties of the soul. In his commentary on this stanza John of the Cross said,

We can consequently understand how the soul with its faculties is illumined within the splendors of God. The movements of these divine flames, which are flickering and flaring up we have mentioned, are not produced by the soul alone that is transformed in the flames of the Holy Spirit, nor does the Holy Spirit produce them alone, but they are the work both of the soul and him since he moves it in the manner that fire moves the air. Thus these movements of both God and the soul are not only splendors, but also glorification of the soul. These flames and their activity are the happy festival and games that the Holy Spirit inspires in the soul, as we have said in the commentary on verse 2 of the first stanza. It seems in these that he is always wanting to bestow eternal life and transport it completely to perfect glory by bringing it into himself. All the gifts, first and last, great and small, that God grants to the soul, he always grants in order to lead it to eternal life. [4]
  
No soul is able to scrutinize this mystery otherwise than in utter humility and meekness in living faith, or as St. Silouan the Athonite said, “The proud man thinks he can comprehend everything with his mind. The Lord does not grant this.” [5]
[1]. Wisdom from Mount Athos, p. 43.
[2]. Simeon the New Theologian, On the Prayer of the Heart,  pp. 118-119
[3]. The Living Flame of Love, 3.
[4]. Ibid, 3. 10.
[5]. Wisdom from Mount Athos, p. 43.