Byzantine Catholic Family Matters

On Rejected Gifts and the Gifts of the Holy Spirit

Biologist David Ehrenfeld recalls in his essay Rejected Gifts (published in the collection of essays Swimming Lessons) a learning moment; though the learning did not take place until years later. His father, a general practice doctor in Passaic had encouraged the then sixteen-year-old David to visit and read for a Paterson physician who was slowly losing his eyesight. The sixteen-year-old resisted and prevailed in never visiting with or reading to the near blind doctor from Paterson. Unbeknownst to the young Ehrenfeld, the Paterson doctor was William Carlos Williams a much loved family doctor who later became renowned for his poetry. Many years later, with several young adult children of his own, David Ehrenfeld looked back at his sixteen-year-old self with regret at not having seized the opportunity to spend time with Dr. Williams. Yet before we seize an opportunity we have to recognize that an opportunity exists; and we don’t recognize the opportunity because we do not see its value or do not take the time to recognize its value. Then something happens, maybe it’s maturation or perhaps it is being called upon to do something, and we realize that we have this gift which heretofore has gone unrecognized.

More dramatically, neurologist Oliver Sachs wrote of Virgil - virtually blind from very early in his childhood but misdiagnosed. When he was correctly diagnosed, Virgil underwent successful surgery that gave him his sight after many years of near total blindness. But there were no shouts for joy as the surgeon removed the bandages and Virgil was able to see for the first time. Instead there was confusion and a longing for the way things had been. Dr. Sachs recounted having lunch with Virgil and his fiancée Amy at a local restaurant in his collection of essays An Anthropologist on Mars. Virgil first began eating as sighted people, "spearing" the tomato slices in his salad with a fork. Dr. Sachs observed him having difficulty locating and spearing the different pieces of his salad, so that eventually Virgil reverted to hearing eating his salad with his hands, the way in which he ate before given the gift of sight. Virgil was so accustomed to living without the gift of sight, that it was difficult for him to fully embrace and use his newfound gift.

I suspect we Christians are often guilty of the same thing. This may be especially so in terms of our theosis, because through the descent of the Holy Spirit, the Church and its members have received the gifts of the Holy Spirit - for each and every one of us through our baptism and chrismation. To what extent have we accepted these gifts in our own lives - the gifts of wisdom, understanding, counsel, fortitude, knowledge, piety, and fear of the Lord - these gifts that have been freely given to us by God? It is through these gifts that each of us can bear a great harvest, the fruits of the Holy Spirit: charity, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, generosity, gentleness, faithfulness, modesty, self-control, and chastity. Like Virgil, however, we would rather live the way we are accustomed to living or ignore the gifts we have been given and be blind only to fail to bear the fruits that we otherwise might bear in great abundance. Only when we allow ourselves to accept these gifts and bear these fruits are living out our Christian vocation. This can be extremely difficult in today’s world. Take for example the gift of knowledge. Father George Appleyard writes (Light of the East) that knowledge, in the Byzantine sense this is not about memorizing our catechism; rather it is about having a personal relationship with God through participation in the sacred rites. The sacred rites then not only show us the way to walk with God but are the way. Yet, for so many how easy it is to forget that and see weekly attendance at (as opposed to participation in) the Divine Liturgy as mere obligation - no more meaningful than a visit by the young Ehrenfeld to Dr. Williams might have been had he acceded to his father’s wishes. Orthodox theologian Theodore Stylianopoulous has written, sin is not merely "some moralistic transgression, as sin is often trivialized by some, but the power of sin expressed in human life through wrong choices, wrong goals, wrong relationships, wrong attitudes, wrong values, wrong acts, and the wrong use of things." This is precisely when we are not accepting the gifts of the Holy Spirit, because these are the times when we are not bearing its fruits; that is when our charity is lacking, when we are joyless, when we are not peaceful, when we are impatient, when we are unkind... If only we would open our hearts to the gifts we have already been given, that would make all the difference in the world!