Chapter V. Of the fruits of the Holy Spirit

Article I

Of the natwre ofthefmUa of the Holy Spirit, When we have long exercised ourselves with fervour in the practice of virtues, we acquire a {jEtciHty in producing acts of them. We no longer feel the repugnances we experienced at first. We have no longer to comhat and do violence to ourselves. We do with pleasure what before we did only with difficulty. The same thing happens to virtues as to trees. As the latter bear fruits which, when they are ripe, lose their sharpness, and are sweet and pleasant to the taste j so when acts of virtue have attained a certain maturity, we perform them with pleasure, and find in them a delicious flavour. At this stage, these acts of virtue inspired by the Holy Spirit are called fruits of the Holy Spirit ; and certain virtues produce them in such perfection and sweetness, that they are called beatitudes, because they cause the soul to be wholly filled with God. Now the more God possesses a soul, the more He sanctifies it ; and the more holy it is, the nearer it approaches to that happy state in which nature being healed of its corruption, virtues become as it were natural.

They who strive after perfection by the way of systematic practices and acts, without abandoning themselves completely to the guidance of the Holy Spirit, never have this sweetness and as it were ripeness of virtue ; they always feel difficulty and repugnances, they have always to combat, and are often vanquished, and commit faults : instead of which, they who proceed under the direction of the Holy Spirit, in the way of simple recollection, practise what is good with a fervour and a joy worthy of the Holy Spirit, and win glorious victories without a struggle, or if they have to combat, they do so with pleasure.

Whence it follows, that tepid souls have twice as much trouble in the practice of virtue as the fervent, who devote themselves to it in earnest and without reserve ; because the latter possess the joy of the Holy Spirit, which renders every thing easy to them ; whereas the former Lave their passions to fight against, and experience the weaknesses and infirmities of nature, which counteract the sweetness of virtue, and render its acts difficult and imperfect.

Frequent communion is an excellent means of perfecting virtues in us, and acquiring the fruits of the Holy Spirit ; for our Lord, uniting His Body to our body and His Soul to our soul, bums and consumes within us the seeds of our vices, and communicates to us by degrees His own divine temperament and perfections, according as we are disposed and suffer Him to operate in us. He finds in us, for example, the remembrance of some displeasure, which, though passed away, has made on our mind and heart an impression that remains as a seed of vexation, the effects of which we feel on occasions. What does our Lord do ? He effaces the remembrance and image of this discontent ; He obliterates the impression which had been left on all our powers, and entirely destroys that seed of sins, putting in its place the fruits of charity, joy, peace, and patience. He tears up in like manner the roots ^f anger, intemperance, and our other faults, and communicates to us virtues and their fruits.

Article II

0/ the fruits of cha/rity, joy, and peace.

The first three fruits of the Holy Spirit are charity, joy, and peace, which appertain to the Holy Spirit in a special manner j charity, because He is the love of the Father and the Son, and the love of that which is good ; joy, because He is most present to the Father and the Son, and is, as it were, the consummation of their beatitude ; peace, because He is the bond and the tie that unites together the Father and the Son.

These three fruits are joined together, and follow naturally one after the other. Charity, or fervent love, makes us to possess God ; joy springs from the possession of God, being no other than the repose or contentment which is found in the enjoyment of the good we possess. Peace, which, according to St. Augustine, is the tranquillity of order, maintains the soul in the possession of joy against every thing opposed thereto. Charity excludes every other joy, and peace every kind of trouble and fear.

Charity is first in order of the fruits of the Holy Spirit, because it most resembles the Holy Spirit, who is Himself love, and consequently it brings us nearest to true and everlasting happiness, and bestows upon us a joy most solid, a peace most profound.

Give a man the dominion of the world, with an authority the most absolute possible ; let him possess all the riches, all the honours, all the pleasures that could be desired ; impart to him the most perfect wisdom you can imagine ; let him be another Solomon and more than Solomon, aud be ignorant of nothing that the mind can know ; add thereto the power of working miracles ; let him stay the sun in its course, divide seas, raise the dead ; let him be endued with divine power in as high a degree as you please, and let him, moreover, have the gift of prophecy, the discernment of spirits, the knowledge of the secrets of hearts, — I say that the least degree of holiness this man may possess, the least act of charity he may perform, is worth more than all; it brings him nearer to the Sovereign Good, and invests him with a being more excellent than all these other advantages would bestow upon him, if he had them. And this for two reasons.

First, because to partake of the holiness of God is to partake of that which is, so to say, most essential in Him. The other attributes of God, as knowledge. power, may be communicated in such wise as to be natural to men ; holiness alone can never be natural to them.

Secondly, because holiness and happiness are, as it were, two inseparable sisters, and God communicates Himself and unites Himself only to holy souls, and not to such as, without holiness, have knowledge, power, and all other perfections imaginable.

Thus the smallest measure of holiness, the least action that increases holiness, is to be preferred before sceptres and crowns. Whence it follows, that by losing every day opportunities of doing so many supernatural actions, we incur losses of happiness inconceivable in extent and all but irreparable. We cannot find in creatures joy and peace, which are the fruits of the Holy Spirit, for two reasons.

First, because it is the possession of God alone that can strengthen us against troubles and fears ; instead whereof, the possession of creatures causes a thousand apprehensions and a thousand disquietudes. He who possesses God is troubled by nothing, for God is all to him, and every thing else is nothing to him.

Secondly, because no created goods can fully satisfy or content us. Empty the bed of the ocean, and then let fall therein a single drop of water ; will you refil that immense void? Were God to produce unto infinity creatures more perfect and more perfect still, not all together would be able to fill our soul; there is a void within that cannot be filled but by God.

It is peace that causes God to reign in the soul, and gives Him the entire sovereignty of it. This it is that keeps the soul in that perfect dependence which it ought to have on God.

By sanctifying grace God forms to Himself, as it were, a citadel in the soul, wherein He entrenches Himself. By peace He makes a kind of sally and takes possession of all the faculties^ fortifying them so strongly that creatures can no longer enter there to disturb them. Qod occupies all the interior : thus Saints are as united to God in action as in prayer^ and events the most distressing never cause them any trouble.

Article III

OfjthefruUa ofpaMence a/nd meekness.

The preceding fruits dispose the soul to those of patience and meekness, or moderation.

The property of the virtue of patience is to moderate excess of sadness; and the virtue of meekness allays the gusts of anger which rise impetuously to repel any present evil.

These two virtues combat and win the victory only by violent efforts, and that not without difficulty ; but patience and meekness, which are the fruits of the Holy Spirit, reduce their enemies to obedience without combating, or if they combat, it is without labour, nay with pleasure. Patience beholds with joy objects calculated to produce sadness : thus martyrs rejoice at the threat of persecutions and the sight of tortures. When once peace is firmly established in the heart, meekness has no longer any trouble in regulating the movements of anger. The soul retains its equilibrium and never loses its tranquillity. And this is the effect of the Holy Spirit, who, residing in it and possessing it in all its powers, banishes all objects of sadness, or prevents them from making any impression; so that the devil even stands in awe of such a soul, and does not venture to approach it.

Article IV

OfthefruiU ofgood/nesa cmd benignity.

These two fruits respect the good we do to our neighbour. Goodness is the incKnation which leads us to oblige others, and communicate to them of what we possess. We have no term in our language which exactly expresses henignitaa; for the word benignity is not in general use, except perhaps to denote kindness, and this sort of kindness consists in our obliging others willingly, cordially, joyfully, without feeling the difficulty which is experienced by one who possesses benignity only in the quality of a virtue, and not also in the quality of a finiit of the Holy Spirit.

Article V

Of tlue fruit of hngomimity.

Longanimity, or perseverance, prevents the weariness and fatigue which are especially caused by the expectation of some hoped-for good, or the length and duration of some good we are doing, or of some evil we are suffering, and not by the greatness of the thing itself, or other circumstances connected with it. Longanimity, for example, has the effect of making us more fervent at the end of our third year's noviciate than we were at the beginning.

Article VI

Of the fruit of faith.

Faith, so far as it is a finiit of the Holy Spirit, is a certain facility in believing every thing that appertains to the belief of the faithful, a constancy in adhering thereto, and an assurance of the truth of what we believe, without feeling those repugnances and doubts. that darkness and dulness of mind, which we naturally experience in regard to matters of faith.

In order to this there must be in the will a pious affection inclining the understanding to believe, without hesitation, the things proposed to it.

For want of this pious affection, the Jews, although convinced by the miracles of our Lord, did not believe in Him, having their understanding darkened and blinded by the malice of their will. Now that which happened to the Jews in regard to the substance of the faith happens often to us in what concerns the perfection of the faith ; that is to say, in things which may perfect it, and which are the consequence of truths which it makes us believe. For example, we are taught that our Lord is both God and man, and we believe it. If thence the conclusion be drawn, that we ought therefore to love Him above all things, to visit Him often in the Holy Eucharist, to prepare ourselves to receive Him, and to make all this our first duty and business, then we hesitate, and our will in practice resists the belief of the understanding. If it did but yield thereto, our faith in the mysteries of our Lord would daily increase. But we stifle by our vices this pious affection, so necessary for arriving at the perfection of faith. Did we possess a good will truly devoted to God, we should have a penetrating and perfect faith.

Some understand by the word faith, fidelity, constancy in keeping the promises we make ; others, a facility of believing in what regards human things, without allowing ourselves to harbour groundless distrusts, suspicions, and rash judgments.

Article VII

Of the fruits of modesty, tempercmce, cmd chastity.

Modesty, in so far as it is a virtue, is well known. It regulates all the movements of the body, the gestures, and the words. In so far as it is a fruit of the Holy Spirit, it does this easily and naturally; and, moreover, it composes all the interior movements of the soul, as in the presence of God.

Our mind is Kght and restless, always in action, fluttering on all sides, fastening on all sorts of objects, prattling unceasingly. Modesty checks it, moderates it, and settles the soul in a profound peace, which disposes it to become the habitation and the kingdom of God ; thus the gift of the presence of God follows speedily on the fruit of modesty. The latter is to the former what the dew was to the manna ; and the presence of God is a transcendent light, in which the soul beholds itself before God, and observes all its interior movements, every thing that passes within it, more clearly than we see colours at noon-day.

Modesty is absolutely necessary to us ; because immodesty, although in itself it seems to be a small thing, is notwithstanding of great importance on account of its consequences, and is no slight mark of a mind but little religious.

The virtues of temperance and chastity regard the pleasures of the body, repressing such as are illicit, and moderating those that are lawful. The former restrains a disorderly affection for eating and drinking, and prevents excesses we might conmiit therein. The latter regulates or retrenches altogether the use of carnal pleasures.

But the fruits of temperance and chastity so detach the soul from the love of its body, that it scarcely feels k2 its rebellions any more, keeping it in subjection without difficulty.