Chapter 15. The Fruits of the Holy Ghost

The sanctification of the soul is a progressive work, springing as a tree from a root, rising into a stem and spreading into branches, on which grow twelve fruits. These are mature acts, inspired by the Holy Ghost, and therefore done in and by the power of sanctifying grace. S. Ambrose says that virtuous acts are called fruits, because they refresh the doers of them with a pure delight.

Our Lord has said, ' I am the Vine, ye are the branches.' He is the root on which we are grafted. The stem of the vine is the life of solid steadfast faith, guided and guarded and made perfect by the manifold working of the seven gifts, and bearing twelve fruits.

' A good tree cannot bring forth evil fruits, neither can an evil tree bring forth good fruits... By their fruits ye shall know them.'1 1 S. Matt. vii. 18, 20.

Now these fruits are distinct from the virtues of faith, hope, and charity, inasmuch as they are acts; and again from the gifts, inasmuch as they result from them. They are the product both of the virtues and of the gifts, as the fruits on a tree are the product and result of the life and sap and structure of the tree.

They may be therefore defined as certain active perfections of the soul; and they have many qualities, such as abundance, variety, facility, sweetness, and perfection.2

1. They are abundant because they grow upon and clothe the relations of the soul with God, with others, and with ourselves with manifold excellences of action and of motives. S. Paul counts up twelve distinct fruits of the Holy Ghost.3 And S. John describes ' the tree of life, bearing twelve fruits, yielding its fruits every month,'4 which is a vision of the fruitfulness of the Church, and of every soul in sanctifying

2 S. Thomae, Sum. Theol. 1. 2, q. 70. » Gal. v. 22, 23. « Apoc. xxii. 2.

grace. The productive principle of all these gifts is charity, which is the motive and the measure and the maturity of all actions acceptable to God.

Now these twelve fruits may be distinguished into three classes, not that they are separate, or that they do not interchange their relations; but in the main they may be regarded as follows:

(1) There are three that have their relation chiefly towards God, namely, a. first, charity, by which we are united and con formed to Him. It is charity towards God that kindles in us a zeal for His Name and His service, b. And next joy, which if it be not in God is false and deluding, c. And thirdly, peace. There is no peace unless it begins in God, and rests in God. Therefore S. Paul prays, * The God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing.'5 Joy is full of thankfulness, springing from a consciousness of God's love and presence; and peace is the sense of His forgiveness, • Rom. xv. 13.

and of our own inward quiet of heart, free from the disturbance of desires, of dependence on creatures, and of murmuring against our lot.

(2) The next six relate to our neighbour.

a. Patience with his faults; b. benignity towards his weakness; c. goodness in act towards those who need; d. longanimity in bearing with provocations and disappoint ments; e. mildness when offended; /. and faith or fidelity in all our promises, engage ments, and duties to others.

(3) Finally, there are three that are re lated to ourselves, a. Modesty, which in cludes custody of the senses, delicacy of heart, and moderation in all lawful things;

b. continence, which controls passion, temper, desire, and love of pleasure; c. and chastity, in thought, word, and deed.

Wheresoever sanctifying grace is in the soul, the germs of all these are. Some may be more visible and more mature; but none will be absent. They clothe the soul in all its relations and aspects with the armour of

God over the white raiment of innocence, penance, and sanctity.

The Psalmist says that the just man is like the tree planted by the river of water, which brings forth its fruit in due season: its leaf shall not wither.6 That is, the spiritual life of the Church is inexhaustible, ever fresh and green. The inventiveness of charity is boundless. Mankind stood bare and dry as a tree blighted and dead, when all around it a new and exuberant life broke up about its roots. When the disciples had all things common they needed a sacred order of deacons to distribute their mani fold charity. So in all the Church, and in all its ages, the sick and the dying, the widows and orphans, the innocent who are in peril, the penitent who are outcast, the poor who cannot help themselves, have called out into exercise the manifold inventiveness and the fruitful ministries of charity.

2. Another quality of these fruits, as 6 Ps. i.

S. Ambrose says, is sweetness to those who do them. They are more than their own reward. They bring with them an appreciation of God, as the reward of every thing done in charity; a consciousness of the love of the Sacred Heart and of His generosity to us, and also a sensible love of our neighbour, which grows as we serve him, or deny ourselves for his sake. And this inward sweetness grows not so much by acquisition as by infusion. It is a gift and a reward from God: ' Thou hast pre vented him/ that is, before he sought Thee, ' with the benedictions of sweetness.'7 And as the growth and ripening of fruits in sum mer and in autumn are gradual and silent, so in the spiritual life. Whatsoever we do willingly we do with facility, and whatso ever we do with facility we do with sweetness. At first many things are hard to learn, but when mastered they are easy. The crossing of our own will, the giving up of cherished desires, the choosing of a hard ' Ps. xx. 4.

lot in life — such as poverty, labour, solitude, mortification of the temper, the mind, and the will, — all these are hard at first; but when we learn to do them for God, and can daily say, 'Lord, I do this for Thee,' they become easier, and a sweetness is shed upon them by an unseen hand. We may then begin to understand the words, ' How great is the multitude of Thy sweetness, which Thou hast hid from them that fear Thee.'8

3. Lastly, these twelve fruits give a completeness to the spiritual life. S. Paul says that ' charity is the bond of perfection.'* It is as a girdle that gathers hi and binds all our spiritual life together. The whole range of our thoughts is ordered by it; even our first thoughts of others, and of their actions, and of their characters, will be charitable. It will only be upon deliberation and proof and necessity that we shall see and find fault with them. When the heart is united with God all its first acts are benign. A heart full of charity makes a head • Ps. xxx. 20. 9 Col. iii. 14.

M full of just interpretations and of kindly judgments; and if our thoughts, which are to so great an extent spontaneous and indeHberate, are charitable, much more will our deliberate thoughts be restrained by charity; and if charity governs our motives, it will also prompt our desires. Every inward act of faith, hope, charity, is a work of the Holy Ghost. Though it may never be put into effect, it is accepted before God. The daily desire that His Name may be hallowed by us, and in us, and by all men; that His king dom may come and may reign in all hearts; that His will may be done by men as by the Angels; the zeal for His house, for His Priesthood, for the souls redeemed in the most Precious Blood; the will to spend and to be spent for the elects' sake; — all these are fruits of the Holy Ghost, sweet and precious, and the pledges of an eternal reward.

There are two thoughts which follow from what has been said.

1. The first thought is one of fear: how sinful it is to bear no fruit, to be as the barren fig-tree.

After all that God has done for us He has just rights to look for fruits in us. He washed us from original sin in baptism, and He may strictly require of us the fruits of innocence: or if we fail of this, then the fruits of penance, and through penance the fruits of justice and thankfulness and generosity and filial love.

And if, when He comes to search among the leaves and the show of our outward life, He find no fruit, or only a few fruits here and there, and those tasteless and unripe, or wild and bitter, after all His husbandry and all His patience, how great and how just is His disappointment; and how great, too, our ingratitude and our sin. If, after so many graces, and absolutions, and Com munions, and inspirations, and impulses, and warnings, and chastisements; if, after so many merciful visitations, in which the pruning-knife has been busy to make us fruitful, and the intercession, ' Let it alone this year also,' has gone up and gained for us a time of conversion to God; if, after all this, we be found still barren, how just the sentence, ' Cut it down; why cumbereth it the ground?'

2. The other thought is one of joy: how great the reward of the fruitful.

Even in this life God will multiply the charity, joy, and peace which flow from Him as light and sweetness into the least and the humblest who serve Him faithfully. They have been ' sealed by the Holy Spirit of promise.'10 The indelible spiritual characters of the sons of God, of the good soldiers of Jesus Christ, and of the priests of eternal propitiation, have been impressed upon them; and ' God knoweth those that are His, having this seal/n

He will keep them to the end, and even in this life shelter them in the secret of His presence; and in the life to come the measure of their reward shall be as the measure of their charity and the abundance of the «• Eph..13. "2 Tim. ii. 19.

fruits they bore in His service. ' To him that overcometh will I give to eat of the tree of life, which is in the Paradise of my God.'1*

But these fruits are chiefly measured, not by quantity but by quality. Knowledge, eloquence, prophecies, alms, miracles, martyr doms, without charity, are nothing before God. A cup of cold water, a mite, a kind word, a desire for His glory, though, through want of power, never accomplished, — these are as the fine gold tried in the fire, in His sight.

And yet all this is but the active perfection of the soul. There is still to come a passive perfection, which is, like the divine perfection upon Calvary, higher and more precious before God.

0 my Lord Jesus Christ, who in Thy most

Precious Blood hast purchased for me the fruits of the Holy Ghost, suffer me not to defraud Thy Holy Passion of its fruit in me.

12 Apoc. ii. 7

Let me never be smitten with barrenness by Thy most just sentence. Let me never be cut down for cumbering the ground; but, if need be, let the sharp knife of Thy loving care prune and take away all that hinders my sanctification. Make the fruits of justice to grow in me, that to Thee, my neighbour, and myself I may be fruitful in every good word and work. God the Holy Ghost, sanctify me.

Jesus, have mercy on me.

Holy Mary, pray for me.