Chapter 15. The Fruits of the Spirit

The fruit of the Spirit is charity, joy, peace, patience, benigrity goodness, longanimity, mildness, faith, modesty, continency chastity. GAL. v. 22.

OUR Lord speaks of these fruits of the Spirit in the parable of the true vine. He says, as you remember, " I am the true vine, and My Father is the husbandman; and every branch in Me that beareth not fruit He taketh away, and every branch that beareth fruit He purgeth, that it may bring forth more fruit. Abide in Me, and I in yon; except the branch abide in the vine, it cannot bring forth fruit; without Me you can do nothing."* That is to say, we are all of us, by our regeneration, grafted into Jesus Christ. As the branches are grafted into the stem of the tree, and derive from it their life, their sap, and their fruitfulness, so every soul that is " born again of water and of the Holy Ghost,1' f being inhabited by the Holy Spirit of God, lives by union with Jesus Christ and bears these spiritual fruits. The Apostle counts up twelve fruits of the Spirit; and these constitute the active perfection of the Christian life. Besides the fruits of the Holy Ghost, * 8. John xvi. 1-S. f Ib. iii. 5.

there are the Eight Beatitudes, which constitute the passive and final perfection of the Christian soul.

My purpose now is to speak of these fruits of the Holy Ghost.

There is a distinction to be drawn between the fruits of the Holy Ghost and the three virtues of faith, hope, and charity, and the Seven Gifts. As we have reason, and will, and love, which are the primary faculties of the natural soul, so we have faith, and hope, and charity, which may be called the faculties of the soul that is born again. But the fruits are distinct from these. The virtues are faculties or powers whereby we are capable of bearing these fruits. So again the gifts are distinct from these twelve fruits. For the gifts of the Holy Ghost are certain helps of the Holy Spirit given to assist us in the exercise of faith, hope, and charity. The seven gifts of the Holy Ghost are not acquired by practice; they are infused into the soul. They are supernatural gifts which come from the Creator of all things, and by the help of His grace they are elicited into exercise, and they flow into the acts of faith, hope, and charity. But the fruits of which I have spoken are therefore distinct from these seven gifts. What, then, are they I They are the ripe and full product of the vine, of the three great virtues and the gifts exercised together, producing certain actions in the spiritual life.* Charity is the first of these fruits, and for this reason. There can be no graces, and no gifts, and no

*" Fractals Spiritus est c'ielectatio sen. dulcedo in actu virtutia consistens, Bed ipsa actio virtuosa, jucunda, ex gratia Spiritui Saneti procedens: et ex spiritu rational! elicita et producta." Dionys. Carthusian. Elem. Theol. prop, clvl fruits in any soul that is not u rooted in charily v The soul must be rooted in the love of God and our neighbor, or it can bear no spiritual fruit. And the charity in which the soul is rooted pervades and runs through every gift and fruit, just as the sap from the root spreads through the stem and the branches into every fruit upon the vine.

"We will now take for our subject this active perfection of the soul. Our Divine Lord has said: " Every tree is known by its fruits: either make the tree good and the fruits good, or make the tree corrupt and the fruits corrupt "f — tnat is to say, be one thing or another. You cannot halt and hesitate between good and evil; if you be found in that middle state you will die eternally. " The axe is laid to the root of the tree. Every tree therefore that doth not yield good fruit ia '3ut down and cast into the fire."J You remember the parable of the barren fig-tree; how the lord of the vine yard came and turned over the leaves year after year, to find fruit upon the tree, on which he had bestowed so much care, and finding none, he said, " Cut it down, why cumbereth it the ground? '' §

Therefore it is a matter vital to us all to know whether or no we are bearing fruits to our Lord. li we are not bearing the fruits of the Spirit, we are bearing the fruits of the flesh; if we are not bearing the fruits of eternal life, we are bearing the fruits of eternal death. There is no middle state.

1. What, then, are the signs and the tests by which we filial! know what fruits we are bearing? Tbp fruit

» Bph. iii. 17. f S. Matt. xii. 33.¹

of the Spirit is charity, joy, peace, and all the twelve here named. See the fertility and the fruitfdlness of the soul that is in a state of grace, and therefore in the love of God. First of all, here is the relation ol the soul with God Himself; charity is the love which unites us with God; joy, which means the thanksgiving and the consciousness of God's infinite goodness, in which we live and move; peace, whereby we are at rest with God, and in ourselves, and with all mankind. And, secondly, there are the fruits which have relation to our neighbor, and the first is patience. Do we bear with our neighbors? Are we irritable, revengeful, resentful, malicious? If so, the fruits of the Holy Ghost are not in us, because the benignity of God is not in us. Next comes goodness; as a fountain pours out pure water, so the good heart is perpetually pouring out goodness and diffusing goodness on all around. Longanimity is another name for patience. Just as equity is the most delicate form of justice, longanimity is the most perfect form of chanty, the perpetual radiance of a loving heart which, in its dealings with all who are round about, looks kindly upon them and judges kindly of their faults. Longanimity means also perseverance, the not being wearied in well-doing, not throwing up and saying, ' I have tried to do good for such a one, I have tried to correct his faults, I have tried to win him; but he is ungrateful, he is incorrigible, and I will have no more to do with him." Our Lord does not so deal with us. Longanimity means an unwearied perseverance in doing good. Faith means veracity, so that a man's word is as good as an oath. Mildness means gentleness, kindness, and forbearance, the dissembling of wrong, the absence of the fire of resentment and of the smoldering of ill-will. And then, lastly, there are certain fruits which have relation to ourselves. They are, first of all, modesty, which is both within and without — modesty of bearing, modesty of conduct, of dress, of demeanor, a chastened and sensitive regard for others in all that is due from us to them, which keeps us from obtrusiveness, and from transgressing the delicate consideration which is their right. There is also a modesty which means a moderation in the use of all things, the setting a bound and a limit even upon tilings that are lawful — " All things to me are lawful, but all things are not expedient; '' and again, " All things edify not." Continence means most especially the repressing of passions — the passion of anger, the inclination to pleasure, to honor, to wealth, and to graver things which I need not name. Chastity is the transparent purity of the sonl and the custody of the senses, because they are the avenues to the soul by which sin enters.

Such, then, in few words, are the twelve truths of tho Holy Ghost. And every soul that is in the grace of God has in it this fertility. It may not bear them all in equal measure, but it bears them all in some proper tion.

2. Then, secondly, see the variety of these fruits. The description that the Apostle gives of the life of our Divine Lord when He was upon earth is this: " He went about doing good:"f that is, the life of our Lord in this world was spent from first to last in doing good to others; in bearing everywhere and towards all mei. a loving heart. His hands were always executing the * 1 COT, vi, 12, 7 28. f Ada x. 38.

promptings of His Sacred Heart. And His Sacred Heart He becpeathed to His Church, which is Hitf mystical Body. The vibration and the pulsation of that Heart of love are felt throughout Christendom. In every work of all good Christians the Sacred Heart is the animating and quickening principle of charity.

Look at the world before the Son of God came into it. Find one institute of mercy in it. Find a hospital, or an asylum for the widow or for the orphan. Find a home for those who were bereft of reason. Find a ministry of charity to the sick. The culture of classical nations was as cold as the ice, as hard as a stone. The Sacred Heart of the Incarnate Son of God cast fire upon the earth. And the Christian world kindled and broke forth into all the works of charity. As soon as the widows and the orphans among those that believed were known to be destitute, the Apostles set apart a special order — the sacred order of Deacons — to be the ministers of the charity of Jesus Christ to His poor. The law of alms came in, which had no existence in the heathen world. The life of community — not the communism of those that do not believe in Jesus Christ, but the community of all things among those who, being members of His Body, have a sympathy one with another, and share in each other's sorrows and joys, and in their hunger, and thirst, and nakedness. The miseries 3f mankind as they were seen by the Son of God Himself are before the eyes of His Church. All the miseries of mankind, of body and soul, are open to the heart that is illuminated and kindled with the love of God and our neighbor. The Church from the beginning has ihown an inventiveness of charity, in finding out how

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\Ojr>T it may apply the help of the love and of the mercies of God to every form of 1mm an suffering.

And what the Church does as a body the saints of the Church have done one by one. The life of Saint Charles, the great pastor of Milan, was inexhaustible in compassion. Saint Yincent of Paul, who did not commence his works of mercy until he was forty years of age, has filled the whole world with the exercise of the most various forms of Christian love, ministering to every form of distress and suffering. And what there is ID the lives of saints there ought to be in its measure hi every one of you. Do not say, " I have a preference for this or for that kind of charity, and I am not called to other things." You are called to show all these fruits of the Holy Ghost on every occasion in which it is possible, at least in some measure or in some degree, and that to all.

3. And then, thirdly, where these fruits are there is a growing facility in bringing them forth: just as the fruit on the vine ripens by a law common to all the growths of nature — which begin in the summer, are made perfect in the autumn, and when they are mellow and full drop into the hands of those that gather them — so is it with the fruits of the Holy Ghost; there is in the heart of every one who lives in the love of God and hia neighbor a certain facility of doing and being all that these fruits describe. And yet we all know too well that we have constantly a repugnance to doing any duty if it be difficult; to persevere in anything that is always a trial to our patience; we make excuses, and we say, " It is very hard; I cannot do it, or I cannot bear it, or I cannot go on with it." What does this prove? That we are not faithful to the Spirit of God Who is in us helping us; that we are not faithful to the light arid the love which is prompting us with all the motives of charity to God and to our neighbor.

And this facility in doing right, from what does it ipring? Chiefly from three things. First, from an appreciation of God above all things; from a knowledge of God's love, of God's goodness, of the reward which is laid up for us, that is, God Himself, who will give Himself to those who bear the fruits of the Holy Ghost in II is service. They who have an appreciation of God have in them a motive power which will carry them over every obstacle, through every opposition. It is the want of this appreciation of God which makes us BO feeble and so faint-hearted, as we all are, in doing what is right. We are ready to sell our Lord for thirty pieces of silver, when the gain of this world comes across us, or for the enjoyment of a little pleasure when it allures us. Therefore we say that duties are hard, because we have not in us this strong mainspring which would carry us through all repugnance and over all difficulties which bar our way.

Secondly, it springs from the love of the Sacred Heart. If we loved the Sacred Heart of Jesus as the source of all our strength and all our hope, if we loved our Lord with a love that is generous as His love to us, and self-denying as His, then there is not one of our hardest duties that we should not do with a promptness and an energy which would overcome all resistance.

And thirdly, it springs from the love of our neighbor. If we really love our neighbor as ourselves — if we have, first of all, a rational love of ourselves, that

THE FRUITS OF THE SPIRIT. Slfi ia, if we know the value of our own soul, and if we are ready to sacrifice everything in the world that we may be saved — then we shall be ready to do all things for our neighbor, just as we shall be ready to do them for ourselves. We read in the life of a true saint, though he is not yet canonized — a layman, not a priest — that he spent his time in visiting the hospitals in France, and that, as he was hanging over the beds of the sick and the dying, even the most repulsive, he used to be heard whispering to himself, " O my Lord, what can I do for Thee? how can I serve Thee?" And then speaking to the sick and dying as if they were Jesus Christ Himself, as seeing his Divine Master in them, he would say, ""What do you desire of me? O Lord, tell me what it is." This it was that carried him through all the repugnance of nature and the repulsiveness of disease.

4. And where there is this facility there is a great sweetness; and, as I began by saying, in the fruits of the Holy Ghost there is a special sweetness or delight mingled with every act that is prompted by the Holy Spirit of God. To do right by the power of grace has in it a sweetness of its own. We know that everything we do with facility we do gladly; everything we do with difficulty is wearisome to us. To learn a new language is a wearisome task, until we can read it, and speak it, and pronounce it. Then, with the facility to do these things, comes a certain sweetness in the exercise of what we have acquired. In learning to play upon a musical instrument, the weary inaptitude of the hand and ear, until they have acquired skill, makes the learning irksome and distasteful; but as soon as the difficulty is overcome, the exercise of what we have acquired has a sweetness in itself. So it is in the ser* vice of God. And if, when we are called to any duty howsoever hard, we could only say, " O my Lord, I do this for Thee; it is for Thee I am doing it, not for myself, not for any human friend, but for my Divine Master; for Thy sake I do it;" or when we are called fco any trial or any pain, if we could say, " O my Lord, it is for Thee I suffer it; I know it is Thy will; therefore for Thy sake I will bear it; and I know that Thou knowest all my motives, Thou art looking on, Thou art listening, Thou knowest all things," — if we only had this consciousness, then whatsoever comes it would be sweet. And besides, whenever any one does an act of duty, there is another sweetness which God Himself will pour out secretly into the heart. We cannot reason about it. But if any one has ever, faithfully and for the love of Jesus Christ, done or suffered anything, he will know that there is a gentle rain of sweetness which conies down in secret upon the heart: as the Psalmist says, " How great is the multitude of Thy sweetness, which Thou hast hidden for them that fear Thee."*

5. And then, lastly, in this consists the active perfection of the soul. 1 say the active perfection, because there is a passive perfection, which does not belong to our present thoughts. The example of Jesus Christ upon the Cross is the example of passive perfection or perfect obedience:ji perfect patience. But what I have tried to describe is the perfection of active charity. And that perfection consists chiefly not in what we do * Psalm zxz. 20.

externally: nor in any outward actions. Just as the essential malice of sin is not in the outward act. It 5* not in the lifting the hand to take the life of a fellow creature, it is in the malicious and murderous intention which lifts the hand, that the sin of murder lies — so also it is with perfection. Perfection is not in the giving of alms — it is in the motive with wliicli we give them. The least things done for the love of our Divine Master may be full in His sight of the richest and the sweetest merit, and the greatest things we may do or suffer, if they are not done in charity, are, as the Apostle says, worth nothing: all these things, even martyrdom, are as nothing unless they spring from the constraining love of Jesus in the heart. And therefore, where these fruits of the Holy Ghost are found, the heart will be loving, compassionate, gentle, kind, forgiving. The first promptings of the thoughts, before they have become deliberate, the very first movements, as it were, which are raised by the conduct of others, will be kindly and charitable; much more so our deliberate thoughts, when we have had a moment to reflect; and such will be therefore the whole habit of the mind. And if the thoughts are such, so will the motives be: the motives which govern the whole life will be motives of love, of chanty, of mercy, of pity, of compassion; and where there are these motives and thoughts of charity there will be desires, large and ardent, which may never be fulfilled, because we have not the power to accomplish them. Every day, in the Lord's Prayer, we say, "Hallowed be Thy Name. Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven;" we open our hearts with desires as wide as the world and as Lasting as eternity. And where the Spirit of God dwells ill the heart there is this fruitftilness of desire. The heart will desire tilings that are as high as heaven. I ask, then, have you this fervent longing for the service of God in you? Have you in your heart an ardent desire to bear the Cross, if need be, in His service? Can you say, " The zeal of Thy house hath eaten me up?"* Can you say in the time of duty, " Behold, I come?"f Can you say, as the Apostle did, " I will most gladly spend, and be spent myself, for your souls," for the service of my Lord and for the elect for whom He died?

I have described to you what are the fruits of the Holy Ghost, what are their motives, and from what they spring.

Now there are two plain conclusions to be drawn.

1. TLe one is this: the danger of the barren soul — of the soul that is bearing no fruit. Remember the words of the master of the vineyard. He planted the fig-tree, he had cultured it, he had dug about it, he had manured it, he had tended it, and appointed one to watch over it. It bore no fruit, and it was cut down. How has God dealt with you? He has given His own Son to die for you, and the Eternal Son of God Incarnate has shed His Precious Blood for you. And God has given the Holy Ghost to you; and the Holy Ghost has dwelt in your heart, and He is in your heart at this moment if you be in a state of grace. If so, what are the rights of God over you? May He not come and look into your hearts for the fruits of innocence? May He not say, " I gave to your soul the graces of baj tisin » S. Joha ii, 17. f Psalm xxxix, 8; Heb. x. 7.

And the innocence of a child of God — where are they? I gave to jour soul the graces of the Holy Ghost, that you might live according to justice — where are the fruits of justice? I have given to your soul the grace of contrition, that you might repent — where are the fruits of penance? I have given to your soul the grace to know My love, to feel the love that I have for you — where is the return of love for love, where is your generosity? I have heaped upon your soul merciea without number, poured out upon it blessings beyond the heart of man to conceive — where is your spirit of thanksgiving or of praise?" These are the rights that God has over you. He may justly expect these things from you. See, then, the disappointment of God. He comes and He finds upon many and many a soul no fruit at all — plenty of leaves, a profusion of show, of fair outward appearance, but no fruit. On others he finds a little fruit, a scanty fruit. After all the abundance of His graces, after all the sunshine, and all the showers, and all the culture that ought to have made us to be saints, He comes and He finds here and there only a scanty fruit; and even that scanty fruit is often vapid and tasteless, because it is borne by constraint, and without love, or generosity, or a pure motive. Or He comes and He finds upon a soul that has been bom again and was once inhabited by the Holy Ghost the.fruits of the flesh — envy, jealousy, hatred, schism, dissension, revelling, drunkenness, all manner of fruits of the flesh, and of the world, and of death. Is not God, then, justly disappointed? And is not our unworthiness incredible, even to our own human hearts? That after all His mercies, and graces, and lon^-suffering, and

S20 THE FRUITS OF THE SPIBIT.

invitations, and rebukes, and chastisements, we should bear the fruits of the flesh and not the fruits of the Spirit. But there has been a voice that has been saying, " Lord, leave it alone this year also;" and we have been spared from year to year, through the intercession of our guardian angel and of our Blessed and Immaculate Mother.

2. And, lastly, dear brethren, see the sweetness of bearing these fruits and the greatness of tht reward. There is a reward even in this life. The love and the blessing of God follow those who bear the fruits of the Spirit all their life long. The multitude of that sweetness comes down upon them every year, and every day, and every hour, and sets its token upon them by the manifestation of His love in the secret outpourings of His peace and joy into their hearts. And even from men, from those among whom they have lived, passing to and fro, ministering to their sorrows and sicknesses in soul and body, what love, what gratitude, what thanksgiving, what sympathy, what prayers do they who are loving and kindly receive. This is the reward on earth. But there is a sweeter reward hereafter. God Himself is " the exceeding great reward"* to all who love and serve Him. And according to the measure of the charity we have exercised here will be oui glory and our bliss hereafter; measured with the most precise and the most just distribution will be the glory and the bliss of eternal life to all those who have here borne, in any n easure, the fruits of the Holy Ghost.

*Gen.xv. 1.

Footnotes

1. S. Matt. iii. 10. § S. Luke xiii 7 ↩