Are you and I producing fruit?

"By this my Father is glorified, that you bear much fruit," says Jesus at the Last Supper.

These supernatural fruits are countless. St. Paul indicates twelve of them which the Holy Spirit infuses into our soul as we are yielded to Him: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, gentleness, self-control, faithfulness, modesty, continence, and chastity.

In this blog, I thought I would pass on some keen insights on these gifts as shared by Francis Fernandez (from his devotional, In Conversation with God):

First is love (or charity), the first sign of our union with Christ. There is no sign or mark which distinguishes the Christian and the lover of Christ greater than the care of our brothers and sisters and zeal for the salvation of souls.

Joy is the result of love: therefore the Christian is distinguished by his joy, which persists through sorrow and failure.

Love and joy leave in the soul a peace which passes all understanding. St. Augustine defines peace as tranquility in order. Peace is the absence of unrest and the repose of the will in the stable possession of the good. This peace supposes a constant battle waged upon the disordered tendencies of one's own passions.

Where there are obstacles in this life to producing the fruits of love, joy and peace, the Paraclete produces the fruit of patience. So one is led to bear with serenity the physical and moral sufferings of this life. Christians should see in these things the loving hand of God, who uses them to purify those He loves and to sanctify them for His purposes. This is why the strong Christian does not lose their peace when they meet with illness, contradiction, the defects of others - not even with their own spiritual failures. If we persevere in patience and carry on in the firm conviction that the Lord wills something, signs of a Christian revolution will appear all around us. Some will follow the call, others will take their interior life more seriously...

Kindness is precisely that disposition of the heart which inclines us to do good to others. This fruit is shown in myriad works of mercy, both corporal and spiritual, which Christians carry out all over the world. In our own life it is shown in the thousand details of service which we offer to those with whom we live and work each day. Kindness inspires us to bring peace and joy wherever we go and to have a constant disposition to be understanding and affable.

Gentleness is united to goodness and opposes those barren outbursts of anger, which really are signs of weakness. Faithfulness follows gentleness: the faithful person fulfills all duties, even the smallest, and is trusted by others. To be faithful is one way of living justice and charity.

The last three fruits which Paul enumerates refer to the virtue of temperance: modesty, continence and chastity. A modest person knows how to behave serenely and properly in each situation, appreciating the talents he or she possesses without magnifying or minimizing them. This fruit is reflected in that person's outward carriage: in his mode of speech and dress; in his dealings with others in social situations. Modesty is attractive because it bespeaks simplicity and inner order. Continence and chastity give beauty to Christian life and dispose the soul to rendering itself to God first and then to others.

Thank you Francis Fernandez for inspiring us to cultivate these fruits, given to us by the Holy Spirit, the Lord and giver of Life! Now go be a saint!