The fruits of the Holy Spirit in the soul

 


When the soul is docile to the inspirations of the Holy Spirit, it becomes the good tree that makes itself known by its fruits. These fruits season the Christian life and are a manifestation of the glory of God: by this my Father will be glorified, that you bear much fruit,1 as the Lord will say at the Last Supper.


These supernatural fruits are countless. St. Paul, by way of example, points out twelve fruits, the result of the gifts that the Holy Spirit has instilled in our soul: charity, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, long-suffering, gentleness, meekness, faith, modesty, continence and chastity.


In the first place is love, charity, which is the first manifestation of our union with Christ. It is the tastiest of fruits, the one that makes us experience that God is near, and the one that tends to lighten the burden on others. Delicate and operative charity with those who live with us or work in our same tasks is the first manifestation of the action of the Holy Spirit in the soul: "there is no sign or mark that distinguishes the Christian and the one who loves Christ as the care of our brothers and zeal for the salvation of souls".


The first and principal fruit of the Holy Spirit "necessarily follows joy, for he who loves rejoices in union with the beloved". Joy is a consequence of love; therefore, the Christian is distinguished by his joy, which remains above pain and failure. How much good the joy of Christians has done in the world! "To rejoice in trials, to smile in suffering..., to sing with the heart and with a better accent the longer and more piercing the thorns are (...) and all this for love... this is, together with love, the fruit that the divine Vinedresser wants to gather in the branches of the mystical Vine, fruit that only the Holy Spirit can produce in us ".


Love and joy leave in the soul the peace of God, which surpasses all knowledge6; it is - as St. Augustine defines it - "tranquility in order ". There is the false peace of disorder, like that which reigns in a family in which the parents always give in to the whims of the children, under the pretext of "having peace"; like that of the city which, with the excuse of not wanting to antagonize anyone, lets the wicked commit their misdeeds. Peace, fruit of the Holy Spirit, is the absence of agitation and the rest of the will in the stable possession of the good. This peace supposes a constant struggle against the disordered tendencies of one's passions.



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