Day 245: Gifts and Fruits of the Holy Spirit (1830-1845)

• It’s Day 245!!

• THE GIFTS AND THE FRUITS OF THE HOLY SPIRIT

• We also have MCNUGGETS!!

• Let’s pray!!

Prayer by Fr. Mike: “Father in Heaven, we do ask you to bless us in the name of our Son, Jesus Christ. We also ask you to receive our thanks, to receive our praise. You are good. You are our Father. You are God. You are the Alpha and the Omega. You are the source of life. And you are the source of life. And you are the source of love. You are the origin. And you are the motive and you are the object of our faith, our hope, and our love. Help us to love you better. Help us to trust you more. Help us to hope in you and your promises this day and every day. In Jesus’ name we pray. Amen”

• So there we have it!!

• THE GIFTS AND FRUITS OF THE HOLY SPIRIT

• The gifts and fruits are two different things

• Paragraph 1830 says, “The moral life of Christians is sustained by the gifts of the Holy Spirit. These are permanent dispositions which make man docile in following the promptings of the Holy Spirit.”

• We NEED these gifts of the Holy Spirit in order to continue to choose the Lord

• Remember when we learned that virtues are habitual dispositions to do the good?

• To tell the truth occasionally does not make me virtuous

• BUT…

• To tell the truth on a regular basis is virtue

• The gifts of the Holy Spirit are not just occasional

• They are PERMANENT dispositions 

• They open us up

• They don’t take over us

• They don’t overwhelm us

• We are not puppets that God controls

• They make us DOCILE

• Which means that we are open to being taught

• Which means that we are open to being moved 

• Which means that we are open to following the promptings of the Holy Spirit

• Paragraph 1831 says, “The seven gifts of the Holy Spirit are wisdom, understanding, counsel, fortitude, knowledge, piety, and fear of the Lord.”

• These are seven sanctifying gifts that help us become holy

• So what do they mean?

• Wisdom, understanding, counsel, and knowledge all sound connected

• What does wisdom do?

• WISDOM draws us to divine things and disposes us to appreciate and value them

• In our culture, we really love information 

• We consider the people who have the most information at their fingertips to be geniuses

• AND YET…

• Wisdom is not just a collection of data and facts

• To be wise is the kind of person who recognizes divine things and be drawn to them

• Wisdom disposes us to appreciate and value them

• The wise person is the one who knows the value of a thing

• UNDERSTANDING empowers our minds to grasp revealed truths

• God revealed Himself and we read Scripture

• If we have the gift of understanding, that means we have the ability to grasp revealed truths

• That is different from wisdom

• Wisdom is I know the value of a thing

• Understanding is I GET IT especially when it comes to the Revelation of God whether it be through Church teaching, or Scripture

• My mind has been empowered to grasp revealed truths

• All these gifts give us the power to do something

• COUNSEL empowers us to choose and act successfully in concrete situations

• These first three-wisdom, understanding, and counsel-are all connected but they are not the same

• Someone who is a good counselor is someone who can help you in concrete situations to choose and act successfully in concrete situations

• Wisdom means we can value things correctly

• Understanding means we can grasp revealed truths

• Counsel means we have the ability to choose and act successfully in concrete situations

• KNOWLEDGE enables us to judge rightly the place of created things

• FORTITUDE is inspired courage

• It is not just my own courage, being a brave man or woman

• It is INSPIRED courage

• GOD-BREATHED courage provided by the Holy Spirit so that we can persevere in the service of God

• PIETY is reverence for God the Father, which enables us to worship in spirit and in truth

• It is the Holy Spirit’s gift that leads us to worship and to give God His due

• FEAR OF THE LORD is a profound respect for the Divine Majesty and fear of offending Him through sin

• We want to love God because He is deserving of love

• We should fear offending Him because He is so good, because He is love

• Fr. Mike is telling a story about FOCUS, Fellowship Of Catholic University Students…

• Paragraph 1831 continues, “They belong in their fullness to Christ, Son of David. They complete and perfect the virtues of those who receive them. They make the faithful docile in readily obeying divine inspirations. Let your good spirit lead me on a level path. For all who are led by the Spirit of God are sons of God…If children, then heirs, heirs of God and fellow heirs with Christ.”

• Paragraph 1832 says, “The fruits of the Spirit are perfections that the Holy Spirit forms in us as the first fruits of eternal glory. The tradition of the Church lists twelve of them: ‘charity, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, generosity, gentleness, faithfulness, modesty, self-control, chastity.’”

• What does this mean?

• Think about fruits, these gifts given to us from the Lord

• They empower us

• They enable us

• They inspire us

• The fruits come forth from us because of a life lived pursuing Jesus

• A life lived in the Spirit

• A life lived in the person of Christ

• We are trying to be like Jesus on a regular basis, so these are the fruits that will grow 

• Let’s listen to Fr. Mike’s orange tree analogy…

• Are we living a life deeper and deeper in Christ?

• We can evaluate this by asking if we have more or less charity than we had before?

• Do we have more or less joy in our lives

• Is there more or less peace in our lives?

• Have we grown in patience, or are we more impatient?

• Have we grown in kindness, or are we less kind?

• Have we grown in goodness, or are we less good?

• Have we grown in generosity, or are we scrooges?

• Have we grown in gentleness, or are we less gentle?

• Have we grown in faithfulness, or are we less faithful?

• Have we grown in modesty, or are we less modest?

• Have we grown in self-control, or are we out of control?

• Have we grown in chastity, or are we less chaste?

• These are the signs of a person living in Christ, walking in the Power of the Holy Spirit

• These are the gifts God wants to give to YOU

• GOD LOVES YOU!!

• God wants to give you these GIFTS of the Holy Spirit

• God also wants to bring forth in you these FRUITS

• We might not be able to bring them all at once

• We might not have clear evidence of all 12 of these fruits of the Spirit in our lives at the same time

• BUT…

• It could be a season of growing in chastity or modesty

• It could be challenged to grow in faithfulness

• The spiritual fruit comes about in our lives when we need it 

• So here is the fruit of patience

• We are being tested in the sense of being trained

• Our patience is being tested and now it has an opportunity to grow

• Or maybe our faithfulness is under strain and therefore our faithfulness has an opportunity to grow

• Maybe it’s modesty

• Maybe we’ve been convicted about being modest in our speech, behavior, in how we dress

• Because of that, we are being tested and our modesty can grow

• We might not be working on all 12 of the spiritual fruits at any given moment

• But they are all happening

• Just because there are no oranges on the tree yet, does not mean they aren’t growing

• It just means we don’t see them yet

• BE PATIENT!!

• Be patient in asking God for those gifts of the Holy Spirit

• Be patient in allowing God to bring forth in your life those fruits of the Holy Spirit

• God wants to give you those gifts

• God wants to bring forth in you those fruits

• We keep saying, “Lord, give me those gifts of the Holy Spirit. You knit them together, unite them in love, so that those fruits of the Holy Spirit can be made manifest in my life and in your life.”

• Fr. Mike is praying FOR YOU!!

• Please pray for Fr. Mike and for each other!!

• I cannot WAIT to see you when I see you!!