The Fruit of the Spirit is Love

Introduction: The Fruit of the Spirit

Great power is released in us when we open our lives to the work of the Holy Spirit.

• Not only power like Jesus and the Apostles, and others have to preach boldly, and to heal the sick, cast out evil spirits and other such things;
• But most precious are the spiritual gifts that help us grow in holiness, and make us Christ-like. We mentioned yesterday some such gifts like knowledge, understanding and counsel, whereby the Holy Spirit reveals to us the things of God, gives us new insights, a new understanding of the Scriptures, as well as counsel about what we should do to please God and grow in holiness.

When we walk in the Spirit, it shows in our life. Jesus said "By their fruit you shall know them." (Mt 7:16) The sign that we are true Christians is that we love God and one another. And that we practice the Christian virtues. These are the things that make us holy and Christ-like and pleasing to God.

St. Paul calls these virtues THE FRUITS OF THE SPIRIT. When we are led by the Spirit, we are like a good tree that produces good fruit. St. Paul mentions nine such qualities of the Christian in Galatians 5:22: "The fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control." We could say, really, that all the Christian virtues flourish in one who has sanctifying grace and lives by the Spirit.

Obviously, we cannot speak of all those virtues mentioned by Paul. I would like to focus on three: love, joy and peace. We begin today with love.

The first fruit of the Spirit is love. What Christian love is:

• not a feeling (something sentimental, romantic)
• not selfish thing: being kind to people to get a reward; or for the good feeling it gives us, or so that people will think well of us;
• but, a spiritual love, an unselfish love: thus, we love not only good and nice people, but even unpleasant ones, even our enemies. Only by the grace of God can we love that way. It is the work of the Holy Spirit in us.

Christian love has a special name in the Bible: it is called charity.

• Charity is loving God, first of all; then, loving our neighbor, because of God. If we have a good friend, we will love his wife, his children and be kind to them, for the sake of our friend. So we love our fellowmen, even unpleasant and unlikable people, because they are God's children and God loves every one of them. To love our neighbor like that is being Christ-like, and that is a fruit of the Spirit in us. The Holy Spirit works to make us in the likeness of Christ, if we allow ourselves to be led by him, give him a free hand. He is the sanctifier. We do not become holy by our own efforts, but by the work of the Holy Spirit in us.
• Charity is first being in love with God himself. Some people pay little attention to God, but they try to be good to their fellowmen and they think God is pleased with them. How would you feel if your children were good to one another, but showed no affection or concern for you, their parents?

Now, what is loving God?

• Is it keeping the commandments? doing God's will?

• That is NOT the love of God; rather the RESULT, the SIGN that we love God.
• As Jesus said, "If anyone loves me, he will keep my commandments." (Jn 14:23) If you love me, prove it. We prove our love of God by doing his will. This is only one of many ways of showing our love.
• Is it helping the poor, giving alms, or doing any other works of mercy?

• These are again just external signs of our love of God. The love of God is something in our heart.
• Doing all those good works of mercy is not even always a sign that we love God. We can do them either out of pride, like the Pharisees, who prayed in public to be seen, or for selfish reasons: to feel good about ourselves: "I've done this and that."
• What then is loving God?

• Concern for the others, for God. Wanting the good of another. To seek to please God. Like Jesus, who said, "I do always what is pleasing to my Father" (Jn 8:29) Not because I want to go to heaven! Just to please him.
• Loving is when my heart goes out to you. I love God that way. We're not yet talking about doing anything for him. We just love.
• We might say: love is finding your delight in someone. Your heart goes out to him. He's just wonderful. You like to be in his presence. To converse with him. God the Father so loved his son Jesus that he declared at his Baptism and when he was transfigured on Mt. Tabor: "This is my beloved Son in whom I am well pleased." (Mt 3:17; Mt 17:5) The Father delighted in his Son. His heart went out to him. That's love, pure love.

When I love a creature, I want his good, I want to make him happy. I want to do something for his good and happiness. With God, it's different. He is all-good, all-perfect. I cannot desire for him any greater good or happiness. So what do I do?

• I rejoice in his infinite goodness and happiness. I am happy just to see him so good, perfect, happy. That's loving God. A beautiful working of the Spirit
• I also want to praise him. That's what Charismatics like to do: just sing, proclaim how great and wonderful our God is! As in the beautiful song: "How great thou art!" That's loving God just for what he is. We do like Mary: "My soul proclaims the greatness of the Lord and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior..." And she recounts the wonderful things God has done for her, for his people.
• I want to keep company with him: Just be with him whom my heart loves. Like Mary, the sister of Martha and Lazarus, who delighted in sitting at the feet of Jesus. Contemplation...
• We want to tell the whole world about our beloved! Make him known, tell everybody how great and wonderful he is, that others may love him too. That's how love leads to witnessing about God, about Jesus.
• Then, we want to work for his kingdom, and seek his glory. All the first series of petitions of the "Our Father": Hallowed be thy name (praise God), Thy kingdom come (may all people come to know, love and serve you), Thy will be done (obedience, keeping the commandments).
• Finally, because we love God., we also love our neighbor, we see Jesus in our brothers & sisters.

An obstacle to loving God and neighbor: not loving ourselves.

• Jesus said: we must "Love God with all your heart, and our neighbor as yourself.
• So many people don't love themselves. So sad! Poor self-image, self-esteem. They feel nobody likes them, not even God.
• How can such people love anyone, even God? So insecure, so concerned about themselves, so self-centered… Why me - They cannot be concerned with others very much. Not out-going
• Only when they are healed of this poor self-image, when they begin to love themselves - feel good about themselves, can they begin to forget themselves and become out-going, love others, love God. Until then, they are spiritually crippled, incapable of love.

Conclusion. Love, charity is the heart of the Gospel, of Jesus' teachings. When it blossoms in us, we can see the most beautiful fruit of the Holy Spirit in our life.

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