THE TWELVE FRUITS
OF THE HOLY SPIRIT

We often hear of the seven gifts of the Holy Spirit: Piety, Wisdom, Knowledge, Understanding, Counsel, Fortitude, and the Fear of the Lord. Indeed we have a page and a podcast  asking for those gifts in prayer! But did you know that when you apply these gifts to your endeavors in this life, they can bear very good fruit?

St. Paul, in his letter to the Galatians (5:22-23) lists 12 fruits of the Holy Spirit urging his readers to live and walk by the Spirit to experience the emotional peace we can enjoy from them.

(Note: the original Douay-Rheims Bible lists 12 fruits whereas our versions today such as the Navarre Bible, the New American Bible, and the Ignatius Study Bible, list 9, capturing the essence of the full 12). The specific name of each fruit is printed in italics below.

O Holy Spirit, eternal love of the Father and the Son! Deign to grant me the fruit of charity, that it may unite me to Thee by means of love; The fruit of joy, that it may fill me with a holy happiness even in the midst of affliction; the fruit of peace that it may give me tranquility in my conscience; the fruit of patience, that it may make me love the cross and help me to bear it; the fruit of benignity, that it may incline me to relieve the necessities of my neighbor; the fruit of goodness, that it may help me to show Christ’s goodness to others; the fruit of long suffering, that it may maintain me in patience in the midst of opposition; the fruit of mildness, that it may make me endure tranquilly whatever there may be in my neighbor to cause me annoyance; the fruit of faith, that it may permeate me with respect and love for the word of God; the fruit of modesty, that it may regulate all my external acts; the fruit of continency that it may preserve my body in holiness; and the fruit of chastity, that my heart remaining ever pure in this world, I may deserve to see Thee in the mansions of Thy glory. Amen.

Note that in many of these petitions, we are asking for perseverance in good intentions, along with equanimity which helps us to keep our emotions on an even keel in both good times and bad! Both perseverance and equanimity may be said to be the fruit of patience, fruits of the fruit, as it were!

Jesus spoke on several occasions, twice in Matthew’s Gospel and once in Luke's, about our being able to discern good and evil in others in a very specific manner. Namely, that a bad tree cannot bear good fruit any more than a good tree can bear bad fruit (Luke 6:43-44) (Matt 7:16-20).

In the Sermon on the Mount our Lord reminds us famously that “By their fruits you shall know them” (Matt 7:20). He also warns us that unrepentant sinners (the bad trees, as it were) risk eternal damnation, as “every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire” (Matt 7:19).

Before listing the fruits of the Holy Spirit, St. Paul exhorts the Galatians to “walk by the Spirit, and do not gratify the desires of the flesh. For the desires of the flesh are against the Spirit, and the desires of the Spirit are against the flesh; for these are opposed to each other, to prevent you from doing what you would” (Gal 5:16-17).

Note that this doesn’t mean that we must think of any bodily desires as being irrevocably inimical to our salvation. After all we are a Blessed composite of body and soul.

And what’s more the Church’s seven sacraments all involve form and matter. As the 16th century Catechism of the Council of Trent puts it “Every Sacrament consists of two things, matter, which is called the element, and form, which is commonly called the word.”

(Think of the water used in Baptism as the words of that rite are spoken, for example; or, appropriately enough, the words “be sealed with the gift of the Holy Spirit” when those receiving the sacrament of Confirmation are anointed with the Holy Oil of Chrism!)

We read in the very beginning of John’s Gospel that, after all, with Jesus’ birth “the Word became flesh and dwelt among us.” (John 1:14). Or, as the great author C.S. Lewis put it, in his rightly celebrated book Mere Christianity, God “likes matter. He invented it.”

Contrary to the heresies of Gnosticism, in the 1st and 2nd centuries, and Albigensianism in the 11th century, both of which taught that matter was inherently evil, we are to pursue the great Cardinal Virtue of Temperance when dealing with material goods, with created things. We can enjoy such pleasures as food, drink, acquiring possessions, and marital relations for example, but we must do so in moderation with self-control.

After all, as St. Paul expressed it so well in his first letter to the Corinthians ”your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you, which you have from God” (1 Cor 6:19). As such, we must not profane it with the bodily and emotional abuse that comes from engaging in grave sins.

Granted that throughout our lives we are subject to all sorts of sinful temptations, but keep in mind, that, as Saint Paul also said in his first letter to the Corinthians, “God is faithful, and will not permit you to be tempted beyond your strength, but with the temptation, will also give you a way out, that you may be able to bear it” (1 Cor 10:13).

St. Paul also lists the tragic vices that come from immoderate pursuit of worldly goods and pleasures before listing the fruits of the Holy Spirit mentioned earlier. 

We are not to be deceived, to find ourselves ensnared by the supposed allure of licentiousness, jealousy, selfishness, idolatry enmities, drunkenness, carousing and similar traps that are inimical to our salvation. When we make our best effort each day to turn away from these vices we open the door for Christ to give us His great peace through His Spirit!

Remember that grave sins not only estrange us from God, but, one way or another, we are weighted down by them; and they estrage us from each other as well, by the way we may find ourselves in trouble from them (as in an auto accident from driving having had too much to drink, an illicit affair with a coworker, or just battling with depression from various addictions, for example).

Just the burden of having a guilty conscience from such sins keeps us from having a tranquil one from the fruit of peace mentioned in the prayer above. How many times for instance do we let envy cloud our judgment of others in resentful covetousness? How often do we let greed and selfishness endanger not only our temporal well-being, but our eternal souls as well?

Remember that our lives here on earth are by no means the be all and end all of our existence. Rather, they are the brief but momentous introduction to our Eternity either in the unbounding joy of heaven or the horrifying misery of Hell, depending on how we have cooperated with God's grace, in loving obedience to His great laws of love, embodied in the Ten Commandments, in our lives!

How many times have you felt like a great weight was lifted off from you in Confession where you’ve had the guilt of your sins forgiven rather than just explained away in therapy, for example, as pointed out by the late Archbishop Fulton J. Sheen.

This is not to dismiss all therapy out of hand of course, but without turning to God in distress, our emotional wounds become that much harder to heal!

It is no wonder that St. Paul urges us in his letter to the Galatians to be able to turn away from our sinful natures so that we may enjoy the fruits of the Holy Spirit. As he expressed it so well, then “if we live by the Spirit, let us also walk by the Spirit” (Gal 5:25).

That way, we may be on a firmer footing, in our journey towards heaven, to one day see God as mentioned in the prayer above, in the mansions of His Glory!

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