Robert Barron - The Fruit of the Spirit
Peace be with you. Friends, this is the great feast of Pentecost, the greatest, alongside of Christmas and Easter, greatest of the Liturgical Year, the Feast of the Holy Spirit, and we celebrate the first coming of the Spirit upon the Apostles that marvelous day in Jerusalem when they are filled with the Holy Spirit, the tongues of fire; they begin to proclaim now to all the world. It’s the birthday of the Church, Pentecost. So much to think about and talk about. I love the fact that the Holy Spirit manifests himself as a strong driving wind in the First Reading for today. Wind, you know, you can’t really see wind. As the Lord himself said, famously, we don’t know where it’s coming from, where it’s going, and you can’t see it directly.
What do you see, though? The effects of wind. You can see trees blowing in the wind. You can see things pushed along the road by the wind. Great hurricane winds can uproot trees, et cetera. So the power of it is manifested in the effects that we can see. Well, that is a good comparison with the Holy Spirit because Holy Spirit is God. God is invisible; God’s a spirit; we can’t see him directly. We don’t know what his purposes are, where he’s coming from, and what he’s about, but we can see his effects in the world. That’s what happened that first Pentecost morning, is people speaking in different languages and with enthusiasm. They saw the effect the Spirit had on the first Apostles.
So what I want to talk about, though, it’s not the reading for today, but it’s one of my favorite texts, and it’s to this point: Galatians chapter five, beginning verse twenty-two, when St. Paul talks about what he calls the fruits of the Holy Spirit. What are the signs that the Holy Spirit is operative in us? Thomas Aquinas, beautifully, he talks about fruits as the result of life. So a living vine or a plant or a tree gives rise to fruit. So it comes from a life that’s already present. So the fruits come from the life of the Spirit in us. But then, Thomas adds beautifully, fruit is sweet to the taste. And so these signs of the Spirit’s presence are sweet indeed. They’re marvelous additions to life.
So I want to just do a brief reflection on them, but please get out your Bibles when you have a chance, Galatians chapter five, beginning verse twenty-two, and you’ll see a list of these. Let me just say this right away: Over the years, people ask me all the time, «How do I know the will of God? How do I know what God wants me to do»? You might be a seminarian, now, «Do I become a priest or not»? Or anyone asking, «What does God want me to do»? I very often point them to this text, Galatians 5: 22. And now here are the fruits of the Holy Spirit. I’ll say a word about each one. Paul says they are love, joy, peace, long-suffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, and temperance. When you see those nine things, you got a good indication that the Holy Spirit is operative, is alive, and these are the fruits to which the Spirit gives rise.
So, let me take them just one by one. The first one, appropriately, is love. Now, why? Because that’s who the Holy Spirit is. One of the Spirit’s names is Vinculum Amoris, the chain of love, because the Spirit is the love that connects the Father and the Son. The Spirit is the love that God is. So the infallible sign of the Spirit’s presence in us is love. Now, what’s love? Well, love is the ordering of the will toward the good. Thomas Aquinas says that. So the will that’s ordered toward the supreme good of God is in love with God. In love with God, that will loves everything and everybody that God loves, and therefore we say, famously, love is willing the good of the other. It wills the good of God, it rests in it, and then it wills good for all the things and people that God loves.
That’s the great sign of the Holy Spirit. Do you will the good of God? And then do you will the good to all those things and people that God loves? You know, Jesus said, «This is how they will know that you are my disciples, that you love one another». He didn’t say, «They’ll know it because, boy, do you have a command of the catechism,» or «Boy oh boy, do you know theology,» or «Man, you make it to every ecclesiastical event». I’m not bad-mouthing any of those things. I’ve given my life to many of them, but they’re not the primary sign. Those things are all designed to give rise to the primary thing, which is love. If there’s someone who’s, they’re the most religious person I know, but they’re not loving, then religion ain’t working in their case. The Holy Spirit is not alive. That’s the infallible sign.
Now, from this love follows the second fruit of the Holy Spirit, namely joy. Again, Thomas Aquinas says, «Joy comes from possessing the good that you seek». Make sense, right? Your will wants a good. And when it has it, it rejoices in it. The will can seek the absent good, but then it can rejoice in the good possessed. So somebody who’s in love with God, they rejoice. They’re in the presence of the summum bonum, the highest good. And that love, that joy just tend to bubble over. It overflows. It’s been said by the spiritual masters that the flag of the Holy Spirit is joy. I’ve always liked that. You see somebody and they have all kinds of qualities, but they’re not joyful.
That’s a pretty good sign the Holy Spirit’s not living in them. Or someone could be in the worst circumstances; you think, «How could that person be even barely psychologically adjusted, and yet they’re bubbling over with joy»? Because they’re in the presence of the good that they seek. That’s the sign of the Holy Spirit. It doesn’t mean that you’ve got to be emotionally giddy every moment of your life, but it’s that deep sense of abiding joy in the Lord.
Now, love, then joy, and from that follows the next one, which is peace. There’s that great word. Paul, in his Hebrew mind, would’ve been thinking «shalom». «Eirēnē» is the word he uses in Greek. It’s what Jesus says to his disciples after the Resurrection, «Peace be with you». What’s peace? Well, Aquinas says it’s that equanimity that comes from being serenely in the presence of God.
See what he means? If you love God and you’re in possession of God and you have the joy that comes from that, well, whether things are going well or poorly, it’s all right. You’re at peace. Whether you’re rich or poor, whether you’re healthy or sick, it doesn’t really matter because you’re in the presence of the supreme good. That’s why the masters talk about indifference and apathy. Indifference in the spiritual life means, again, whether it’s good or bad outside me, whether it’s I’m rich or poor, it doesn’t matter because I found this equanimity of spirit, this serenity of soul.
Here’s something, everybody, I’ve noticed in certain people in my life. I had a great friend, Monsignor Bill Quinn, of happy memory. Bill was a newly retired seventy-year-old priest when I was a newly ordained twenty-six-year-old priest at St. Paul of the Cross Parish outside Chicago. And Bill and I, despite the age difference and all that, became great friends. And he was a very wise man. And I would often go to his room and talk to him about the struggles I was having or pastoral difficulties. I was just a beginner, you know. And Bill always sat in this old, beat-up leather chair, but he did instruct me indeed and tell me things I needed to know.
But the abiding sense I got from Bill Quinn was peace. I always came away just feeling peaceful, because he was a man from whom the fruits of the Holy Spirit were dropping, it was dropping off the tree. But peace was his great marker. I think too of my dear friend Father Paul Murray, the Dominican spiritual writer based in Rome. I see Paul whenever I go to Rome. We always have lunch or dinner together. And I brought perfect strangers to dinner, never met him before, and they’ll say the same thing: «I don’t know what it is, I just feel peace coming from this man». And that’s a fruit of the Holy Spirit, when you’re in love with God.
Now, what follows from those three? Well, the fourth one, in the lovely old King James translation, it’s called «long-suffering». We call it «patience» today. Patience. Look, if the Holy Spirit’s in you, that means your life’s all about love. It’s about willing the good of the other. And that means you’re willing to put up with a lot. Do you know how one of the spiritual works of mercy, one of my favorites, is called «bearing patiently the troublesome», putting up with annoying people? Well, see, because you’re not primarily about your own happiness; you’re about what’s good for them. And so you’ll put up with a lot. Think of a parent and their children. I mean, they’ll suffer a lot on behalf of their children. That’s a mark the Holy Spirit’s in you. You’re impatient all the time; everyone’s annoying to you. Well, that means your life is ordered to your own ego and its desires.
Next one, gentleness. You know, one way to translate that is simply «kindness,» and what I like about that is talk about love can become abstract rather quickly. «I love humanity». Yeah, but what does that look like on the ground? How does that show up in the world? Well, it shows up, I would say, in these basic acts of kindness. That’s a smile to someone who needs a little encouragement. That’s being kind to the server at the restaurant and giving her a good tip. That’s opening a door for somebody. It’s common courtesy, but that’s beautiful. That’s one of the ways that love, willing the good of the other, instantiates itself.
Well, yeah, it’s one of the fruits of the Holy Spirit. A lot of unkindness in our world today, go on the internet sometime, that’s a sign the Holy Spirit is not operating in someone’s life. Here’s the next one, goodness, or you might translate it «generosity». The old principle goes back to Plato: bonum diffusivum sui. It means, «The good is diffusive of itself». It gives itself away. Think of when you’re in a good mood; you don’t hide in your room. When you’re in a good mood, you want to go out and be with people and you kind of bubble over. Right. When the Holy Spirit’s in you, one of the signs is this great generosity of spirit. Goodness. You’re interested in people. You want them to have what you have. It’s not this sort of self-preoccupied, self-protective stance. Goodness, bonum diffusivum sui.
Here’s one I love; next one, we could translate it as something like «fidelity». It’s often rendered as «faith» here, but faith can mean like in the theological sense. I think it’s in the more ordinary sense of faithfulness, fidelity, reliability. See, that’s a mark of the Holy Spirit too. That’s a sign of love as it shows up in the world. Things like keeping your promises, things like honoring your contract, doing what you said you’d do. You’re faithful. You’re reliable. If people make all kinds of promises, then they renege on the promise, well, that’s not an act of love. That’s an act of self-service. Faithful people, and I’ve known a lot in my life. It’s a wonderful quality to have. «That guy’s reliable. That woman, you know, what she says, she’ll stick by it». Well, that’s a face of love. That’s all that is.
Next, meekness. I know, who wants to be called meek? It’s kind of a weak word in English. Here’s how Aquinas characterizes that. He said, «Meekness is the quality of being able to curb anger». Now, Aquinas will say, for example, anger is not bad in itself. There’s justifiable anger, righteous anger, good, but there’s also anger that becomes an expression of hatred and violence. Are you able to curb your anger? There are a lot of people, if you’re involved in the pastoral life at all, you’ll discover it very quickly, a lot of people whose lives become dominated by anger. The ability to curb that and say, «All right, I’m not going to fly off the handle. I’m not going to do something irrational, even though you’ve hurt me», well, that’s a face of love, isn’t it?
I’m willing your good more than to satisfy my own emotional needs. I’ll do one more in the remaining seconds I got, and that’s the last one, temperance or self-control. Aquinas’s Latin rendered that as castitas, chastity. Can I put a special stress on that form of self-control, namely, sexual self-control? I’ve said it a million times: The Catholic Church is not puritanical, we’re not anti-sex, but we are opposed to sexual desire that becomes so dominant that it undermines the path of love. And you know exactly what I’m talking about, is that we allow the sexual passion to run amok in such a way that we use people as means to an end. We reduce them to objects for our satisfaction.
Now, look, everyone listening knows what I’m talking about and knows how pervasive things like pornography and the hookup culture are. See, all of that, don’t think, «Oh, tut-tut,» or «Don’t be so hung up». No, no. Those are severe violations of love, because now you’re not willing the good of the other; you’re reducing the other to an object for your manipulation. So it’s not being puritanical. That’s the way the devil I think wants us to «Oh, don’t pay attention to that». No, no. It’s a very pressing problem in our society.
One of the fruits of the Holy Spirit, therefore, is a chastity, is a continence and self-control, especially over the sexual dimension of our lives. All right, everybody, on Pentecost Sunday, the coming of the Holy Spirit, how do you get these gifts? You can’t really earn them. You can’t really practice your way toward them. You have to ask God for them. I would say you want these gifts? Pray. You want these gifts? Go to Mass, go to the sacraments, and be open to the influence of the Holy Spirit. And then what will you find? Just as kind of the life within the vine or the plant or the tree naturally gives rise to fruit, you will find these fruits naturally coming to expression in you. Blessed Pentecost to everybody, and God bless you.