The fruit of the Holy Spirit

But the fruit of the Spirit is charity, joy, peace, patience, benignity, goodness, longanimity, mildness, faith, modesty, continency, chastity.

[Longanimity. There's a word we don't hear often enough.]

St. Thomas, in considering whether these fruits enumerated by St. Paul are human acts (as opposed to desires or habits), writes:

If then man's operation proceeds from man in virtue of his reason, it is said to be the fruit of his reason: but if it proceeds from him in respect of a higher power, which is the power of the Holy Ghost, then man's operation is said to be the fruit of the Holy Ghost....

If the operation proceding from you is not charity, joy, peace, patience, benignity, goodness, longanimity, mildness, faith, modesty, continency, or chastity, you might want to ask yourself whether it's the fruit of the Holy Spirit or the fruit of your own human reason. In particular, any hatred, outburst of fury, dissension, and faction is to be seen, if St. Paul is not mistaken, as a work of the flesh.

(It's worth noting that St. Paul opposes works of the flesh with fruit of the Spirit, the latter term suggesting, among other things, a much more careful and directed process of cultivation.)

It seems to me that, all things being equal, Easter should be a season when we reap the first fruits of what we cultivated during Lent. Where I see charity, joy, peace, patience, benignity, goodness, longanimity, mildness, faith, modesty, continency, and chastity, I should study the means of cultivation (which, from the human perspective, amounts to the means of getting out of God's way of cultivation) which produced them. Where I don't see this fruit, I should try to determine (as far as possible) and avoid whatever led to barrenness.

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