The fruit basket of the Spirit

By Nancy Ward

Painting by Abraham Brueghel (Wikimedia Commons).

The fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control. (Galatians 5:22-23)

At a Day of Reflection Carmelite Fr. Stephen Sanchez led us through a meditation on the Fruits of the Spirit. These are the attributes of God that the Holy Spirit gives us, develops in us and inspires us to give away. As Fr. Stephen guided us through each of the nine fruits, I visualized a fruit basket filled with specific fruits to remind me of each fruit of the Spirit in my life.

1.    Love is a red pear. If you hold it stem down this beautiful fruit resembles a heart. There are many kinds of love in our lives, as there are many varieties of pears – Bartlett, Asian, D’anjou – but none as rich, tasty or with such a beautiful deep color as a red pear of God’s unconditional love.

2.    Joy is found in a variety of apples, as joy is found in many forms and places in our lives. It is loud and crunchy! A red delicious apple makes a quick healthy snack or a lunchbox treat. There are gala or Fuji apples for salads and pies. My favorite is the granny apple, the joy I share with my grandchildren.

3.     Peace is a mango. It sits quietly in the bottom of the fruit basket, waiting for you. It is soft, mellow, smooth, and calm and invites you to sit down and savor it slowly.

4.     Patience is a grapefruit. It takes patience to dig out the fruit of the grapefruit, bite by bite. This is one of the most beneficial and most neglected of fruits.

5.     Kindness is a banana. We demonstrate kindness spontaneously and quietly to a small child when we hand him or her a banana we have peeled for them so they can effortlessly eat the fruit.

Find more Fruits of the Spirit at joyalive.net.

 

The saint maker

By Mary N.

Painting by Willem Joseph Laquy - credit Wikimedia Commons

God is determined to make saints out of us. And believe me, He has an endless supply of saint making material and most of these materials are other people. If you ask God for a particular virtue you will get plenty of chances to practice said virtue.

For instance, did you ever notice that when you ask God to increase your patience, everyone, and I mean everyone, wakes up grouchy the following morning? Including the cat? You wonder who stole your family and replaced them with the sour-faced aliens glaring at you across the breakfast table. Let the games begin.

 I won't tell even you what happened after I prayed the Litany of Humility by Cardinal Merry Del Val but let me assure you that it wasn't pretty and involved a sick person, a clothespin, and a ton of scrubbing in the ladies room at church. And that was just the morning.

Did I mention that I only prayed the prayer once? I planned to pray it regularly, I really did, but I'm still recovering from the first time. I figure a year or two should do the trick.  I really DO want humility just not quite yet.




Continue reading at Mary's blog The Beautiful Gate.

Bear one another's burdens

By Barbara A. Schoeneberger

French peasant women tilling soil circa 1917-1920, public domain photo image enhanced

Bear ye one another’s burdens, and so you shall fulfill the law of Christ. (Gal. 6:2)

When participating in Sunday Snippets this past week, I came across Michael’s post at “To Love and Truth” titled Listening to God’s Soft Whisper. One great thing about the Catholic blogging world is the opportunity to participate in spiritual observations of others, and this post really made me think. The post began:

 We often thank God for sending a particular person into our life.   God blessed us through that person.  It is easy to see God’s action in those He sends into our life in response to our prayer.  It is more difficult to be the person who God sends in response to someone else’s prayer.  [My emphasis.] I am often very conscious of my own needs, aware of the constant pressure points against body, mind, and soul, preoccupied with my own problems, worries, hopes, etc. Sometimes this can cause me to close off others, to be blind to their needs. Yet Jesus expects us to bear one another’s burdens, and in fact not to be anxious over what we shall eat or wear, or anything else because our Father takes care of all our needs (Matt. 6:25-32).

 Forgetting of self to be present to others implies being open to God’s call to be the person He sends to someone else in need. If we are to be God’s gift to someone else, we must constantly be corresponding with His grace to grow in the direction He wills, a scary thought when you come right down to it. We all know how fragile and imperfect we are if we’re honest with ourselves, and how we neglect to follow the inspirations of the Holy Spirit in us.

Continue reading at Barbara's blog Suffering With Joy.

What to do when your loved one leaves the Church

by Nancy Ward

The Desperate Man by Gustave Courbet (Photo Credit: Wikimedia Commons).

When a child or sibling, spouse or parent strays from the faith that once was the mainstay of his or her life, what can you do? You worry yourself into tears, you scold and then ignore them, complain and despair. You are desperate to understand how to handle this tragedy.

You don’t have to be a psychic with extrasensory perception (ESP) to know what to do. But you do need an ESP prayer strategy. Of course, you are praying for them—and worrying about them. Your anxiety keeps you awake at night and drives them away.  ESP prayer strategy will help them and help you.

E= Example.  Instead of working on how to change them, show them the example of true faith. Seek peace in your own life and joy in God’s gifts. Focus on your values.  Live a virtuous life even though the strays rebel against all of it. Quietly persevere in your example of a faith-filled life whether they notice or not.

S = Surrender. Gather up all your concerns about the strays and surrender them to Lord. He loves them even more than you do. He created them and knows everything about them, things you’ll never know and things they don’t yet realize. He has the power to work more directly with the strays when you let go of them. The Good Shepherd seeks out the lost lambs and carries them on His shoulders back to the fold. Get out of His way and let Him tend to them in much better ways than you can. His will for them far surpasses your ultimate desires.

P = Patience. Your anxiety dissipates when you ask for the grace of patience. Be still and trust God. Ask Him to give you more patience to deal with the child or sibling or spouse or parent you worry about. Be patient with yourself. Lower your expectations of what you can do and raise them high on what God can do. Be patient with God’s timing. With expectant faith, wait on the Lord in peace.

For I know well the plans I have in mind for you—oracle of the LORD—plans for your welfare and not for woe, so as to give you a future of hope. (Jeremiah 29:11)



Nancy originally posted this at her blog,  JOY Alive in our hearts.