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.

 

Praying for acceptance

By Mallory Hoffman

The Incredulity of St. Thomas by Caravaggio
(Wikimedia Commons)

I recently read an article about a young couple whose  young son had been diagnosed with a life threatening, degenerative disease.  As his parents prayed for his healing, a priest advised them not to pray for healing.  He suggested that they pray for acceptance first.  He counseled the young couple that if healing was God’s Will for their son, then the healing would happen.  However, by praying for acceptance, they would find peace. 

Acceptance leads to peace.  Peace leads to surrender.  Surrender leads to Trust.  Trust leads to being immersed in God’s Holy Will which is Love.

Continue reading at Mallory's blog His UnEnding Love.

In the midst of the Storm

By Mallory Hoffman

Walking on Water by Aivazovsky (Wikimedia Commons)

Life is never without challenges.  It’s easy to be good and choose God when life is calm, and there are no storms to navigate.  Life is much easier if we are not being pelted by rain and dodging the fearful lightning strikes as we walk.  Our fears and anxieties  rage against us, unleashed by the storm.  Where is the peace God promised us?  How can we survive this onslaught of rage and violence?  What can we do?

We can pray.  Prayer is the primary and most effective weapon we have been given to battle any evil, any storm.   When we humble ourselves and pray, we surrender our will to God’s Will.  God’s Will is love.  God’s Will is peace.  God’s Will is that we become saints.  He doesn’t cause the storms, but He allows them to happen so that through the gift of free will, we can choose Him and grow closer to Him through our sufferings.  We can choose His Will.  We can allow God to use the storm to purify our souls.  We only need to keep our eyes on Him.  Through prayer, we open ourselves up to God and His graces pour down on us.
 

Continue reading at Mallory's blog His UnEnding Love.

The cost of peace

By Nancy Ward

Photo credit: Pixaby, Wikipaintings

Peace between warring nations comes with a hard-fought truce. Peace between the oppressor and those afraid to resist comes at the price of slavery.

Peace pursued constantly through pleasure and consumption is a fantasy that leads to obsession with whatever it takes to live stress-free:  comfort foods, constant distraction of entertainment, addictions.

We strive to live so that we don’t hurt anywhere. Our relationships work to our advantage. We have everything we want on our happiness checklist. For now.

Are we depending on ideal circumstances for a transient peace? Peace on our terms?

We ask God for peace. We ask him to take away our pain and struggles so that we can have peace. Yet in the middle of a health crisis, a faith crisis or a relationships crisis, where is God? We find him there with us.

Like the soldier in battle or the cowering slave, we stay poised to discover the peace that defies our understanding—and our control. No one can take that peace away from us. Peace that doesn’t depend on shifting circumstances. Peace that isn’t vulnerable to the enemies of joy that snatch that conditional peace from us.

Our prayers often dictate to God what to give or take away to meet our low standard of peace.  Can we trust Him to give us not what we want but what we need? And that need is to discover the high peace of His Kingdom!

We can ask the Prince of Peace, who paid with His life for our peace, how we can live in lasting peace. He tells us in Matthew 14:17, “The Kingdom of God is righteousness, peace and joy, in the Holy Spirit.” He invites us into his Kingdom.


Continue reading at Nancy's blog JOY Alive in our hearts.

Be a friend of the Cross

By Rebecca Duncan

Christ Carrying the Cross by Giorgione (photo credit: Wikipaintings)

"Three crosses stand on Calvary's height
One must be chosen, so choose aright;
Like a saint you must suffer, or a penitent thief,
Or like a reprobate, in endless grief."


A quote from St. Louis de Montford's 'Letter to the Friends of the Cross."  It is very short but I'm not done with it yet.  Despite its brevity, like all the works of this Saint, it is intense.

"To suffer much, yet badly, is to suffer like reprobates.  To suffer much, even bravely, but for a wicked cause, is to suffer as a martyr of the devil.  To suffer much or little for the sake of God is to suffer like saints."

It is hard for me to think of any specific graces I have been given apart from my conversion.  But, the ones I do remember were graces to embrace my cross.  In a way, my conversion itself was a grace to embrace the cross.  The reason I know these were huge graces is because I am a comfort-lover.  My spiritual friend said she thought she was bad about being attached to comforts but then she got to know me.  Believe me (or her), I'm the worst. 

If I think about it now my conversion was a grace given to me to embrace my cross.  I searched high and low for an answer to the meaning of life, but it was only when I admitted to myself that I could never find the answer on my own and sunk down into those depths of humility that an answer was given to me.  


Continue reading at Rebecca's blog, Otaku Catholic.

A mother's prioritites

By Melanie Jean Juneau

The Child's Caress by Mary Cassatt (photo credit: Wikimedia Commons).

One afternoon before a special occasion, I was ironing cotton dresses and shirts for church the next day. Six-year-old Mara watched for a while and then pointed to the iron and asked,“What is that mummy?”I froze in shock and then laughed because I realized that this little girl had never seen me iron; I usually used the clothes dryer as my pwrinkle smoother when I wasn't looking for perfection but rather efficiency. Actually it was not just the iron that seldom received attention as I mothered a large family, something that I considered essential was eliminated from my life with the birth of every child. Painting portraits went with Matthew. Other births gave the boot to crafts, dusting, bread making, interesting meals and laundry folding ( each child dressed out of their own personal laundry basket).

As every mother knows, a newborn takes at least eight hours a day to nurse, burp, rock and comfort, bathe, change clothes and diapers (at least ten times a day), and to wash diapers, clothes, receiving blankets, sheets and baby blankets as well as your clothes which tend to get covered in vomit, and other nasty surprises.

Guess what? The lack of sleep leads to a rather narrow existence where the best days are when you can sneak in a nap or shower and dress before noon.

Oh, those were the days when life was reduced to the basics. This basic truth was actually miraculous when I relaxed and allowed myself to live in the moment, enjoying my newborn rather than bemoaning all the important activities that I couldn't seem to even start. The very fact that everything that my little one required to grow and thrive was inexpensive and near at hand was amazing. My baby didn't need a lot of money spent on him, he simply needed arms to hold him, mother’s milk to drink and warm clothes and blankets.  A friend who had five children, couldn't quite grasp my peaceful demeanour as I sat nursing a newborn with family life whirling about me. She finally surmised that I was content to enjoy the present experience of mothering a tiny, dependent newborn.Really though, the basic truth I learned was that my first priority as a mother was to love and cherish my children as gifts from, God. They were not inconvenient, or simply extensions of my ego but unique wonderful people, albeit little people.

Catechism of the Catholic Church:

III. THE DUTIES OF FAMILY MEMBERS
2222 Parents must regard their children as children of God and respect them as human persons.

I think that I was given the gift of understanding that although I strove to run the household well, little people's needs come first.   


 Melanie Jean Juneau blogs at  Joy of nine9.

The Finger of God

by Mary N. 

Creation of Adam, detail, by Michelangelo (Photo Credit: Wikimedia),

"Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you. Not as the world gives do I give it to you. Do not let your hearts become troubled or afraid." John 14:27


I've been meditating on this verse from John for many years now. When God first drew me back to himself I used to beg and plead for his peace daily. God would give it to me but I would lose it again easily as the cares and anxieties of the world set back in.

The Lord's peace... oh, how I craved this. The finger of God upon my heart always.

This is the precious gift I've longed for my entire life...this peace that surpasses all understanding. I reached for it but it kept slipping through my fingers. I could not grasp it, I leaked grace like a broken vessel. Because I was (and am) a broken vessel.

I didn't know that God especially treasures broken things. That He tossed aside his crown and came down to earth to save what was broken.

I didn't understand that He gave his peace to broken men.

 God wants us to have peace during our earthly journey. When Jesus gave his peace to his disciples they were far from perfect so this peace isn't dependent on your "idea of perfection". No, this peace flows from the understanding that God loves us dearly. It's a gift to his beloved sons and daughters. He treasures each and every one of us and knows who we are and who He created us to be. In order to trust in God's picture of us, we first need to throw out all the false pictures that others have painted for us over the years. And the ones we have painted for ourselves.

Continue reading at Mary's blog The Beautiful Gate.