THE GIFTS AND FRUITS OF THE HOLY SPIRIT.
“The moral life of Christians is sustained by the gifts of the Holy Spirit. These are permanent dispositions which make man docile in following the promptings of the Holy Spirit.
The seven gifts of the Holy Spirit are wisdom, understanding, counsel, fortitude, knowledge, piety, and fear of the Lord. They belong in their fullness to Christ, Son of David. They complete and perfect the virtues of those who receive them. They make the faithful docile in readily obeying divine inspirations.” Catechism of the Catholic Church n. 1831-1832.
During Baptism, the soul of the baptized has been infused with sanctifying grace together with theological virtues, the gifts and fruits of the Holy Spirit.
The theological virtues give us the power to act in a supernatural way, that is, to be able to judge things according to the light of the Revelation, and act according to this viewpoint of faith. Thus, it disposes our intelligence and our will for divine union, but they do not in themselves give us the facility to think or act according to the light of faith.
In other words, the theological virtues of faith, hope and charity enable the Christian to act in a supernatural way, but do not facilitate it in an easy manner. This is the task of the gifts of the Holy Spirit. According to Alexis Riaud, The Action of the Holy Spirit in our souls:
“The gifts of the Holy Spirit are supernatural dispositions that make the soul, elevated to supernatural life, susceptible to receiving those divine inspirations and those divine impulses of the Holy Spirit that are the actual graces. That is the reason why they necessarily intervene in every supernatural act.
In the soul that abandons itself completely to the action of the Holy Spirit, these gifts are manifested as supernatural instincts, which lead the soul to think effectively, to judge and to act in all circumstances as Our Lord Himself or His Blessed Mother would do as if they were in his place.
In fact, the soul that allows itself to be carried away by the Holy Spirit behaves on every occasion as Jesus or Mary would, that is, in a divine way and, therefore, holy.
It is not a question of long reflections and deep reasoning, of which it may even be that the soul is not capable; and that soul would often be in great trouble if it had to explain, and even more so if it had to justify, the motives that have guided its way of judging or acting. He acts instinctively and naturally, with the sole concern of pleasing God.”
The following are the gifts and fruits of the Holy Spirit:
1st the gift of wisdom: in order to understand and judge rightly about God’s plans (click HERE);
2nd the gift of understanding: in order to penetrate into the truth about God (click HERE);
3rd the gift of counsel: to recognize and further God’s plans in particular acts (click HERE);
4th the gift of fortitude: to overcome difficulties in Christian life (click HERE);
5th the gift of knowledge: to grasp the order of created reality (click HERE);
6th the gift of piety: to behave as children of God and in a fraternal manner towards all our brothers and sisters, being other Christs (click HERE);
7th the gift of fear of the Lord: to reject all that could offend God, as a child would reject, through love, all that might offend his father (click HERE).
The fruits of the Holy Spirit “are perfections that the Holy Spirit forms in us as the first fruits of eternal glory” ( Catechism, 1832). These are acts which the action of the Holy Spirit produces in our soul in a habitual way. The tradition of the Church enumerates twelve fruits: “love, joy, peace, patience, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, modesty, self-control, chastity” (see Gal 5:22–23).
Spirit of Love, Creator and Sanctifier of souls, your first work in us is to transform us so that we resemble Jesus. Help me, Spirit of Love, to adapt myself to the pattern of Jesus, to think like Jesus, to speak like Jesus, to love like Jesus, to suffer like Jesus, to behave like Jesus.
Remain always in me and, by your grace and your cooperation, fulfill in me the designs of God the Father with respect to my soul. As you have governed the sacred humanity of our Lord during his stay upon earth, be also the moving power of my life, the Soul of my soul.
Holy Spirit, Spirit of Love, I consecrate myself to you; I give myself entirely to you. I abandon myself to you, through Mary, your temple, through Mary, your spouse, through Mary, channel of your graces (Riaud, The Holy Spirit Acting in Our Souls).”
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