Nine ladies dancing - Nine fruits of the Holy Ghosts. We previously have touched on the seven gifts of the Holy Ghost, but gifts are only the sowing of the seeds to germinate within our lives. These gifts bring about changes in our lives and lifestyle which bring us the fruit that God wants us to bear. These are love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness and temperance.
These fruit are not something which are just nice to bear. It is mandatory that a Christian bear them! Our Lord tells us about how to tell the difference between a true teacher from God and a false teacher = "by their fruits shall ye know them." These fruits need to be seen, to be visible to all people so that we might show that the Holy Ghost truly has a temple in us.
If the vicious atheism of Christopher Hitchens and his companions tells us anything, it is that we Christians have not been bearing this fruit well enough. Hitchens has a point. How can we persuade an unbelieving world of the existence of a loving God if we are not prepared to bear His fruit?
Of course, we are all frail and feeble. Yet it is our feebleness and frailty that allows the true light of God to shine through our failure to bear His fruit. We have to trust in Him to shine in us and keep focused on bearing His fruit for His worship despite our tendency to get the wrong end of the stick - badly! Fruit requires cultivation of the gifts we have been given. This is hard work, but necessary if we are to thaw heart made cold by cynicism based on Humanity's past.
Cultivation of the fruits of the Spirit lead to the beatitude from cultivating the Gifts of the Holy Spirit in addition to the gifts of Creation and Life under the Law of God announced in the Gospels in which the Glorious Trinity expounds His twofold covenant ratified in the blood of Christ Crucified. True Love always bears fruit.
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