Holy Spirit of Jesus, help me cultivate the fruits of the Holy Spirit with my life…

 
Romans 8:1-11 & Luke 13:1-9
This year our apple tree produced over two hundred juicy, sweet yellow apples. Watching the fruit grow and ripen brought great joy, and a peace that despite drought, nature is designed to abundantly produce fruits that are each whole, unique and complete. So it is with our lives. We are designed, despite the environment in which we live, to abundantly produce the “Holy” fruits of the Holy Spirit of God:  Love, Joy, Peace, Patience, Kindness, Goodness, Faithfulness, Humility, and Self-control (Galatians 6).  It is these fruits of heart and soul that All Saints, both those unrecognized as well as those memorialized by the Church, cultivated – and cultivate- in their lives. These are the fruits of lives lived, loving God with all one’s heart, mind, soul and strength, and one’s neighbours as one’s self. These ‘juicy’ fruits of the Spirit grew because the Saints tended their lives carefully, like the gardener in Jesus’ parable.  They prayed throughout their lives letting the ‘fertilizer’ of the discipline of God’s ways fall onto the ‘soil’ of their lives – into their ways, and days;  they ‘dug around the roots’ of their life by saying no to the ways of the world, the flesh and the deceits of the devil, and yes to God’s will for them; and they tended and protected the blossoms and then the growing holy fruits in their lives by patiently doing good with kindness. Will I simply cut down the tree of my life by complaining about the present social environment of the world and giving into depression and despair (acedia)? Or will I, like All the Saints patiently tend the Holy fruits of the Spirit that I am designed to grow with my life this side of Heaven?  Holy Spirit of Jesus, help me cultivate the fruits of the Holy Spirit with my life. 
 
God chose us in Jesus before the world began to be holy and blameless in his sight… to be full of love.    (Ephesians 3:5)
 
In this life we cannot do great things. We can only do small things with great love.
St. Mother Teresa of Calcutta
 
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