Cardinal Manning presents us with excellent basic catechesis
on the virtues, gifts, and fruits of the Spirit.
Faith, hope and charity, the theological virtues, are given
to us in baptism. These are called by Manning the “the faculties of the soul
which is born again.”
The gifts are infused, not obtained by practice. The fruits
are the result of the gifts flowing into the life of the virtues.
Manning notes that the first fruit is love, or charity, as
is the usual term. He writes that there is no middle ground for the growth of
the fruits, One cannot be mediocre or lukewarm as a Catholic and bear the
fruits of the Spirit of God.
The fruits are the “active perfection” of the soul, not the
passive.
If we are not bearing fruit, the good Cardinal reminds us,
we are dead, living in sin. There is no middle ground.
Love is first, then joy, which includes gratitude and “the
consciousness of God’s infinite goodness, in which we live and move; peace,
whereby we are at rest with God, and in
ourselves, and with all mankind.”
The Cardinal continues on the fruits which have to do with
our neighbors. Patience is the most obvious fruit and Manning asks, “Are we
irritable, revengeful, resentful, malicious?”
Those automatic reactions which happen too easily show us
that we are not bearing fruit.
Manning is quite clear on this point. “If so, the fruits of
the Holy Ghost are not in us, because the benignity of God is not in us.”
Again, we must ask for the purification necessary to bear
fruit, to have all hidden sins removed from the depth of the soul.
Goodness follows patience. Longanimity is “another name for
patience. Just as equity is the most delicate form of justice, longanimity is the most perfect form of charity, the
perpetual radiance of a loving heart which, in its dealings with all who are
round about, looks kindly upon them and judges kindly of their faults.
Longanimity means also perseverance.”
What follows is an indictment for most of us. “…the not
being wearied in well-doing, not throwing up and saying, ‘I have tried to good
for such a one, I have tried to correct his faults, I have tried to win him;
but he is ungrateful, he is incorrigible, and I will have no more to do with
him.”
This is the mantra of divorce and the loss of friendship. Manning
notes, “Our Lord does
not so deal with us. Longanimity means an unwearied
perseverance in doing good.”
So often, we remove ourselves from relationships because we
do not love enough, or long enough. Even in prayer, do we not sometimes give
up?
There are many people I have been praying for over the
years. I cannot see any change in their ungodly lives, as some are atheists,
agnostics, heretics, or full of self-deception. They are not walking with God.
Do I give up? No.
A spiritual stubbornness comes out of a heart which loves,
even if there is not any regard or love returned.
Manning writes of mildness, gentleness, kindness,
forebearance, “the dissembling of wrong, the absence of the fire of resentment
and of the smouldering of ill-will.”
One must catch one’s self and immediately repent of even
venial sin, even the uncharitable thoughts which one may not act upon.
To be continued….