The fruit of His love
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Every New Year’s Eve, I choose two virtues randomly out of a bowl and adopt them for my year. For 2025, I got “temperance” as my virtue and “kindness” as my fruit.
Following this tradition got me thinking about the difference between virtues and fruits of the Holy Spirit.
Sometimes, we can think a fruit of the Holy Spirit as something I have to work on in myself. Like, if only I could be more gentle, loving, or kind? Or I don’t want to be more patient!
But I see the fruits of the Holy Spirit more as things I experience from the Lord. I’ve experienced His gentleness, and therefore I can be more gentle towards others. I’ve experienced His patience with me, so I can be more patient when others fall or hurt me. I’ve experienced His kindness towards me, so I can be more kind to others and myself. Can you relate?
Recently, the daily readings for Mass all revolved around 1 John — namely, the love God has for His people: “We love because He first loved us” (1 John 4:19).
Because I’ve experienced His love, I can love others. This really is the basis for everything. Everything we do is a response to this love. Meaning, my friend, you are so incredibly loved. This is the foundation for everything that we do: coming from a place of “I know I am loved.” Not from a place of “I have to earn this love” or “I have to prove over and over again that I’m even lovable.”
I will always consistently harp on the simplicity of the Gospel: love God, love people (Matthew 22:37-40; Mark 12:28-31; Luke 10:25-28). It is the greatest commandment to love God with all of our heart, mind, soul, and strength and to love people as ourselves. We tend to gloss over that key point: loving ourselves. Sometimes it feels selfish or indulgent to love ourselves, but it’s a profound humility to be able to look at yourself with the eyes of God, to see what He sees: a sinner in need of redemption, who is also a beloved son or daughter.
When I experience God’s LOVE as a fruit in my life, I am able to bear that fruit in my own life to other people. When I experience God’s incredible gentleness, I am able to be even more gentle to those in my life so that they too can taste a small portion of God’s gentleness. Do you see how this is less of a task I have to take on and master and more of an opportunity to sit back and bask in?
“Taste and see the goodness of the Lord,” Psalm 34.
If I am to taste and see that the Lord is good, then there has to be fruit of my life or of Him working in me to taste. My prayer for you is not thinking, “Gosh, this is another thing I have to add to my list” but rather, “How does the Lord want to show me that He is loving? Joyful? Peaceful? Patient? Kind? Good? Faithful? Gentle? Has all the self-control?”
My friend, God desperately loves you and it’s not a Hollywood, gooey sentiment void of action. By taking up His cross, He proved His love for us. Over and over, He still wants to prove that love to you and to me. Now we just have to let Him.
I would encourage you to pick a fruit of the Holy Spirit this month and ask God how He wants to show you that fruit in your life. Experience His kindness, His peace, His faithfulness, etc. and let that experience overflow into your interactions with others so that the world of people you surround yourself with can taste and see that God is indeed good.