Gifts And Fruits For Pentecost!

[vee]

The second gift as explained by Mother Angelica.

Piety

To love is to wish one well and do all you can to bring that about. The gift of piety resembles the virtue of love. It gives me a childlike affection for God. I am obligated to love as God loves me. My love for you must be totally separated from whether or not you are lovable.
Through this gift you can see people in a totally different light. For instance, when you analyze why you don't like people, you will find it is because they do not do what you expect them to do, they do not give what you expect them to give, they do not please you. But if you love as God loves, you are not disappointed in anyone, because you know human nature.
The gift of piety makes me loves. What is love? Love is an intangible desire, a giving of the self, something that makes me change for the better. "God is love," St John says (1John 4:8). When I love Him as Father, a part of that love comes into me-it is the Spirit. And when the Spirit of the Lord enters into my heart, He transforms me; He makes me a new creation; a new mind, a new heart. Love makes us new.
So my love for you must make you new, it must change both of us. You cannot possess Gods love and give it to others without changing that person in some way. If your neighbor is not changed for the better because he knows you, you do not love him, you love yourself! The greatest witness of the first Christians was their love. " See how these Christians love each other," people said. We must love like that.
The gift if piety should do another thing for you. It should allow you to release everyone to the Lord. The gift of piety makes you look upon everyone as someone very precious with an immortal soul. It protects me from judging others. So everyday ask the Spirit of the Lord to give you a great degree of the gift of piety that you might have patience and compassion, that you might love first and never be disappointed. Because, remember, as you love your neighbor, so you love God.

[IgnatiusofLoyola]

[quote name='vee8' date='24 May 2010 - 09:21 PM' timestamp='1274754114' post='2116920']
The second gift as explained by Mother Angelica.

Piety

To love is to wish one well and do all you can to bring that about. The gift of piety resembles the virtue of love. It gives me a childlike affection for God. I am obligated to love as God loves me. My love for you must be totally separated from whether or not you are lovable.
Through this gift you can see people in a totally different light. For instance, when you analyze why you don't like people, you will find it is because they do not do what you expect them to do, they do not give what you expect them to give, they do not please you. But if you love as God loves, you are not disappointed in anyone, because you know human nature.
The gift of piety makes me loves. What is love? Love is an intangible desire, a giving of the self, something that makes me change for the better. "God is love," St John says (1John 4:8). When I love Him as Father, a part of that love comes into me-it is the Spirit. And when the Spirit of the Lord enters into my heart, He transforms me; He makes me a new creation; a new mind, a new heart. Love makes us new.
So my love for you must make you new, it must change both of us. You cannot possess Gods love and give it to others without changing that person in some way. If your neighbor is not changed for the better because he knows you, you do not love him, you love yourself! The greatest witness of the first Christians was their love. " See how these Christians love each other," people said. We must love like that.
The gift if piety should do another thing for you. It should allow you to release everyone to the Lord. The gift of piety makes you look upon everyone as someone very precious with an immortal soul. It protects me from judging others. So everyday ask the Spirit of the Lord to give you a great degree of the gift of piety that you might have patience and compassion, that you might love first and never be disappointed. Because, remember, as you love your neighbor, so you love God.
[/quote]

Thanks for this explanation! I wasn't wildly excited when ZZ drew "piety" as my gift of the Spirit. I was kind of hoping for knowledge or wisdom or fortitude. But, Mother Angelica doesn't describe piety the way I thought of it. To me it suggested I should spend more time in prayer (which I probably should do anyway), but also be more outwardly pious.

Instead, Mother Angelica explains piety in terms of not judging other people and looking at everyone as very precious, and loving people whether they are lovable or not. I think the Blessed Pauline would have highly approved of this--this is essentially the charism of her Order. (The Blessed Pauline von Mallinckrodt is the founder of the Sisters across the street from me. Her picture is on my profile page.)

Edited May 25, 2010 by IgnatiusofLoyola

[vee]

The third gift of the Holy Spirit as explained by Mother Angelica in her book Mother Angelica's Little Book of Life Lessons and Everyday Spirituality, which I highly recommend.

Fortitude

The third gift of the Holy Spirit, given to us at Baptism, is the gift of fortittude. It is very powerful. To have fortitude is to have courage. But courage for what? Fortitude to my mind is very akin to faith, because I must sincerely believe that Jesus is Lord before I have the guts to do what a Christian must, when everyone else is doing something else. I must have the courage to stand alone, to be willing to be called a fanatic, and to leave my family and all my possessions for the sake of the kingdom. Not everybody is called to that. For some the greatest penance is staying where you are, but it takes a lot of courage to stay and still be what God wants you to be.

The fortitude that the Spirit grants us is much greater than a conviction. It is a drive. Our Lord had it in spades. When He was traveling one day with the apostles, He said, "I have a baptism by which I must be baptized and how I am [i]straitened[/i] until it is accomplished" (Luke 12:50), meaning he coulod hardly wait for that moment when He would redeem us. That is fortitude.

A Christian is never really afraid of persecution; he is straitened until it occurs. You know our Lord said some very odd things. The Beatitudes are the wildest things in the whole wide world. He said, "Blessed are you when people abuse you and persecute you and speak all kinds of calumny aganst you on my account. Rejoice and be glad, for your reward will be great in heaven" (Matt 5:11-12).

Now we come to the thing that keeps most of us from sharing in this gift of fortitude: human respect. I know what God wants me to do or say at this moment, but I am afr5aid of so and so. Now some say we have to be prudent. But one thing we have too much of today is prudence. We are all so careful; I dont think people have to worry about prudence. Do you notice how you are hemmed in by human respect? Youre so afraid of what other people will say, or think or feel that you deny God His will. With the gift of fortitude you could care less. There is only one thing in your mind to know Him, to love Him, and to serve Him at this moment.

Look at Peter in the courtyard. He was terribly concerned about what those people in the courtyard thought of him. He didnt want them to know he was a Galilean. He didnt want them to know that he was a follower of that Man. What a perfect example of human respect. In order to prove to these people that he did not "know the Man," he swore and cursed. He became what they were, so they would not think of him as one of the twelve. He descended to their level out of human respect. What a magnificent example of change. Peter had a very weak faith, but after Pentecost he is the one who goes out and preaches the word without fear. The cord that held him down all his life was broken thanks to this gift of fortitude. He no longer feared what anyone thought. The mission given to him by Jesus was everything.

The gift of fortitude makes us persevere in holiness. It gives us the strength to forge ahead in the face of opposition and weakness. It gives us supernatural endurance, a spiritual daring. St. Paul in
Second Corinthians describes it this way: " We prove we are servants of God by great fortitude in times of suffering, in times of hardship and distress; when we are flogged, or sent to prison, or mobbed; laboring, sleepless, starving. We prove we are God's servants by our purity, knowledge, patience, and kindness; ya spirit of holiness, by a love free from affectation" (2 Cor 6:4-6).

Fortitude is not only accepting the cross that God gives you, it is to empty yourself and to be unashamed that you love Jesus. This is a gift we must pray for every day, for when we lack fortitude we lack hope faith and love.

We need to tell the Holy Spirit: Let me know the Father as He is, and let me love Him as a child. Let me love my neighbor in the same way You love me. Then let me be strong. No matter what anyone says, or thinks, or does, let me persevere. Let me me unashamed that I am a Christian. Amen.

[vee]

The fourth gift as explained by Mother Angelica.

Counsel

The next gift of the Holy Spirit is logical. Once I have the first three gifts I need discernment because there will be times in my life when I will not know God's Will. I have to discern. There is an enemy that is bent on your eternal destruction, and he uses people to trip you up, to lead you astray. There is a gift that God has given you, at Baptism, by which you can discern who and what is for your good. It is the gift of counsel.

The gift of counsel tells me what to judge and what not to judge. I am to judge by fruit, "by their fruits, you shall know them" (Matt 7:20). To "know" is to experience, and when you have experienced the evil in someone else's life, when that evil touches your life and makes you doubt God's existence or providence, that is bad fruit. You have not judged the individual, you have [i]experienced[/i] the evil in his life - the fruits. Places can be evil too. Inanimate places that breathe out darkness. Your spirit recoils when you go near them. No Christian can pass a massage parlour and not feel the evil that eminates from that palces. This is not judging, it is discernment. Your spirit is discerning what is there. If the Lord died for you, do you believe He would leave you a sheep among wolves with no alarm system, with no discernment, no counsel to distinguish right from wrong?

When you are inspired to something by the Lord, the gift of counsel clears away the uncertainty. If God is guiding you to do something for Him and for His kingdom all hell will not stop you. The gift of counsel also gives us self-knowledge. It gives us the light to see ourselves as we are. Some evening write on a piece of paper everything you have found fault with in someone else today, and you will see, on that paper, a description of yourself head-on. Unless something is in you, you cant see it in anyone else. You think everyone is a liar, because you are a liar. The husband thinks his wife is stepping out on him because he's stepping out on her.

If you dont know yourself, how are you going to prune yourself? If you dont prune yourself, God must permit those events in our lives that almost crush us. God in His Mercy and the Spirit with His magnificent gift of counsel permit things to happen in your life to reveal who you really are - to make you conscious of an interior fault, a weakness, an imperfection, a sin. Then you can do something about it before your time comes. Counsel is that gift of God by which we first know ourselves and then are able to discern the human spirit, the Holy spirit, and the evil spirit operating in our lives.

[zunshynn]

[quote name='laetitia crucis' date='24 May 2010 - 05:42 PM' timestamp='1274744567' post='2116783']
Ooo!

Me, too! (Pretty please. )


[/quote]

Gift of the Holy Spirit : Knowledge

Fruit of the Holy Spirit : Patience

[zunshynn]

[quote name='Rebecca2009' date='24 May 2010 - 06:11 PM' timestamp='1274746297' post='2116824']
Oh, please do that for me too. THANK you.
[/quote]

Gift of the Holy Spirit : Knowledge

Fruit of the Holy Spirit : Goodness

[jeffpugh]

Which did you draw me? Wisdom and Hope (I think you said we had the same thing). I forgot to proclaim it in this thread after we talked in Tchat

[Rebecca2009]

Thank you zunshynn!
After thinking on these for only a moment I have tears in my eyes for what He's given. He knows why.
Thank you for doing this for us here. You are ministering and encouraging us!


For you~

[IgnatiusofLoyola]

[quote name='Sacred Music Man' date='25 May 2010 - 04:57 PM' timestamp='1274824631' post='2117612']
Which did you draw me? Wisdom and Hope (I think you said we had the same thing). I forgot to proclaim it in this thread after we talked in Tchat [img]http://www.phatmass.com/phorum/public/style_emoticons/default/mellow.gif[/img]
[/quote]

Geez, you got Hope. ("I" wanted that one.) I got self-control. Some gift. Right now there are so many things I physically can't do, that it would be nice to be able to go a little crazy once in awhile. I'm too tired to commit most of the "fun" grave sins.

However, I'm waiting for the post of Mother Angelica's explanation. She will define self-control in a totally different way than what I expected, and it will be something positive.

And, I confess (as if all of you don't know already) I do talk before I think sometimes, so some self-control there would be a help.

[zunshynn]

[quote name='Sacred Music Man' date='25 May 2010 - 03:57 PM' timestamp='1274824631' post='2117612']
Which did you draw me? Wisdom and Hope (I think you said we had the same thing). I forgot to proclaim it in this thread after we talked in Tchat
[/quote]

Hope isn't actually considered one of the 12 fruits of the Holy Spirit... if you got the same fruit as I did it was charity.

[vee]

The fifth gift.

Knowledge

knowledge is the gift of the Holy Spirit that detaches us. We often think of knowledge as the acquisition of a particular discipline or subject. But the gift that the Spirit gives us is knowledge of how God thinks, how He regards life and things. It gives me an insight into the transitory nature of of all that is created.

The gift of knowledge puts heart into your Christianity. Many good people live a Christianity of the mind where they profess Him with their lips. But Paul said that isn't enough; to be saved, Jesus must be accepted by my heart ( Rom 10:9). If your Christianity is only an acceptance of truth and an ethical code, then your Christianity is in the mind. The danger there is, when something befalls you, you cannot understand it. Your religion is in peril. Our minds cannot reason everything out; pain and suffering and famine, for instance... The gift of knowledge helps me find the pearl of great price buried in the soil of adversity. The gift of knowledge gives me awareness of the one thing necessary in this life: my union with God and His kingdom. It makes us realize that we do not have here a lasting city. This is not home. The early Christians knew this and we have forgotten it, or perhaps never knew it. Being healthy, wealthy, and wise was not their life's goal. The gift of knowledge helped them see that this life is a temporary testing ground.

This gift, that we must nurture and make grow in our hearts, leads us to an utter detachment from everything. There are things we must accomplish in this life, and people we must love, but we cannot become attached to them all.

Our whole lives are hampered by things and people and ourselves, but with the gift of knowledge I am not hampered by anything. If I have friends, I give them to God. If I have things and they make me happy and suddenly they are gone, I give those to God as well. We must be detached from everything.

I know a woman, and the first thing she did when she bought a new table was to tale a piece of glass and scratch it. She knew she had this hang up. She was so focused on having a perfect table that she couldn't concentrate on the people around her table. So she scratched it, gave thanks to God, and she had peace. That is utilizing the gift of knowledge. I have to have that disposition that I can live in the world and love it and see it and enjoy it, but never lose sight of heaven. I can have things and have them taken away with equal grace, because it's not permanent. The thing that is really valuable, the wealth that time cannot consume is waiting for me in the kingdom.

The gift of knowledge is detachment and hope. It is that balance of the spiritual with the human, between life here and the life to come.

[laetitia crucis]

[quote name='zunshynn' date='25 May 2010 - 05:43 PM' timestamp='1274823836' post='2117592']
Gift of the Holy Spirit : Knowledge

Fruit of the Holy Spirit : Patience


[/quote]

God bless you, zunshynn! Thank you for these.

Especially the Fruit. I think this will constantly be something I need to work on.

[zunshynn]

[quote name='laetitia crucis' date='25 May 2010 - 05:45 PM' timestamp='1274831105' post='2117681']
God bless you, zunshynn! Thank you for these.

Especially the Fruit. I think this will constantly be something I need to work on.
[/quote]

Funny you should mention that, when I first drew out patience, I was like really, Lord? She doesn't seem like the impatient type to me, maybe I didn't mix them up enough. So I did it again, and got patience again! So I was like, okay, Lord, if you say so!

[jeffpugh]

... maybe it was Joy?

[laetitia crucis]

[quote name='zunshynn' date='25 May 2010 - 07:56 PM' timestamp='1274831761' post='2117687']
Funny you should mention that, when I first drew out patience, I was like really, Lord? She doesn't seem like the impatient type to me, maybe I didn't mix them up enough. So I did it again, and got patience again! So I was like, okay, Lord, if you say so!
[/quote]

I think I'm continually asking to grow in patience. Particularly in regards to my vocation.

Honestly, I think it's part of my choleric nature. I want to know NOW. Let's go! Let's go!



Oh man... I laugh even more remembering my "status" that I've had the past few days (and continue to have).

God is HILARIOUS.

Granted, I do believe I've improved in this area. It's a "work in progress" and something I'm continually fighting against. Hopefully one day I will win the war!

ETA: Basically, I think I need to grow immensely in patience with myself. Not to toot my own horn, but I think I'm above-average in patience when dealing with other people.

Edited May 26, 2010 by laetitia crucis