Pentecost

Four minute homilies

Pentecost

A young man was walking down the street and came across a shop with a sign that said: Happiness. He came in and saw that angels were serving the customers. He was very surprised and asked one of the angels: “What do you sell here?” He answered: “Anything that brings happiness to humans.” The young man got excited and began to ask a list of things: “Give me the end of wars, communication between husbands and wives, wealth for the poor, health to the sick, understanding between the in laws...” The angel stopped him very respectfully saying: “We don’t sell fruits here; we only have seeds.”

The fruits of the Holy Spirit grow from the seeds God placed in our souls when we were born. They are there ready to be planted at the right time. They began to grow when we were baptised. At Baptism those seeds were introduced to good soil and watered with living water. They developed in the soul of the baby, growing under the soil, without noise or exterior sign, like those bulbs that produce beautiful flowers every spring.

All we need to do is to look after them, to maintain them and make sure they grow and develop. We need to water them with the grace of the sacraments, especially the Eucharist, fertilise them with our prayer life, and spray the bugs and get rid of the snails regularly through good confessions. We should build a fence to protect them from the wind, with a life of solitude and recollection, and keep the plants from being exposed to too much sun, from the social media and tv to avoid anything that can scorch them. Some of these fruits take a long time to grow. Some fruit trees takes seven years to begin to produce. They come during different seasons, some at the beginning of life, others in middle age, others at the end, especially when we need them.

We can compare our soul to the garden of Eden, where God used to take a stroll with Adam and Eve in the cool of the evening. If we look after our garden, God will be more keen to walk with us. Every year is getting better. The trees grow taller and the bushes develop. It is not easy to know when and how to prune them. They are the gifts of the Holy Spirit, given by him to fulfill our mission, unmerited. We also have an orchard where we grow fruit trees. There the Holy Spirit has planted twelve different trees, that produce his famous twelve fruits, each one of them different and specific. We need all of them, because together they can develop a balanced diet.

When we read the list of the twelve fruits of the Holy Spirit, we are immediately attracted to them and we want them to be part of our lives and the lives of the people we love. It is good for us to read this list, to foster our desire to acquire them: Charity, Joy, Peace, Patience, Kindness, Goodness, Generosity, Gentleness, Faithfulness, Modesty, Self Control and Chastity. They go against the bad tendencies we all have in our hearts, those twelve vices the devil tries to develop with cunning persistence. Inside of us two different kinds of plants grow, weeds and flowers. What we need to do is to uproot the weeds that choke the flowers. Hopefully we can pick a nice bouquet of them to give to our mother.

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