John 15:9-11

Acts 15:7-21

Psalm 96:1-2a, 2b-3, 10

John 15:9-11

Jesus said to his disciples:

“As the Father loves me, so I also love you.

Remain in my love.

If you keep my commandments, you will remain in my love,

just as I have kept my Father’s commandments

and remain in his love.

“I have told you this so that

my joy might be in you and

your joy might be complete.”

Opening Prayer: Lord God, I thank you for the gift of the New Covenant. You send the Holy Spirit into my heart so that I may remain in the covenant and abide in your love. Dwell in me and fill my soul with your grace, enlighten my intellect with your wisdom, and strengthen my will with your charity.

Encountering the Word of God

1. Love, Joy, Peace: As we read the Last Supper Discourse in the Gospel of John, we can discern many of the fruits of the Holy Spirit. Paul, in Galatians 5:22-23, lists nine of them: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. Jesus has already spoken about peace, and we meditated on peace as a fruit of the New Covenant on Monday (see John 14:27). Today, Jesus begins to focus on love (agape) and how we remain and abide in divine love by keeping the commandments. As well, Jesus speaks about a third fruit – the fruit of joy. Joy, unlike fleeting pleasure, is lasting. Joy, unlike pleasure, can be present along with suffering. Joy is a deep satisfaction and contentment: “Love brings with it joy because love satisfies the heart’s deepest desire and most ardent aspiration, since human beings were created to love and be loved. Alongside joy, there is peace. The Spirit establishes peace in people’s hearts as he leads them to be in harmony with God’s fatherly will and gives them victory over all their disordered tendencies, which would otherwise entangle them in endless interior conflict. In addition, the Spirit brings peace among people because he directs them to benevolence and harmony” (Vanhoye and Williamson, Galatians, 198).

2. Patience, Kindness, Goodness: Love, joy, and peace are the fundamental fruits of the Spirit. The next three fruits deal with how we relate to others. The fourth fruit of the Spirit is patience (makrothumia). The word in Greek for patience means “slow to anger.” God often revealed himself as “slow to anger” in the Old Testament: “The Lord, the Lord, a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in mercy and faithfulness, keeping merciful love for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin” (see Exodus 34:6-7). We can discern the importance of patience in the Last Supper Discourse, when Jesus teaches that his disciples’ sorrow will eventually, not immediately, turn to joy (see John 16:20). Patience, then, is a willingness to wait and suffer. Kindness, the fifth fruit of the Spirit, is readiness to serve our brothers and sisters. Generosity or goodness, the sixth fruit of the Spirit, is a readiness to give. What Jesus commands is that we love as he did and be ready to give not just our time or treasure to others, but to offer our lives for others.

3. Faithfulness, Gentleness, and Self-Control: The last three fruits of the Spirit are faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. Jesus’ disciples are continually exhorted to faith or faithfulness in the Gospel of John and even in the Last Supper Discourse: “You have faith in God; have faith also in me” (John 14:1). And even though we do not hear an exhortation to gentleness or meekness in the Last Supper Discourse, we know that it is an important quality of a saint. Instead of giving in to the deadly sin of anger, the disciple of Jesus is gentle. They refuse to be overcome by anger because they trust in God (see Pitre, Introduction to the Spiritual Life, 140). Likewise, temperance and self-control are virtues of the Christian disciple who is seeking holiness and perfection.

Conversing with Christ: Lord Jesus, you are my savior. You have rescued me from the slavery of sin and the scourge of death. Strengthen me today to abide in you and keep your commandment to love. Pour out your Spirit so that I may enjoy true and lasting joy as I journey toward the eternal joy of heaven.

Living the Word of God: How do the fruits of the Holy Spirit manifest themselves in my life? Where is there joy, love, and peace? Am I able to discern when something is from God and manifests the fruits of the Spirit, and when something is not from God and manifests the fruits of the devil?