The Way Is Hard

Finding peace through the Seven Gifts and Twelve Fruits of the Holy Spirit

If there is one virtue that I certainly am not great at exhibiting, it is patience. My entire life, I have been a person who’s thought, “I want it and I want it now.” For the last three years, this lack of patience has been tested to the extreme. Three years ago, I was presented with an opportunity to fulfill a lifelong dream; to work in the film industry. This was something I never thought would be possible for me because I knew that I did not want to move to Los Angeles or New York. I was ecstatic, but I knew that it was going to be a long time before this dream came to fruition and that many things needed to happen before it would be possible. So for the last few years, I have waited. As this dream comes closer and closer to becoming a reality, I notice that I have become more impatient, and my discontent with my current state in life grows rapidly day after day. This emotional strain is only worsened by the physical strain caused by an injury that makes performing my current job very painful.

These last couple of weeks, I thought I had reached my breaking point. So, I did what I always do in times of great emotional distress: take refuge in God. Ultimately, I found peace through a prayer for patience that I found which reads as follows,

“O God, Who didst crush the pride of the enemy by the long-suffering
of Thine Only-begotten Son,
Grant, we beseech Thee, that we may worthily recall those things which
in His tender love He bore for us;
and thus following His example may patiently endure all our adversities.

Teach me, my Lord, to be sweet, gentle and patient in all areas of my life.
Let me forget myself so that I may enjoy the happiness of others.

Let me always hide my little pains and heartaches so that I may be
the only one to suffer from them.
Teach me to profit by the suffering that comes through waiting.
Let me so use it that it may mellow me, not harden or embitter me;
that it may make me more patient, not irritable; that it may make
me broad in my forgiveness, not narrow or proud or overbearing.
May no one be less good for having come within my influence; no one
less pure, less true, less kind, less noble, for having been a fellow
traveler with me on this journey towards eternal life.
As I meet and carry one cross after another, let me whisper a word
of love to You.
May my life be lived in the supernatural – full of power for good,
and strong in its purpose of sanctity.

My dearest Jesus, teach me to be patient, when all day long my heart
is troubled by little troublesome crosses.
I believe in You. I wait for You. In You I trust forevermore.
In Your Good and Holy Name I pray,
Amen.”

Patience is one of the twelve fruits of the Holy Spirit. These fruits are outlined in St. Paul’s letter to the Galatians.

  ^“But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control; against such there is no law.”

Many translations of Galatians list only these nine, but in St. Jerome’s Latin translation modesty, continency, and chastity are also included. Christians are granted the seven gifts of the Holy Spirit laid out in the Book of Isaiah through our baptism. These gifts are wisdom, understanding, counsel, fortitude, knowledge, piety, and fear of the Lord. The twelve fruits of the Holy Spirit are the actions and attributes produced by us utilizing the seven gifts.

We also find mention of fruit in the Gospel of Matthew 7:16-20. It occurs towards the end of Jesus’s Sermon on the Mount. Jesus is talking about false prophets and says, “You will know them by their fruits.” He goes on to say that sound trees will bear good fruit and bad trees will bear evil fruit, meaning that you will identify the faithful by their virtues and the sinners by their vices. We Christians are identified by the fruits of the Holy Spirit. What really relieved my distress was seeing what passage immediately precedes this one in the Sermon. In Matthew 7:13-14, Jesus speaks of the narrow gate.

“Enter by the narrow gate; for the gate is wide and the way is easy, that leads to destruction, and those who enter by it are many. For the gate is narrow and the way is hard, that leads to life, and those who find it are few.”

It is natural in our fallen humanity for us to want our lives to be easy. We don’t want to endure hardships. We don’t like having to perform jobs we don’t enjoy. We wish that all of our problems could be swept away with a snap of our fingers, and that all of our pain and suffering would just drift away like a feather in the wind. But that is not what Jesus promised us would happen. For the gate is narrow and the way is hard. There are countless passages in scripture telling us that it is our fate as faithful Christians to suffer so as to avoid the gate that leads to destruction. So, when you experience times of emotional distress, take heart. For by following the fruits of the Holy Spirit in times of suffering, you will enter through the narrow gate and find eternal rest.

God Bless You All,

Michael